L33T Techy Grandma Video

Found this yesterday... I have a feeling it'll go viral, unintentionally(?).



What is it? It's a church-produced (allegedly? seems legit...) ad featuring a tech-jargon-dropping grandma. Strangely enough, a lot of what she's talking about makes no technical sense. However, it's a great concept for how-to videos, since, if 'grandma' can understand it, so could 'anyone'.

BTW, "l33t" is hacker-speak for "leet" or "elite", which is a status term that us old-skool geeks used to use when we were working BBS and rockin' 14.4K baud modems.

Enjoy!

A Love Letter to David Gergen

Here's to the smart, nerdy guys (my bruthas!), and the chicks who dig them...



The Daily Beast: Jessi Klein

Random Musings on Liza, Brooklyn, the News, and Summer

Ever feel like there's some sort of energy field that surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together to act in synchronicity? Oh, yeah, that's the Force. Anyway...

So a friend of mine invited me to go see Liza Minelli at a free show in Brooklyn last week... It's part of a series that's goin' on this summer. I'm not a huge Liza fan, per se, but it would've been fun to see just for the ridiculous spectacle of it all; Liza Herself, Brooklyn, free, the NYC/Brooklyn Gay Scene, etc. I didn't go, 'cause we ended up doing karaoke instead -- that's another entry. Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't check it out now... Why?

Found out that Christopher Cross was a special guest... One of my favorite one-hit wonders, with a song from probably one of the only Liza movies that I've ever sat through.

BTW, I just tracked this video down, and it frakkin' RULEZ:


So how did I become privy to all this information? Well, I heard that Huey Lewis is performing on Thurs 8/21 - saw him a few years back, and it was a super fun show. Now here's where that "Force thing" comes in: the Back to the Future movies have been on rotation on HBO lately, along with the underrated American Psycho (a.k.a. the Dark Knight!) so I've been inundated with Huey recently. The movie's been in the news a bit lately too, because of John Edwards' girlfriend (Gawker) That Patrick Bateman really understood the band:


On top of all that, there's a movie out there that I'm DYING to see (perhaps this afternoon) -- it's become an 80s summer with Huey and his News releasing a theme song to a big summer movie... Wha? (AllAboutJazz)

Wow... That's totally a move I'd make if I was making a movie...

Spike TV Unlocks the Secret to the Sith

Really the key to the reason the Empire came to power... That and Jar-Jar Binks.


Image courtesy of Slashfilm








"A guy can only be called "Annie" so many times before he snaps..."

Rabble Rabble

Did you know that the creation of the Happy Meal was in response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis?


The Colbert Report

Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now

As you may already know, Bill Gates spoke last night as his 'final' (?) CES keynote speech... You may not have seen the introduction video.

Yes, it's totally scripted, and derivative and kinda predictable, but I was totally LMAO, for the funny bits and the fact that this dude has SO MUCH INFLUENCE, that all these A-Listers kicked in to do a bit part in the video. Damn!

Plus... Bill Gates has a sense of HUMOR! Love how the MSFT techies 'allow' him to take the credit for things... Like Microsoft Bob.

via Gizmodo

Video via MSN

My Obsession: Yo Gabba Gabba!

Okay, not sure if this counts yet, but it finally occurred to me that I should set the TiVo to record Yo Gabba Gabba! It's the show that features this awesome video.

I've also decided that I might need this:


It could be so yummy, so yummy.

Universal Translator and the Tower of Babel

There's a lot of news in the spirit of Star Trek in my life this week. I recently received the Star Trek movie boxed set in the mail, which I had found on some closeout site for $30 and free shipping. How could I resist? I'll talk about my favorite, ST II: The Wrath of Khan some other time.

Anyway, this led to a number of conversations with people, about such topics as "It's the 21st Century, where's my flying car?!" and a great show on the History Channel called, "How William Shatner Changed the World".

So when I saw this piece on TechCrunch, I was sort of amazed by the possibilities. Apparently, Google Talk is adding a new translation bot for chat, which will provide translation from English to Chinese. The bot can be used as a direct look up tool, or in an actual group chat on-the-fly.

Can you imagine what a powerful tool this can be in the worlds of commerce and communications? It's a direct, real-time way of communicating with ANYONE, once the service can crunch the language. I'm no linguist, but I'd estimate that Chinese is much more difficult to translate than any of the Latin-based languages.

Bring on the Vulcans.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/19/google-talk-gets-one-step-closer-to-the-ultimate-babel-fish/

Star Trek DIY: Fans make their own 'Webisodes'

To quote my colleague Dave, "The future of CGM and TV are here in full effect."

This is really really cool -- not just 'cause I'm a geek for this stuff (yes, including the Star Trek angle), but because it was done COMPLETELY with consumer-grade hardware and software. I estimate it was done for about $3K for all the equipment involved. In addition, it was worked on by remote teams, who communicated via Skype and email (free).

From a public relations / media relations standpoint, it's a great example of consumers taking a piece of pop culture into their hands and creating something for mass consumption... Much like we're about to do with Swiffer/You Tube in January.

I realize that this was produced by an IT guy and a printing shop guy, but this is an extreme example. But think about it: media editing technology is getting simpler everyday, and the digital cameras we all have are getting better video quality by leaps and bounds (aka, 'you don't need a special camera'). Engaging consumers like this will explode soon. Have you seen the material out there that's been done by WGA Letterman strikers?

The moms we're targeting for Swiffer/YT are just the tip of where this can go... Just think of all the new tech-savvy moms we have around here, who have the technology and the skill to do it....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/20/star.trek.podcast/index.html