Think Social Media is a Fad?

Aug 17, 2009 by Dan Taylor    12 Comments    Posted under: Social Media, Video

If you, or someone you know, just doesn’t ‘get it’, i.e. “Twitter is a waste of time,” please take 4 minutes and 23 seconds out of your busy day, watch this outstanding video from socialnomics.net and rethink the, “What’s the point?” attitude.

This relationship is headed for an epic fail

Aug 12, 2009 by Dan Taylor    10 Comments    Posted under: Video

OMG RLY???  This is hands down the best video I’ve seen in a long time.  Big props to tenakalaz for sending it over. FTW!

Kids in Video

Jul 31, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Video

In a return of the long lost friday funnies I’ve got two fun videos for ya’ll.  Enjoy!

Sent over my Dr. Poke.

and

HD Video: Phish Bug>Tweezer Reprise

Jul 14, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music, Video

Have a view of this outstanding 3 camera HD footage from Phish’s inaugural reunion show at the Hampton Colosseum March 8, 2009. Hopefully this won’t get pulled, as it’s honestly the best Phish footage I’ve ever seen, DVD releases included. Thanks a million earthscapeben!

Video Podcast Review – ABC CBS NBC

Jul 14, 2009 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: News, Video

While living 4234 miles from my home town, on another continent does have certain advantages, there’s also a bit lost in translation (literally).  And I honestly don’t know what’s taken me so long, but I finally discovered/got around to including the ABC, NBC, and CBS evening news video podcasts in my regular rotation.  I work out in the mornings (calm down ladies, it’s really nothing to get hot and bothered about) and figured out that I could kill two birds with one stone: lose the weight, gain some knowledge (and hopefully a bit of muscle while I’m at it) via video news podcast updates.  All three networks provide them free of charge via the iTunes store, but there are some differences, not just in quality, but delivery.

ABC

Out of the three, ABC receives the lowest scores.  While the other two networks deliver iPod-ized versions of the previous evenings news, ABC takes another route and creates an entirely new show specifically for the podcast version.  Sounds great, right?  Well, in actuality it’s almost offensive.  ABC is committing an intellectual offense.  By creating this completely new version of the news, I’m always left wondering, “Well, what happened during the actual broadcast version?  Was/Is there something that I’m missing here?”  Granted, ABC does include a 45 second highlight at the end of these podcasts by presenting their ‘Partnership with Google’ segment, in which they highlight the days’ trending (top searched) topics of the day, but to be honest, I’m not sure if they’re not just looking for filler here.

The ABC video podcast weighs in (on average) at a paltry 86 MB, making it a quick delivery (if mid-afternoon news is your deal), but also suffering from what I like to call, RUFK video quality.  Granted, on the average iPod or iPhone screen, this video quality is fine, but on my 24 inch desktop monitor…Well, let’s just say, I’ve counted pixels.  ABC FAIL.

ABC also comes in dead last with delivery times.  I live in Europe, which means I’m 6 hours ahead of the Eastern Seaboard, so when I’m working out at 8am, it’s still only 2am in New York.  However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not hungry for my daily dose of corporate sponsored news.  When I open iTunes in the morning to sync up the podcasts, you can imagine my dismay when ABC’s most recent update is from two days ago.  I tracked delivery times last week, and found that ABC’s ‘special’ (perhaps as in bus?) section arrives around 1 in the afternoon here, or 8am EST, putting them in dead last.  Next.

CBS

The CBS podcast gets 8 out of 10 marks.  They deliver a full version of the previous evening’s broadcast, Katie Couric included (be that good or bad).  The only reason for the markdown is, as we saw with ABC, delivery time.  CBS is only slightly better than ABC, with an average delivery time of 11 am CET, or 5 am EST.

Video quality is greatly improved over ABC, with the average podcast coming down at around 100 MB.  That may sound like a lot, but given today’s broadband speeds and sharing technologies, I’ve never waited more than a minute to download this podcast.

NBC

Mr. Brian Williams, sir, I stand and applaud you.  Ok, I’m quite certain that Brian Williams has, in fact, nothing to do with the NBC Evening News Video podcast, but the IT type folks at NBC have nailed it.  Not just a fluke, the NBC Evening News video podcast is a rock.  Simply due to this podcast, the NBC news is now my preferred source (obviously after The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, where everyone else gets their news, right?).

Video quality is outstanding, with the average download being somewhere in the 120 MB range, and I only very rarely can see a pixel or two, on my obviously way bigger than your average iPod or iPhone screen resolution.  NBC is also the only podcast that is made available in a widescreen format.  Again, not a bank breaker, but to this geek, a duly noted attention, or lack of, as it were, to detail.

Delivery time?  Fuggetaboutit.  As previously stated, I’m looking for fresh content around 8am CET, or 2am EST.  I’ve never looked any earlier than this time, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that NBC is posting this update 20 minutes after closing the show.  Of the three, NBC has never let me down, and always delivers the most up to date (with a day delay – it’s Europe, I’d expect it) news.  We have a winner!

Overall, I’m grateful to all three sources, as none of them have to provide this service, and that’s exactly what it is, a service, and free at that.  I can certainly see merits in what ABC’s trying to do, but I think they’re coming up short of the mark.  CBS, close, but no cigar.  If they’d put a little speed on their scheduled upload and available to the world schedule, they’d be on par with NBC.  And as far as NBC goes, delivery time and quality count in my book, and you folks, deliver on both fronts.

After watching three different broadcasts of each network’s evening news programs, let me simply leave you with this question:  Why do they all report, more or less, the exact same stories as their competitors?  Oh wait…that’s right.  We leave the ‘other’ news to those ‘less’ successful evening news programs over on that cable channel and put them on late at night.  Who could possibly be watching?

Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Version

Jun 25, 2009 by Dan Taylor    28 Comments    Posted under: Music, Video

I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the first single released off Phish’s upcoming album, Joy.  At least I wasn’t until I heard this gorgious acoustic version Trey’s people posted over at Vimeo 20 days ago.

Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Barn Demo from Trey Anastasio on Vimeo.

This is, in a word, beautiful.  It gives me a new found respect for this work, and makes me want to listen again and again, not just to the words, but perhaps on an even geekier note, what tuning is he using?  Sounds like DADGAD, but I could be way off.

I’m not sure what is is about the amplified version that bugs me, but there’s something.  Maybe it seems almost a bit ‘overdone’?  Perhaps there’s just a bit too much going on.  I’m not 100% sure.  I’ve listened to both the upcoming studio version as well as the 4 other appearances the song made on the recent early summer tour, and I have to say, this acoustic version beats them all.  Hands down.

If you’re so inclined, as a point of comparison, here’s the studio version:

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Obama’s nerd creds

Jun 23, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: News, Video

You may recognize Hodgman from his Daily Show appearances, of perhaps more so from his “…and I’m a PC” line from Apple’s popular advertising campaign.  Yes, this clip is 15 minutes long, but worth every moment, so go grab a fresh cup, sit back, and enjoy Hodgman’s vetting of President Barack Obama’s nerd credentials.

Now, if Obama had only closed the session with the correct Vulcan response, “Peace and Long Life” he would have scored 110 in my book.  However, he also loses points for playing the ‘basketballs’, so we’ll average him out at about an 85% nerd rating.  Fair enough?  I think so too.

A big thanks to Brent for sending over this gem.

Now that’s one BIG monitor you’ve got there

Jun 18, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Productivity, Technology, Video

Every once in a while, someone brings a product to market that just makes me think – why?  Naturally, my second reaction is – ooo…can I get one?  Such is the case with NEC’s CRV43 ultra-widescreen curved monitor.  Essentially, what we’ve got here Bob (watch This Old House, and insert Norm Abram‘s accent here), is four DLP (digital light processing) screens stitched together with some fancy LED backlighting to deliver a whopping 2880×900 double WXGA native resolution, 0.02 second response time, 200 cd/m2 brightness and 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

Now settle down there Skippy.  I know what you’re thinking…I thought the same thing – OMGZ!! games are gonna be unbelieveable with this thing.  Not so much.  This Enterprise bridge like display has a highly unusual 32:10 aspect ratio (standard widescreen is 16:9 or 16:10).  Rather, NEC says that this monolith is targeted at high end users in the simulation, digital imaging as well as the command and control industries, which require lightning-fast response times, a broad field of view, greater dynamic range, wide color gamut and employ multiple monitor set-ups.  In other words, not your typical home office setup.

Since this big ol’ monitor is DLP, it’s not exactly svelt in the dimensions department.  Weighing in at 52.5 pounds, she’s not exactly going to get carried to the next LAN party.  Have a look at the side views in the images below to get a better idea of just how wide and deep those hips run.

The users taskbar extends across the entire width of the monitor, which according to NEC increases productivity and lowers frustration by eliminating the bezel and screen gap issues that occur with multiple monitor setups.  That, and it just looks really f@(*%#ing cool!  Windows users, might not get the whole panache, but my mac peeps – imagine your bottom task bar just wrapped all the way around.  Oh dear god…I can plz haz?

One input setup may be achieved thanks to a single DVI-D and HDMI 1.3 input connects.  And while it should go without mentioning, Big Bertha also comes with usb 2.0 connectivity.  The LED backlighting provides for a wide color gamut with 100 percent coverage of sRGB and 99.3% coverage of Adobe RGB.

Originally unveiled at the 2008 CES, NEC plans on bringing this behemoth to market new month.  Bragging rights are going to set you back a bit though.  At $7999, Bertha isn’t exactly cheap, and not the most cost effective multi-monitor solution, but seriously…just look at this thing.