Coming soon to your local design-fetishist arthouse movie theater. Immediately added to my Netflix "saved" list in case I miss it in theaters. (Here's the film's Netflix page if you want to do the same.)
Recently in Entertainment & Media Category
Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business — like, this May?
The Atlantic has a worthwhile article pondering the (very real) possibility that the NYT print edition might cease to exist by the middle of this year given their current financial situation.
One comment on the article -- it posits the HuffPo as a model for what a new, non-print NYT could be like. I hope that's wrong, given that the HuffPo for all its attention captured less than half a million dollars in revenue last year (and could make half that this year, given the lack of an election and a declining ad market.) Sure, the Times reaches 20 million online per day versus the HuffPo's 8 million or so per month, but even a multiple of say 10x the uniques isn't going to generate enough revenue to support their operation.
"The Magliozzi Brothers are qualified. They both went to MIT, and Tom has an MBA and Doctorate of Business Administration from Boston University. They have long railed against SUVs and called for increased fuel efficiency. Tom doesn't even own a car, and Ray drives a 1987 Dodge Colt Vista, which he bought for $100. These guys are not automotive industry insiders and will be on our side."
- John McGrath in the Facebook Group "Click and Clack for Car Czar"
If we're going to blow $15 billion on Detroit, we might as well at least get a laugh or two out of it. One things for sure - they can't do any worse than the current guys in charge. As someone who worked with these guys many years ago (on the original version of CarTalk.com), I wholeheartedly endorse the nomination.
A delightful, entertaining talk by Hodgman from this year's TED conference. Perhaps not quite an illuminating or informative as the usual TED video, but well worth watching nonetheless.
You might have to be a little bit of a videogame industry wonk to find this amusing, but the creative team that developed Battlefield: Bad Company came out with post-launch video clips poking fun at the sometimes overly intense Rainbow Six, Metal Gear and Gears of War franchises. I'm surprised they haven't posted one for Call of Duty yet - it seems ripe for the picking.Alone in Tokyo HD from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
There's something really remarkable going on right now around the ability of consumers to create truly remarkable HD content and distribute it via the Internet. We've reach a moment where the production gear costs have dropped low enough, a fairly "average" computer like a MacBook Pro can edit in HD, and there are ready channels to distribute to the world, both in terms of technology (sites like Vimeo, which hosts the above video) and the bandwidth and capabilities of end users.
HD video is leaps and bounds ahead of standard video in terms of how "film like" it can get, and the tools are now arriving that let individuals record very high quality HD video for as less than $2000 - cameras run $600-800, and a $1000 adapter called the Letus Mini lets you connect SLR lenses for "film like" depth of field and fous effects, and a $2000 laptop with iMovieHD (free with new Macs) is all you need to edit, output and upload.
Right now this is leading to a lot of playing around on sites like Vimeo's HD Channel, but it won't be long before folks are producing their own documentaries, etc. using this. It's going to lead to an explosion of niche HD content, plus I'm sure a lot of more widespread hits as well. And it's going to have a real impact on traditional broadcast media - when a home user can produce niche content with quality twice that of a DVD, you're going to see a lot of competition for all those low-budget cable shows trying to survive out there right now.
It's very exciting, and I'm looking forward to see how it plays out over the next year or two. One thing I know for sure - this means I'd rather have a full on computer, like a Mac Mini, attached to my HDTV rather than something like the AppleTV where I'm locked into only a few distribution channels.
The recent Gatorade "Big Head" commercial has to be one of my favorite television ads in a long time. It's a great little set piece (I suspect it's a one timer and not a long-term campaign), with a lighter attitude than their previous efforts. A nice little reminder for all the adults about everyone started out playing the game.
(A detail I didn't notice on the first viewing was fastpitch softballer Jennie Finch's remark -- "why don't you throw it underhand?" Nice.)
All day, baby, all day.
I picked up Rockstar Games Table Tennis for the Xbox 360 over the weekend... $40 is the price because it's a more limited game than their normal releases. Still, it's amazing... great single player play vs. computer and online over Xbox live (I don't think it plays two player at the same screen.) Definitely worth checking out for a change of pace.
A gutsy design decision by Rockstar if you ask me -- going very much in the opposite direction of expansive, kitchen-sink, big-license EA sports games, this is a finely tuned little gem that's a joy to play. I've had more fun playing this for an evening than any recent game in memory.
(Correction: It does support 2 players on one TV locally -- just turn on the second controller and see the option. It also supports up to 8 players in Live via a tourney mode.)
Glenn McDonald on why even a loyal music customer started downloading. A great piece showing why the persistence of music piracy online has its roots in a deeper dissatisfaction among music consumers beyond the simple issue of cost, and showing why the industry needs to start thinking about how to evolve its model rather than maintain status quo.
The world is all connected now, we are not beholden to you for information. An import copy of this record would cost me $26. The domestic copy will cost me $13 at most, probably less. I refuse to pay you to play these pointless games with arbitrary dates and obsolete borders. I can outlast you. I refuse to pay you twice for withholding music when it's supposed to be your job to bring it to me.
This weekend's series has been a test of endurance not just for the players, but for the fans as well. Last night's game went to 1:30 AM, and waking up at 6:30 am, my dream was of standing in line to buy coffee. (Note to self: Decaf.) Then tonight, they go another 6 grueling hours -- by the end we were ordering Cokes instead of beers.
On a secondary note, after watching 20-odd hours of playoff baseball in the last 5 days, I've seen more beer and pickup truck ads than in the last year. Tonight, I figured out the beer ads are far less annoying after you've had at least 3-4 "sales units" of their product. There's a connection to the pickup truck ads too, but I'm not going to get into that here.
