Recently in YouTube/Vimeo Category

Tip of the ole fedora to Jon Spivey, who shared this on his Facebook Wall.  I laughed out loud.  It's short.  It's both tragic and hysterical.

One can only assume that the poor organist quietly slipped out the back and left town.

I love time lapse photography!  This time lapse by twin brothers Dan and David Newcomb has some spectacular shots in it featuring HDR as well as some awesome dolly and pan shots!  (They design and build their own rigs.) The undulating fog is spectacular! When you watch it, be sure to click on the full screen mode in the player window.

YouTube link (time lapse above where you can select full 1080i HD) Dan and David's YouTube Channel Their website link YouTube link (time lapse below where you can select full 1080i HD)

This time lapse below, of the frenetic energy of the Vancouver Olympics, is also stunning and uses crane and dolly shots.  When viewed at 1080i in full screen, will tax the dickens out of your internet service or Google's servers, or both.  (The size included below should play fine.)

Link to other posts @ tt.us featuring and about time lapse photography.

Boys and their toys!  Of course, I can't complain.  I would be up their with them if this were my church.  While not particularly musically gratifying, this is certainly clever, creative and fun.

North Point Community Church's iBand.  (YouTube Link)

Healthcare
I saw Keith Olbermann's show (see the clip at this link) where he hosted Michael Moore, producer of Sicko, and Wendell Potter, former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies, and author of Deadly Spin. Potter apologized to Moore for his massive, industry-funded, carefully-crafted efforts to discredit him and his movie. Potter goes on to say that Sicko is indeed factually correct, and the insurance industry feared that the movie would create a populist uprising against the detestable insurance industry whose practices actually kill tens of thousands of decent, hard working Americans every year.

The fact that the insurance industry has been so successful in keeping Americans from embracing substantive, deep healthcare reform in this country astounds me beyond belief.  It's not even healthcare.  It's a gravy train for insurance investors.

This fabricated bogus label, "Obama-care," is such a farce!  Obama's successful healthcare initiative didn't go far enough!  Currently "Super Wealthy (and they're republicans as Deadly Spin reveals) Capitalist Assholes Getting Even Richer While You Die-care" is what we actually have until the healthcare reform kicks in.  The industry maximizes profits when they deny your claims.  And the loud-mouthed Tea Party wants to give these fat cats what they want?!  Another well-funded farce front group for monied interests.

What of the deficit? Fix it on the back of those making the most money.  Oh, but wait!  They will start squealing about losing jobs?!  What a hoax!  Always calling it anything but what it really is.

America needs a massive, populist movement that demands we balance the budget, not by hurting the average guy on the street, but by reeling in the defense department's out of control spending, among other "security" budgets, farm corn subsidies (which are wrecking the health of this nation!), etc..  Interestingly, this is exactly what a huge percentage of people on Twitter actually think according to this non-scientific survey by the New York Times on what Americans think we should do to balance the budget  (source:  link).  Click to enlarge.

Real people all over this country are sick of capitalism running out of control and hurting the good, common people of this country.

Update:  Michael Moore published this (in part) to his blog on Thanksgiving day.  I don't know Michael, but I think he would be a fascinating person with whom to chat.

All that money spent smearing me because they thought you would get up from your theater seat and start a revolution.

It's a great compliment to you. They fear the power you have. But that's 'cause they're good at math. They know there will always be more of us than there are of them. And unless they can repeal "one person, one vote," they know they are doomed. In the meantime they will try to maintain the power they have by buying off politicians, dumbing us down, distracting us with Dancing/Ice Skating/Drinking with the Stars and getting us so scared we'll acquiesce to having naked pictures taken of us at airports this Thanksgiving weekend. Over the river and through the body scan, to grandmother's house we go...

So let us give thanks tomorrow that the richest 1% begrudgingly know that we are still, on paper at least, in charge. It is, I believe, a glimmer of hope of what we could possibly accomplish in the coming new year.

Source:  Last Thoughts Before the Turkey Comes Calling

In the next day or two I'll publish another "We the People...".

Related Posts at tt.us

• We Need a Populist Movement-Part 1: Healthcare (this post)
• We Need a Populist Movement-Part 2: Governance
• We Need a Populist Movement-Part 3: Civil Rights
• We Need a Populist Movement-Part 4: Journalism
• We Need a Populist Movement-Part 5: Faith Practice

Related articles

• Countdown Introduces Michael Moore to the Health Care Voldemort Who Came in From the Cold (mediaite.com)
• Wendell Potter Apologizes to Michael Moore For His Part to Discredit "Sicko" (crooksandliars.com)
• Michael Moore: They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff" (huffingtonpost.com)
• Wendell Potter: My Apologies to Michael Moore and the Health Insurance Industry (huffingtonpost.com)

I just came across Eirc Whitacre's Virtual Choir, 2010.  His idea is brilliant.  His composition and conducting are glorious.  The finished product is sheer transcendence:  people all over the globe bringing voice to beauty.  This is spectacular:  technology in the service of beautiful, united though individual, human emotive expression—a true global collaborative effort at its finest.  You easily see both the honesty and purity of the gift of self expression dedicated to the craft of human beauty in the faces and posture of the participants the editor chose to highlight.  (I'm just glad I didn't have to create the video compilation or mix the audio!)

Brilliantly conceived from start to finish, this virtual choir has already been viewed over a million times on YouTube. Most, though not all, of the singers are younger people from the United States, Canada, Singapore, Germany, and Sweden. If you wish to learn more about how the Virtual Choir began, check out this video.  I would love to know the back story on how the participants came to be involved in this collaboration.

Want to participate in the Virtual Choir 2011? You can! Eric wants it to be the largest Virtual Choir ever recorded. At this link Eric discusses how to interpret the score, Sleep, for the Virtual Choir 2011 recording. You can learn more about how to record and upload your part, sign up and download the score at Eric's web site.  The text and translation can be found at this link.

This is awesome!  Be sure to watch it in full screen.  (Also, the audio doesn't begin until the curtain opens.)

Here is a link to the Westminster Chorus singing this piece in TTBB, and this link to the Westminster Cathedral Choir.  Eric uses the gift of delicate dissonance so carefully crafted as to become sonorous and expansive. Just no words to describe it...

Related articles:

• Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir Tour (theworld.org)
• How Digital Media is Attracting New Arts Audiences (readwriteweb.com)

Watch this all the way through!

That is a common question I get.  I recently read another article that sums up well why I do NOT use Facebook.

1.  I think the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is a jerk.  According to the article in Wired, he "once joked dismissively about the 'dumb fucks' who 'trust me'."  I don't trust the self-posessed, immature, opportunist.  He doesn't have the best interest of others at heart, only his own.  He wants you to share every tidbit of information about your life with his company, but he shares next to nothing about his life with anyone.  He's exceedingly private, according to an article at CNN today.

Reasons 2 - 5 are also good reasons not to participate in wholesale Facebook information sharing, number 3 being particularly noteworthy:  Information you supply for one purpose will invariably be used for another.  The article sights some excellent examples.  Here's one of my own:  No one has considered what the longterm impact of having news marketed and election information market to individuals based on their pre-existing opinions, philosophies, and associations will have on the longterm wellbeing of a democracy.  Living in a world of your own making is not a healthy place to live.  Opposition is healthy and can spur critical thought that can either reframe or reinforce your thinking.  But if you are only receiving information that affirms your current view, then your opportunity to grow is exceedingly limited.

Reason number 6 is the most compelling reason for me.  I don't want corporations to own culture.  I don't want corporations to own news.  I don't want business to own social discourse.  Mark wants to own you.  No, but thanks.  I say, "Unfriend Facebook."

BTW, this Facebook-related Greenpeace ad campaign is brilliant!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Six facts about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (cnn.com)
• Six Reasons Why I'm Not On Facebook, By Wired UK's Editor (wired.com)
• Greenpeace pokes fun at Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (simplyzesty.com)

Well, this is interesting.  I've just discovered it:  The Coffee Party.

This is a non-partisan community of people who really want change and are not comfortable with the status quo. They want the political process to return to the people and not special interests.  The emphasis seems to be on collective action based on what people find in common not a politics of division.

I'll be eager to see where this goes.

The founder, Annabel Park, talks about seeing an x-ray of the political process that unfolded in the media over the healthcare reform debate.  It was so completely broken and ineffective.  She talks of how the divisions among people in the US are greatly exaggerated.  She emphasizes engaging in dialogue to problem solve for solutions upon which we can all agree.  The politics of division has broken the entire political process. She speaks of using the collaborative tools of the internet to bring together a platform upon which people find consensus. You can listen to a really interesting interview with her at this link. She is very articulate.

Democracy is not like a football game where people watch and someone wins and someone looses and it's a zero sum game situation.  Democracy presupposes a notion of community and the advancement of the common good. ... When everything is about winning and losing, that doesn't promote collaboration. ... We have to show people in Washington that this is what democracy looks like.  [She previously emphasized civility.] ... We are not being represented well by the government and by the media.  In that sense we are similar to the Tea Party. ... The harshness of their rhetoric is alienating to me.  In the end we might want similar things, but our journey might be different."

You can watch a brief video about their Coffee Party Convention by clicking the image below.  They have an interesting and diverse group of featured guests for their upcoming event which will be chaired by Lawrence Lessig, Founder of Change Congress & Professor at Harvard Law School, and Mark McKinnon, communication strategist for John McCain and George W. Bush.

And here is their Unity Pledge:

Related articles:

• Coffee Party Convention: Liberal Response To Tea Party Plans Louisville Gathering (huffingtonpost.com)
• Roger Ebert Challenges Sarah Palin To Debate With Coffee Party Founder, Annabel Park (huffingtonpost.com)

These folks don't seem to understand what's gone wrong in America. They just know something has gone really wrong. They are trying to make sense of it. I suspect that we all are.

I guess Glenn Beck offers some bizarre and simplistic way for them to vent that frustration and to have hope that things will get better if they believe in empty slogans that they repeat through out the interviews: "restore honor," "take back America," "work for freedom," "bring this country back together."

For Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and FOX to create such a divisive, ill-informed nation is just shameful and unpatriotic. All self-proclaimed news organizations have a duty to journalistic integrity that informs citizenry. FOX perpetuates an unfair and unbalanced, propagandized, limited world view that promotes ignorance, fear, angst, powerlessness, and a class-based society that preys on the less fortunate.  It's just wrong!

Related articles:

• 'America Is Better Than Glenn Beck' (newser.com)
• Judge H. Lee Sarokin: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Restoring Dishonor to America (huffingtonpost.com)

The most unexpected thing: you immediately forget your look at a child, because what you are hearing is the rapturous soprano voice of an adult. Then, at then end, when the host announces her prize, and the tears flow, you realize that she is indeed a 10 year old child.  Jackie Evancho's voice is astounding.

Related articles:

• Meet Jackie Evancho, Your Next Susan Boyle, Sort of (observer.com)
• 10 Year Old Jackie Evancho Possessed By Adult Singing Voice (bestweekever.tv)
• Jackie Evancho Brings Down The House On America's Got Talent [Video] (realestateradiousa.com)
• Jackie Evancho: America's Got Talent Superstar Is Just 10 Years Old (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)

Yesterday I purchased a pair of Vibram FiveFingers, which are all the rage here in Los Angeles. As you can see, they fit like a glove, with each toe in a separate enclosure to enhance dexterity, stability, and balance.  They are made from kangaroo leather, which I didn't even know existed.  To check out these shoes, simply click on the image to the right.

Conrad the Kat was very jealous and then insisted on starring in an epic feature film in which he modeled his own stylish and fashionable footwear.  To watch Conrad the Kat's latest world debut, simply click on the image below.

Related articles:

• Vibram Fivefingers Review (socyberty.com)
• High Five to FiveFingers (ries.typepad.com)
• Barefoot Walking (fitfiend.com)

The fact that this can be done, in total, from storyboard (if they had chosen to) all the way to upload to YouTube, on a $299 device, the iPhone 4, that also happens to make phone calls, is astounding. When Apple makes this all possible on an iPhone Touch and the iPad, they will rock the education market! Be sure to watch it in full screen.

I have made no secret of my support of Larry Lessig's Change Congress effort. In his TED presentation, he clearly articulates the need for it, stating that government of, for, and by the people has certainly withered in our lifetimes. He presents a reasoned case for why changing the way we fund campaigns is essential to the survival of the US democracy!

I love video. I love timelapse. I love tilt-shift. What could be better than putting them all together? Well, watching it in full screen. Check it out.

Related articles

• Hands-On With the Lensbaby Fisheye and Soft-Focus Optics (wired.com)

Very clever time-lapse shot in Tokyo. To see the video in full HD, check out this link. Or you can click below to watch a smaller version from YouTube. To learn more about how the video was shot, go to the Laughing Squid.

I just stumbled onto this new program, TuneUp, from TuneUpMedia.com. It's an iTunes plugin that has a number of really cool features:

• The program will analyze your iTunes library and report back all of the tracks that have incomplete information and create a "dirty" playlist.  Incomplete information might mean the track is missing any of the data listed in the graphic to the right.


• Drag any of the "dirty" tracks into TuneUp.  TuneUp then analyzes the sound footprint of the track to determine what the track actually is and offers to retrieve all of the missing meta data for the track.  In other words, you could have a track in your iTunes library called "Track 09."  TuneUp would figure out what the track name, artist, album, genre, year, cover art, and actual track number on the album are and populate all of that data, replacing the "Track 09" with the real info!  That's rather remarkable!  But there's more...


• TuneUp will follow what you're listening to, offer videos of the track in a sidebar (just click to play the videos right there in the sidebar), a bio of the artists, tell you about the upcoming concerts for that artist in your area, even let you purchase the tickets, share related items about the artist from ebay, let you tweet what you're listening to.


• Other features too...

Related articles

• A First Look at Apple's Massive Data Center (readwriteweb.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Here's a great shortcut for downloading YouTube videos when using the Safari browser.

1. Go to the YouTube page with the video on it.  
2. [Command] + [Option] + [A] to bring up the Activity window in Safari.  
3. Under the Address Column find the YouTube page.  
4. Under that column, look for the largest file size, which will be the video file itself.  
5. Double click it to download it.  Done.

Government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Today the Supreme Court (5-4) just handed the Republicans (and a lot of Democrats too) a huge bonus: unfettered access to corporate funding, effectively making a broken political system completely unaccountable the to will of the people.

The legacy of George W. Bush lives on to feast on the soul of democracy for profit.

At least Larry Lessig has a more reasoned view. Me, I'm just disgusted.

This causes me grave concerns! Once again I ask, "How much of our privacy and freedom are we willing to surrender?!"

I've kept asking where the ridiculous amount of money I pay in taxes is going. And then we can't balance local, state, and federal budgets?! Is it because those agencies are spending vast sums of money on tools such as these that are never approved by the voters. In fact, it is obvious from this newscast that the police department never wanted voters to know anything about this!

How can this be happening? Government is increasingly becoming less accountable to the people it is to serve.

For me, this case has always been about civil rights. It harkens back to the civil rights era and to women's suffrage. No majority vote should ever be allowed to remove civil rights for non-criminal conduct. Whatever the outcome, this case could be of a similar magnitude to Brown vs. Board of Education and will probably be appealed by either party all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Sponsors of California's gay marriage ban want a delay in the trial over its constitutionality so they can appeal a judge's decision to allow videotaped testimony on YouTube.

The trial is scheduled to start Monday.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker decided to allow daily video recordings of the trial on YouTube, a first for a federal courtroom in the West."

[Source: Gay marriage foes want delay in Calif. trial to appeal allowing video testimony on YouTube - latimes.com.]

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, a Republican named to the bench in 1989 by the first President Bush. Walker, who has a reputation as an independent thinker, was randomly assigned the lawsuit will preside over the case. He has gone on record for admonishing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for remaining neutral "on an issue of this magnitude and importance."

Over vigorous objections by supporters of Prop 8, the judge is allowing the case to be placed on YouTube, another thing I find interesting. I have always thought democracy functions well only when it is public.

Wouldn't he have walked into a tree when he was sending it to and from Twitter? But for just a buck, why did half the people who rated it go off the deep end?! Jeeze, people. Calm down already!

We are entering a new age of cool! Apple's iPhone is a game changer!

The bike wheel contains all you need so that no sensors or additional electronics need to be added to the frame and an existing bike can be retrofitted with the blink of an eye. ...

By using a series of sensors and a Bluetooth connection to the user's iPhone, which can be mounted on the handlebars, the wheel can monitor the bicycle's speed, direction and distance traveled, as well as collect data on air pollution and even the proximity of the rider's friends. ...

The Copenhagen Wheel is part of a more general trend: that of inserting intelligence in our everyday objects and of creating a smart support infrastructure around ourselves for everyday life... The Wheel has a smart lock: if somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike."

(Via MIT’s big wheel in Copenhagen.)

Yesterday I listened to a presenter at Emory who reminded me of something I read years ago when he said it, "The opposite of love isn't hate. It's fear."

We live in such fearful times. And I don't think all fear is unhealthy at all. But this free hugs movement, started by Juan Mann a few years back, points us in a positive direction marked by kindness and acceptance. Check out pictures of huggers from around the world.

He started a movement that has spread around the world. I'm including this clip from Scotland, though there are many videos on YouTube about Free Hugs.

When it gives people the opportunity to create and share (over 1.5 million views of this video) beyond the grip of corporate ownership.

These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

~Chris Jordan, October 2009

Chris' creative work on trash and the 21st century has been eye opening. I've followed it now for a couple of years. He has enlightened my perspective on the impact the consumptive culture in which we live is having on our world and its animals.

I didn't realize that our plastic is in fact an oil-based product.  In fact, last summer I read a post in which the writer concluded that a single bottled water should be seen as two-thirds water and one-third oil, because that's how much oil is required to manufacture the plastic and transport it to market.

The, I came across this TED presentation.

The storm has passed, meaning we had a slow steady rain here all day. It was wonderful. I so miss the long, dark rainy days of the southeast!

At sunset I went to the Pacific and shot these two little videos with my iPhone. You can't tell how dark and thick the clouds were, or how interesting the fog was. But it was still great fun! Very few surfers as the waves were extreme for these parts! The currents around the pier had also washed away the beach in a most unusual way.

The music is a bit much, but... This is better than America's Funniest Videos.