This video was posted on YouTube just yesterday and has already been watched over 150,000 times.* There’s also a site for a ringtone.
It’s impossible to know at this point how such viral campaigns might influence outcomes, but it’s certainly interesting to watch how people are taking advantage of new tools to disseminate material of this sort. It would be a stretch to suggest anyone can do this easily since this video is filled with celebrities, which likely helped it get coverage on ABC yesterday [source]. Nonetheless, having it available online certainly helps in spreading it widely. I’d be curious to know how most people linking to it found it, but many don’t seem to be pointing to sources, which makes this difficult to decipher.
[*] Note that YouTube’s numbers are confusing as depending on when I click on the link I either get around 153,000 or 84,000 views.
I suspect most have already seen the famous episode of the Miss Teen USA South Carolina contestant’s answer to a geography-related question . (By the way, amazing performance by the host holding the microphone. Could you keep a straight face through that?)
This one seems a bit less well known (if you can say that about a clip that’s been watched 4 million times on YouTube):
The host here is much less impressive (note his commentary in general, and pronunciation of a certain country name in particular). The little boy looks adorable though.
Radio 4 has given us an embarrassment of riches recently, and due to the remarkable snowfalls here I’ve had ample time to listen (while shovelling our over-long driveway). Still online, and well worth a listen are Simon Bovey’s dark mystery, The Iceman and Robin Brooks’s witty tribute to M.R. James, A Warning to the Furious. Best of all is a repeat of Marcy Kahan’s 20 Cigarettes, which was a 2007 Tinniswood award nominee, and deservedly so. (Kahan is the writer of the brilliant Noel Coward comedy/mysteries, and also wrote the screenplay for the excellent, but apparently not-yet-on-DVD Antonia and Jane). Find an hour for 20 Cigarettes if you can.
It has always been a bit difficult for me to take Peter Firth seriously. Its not his fault. Tess of the dUrbevilles was a set book for my A-level English syllabus, and serendipitously Polanski’s Tess was released while we were studying it. I went with a friend who was, in fact, dating a teacher at the time (but would occasionally get me to go out with her as cover, which I was happy to do). Unfortunately, as Angel Clare appeared on screen she shouted out “Ooh, look, its Scooper from the Double Deckers”, to my mortification, but the delight of the rest of the audience (several of whom said “Oh, yeah, look, so it is”). (Recognise him?) The phrase comes into my head pretty much every time he comes on screen in MI-5/Spooks, which is inconvenient at best, beating out even the wierdness of seeing him teamed up with Jenny Agutter again after so many years.
Fortunately, you can’t see him on the radio. All last week he appeared in a series of wonderful and moving radio plays about the life of Jesus, based on Luke’s gospel (Firth plays Peter). I nearly skipped them, thinking “well, I know the story, what’s the point of listening again”. What a mistake that would have been: brilliant writing, acting, and producing, with an all-star cast (Firth, in particular, is excellent). I was rivetted. If you have five 45 minute breaks in the next few days, this is the only way to use them. The first play will go offline Monday, the second on Tuesday, and so forth, so you’d better get listening. Better than anything the TV writers who are on strike were producing when they weren’t. And if you’re lucky nobody will shout “Oh, listen, its Scooper from the Double Deckers”.
That attack ad is pretty compelling. But it simplifies – some would say over-simplifies – aspects of Kant’s philosophy. I thought a technical defense of Kant’s ethics might be in order.
I realize that some of the references in this video require a fairly intimate knowledge of the Silicon Valley scene, but not all so perhaps this will add a bit of amusement to your day regardless of your geek quotient.
A few weeks ago the Berkman Center for Internet and Society posted an interesting contest: create a short informative video about Web cookies and have the chance to win up to $5,000 and a trip to DC where the video would then be shown at the FTC’s Town Hall workshop on “Ehavioral Advertising“.
I’m afraid we’re past the deadline for submissions and I apologize for posting about this so late (life intervened and I got behind on a bunch of things). I wanted to post about it nonetheless, because I think it’s an interesting initiative and the resulting videos are available for viewing.
I was very intrigued by this contest given my interest in improving people’s Internet user skills. What would be a good way to communicate the concept of a Web cookie to folks who have little technical background? I haven’t looked at all of the submissions, but the ones I’ve seen I find are still too technical and are likely only comprehensible to those who already know at least a few things about Internet cookies. Alternatively, the clips are too vague and so likely have limited utility for that reason. I was a bit surprised and disappointed that people didn’t do more with the cookie analogy. Some of the videos have related cute/amusing components, but not incorporated in a particularly effective way. However, note that I have not watched all of the submitted videos so I may have missed some gems. Feel free to post links to ones you think are especially informative. I think the timeline for submissions was a bit short (I know there were particular logistical reasons for this), which may have prevented more people from getting involved and may have limited the amount of effort that could go into creation of the entries.
An interesting aside about how YouTube posts videos (assuming I understand this correctly, but I haven’t explored this aspect in depth so feel free to correct me): it seems that the creator of the video has little say over what becomes the thumbnail image for the clip. As far as I can tell, the frame is taken from the middle of the video, which is not always ideal as it’s not necessarily the most informative segment.
We recently moved and I now have a long commute. I’ve discovered that I greatly enjoy expending enforced bus-time, listening to audiobooks. I’ve also discovered that Librivox is a rich source of free listening material. They are slouching toward the 1000 title mark, with 1000 volunteer readers doing the work. All the products are released into the public domain. I just finished the second half of Dracula – which was, I must say, touch and go in some chapters. A few of the readers were quite good; the lady with the Indian accent did not – as I feared – make van Helsing sound like Apu. She was quite good. (But there were some terrible van Helsings in the bunch, all the same. I could add to Henry’s post about bad accents, but it seems cruel to mock earnest volunteers, as opposed to overpaid Hollywood actors.)
Modeling myself on the aurally self-improving Mr. Boffin, I’ve started in on Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. (Belle, like Mrs. Boffin, is more a ‘high-flier in fashion’, you understand, and correspondingly less inclined to listen to audiobooks.) I have got up to chapter 9, and the quality of the readers so far has ranged from commendably adequate to downright excellent. (Someone named Alan Chant is doing Boffin as Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit. Which works just fine.)
Does anyone have any special recommendations, audiobook-wise? I’m not averse to paying for good stuff, although so far I am gratified by the availability of high-quality free stuff.
In other late Saturday night news, the 3-year old certifies this as the funniest video in the world. It is pretty funny.
Oh the Feminists hate Republicans
And Republicans hate the Feminists
To mock all Feminazis
Is an old G.O.P. rule
But during Islamo-Fascism Week
Islamo-Fascism Week
You’ll see Ann Coulter On Our Backs at USC
She’s helping Muslims seek
Their Feminine Mystique
Simone De Beauvoir’s really very cool
A (slightly ponderous) documentary on a set of rare sound recordings of British and Irish POWs from World War I. First recordings are just after 10 minutes in. I liked the way the speed of the shellac recording is calibrated by matching an A note on the last groove to the A from a tuning fork. At 23″ or so there’s a recording of a man telling the parable of the Prodigal Son, where the difference between the ‘a’ in _father_ and the ‘a’ in _man_ is quite striking. At about 35″ there’s an nice example of the problems associated with interpreting material like this: another recording of the Prodigal Son story (a set text for the German academics who were interested in English accents) is played to a woman who knew the solider speaking, with interesting results.
). Find an hour for 20 Cigarettes if you can.