Josh’s great friends and supporters in San Francisco
are really doing some incredible things to help. The
first thing is to have as many people as possible call
Nancy Pelosi tomorrow [Friday, 12/15] about Josh’s situation. The
number is (415) 556-4862. If you can’t get through,
please try later in the day or next week.
Thanks so much,
Peace,
Liz
I’ve been here a week in Vienna, Austria for Roboexotica, the conference for cocktail robots. It’s been a blast hanging out with my new Austrian friends @ monochrom. Plenty of impressive drink serving bots abound. This photo is of the Kal Spelletich’s Vino-Viper, an articulated arm attached to a wall that is controlled by a glove and blow tube. You move the arm around by moving your fingers and then can serve wine by blowing into a tube. Only the hardy and ambidextrous are successful at getting a decent amount of intoxicant in their cup.
Other interesting bots include Anika and Daniel’s Digi Colada, the Cocktail-Katapult which launches maraschino cherries into a large transformer bot for delivery, the WERP-Bot which facially recognizes and launches a cigarette into a waiting smoker’s mouth. Much local SF representation here with David Calkins‘ drink serving Chapek & Tyler’s WaiterBot, Simone Davalos‘ El Espanol Borracho which makes a mean flaming spanish coffee. Also David Fine and Jonathan Moore’s External Combustion Engine which uses RFID cards to serve up various cocktail recipes. Pals Violet Blue, Jake Appelbaum, V. Vale & family are also here making mayhem. Much more I’m missing, though you can catch a bunch of it in these videos I shot. Also, Roboexotica GETV episode is up.
FREE JOSH WOLF!
A night of speakers, film, spoken word, and music to benefit Josh Wolf’s legal fund
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7
7:30PM
BALAZO GALLERY
2183 Mission Street near 18th
San Francisco
SPEAKERS
MARK LENO California State Assemblyman
BRUCE BRUGMANN Publisher Bay Guardian
CHRIS DALY San Francisco Supervisor
ROSS MIRKARIMI, San Francisco Supervisor
DAVID GREENE Executive Director, First Amendment Project
JANE KIM School Board Comissioner Elect
SARAH OLSON Radio Producer and Independent Journalist
FILM PREMIERE
New short film about Josh by filmmakers
KEVIN EPPS and NJERI SIMS
PLUS SPOKEN WORD AND MUSICAL GUESTS
SPONSORED BY
The San Francisco Bay Guardian
The Free Josh Wolf Coalition
The League of Young Voters
Society of Professional Journalists NorCal Chapter
Reporters Without Borders
First Amendment Project
Youth Radio
Suggested donation $2 to $25
Cash bar available with ID
This event is ALL AGES
CONTACT
For more information and/or to participate in this event contact Andy
andy.blue(at)yahoo.com
www.joshwolf.net
JOSH WOLF is a San Francisco free-lance journalist being held for his refusal, based on journalistic principles, to turn over to a federal grand jury his news footage from a July 2005 protest. Free-press advocates from around the world have called his incarceration unjust and a grave violation of the freedom of the press. Josh is well on his way to becoming the longest-incarcerated journalist in US history. His case has prompted Reporters Without Borders to lower the United States’ ranking for press freedom nine points to 53rd in the world.
For his commitment to journalistic freedom Josh received the 2006 Journalist of the Year Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. On this occasion he was praised by Assemblyman Mark Leno who commended his “courageous dedication to protecting freedom of the press in our country.”
For more information on Josh’s case and to learn how you can help visit www.joshwolf.net
Inflexible Airline Experience #74: I have $400 in travel vouchers on United Airlines from last time I flew. I book a flight home for Christmas, SFO to Washington Dulles. Fare is $667 (insane!). I want to apply my $400 vouchers. OK, first try and book trip online at ual.com. Payment time and there is no input for vouchers. I have to call reservations. LAME. I call, go through automated voice response reservation system which takes forever, doesn’t understand my name. I eject to a human being dialing 0. Human has the reservation. She tells me I have to mail the vouchers in or take them to the airport within 24 hours. EXTREMELY LAME. Eject to a supervisor. I explain vouchers have a unique serial number. You should be able to verify they are valid and issued to me. I offer to give the serial number and bring the paper copies with me to the airport. No can do. It doesn’t work that way. WHY THE FUCK NOT?
United, why are you inconveniencing me with your archaic ways of doing business? How is it I can book a flight online and have nothing but my name and an ID when I show up at the airport? It’s obvious you understand unique serial numbers and ID verification. SO why can I not apply the vouchers the same way? Why must I trust the postal service or make a special trip to the airport to book this flight? Why United Airlines, do you fuck me so?
My friend Leah laser etched her new Macbook Pro with logos from people who threw down cash to help her buy it. Here’s a video I shot of her story complete with mad high-speed laser etching footage!
Johannes of Monochrom asked me to submit a couple of minutes of video (a video telecast) for his Austrian based live audience untalk show. You’ll have to watch episode #7 to see my contribution.
Also, part 2 of RU Sirius’ NeoFiles podcast with Ryan and I is up.
Crazy media week for me.
On Thursday night at 7pm PDT this week, I’ll be on this newfangled interactive Internet conference talk show thing called Reinventing Television with media educator freakstein Jonny Goldstein. We did a walk through tonight and it’s pretty cool. Part video conferencing, part party line, part talk show, part movie theater and much spectacle, this Phovi thing looks like a great way to get a bunch of Internet connected freaks in a virtual room together to throw media around. Irina was going to be on with me, but she had to bail due to a sheduling conflict. So it’s all me reprezentin’. Come be a pioneer and toss me some questions.
Last Sunday, Ryan and I did RU Sirius’ Neofiles show. A two parter even! Part one is up now. Violet Blue came in and did RU’s other show right after. Check it too.
And the previous Friday night, I was on Irene McGee’s old school media show on 106.9 Free FM. She has the 12-2 slot to be all Irene, all the time. Truckers and lonely stoners are known to bring the love. Podcasts of the madness are up now too.
This Memorial day weekend I escaped to the foothills of the Sierras for WineCamp, the latest iteration of BarCamp. These events normally involve lots of wifi and laptops with a minimal of “camping” in the tent & woods sense of the word. This was different. Friday and Saturday were spent 2000 feet up on a pimp ridgeline overlooking vineyards and a sprawling resevoir on the property of winemaker Andrew Ferriere.
Several adhoc self organizing sessions came together to warm brains and foster project collaboration on Saturday. I decided to sit in on one focused on storytelling and the use of video. I learn PixelCorps might be a good resource for video projects and people with skills for projects. I learn of StoryCorps, an interesting project where people are given audio gear and encouraged to document their lives. NPR has aired some of the more compelling pieces.
After the brain warming ended on Saturday, it was time for yummy eats and band provided beats. And wine. Much, much wine. When darkness arrived, chill came too and the firepits were the place to be. Sticks were whittled and smores were made.
Sunday morning, the consumate Sarah Pullman from Vancouver grounded 20+ geeks with a Yoga for Geeks session. Soon after it was time to pack up and take it down the hill to the Stevenot Winery which had brunch and wifi waiting for us, thanks to the lovelies at France Telecom. It was really hard to stay inside the dark cool wine cellar working the wifi when the surrounding green vineyard was photosynthesizing up a storm.
Lunch came and went, projects were wrapped up and the final hour was filled with report backs of lessons learned, things liked and things that could change. Thanks to Tara, Chris and the other organizers who put on this magical weekend getaway. It’s times like this that make it great to be a human.
With SurvivaBall, Halliburton innovates a solution to global warming for the important mid-level to senior manager. Be sure to check out the pictures and video.
HALLIBURTON SOLVES GLOBAL WARMING
SurvivaBalls save managers from abrupt climate changeAn advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even
when climate change makes life as we know it impossible.“The SurvivaBall is designed to protect the corporate manager no
matter what Mother Nature throws his or her way,” said Fred Wolf, a
Halliburton representative who spoke today at the Catastrophic Loss
conference held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Amelia Island, Florida.
“This technology is the only rational response to abrupt climate
change,” he said to an attentive and appreciative audience.“The SurvivaBall builds on Halliburton’s reputation as a disaster and
conflict industry innovator,” said Wolf. “Just as the Black Plague
led to the Renaissance and the Great Deluge gave Noah a monopoly of
the animals, so tomorrow’s catastrophes could well lead to good – and
industry must be ready to seize that good.”
It turned out that the SFiFF is mostly about docs for me. The Bridge is one that I had really been looking forward to ever since the it became public what the camera crews stationed on either end of the Golden Gate Bridge were up to over the course of 2004. Director Eric Steele takes on the story of those whose final destination is the world’s most favorite suicide location.
The result is an incredibly moving set of very personal accounts of suicidal bridge jumpers as told by family, friends and in one case a survivor. Yes, there is some very shaky and very real footage of a few jumps. They serve to punctuate the personal narratives and quite honestly, the film would be just as moving without them. The real story is what we hear from family, friends and survivors. The footage of jumps are shown once each, there is no slow motion or any cinematic effects that over-dramatize the reality we witness. We do see the Coast Guard boat with two white hazmat suited rescuers circling around for a jumper.
The documentary to be quite honest, is a bit of a downer. It’s a retelling of the sad states of emotion that led the jumpers to take the plunge. We learn about the lives of the jumpers, in some cases their incessant casing of the bridge prior to their final moment, the back story of what brings them to the brink. We do see one rescue as a passing tourist pulls a would-be jumper by her collar which elicits applause from the audience.
There is more, but I don’t want to spoil so go see it for yourself. The Bridge is a rare look into the lives of people who find no reason to go on. Prepare yourself as you’ll probably experience a wide range of emotions that will leave you drained. It is a necessary film, one that can only help to understand mental illness and the dark realities behind suicide.
