After scheduling snafus and real life intruded to keep us from recording last week, the RFS crew returned to discuss the first two episodes of Torchwood (verdict: pretty decent), speculate on the latest round of rumours, and digress as always into realms nonsensical. And for once we actually came in at under an hour. Enjoy!(feed, web, direct download)
Frontline, the always excellent PBS documentary series (which has a repository of shows available online for your viewing pleasure) is fixing its lens upon the online generation, and how growing up with the internet, instant messaging and constant connectivity as a part of everyday life affects today’s youth. It’s on television tonight, though I’ll likely watch it online, seeing as how I’m part of the 1200 baud generation and know how to do such things.
A couple of months ago, local blogging luminary and online marketing expert Darren Barefoot let me know about a promotion for the Brother HL-4070CDW color laser printer involving several local bloggers. In exchange for reviewing the printer on our blogs, we used (and in some cases presumably abused) the printer for a couple of months. My take? First off, the thing is a tank. It’s intimidatingly large and extremely heavy, and it honestly frightened the UPS guy when he delivered it to me. But what about, you know, the printing? Top notch, both in color and black and white. Never really had a problem with it….except for one time when I needed to print out the resume and the printer simply wouldn’t respond. That may have had more to do with my network connection than with the printer itself. And speaking of connections, the Brother has many, including network, wireless, and all the other standards. For a guy who generally wrestles with sub-$100 laser printers that don’t recognize anything other than their own inherent badness, it was nice to finally have a printer in the condo that actually WOULD print from whichever computer told it to, instead of retreating into spool queue hell. So all-in-all, I’d say the Brother HL-4070CDW is a decent printer, though I think it might be better suited to a big office and less for a guy who occasional prints out directions from Google Maps.
Ok, let’s get this out of the way….it ain’t worth it to get up at 3 a.m. and stagger to a lineup for a Steve Jobs keynote. But that’s just what I did this morning, since I’d never been to one of Apple’s signature shindigs before. My verdict on the new gear Apple trotted out today? Meh. Canada doesn’t have movies for purchase on the iTunes store, let alone rentals, and we also don’t have iPhones. The Macbook Air is a nice bit of engineering, but it’s nothing I pine for.
Still, getting to see a live “Macbreak Weekly” was cool, as was finally meeting Merlin Mann and Andy Inhatko. Tonight there’s a party for attendees featuring non other thanDevo, and there’s a lot of informative podcast creation sessions over the next couple of days.
Prolost, the blog of author and special effects whiz Stu Maschwitz, has an excellent feature on how a BBC program used four graphic designers, greenscreens, color correction, and some clever thinking to more or less reproduce the opening of Saving Private Ryan. The video is below, but go to Stu’s blog post, as he has plenty of things to say about the process.
Sounds like a contradiction in terms, since the average Youtube video’s comment section is an ode to idiocy and barely-related ramblings, but the good people at openculture.com have compiled a list of the brainiest channels on a website known primarily for videos of pooping cats and man/animal love.
That’s the contention of the Globe and Mail’s Matthew Ingram, who says the Hollywood writer’s strike might actually be an indication of the start of a migration tot he Web, upending the traditional content creation business. I’d be perfectly happy to see that happen, as it raises the bar for what we’ll see online. Having said that, Silicon Valley technologists (the perceived saviors of the content business) often tend to see the world through a very tech-centric lens and assume the Internet is the answer to everything, so we’ll have to see how this situation plays out over the next decade.
Radiohead recently gave away their latest album, “In Rainbows,” online with the caveat that listeners could donate whatever they found appropriate. The NY Times examines both the band’s decision and the larger trend of musicians splitting off from their labels and going out on their own.
“We Are The Strange” is, as the title would imply, a deeply weird animated story featuring puppets, 8-bit video game graphics and a whole lotta oddness. The movie recently showed up on numerous torrent sites, but instead of going ape and demanding the Internet be shut down, the film’s creator, M dot Strange, praised pirates for getting his film distributed via a message he posted on Youtube. The filmmakers behind “The Man from Earth” also recently thanked the torrentsphere when their movie went from obscurity to minor download hit.
I think these isolated incidents are pointing towards something bigger. Most movies don’t ever make their money back, aren’t played at festivals, and can’t find their audience. The Internet is changing that, and P2P networks are a great way to distribute content that wouldn’t otherwise be seen. Just look at Infest Wisely, the no-budget Canadian film from Jim Munroe and friends that ended up playing at two different festivals BECAUSE it was released on the internet and via bittorrent. Films are rapidly spinning out of Hollywood’s stranglehold on distribution, and not a moment too soon.
Canada is behind the rest of the world when it comes to both the level of cell phone technology we get to play with (no iPhone? Bah!) and our outrageously expensive data plans. So it’s nice to see that the CBC, amongst other media, is tackling the issue head-on. There’s been a bit of a groundswell of coverage of the lack of competition between different wireless carriers in Canada, and one can only hope this signals changes on the horizon.