January 20, 2014
Hello Influencers!
Got 30 seconds of XBox One game footage and absolutely nothing negative to say about it? A tweet from Ron Smith, community director for Machinima UK, announced that if you posted videos for Machinima, you could be making $3 CPM ($3 per thousand video views) on those videos. Only one catch: the agreement specifically forbids you from saying "anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One, or any of its Games"... in fact, you can't disclose the existence of the agreement. OK, maybe two catches: this may violate FTC rules on endorsements in advertising [PDF].
Smith's tweet was quickly taken down (and the Twitter handle taken by some vituperative anti-Machinima person), but the news spread to NeoGAF before being confirmed by ArsTechinica and by Kotaku.
Want to know who nibbled at the bait? Check the Poptent activity panel for Nick Sheets, who according to LinkedIn is the "Manager, Affiliate Activations (Branded Entertainment)" for Machinima's L.A. office.
Evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by Syria
A team of war crimes prosecutors has produced a report [PDF, alternate PDF] showing "clear evidence [...] of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government". The report is based on more than fifty thousand photographs, showing approximately eleven thousand individuals. The photographs, which were taken to substantiate the victims' execution, demonstrate that many of the detainees were emaciated and had been tortured.
Primary coverage of the report has been produced by The Guardian and CNN.
Primary coverage of the report has been produced by The Guardian and CNN.
A Delhi Drama: The 'Common Man' Chief Minister turns Anarchist
We have the unique instance of a sitting Chief Minister of Delhi labelling himself an anarchist, sitting in protest in the heart of the city, while claiming to conduct government business from the site of his protest and conveniently holding the nation to ransom by threatening to disrupt the the country's annual Republic Day parade due to be held in 5 days.
All this over the unlawful and allegedly racially motivated attempt by his Law Minister to arrest and humiliate some African women on prostitution and drug charges without first showing cause. And they've been brazen enough to forge a letter from the Ugandan embassy supporting their allegations. The professional diplomats are less than pleased.
All this over the unlawful and allegedly racially motivated attempt by his Law Minister to arrest and humiliate some African women on prostitution and drug charges without first showing cause. And they've been brazen enough to forge a letter from the Ugandan embassy supporting their allegations. The professional diplomats are less than pleased.
Discovering a bat under your bare posterior can be traumatizing.
A day and night in the life of a rickshaw driver in Bangalore
The Parallax Effect: Bringing still images to pseudo-life
The "2.5D" Parallax Effect: How To Animate a Photo provides a quick tutorial of the methods used to animate still images, as seen in the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture (see the trailer for some fleeting examples), and clearly employed by this video that utilized only images from the World Wildlife Foundation's photo archives. The technique is also used in what appears to be more standard animation, as seen in this thesis animation project from Arquis B. Silp, and this animation by Frederic Kokott (look behind the scenes). [more inside]
More happiness
In case you're having a rough day go brush a pony, skip a rock on a lake, or just scream out into the alps [link will take a little while to load]
"I would like to send you a memory"
Sad YouTube: The Lost Treasures Of The Internet’s Greatest Cesspool Mark Slutsky, of Sad YouTube (previously) writes about the, "Moments of melancholy, sadness and saudade from the lives of strangers, gleaned from the unfairly maligned ocean of YouTube comments."
It IS a good day!
Ice Cube gets his name on the GoodYear Blimp (for real), as the result of a charity drive on Good Day day. [previously]
The Wolf of Green Screen
The Wolf of Wallstreet isn't a movie one would necessarily expect to be filled with computer generated imagery, but this video shows some amazing VFX work used in the movie. [more inside]
String Theory
In 1906, Caroline Furness Jayne wrote String Figures And How To Make Them - A Study Of Cat's Cradle In Many Lands [Google Books], probably the best-known study of string figures and string games. [more inside]
"In a way the easiest and laziest way is to write in English."
"I love your work, Jonathan…but in a way you are smeared by English American literature…I think certain American literature is overrated, massively overrated." In the session on the global novel during the first day of this year's Jaipur Literature Festival, Jonathan Franzen served as a giant piñata, as Xiaolu Guo and Jhumpa Lahiri bemoaned American literary culture and lamented "the lack of energy put into translation in the American market."
His cat was named Muffy and he always got the job done.
Owner and operator of Arbie’s Team Transport and star of A&E's Shipping Wars, Roy Garber, passed away on Friday January 17, 2014, after suffering a massive heart attack. [more inside]
Disney to destroy EU* (*Expanded Universe)
While JJ Abrams finishes off the script for Star Wars VII, Disney and the Lucasfilm Story Group are busily deciding what is canon and what isn't. Lee Hutchinson at Arts Technica thinks cutting out the Expanded Universe and starting again is a good idea. Stuart Ian Burns at Feeling Listless isn't so sure. [more inside]
The Wild and Terrible Cry of His People: The Evolution of Tarzan's Yell
As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people. ― Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the ApesERBzine, "the official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute Site," brings us The Evolution of the Tarzan "Yell." [more inside]
Richard Sherman
Last night, the Seattle Seahawks defeated their arch rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, to make it to the American football "Superbowl." Nearly immediately after making the game winning play, Seattle's Richard Sherman gave an incredibly intense sideline interview in which he called out the opposing team's wide receiver. Criticized by pundits and fans alike, Sherman this morning wrote an op-ed explaining the emotions that fueled his rant. Before you think Sherman a fool, know that he was the Salutatorian of his high school class and graduated with a 3.9 GPA from Stanford. He is a smart guy.
Sick cat.
There's no other way to put this. You are about to watch a video of a cat on a skateboard. Have fun. [more inside]
"When I’m feeling stuck and need a buck, I don’t rely on luck, because…"
Most people do not know Pachelbel's Canon by name, but they would recognize if they heard it. Aside from being "the Freebird of Classical Music", it also serves as a basis or a number of pop songs (as was illustrated once and twice before on Metafilter). However, the folks over at AV Club may have discovered the pinnacle of the song's use: Why “Hook” by Blues Traveler is actually a pretty genius work of metafiction.
Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did
This will be a very short diary. It will not contain any links or any scholarly references. It is about a very narrow topic, from a very personal, subjective perspective. The topic at hand is what Martin Luther King actually did, what it was that he actually accomplished. The reason I'm posting this is because there were dueling diaries over the weekend about Dr. King's legacy, and there is a diary up now ... entitled, "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream Not Yet Realized." I'm sure the diarist means well as did the others. But what most people who reference Dr. King seem not to know is how Dr. King actually changed the subjective experience of life in the United States for African Americans. And yeah, I said for African Americans, not for Americans, because his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer. That's why some of us who are African Americans get a bit possessive about his legacy. Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, despite what our civil religion tells us, is not color blind. [more inside]
Mentally, physically, and spiritually
Iranian photographer Majid Saeedi won first prize of Lucas Dolega Award!
Majid Saeedi's work is quite impressive! He already won several other prizes and awards. Today was the Lucas Dolega award, in Paris. Saeedi is an award winning and internationally recognized Iranian photographer who has photographed Middle East with a focus on the humanitarian aspect for the past two decades. He also takes a special interest in telling the untold stories of social issues and social injustice through his photos. photo 1, photo 2, photo 3, photo 4
Follow the world.
@Sweden is run by a different Swede each week. But what are the other @countries and @territories up to? [more inside]
Actually, yes, with a bang
For the Love of Money
In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted. … I wanted a billion dollars. It’s staggering to think that in the course of five years, I’d gone from being thrilled at my first bonus — $40,000 — to being disappointed when, my second year at the hedge fund, I was paid “only” $1.5 million.For the Love of Money by Sam Polk
Oh cool, a cop on horseback
all the ornery people...
I Went To Law School and Became A Drug Dealer
This response to the question, "What's it like to be a drug dealer?" goes into how the anonymous author became a drug dealer while in college. (Business Insider via Quora)
Sociologist Cat is Watching You Text...in Public
Keith Hampton, an associate professor in Rutgers' School of Communication and Information, filmed people in Bryant Park (among other locations) in an ongoing effort to recreate and update sociologist William H. Whyte's Street Life Project. [more inside]
"She had become a local martyr for the vegan press"
The Ten Terrible Songs about San Francisco. . .along with Ten Good Ones. SFGate built these lists.
Dreaming Reconstructions
With the advent of Flickr, Picasa, Instagram, i.e. massive databases of images, researchers have devised tools like simple markers like SIFT, in order to reduce image information to bits. As it turns out, many people think this degraded information can only be used for simple operation on images such as comparison, etc... Hérvé Jégou and other researchers have shown in some vivid manner that one can reconstruct images from these "information degraded" markers. As an extension of the original paper, Hérvé Jégou has produced a wide variety of reconstructions from photos taken while on vacation. The result: stunning dream-like, artistic-like rendering of the original scenes. And while it may raise all kinds of privacy issues, one cannot escape the similarity between these renderings and the scenes reconstructed from MRI readings.
Am I being detained? Am I free to go?
Contempt of Cop Activists range from hard-conservative gun rights types, who carry copies of the Constitution in their pockets, to left-leaning civil liberties advocates. In both cases, they triumphantly upload video trophies of their confrontations to the internet.
Quite a few show "checkpoint refusals" at roadblocks erected by police looking for drunken drivers, or by federal agents hunting illegal aliens. Courts here have held that police have the right to operate such stops. But the courts have also ruled that citizens are free to remain silent, and can refuse to allow searches and ignore orders to submit to "secondary inspections" unless police detain them — which requires the higher hurdle of reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe an offence has been committed. [more inside]
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