BrainJams Saturday

BrainJams
Tomorrow/Saturday is the day for remixing brains over geek and non-geek stuff at Chris Heure’s BrainJams event. It’s a collaborative, relatively freeform shindig that revolves around the nebulous concept of “knowledge sharing”. The gist is you spill your passion or project to fellow ‘Jammers and grow from there. Nate and Chris‘ posts explain this much better than I currently understand, but it seems much like the Advocacy Dev shindigs I’ve participated in in the past. Check out the wiki for more deets and register. Oh yeah, it’s in Shallow Alto, but don’t let that freak you out. Added bonus: GETV will be there to cover the fun.

Wal-Mart Dance Party Rocking Your Town

Wal-Mart Dance Party
Coming to a big box retailer near you, it’s the Wal-Mart Dance Party, flash mob style. Kind of.

We weren’t terribly organized on our first attempt. One of our friends brought an ipod w/ an iRok transmitter and a forward guard had tuned all the boom boxes to the same transmitter station. In the mean time, there was a gang of at least 25 punks, sceneagers and freaks hanging around the electronics section trying to figure out how to not look suspicious. Once all the boom boxes got tuned and we got “Safety Dance” going. they just came and shut off the power to the entire section.

Lesson 1: Don’t malinger beforehand unless you wear white trash disguises. There’s something not-so-terribly-believable about a large gathering of disheveled sceneagers and anarchists in black with mohawks, nose rings and tats on a group shopping trip in the Wal-Mart music section.

We had better luck at Target on our second stop. Amazingly, they didn’t have a section where you could listen to the boom boxes, so everyone pretty much just scattered around the electronics section, making the employees nervous. Finally, Big Balls just plugged a boom box in and wired the speakers. Unfortunately, the kid with the iPod didn’t make it, so we just put a CD in and turned it up. The party lasted longer at Target — about 2 minutes — before a lackey came and shut it down.

Good times. Be sure you check out the videos.

Make your own stereo digital camera for under $25

Instructions for hacking a couple of $11 Dakota digital cameras into a stereo digital camera rig. You’ll need a couple of Dakotas, two male USB ports (salvaged from mice) and some Lego. Apparently you can get these “disposable” cameras from Wolf and Ritz Camera stores, though I haven’t tried.

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This site will be handy for figuring out the USB pinouts.

As the Bubble Fattens Up

There’s been a lot of talk about whether there is another tech or Internet bubble on the inflate. Yes, there have a been a bunch of launch parties as of late. Yes, more companies are getting funded. It’s giving the blogosphere much to ponder,. But one only has to look at the latest issue of Wired magazine to find the answer. It’s fat again! Yes, it’s a heavy ass slab this month. Compare it to say 2 or 3 years ago, during Wired’s anorexic years. I can’t remember it being this obese in years.

Of course, this is fantastic news for the budding young media empire known as Geek Entertainment Televison. There’s endless material to draw from, and draw from is what we must do. The greater the exhuberance, the more irrational we must be. Bring on the bubble! Give us the fuel we need to snark this thing. We’re up to 7 episodes now, with new ones every couple of days. Take a gander if you haven’t yet, and then subscribe to the GETV feed so you don’t have to remember to keep checking back.



Video archive by Mefeedia

UPDATE: We’ve been BoingBoing’d and LaughingSquid’d. I guess this thing is catching on.

Netflix and Schwarzenegger Get Cozy

Netflix in Arnie's pocketEveryone’s heard of Netflix, they’ve got over 3 million subscribers. You are probably one of them. Did you know that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings donated 3/4 of a MILLION DOLLARS to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s very “special election” campaign? $730,000 to be exact, mostly going to Proposition 77, the redistricting “reform” measure that gives the power of redistricting to a group of old crusty white men. On the face, Prop 77 has good intentions, but is a crappily crafted piece of legislation that is part of Arnie’s power grab agenda. Reed says, “Win or lose this cycle, I’ll continue to invest both philanthropically and politically, I don’t feel any donor fatigue, because improving California” is “a multi-decade effort, not a one-shot fix.” If by “improve” he means “owned by big business and conservative interests” then brace yourself California! It’s a bit curious as Hastings has traditionally given to Democrats, though a only a drop in the bucket comapred to the amounts he’s doling out to Arnie this year.

There is an alternative. GreenCine, pronounced GREEN-SEEN. It’s just like Netflix but without the evil. GreenCine, based in San Francisco, is owned by a couple of independent cinema nuts. Their focus is more on independent films, documentaries and anime while still harboring the full array of Hollywood blockbusters. They have a thriving online commununity and make daily recommendations. They don’t donate a million dollars to a bad washed up actor turned bad washed up politician. They DO donate a portion of their profits to local non-profit film arts organizations. GreenCine likes to support organizations that make better films.

On this election day, how are your dollars voting?

[thanks to George for the source photo]

Just got a Push Poll

I just got an automated ‘survey’ call from an outfit identifying themselves as FEC Research. It was a computerized voice response call asking leading questions regarding Propositions 73 and 75 here in California. This guy from Santa Barbara got the exact same call. As did this fellow San Franciscan. One more. Push polls are not really polls at all but are the product of someone paying to try and convince me how evil or great a candidate or ballot initiative is. The language they use to describe the ballot question is biased and leading. Under the guise of a poll, I am asked my opinion when really it’s about influencing my understanding of ballot question to sway my vote.

The number on my caller ID is 571-522-1180 which points to an outfit in Northern Virginia called ccAdvertising. According to a little investigative work done by DailyKos, they are hired by mostly right wing campaigns to spread their deception. Surprise! Suprise!