Videos

You are currently browsing the archive for the Videos category.

“Fewer People Want To Actually Attend The Games”

January 5, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In 1979, J.G. Ballard believed the future was shifting from mobile to home-based, especially the way we entertain ourselves. That’s happened, largely. Going to the game is not so important now because there are so many ways for the game to come to us. From Kevin Clark and Jonathan Clegg in the WSJ: 

“The NFL enters the first round of playoff games this weekend with soaring television ratings, billions of dollars in network TV contracts in their pocket and a nation of football fans who can’t wait to hop on their couch and watch a weekend of games.

The league has never been a more popular viewing option. There’s just one problem: Fewer people want to actually attend the games.

In the latest evidence that the sports in-home viewing experience has possibly trumped the in-stadium one, ticket sales were slow for the first week of the National Football League’s marquee stretch of games.

Three teams hosting games this weekend asked the league for extensions to sell more tickets for the games to avoid a television blackout in local markets, which is imposed by NFL policy if a game isn’t sold out. The teams, the Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals, needed large corporate assistance to ensure the sellouts.”

_________________________________________

Walter Cronkite in 1967: “We could watch a football game.”

Tags:

“I’m Chasing One Of Britain’s Hottest Properties”

January 1, 2014 in Science/Tech, Sports, Videos | Permalink

Here’s a 1971 episode of the British version of This Is Your Life, which features soccer legend George Best, who was in his prime, a remarkable athlete who looked like a member of Led Zeppelin, a swashbuckling playboy envied by all. But he was already dying–he’d been dying almost from the beginning. Like his mother who is seen in this program, Best was an inveterate alcoholic who wrecked his career and himself at an early age. He had it all, except what he needed most, whatever that was. It was a miracle that he made it to 59. Was it nurture or nature? 

We never know what’s inside of somebody else–sometimes even inside of ourselves. Of course, that’s not only true in the negative sense. People can unfold in beautiful and surprising ways also. And why do some people keep growing, changing, evolving? Again: Is it nature or nurture? Probably something innate that may need to be unlocked by experience.

Tags:

“Who Wants All These Cheap Computers Anyway, And What Possible Good Can They Do For Me?”

December 26, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Posting the Christopher Evans interview with J.G. Ballard earlier reminded me that I watched an excellent 1979 TV show a couple of years ago which was presented by the British computer scientist. A six-part series about how microprocessors were going to change the world, it was based on Evans’ book, The Mighty Micro (retitled The Micro Millennium in the United States). It succinctly journeys from Blaise Pascal to ATMs, aptly calling the coming epoch the “Second Industrial Revolution.” It never explicitly discusses the advent of the Internet but suggests many of its successes and perils. 

There are just two things that the show seemed naive about: 1) That paper money disappearing would lead to the end of theft, and 2) That powerful technology would make war unappealing (which is a mistake that Nikola Tesla began making at the end of the 1800s).

But there’s so much that’s prescient: robots ending drudgery but causing unease about employment, online shopping, telecommuting and potential transformations in education. (It’s odd and unfortunate that this decades-old show reminds that we still haven’t taken advantage of gaming’s capacity for revolutionizing learning.)

It’s a future, the host asserts, that no country can afford to abstain from, even with all its disruption: “Those who lag back will become steadily less competitive, just the way that those countries that missed out on the Industrial Revolution remain locked in medieval standards of living.”

All six are embedded below, but if you only have time for a couple, Parts 4 (“The Introverted Society”) and 6 (“All Our Tomorrows”) are my two favorites. In 4, there’s a stunning prototype of what we recognize today as a Kindle. Part 6 presents four scientists (I.J. Good, James Martin, Barrie Sherman, Tom Stonier) discussing the promise and problems of the future as if they had just read 2013 newspapers (online versions, of course).

Final note: Evans was battling cancer while filming this series and passed away before it was completed, so the producer Lawrence Moore and his guests handle the finale.

Tags: , , , , ,

“Sex Crimes Only Began In The Nineteenth Century”

December 26, 2013 in Books, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The quote in the headline comes from a 1996 comment made by Colin Wilson, the celebrated and derided British writer who passed away earlier this month. It can’t be true, can it? In the interview, he claims that no crimes of a sexual nature were committed before Jack the Ripper, citing how during the Victorian Era, inexpensive prostitutes made sex crimes “unnecessary.” But I’m sure there was plenty of cheap sex to be had at the time of the Whitechapel slayings, and there certainly was during Ted Bundy’s life, so that couldn’t be the motivation. Wilson further claims that so-called “self-esteem killings” began in the 1960s, but I think you can fit Leopold and Loeb in the category without too much of a stretch. At any rate, Wilson was at the time promoting his book, A Plague of Murder.

Tags:

“You Could Put It On A Little Tiny Corner Of A Chip Now”

December 26, 2013 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Grace Hopper who hated bugs and was wittier than Letterman, was one of the true pioneers in modern computing. A TV appearance from 1986, a couple of months after her involuntary retirement from the Navy.

Tags: ,

“It Doesn’t Have To Be So Complicated”

December 22, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From a Wired piece by Liz Stinson about a printable paper speaker by a French product designer: 

“If you’re the tinkering type, you’ve probably deconstructed a fair number of electronics. It doesn’t take a genius to tear apart a radio, but once you get past the bulk of plastic packaging and down to the guts, you begin to realize that reading the mess of circuits, chips and components is like trying to navigate your way through a foreign country with a map from the 18th century.

But it doesn’t have to be so complicated, says Coralie Gourguechon. ‘Nowadays, we own devices that are too complicated considering the way we really use them,’ she says. Gourguechon, maker of the Craft Camera, believes that in order to understand our electronics, they need to be vastly simpler and more transparent than they currently are.”

Tags: ,

“Found A Cameraman, Started Making A Film”

December 20, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Here’s Allan Havey, a guest this week of Marc Maron, interviewing Robert Downey Sr. in 1991. There’s really nothing like Putney Swope, is there?

Tags: ,

“Al Goldstein Was A Horrible Man, So It’s A Shame He Was Right”

December 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Al Goldstein was a horrible man, so it’s a shame he was right. The Screw publisher, who just passed away at 77, had a dream–a wet one–and lived long enough to see it become reality. Goldstein envisioned a world in which porn was ubiquitous and acceptable, and now it’s available on every screen in our homes and shirt pockets. He was the McLuhan of smut, not envisioning a Global Village so much as a universal circle jerk. He won.

One of my favorite video clips of all time: Smartmouth Stanley Siegel interviews Goldstein and comedian Jerry Lewis in 1976. When not busy composing the world’s finest beaver shots, Goldstein apparently had a newsletter about tech tools. He shows off a $3900 calculator watch and a $2200 portable phone. Lewis, easily the biggest tool on the stage, flaunts his wealth the way only a truly insecure man can.

“As Much As Any­thing, Mr. Big­gs’s Story Is About The Con­struc­tion Of Ce­leb­rity”

December 18, 2013 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Ronnie Biggs of Great Train Robbery infamy–which morphed in time into pure fame–was good at robbing trains, escaping from prison and eluding authorities, but he was a genius at the ways of cultivating celebrity before such things were common knowledge. From Margalit’s Fox’s New York Times obituary of Biggs:

“Mr. Big­gs’s en­dur­ing rep­u­ta­tion stemmed not so much from the heist it­self as from what hap­pened af­ter­ward. Tried and con­vict­ed, he es­caped from prison and be­came the sub­ject of an in­ter­na­tion­al man­hunt; spent the next 36 years as a fugi­tive, much of that time liv­ing open­ly in Rio de Ja­neiro in de­fi­ance of the British au­thori­ties; and en­joyed al­most preter­nat­ur­al luck in thwart­ing re­peat­ed at­tempts to bring him to jus­tice, in­clud­ing be­ing kid­napped and spir­ited out of Brazil by yacht.

The fact that the rob­bery hap­pened to take place on Mr. Big­gs’s birth­day al­so did not hurt.

Dur­ing his years at large, Mr. Big­gs, aid­ed by the British tab­loid press, cul­ti­vated his im­age as a work­ing-class Cock­ney hero. He sold mem­o­ra­bilia to tourists, en­dorsed prod­ucts on tele­vi­sion and re­corded a song (‘No One Is In­no­cent’) with the Sex Pis­tols, the British punk band.

As much as any­thing, Mr. Big­gs’s story is about the con­struc­tion of ce­leb­rity, and the ways in which ce­leb­rity can be sus­tained as a kind of cot­tage in­dus­try long af­ter the world might rea­son­ably be ex­pect­ed to have lost in­ter­est.”

________________

“No One Is Innocent”:

Tags: ,

“It Means Whatever You Choose To Have It Mean”

December 17, 2013 in Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination brought no closure to the many questions that have festered since that horrible day in Dallas. Here’s two clips of Jim Garrison (with lousy volume, unfortunately), the Orleans Parish District Attorney who was never satisfied with the Warren Report, speaking to Johnny Carson in 1968 about his personal investigation into the murder. Garrison was the anti-Vaughn Meader, shot to prominence in the wake of the shocking death and was ultimately portrayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s hogwash. Johnny, however, was clearly disappointed by the conversation. 

Tags: , , ,

“I’m Glad You’ve Got A Computer Being The Man That Makes The Decision”

December 17, 2013 in Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

While Muhammad Ali was suffering through his Vietnam Era walkabout, he “boxed” retired great Rocky Marciano in a fictional contest that was decided by a computer. Dubbed the “Super Fight,” it took place in 1970. Marciano dropped a lot of weight and donned a hairpiece to provide viewers with some semblance of his younger self. The fighters acted out the computer prognostications and the filmed result was released in theaters. Marciano awkwardly stumbled onto a great description of this Singularity moment: “I’m glad you’ve got a computer being the man that makes the decision.”

“Google’s Initial Plans Are Not Consumer-Focused”

December 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

I frequently post videos from Boston Dynamics, the best and scariest robotics company on the planet. I’ve been surprised that Google or Amazon, with such deep pockets, didn’t acquire it, instantly becoming  leader in a sector that could help it with order processing and things far beyond that. But recently Google took the plunge and is now the company’s owner. What does it want from its newest division? From Samuel Gibbs at Guardian:

“Boston Dynamics is not the only robotics company Google has bought in recent years. Put under the leadership of Andy Rubin, previously Google’s head of Android, the search company has quietly acquired seven different technology companies to foster a self-described ‘moonshot’ robotics vision.

The acquired companies included Schaft, a small Japanese humanoid robotics company; Meka and Redwood Robotics, San Francisco-based creators of humanoid robots and robot arms; Bot & Dolly who created the robotic camera systems recently used in the movie Gravity; Autofuss an advertising and design company; Holomni, high-tech wheel designer, and Industrial Perception, a startup developing computer vision systems for manufacturing and delivery processes.

Sources told the New York Times that Google’s initial plans are not consumer-focused, instead aimed at manufacturing and industry automation, although products are expected within the next three to five years.”

___________________________________

From Boston Dynamics.

Petman:

Petman’s best friend:

Tags: ,

“We Learned During Our Wait For Spitz To Show Up That The Olympic Village Had Been Murderously Invaded”

December 16, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

As David Remnick prepares to offer analysis of Russia’s Winter Games, which hopefully will be a safe and joyous event, here’s the opening of E.J. Kahn’s 1972 New Yorker reportage in the direct aftermath of the tragedy in Munich, the so-called “Serene Olympics” which became anything but:

“Into the unreal Olympic world, where inches and ounces and seconds are what traditionally matter most, the real world cruelly intruded at five o’clock three mornings ago. The first inkling most of the four thousand journalists here had of the dreadful events that should have terminated these now cheerless Olympics came just before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, at which hour we had been invited to attend a press conference with the American swimmer Mark Spitz, who, having won an unprecedented seventh gold medal the night before, has been crowned by the German press ‘der König von München.’ Like just about everything else around here, though, his gilt had been tarnished. He had carried a pair of brand-name athletic shoes to the presentation ceremony for the third medal, and had felt constrained—probably under pressure from the United States Olympic Committee and under at least indirect pressure from Avery Brundage, the crusty American octogenarian who is retiring this year after twenty years as president of the International Olympic Committee—to make a public apology to his teammates. On my way to the conference, I glanced at the first editions of the local morning papers. They featured a queen not just of Munich but of all West Germany—the sixteen-year-old high jumper Ulrike Meyfarth, who had never cleared six feet until the previous afternoon, when she went three and a half inches above that and won a hysterically applauded gold medal of her own. Her glory was brief, for we learned during our wait for Spitz to show up that the Olympic Village had been murderously invaded. While we were reeling from that shock, Spitz arrived and gave sober, clipped answers to a few meaningless questions. He remained seated throughout the session, and a factotum explained, ‘Mark Spitz does not want to come to the microphone, because of the Israeli incident.’ (He is Jewish, and nobody knew who, if anyone, might be the next target.) As a result, the swimmer’s responses were all but inaudible to us. It didn’t much matter, because must of the questions, dredged from the near-bottom of the sportswriters’ cliché barrel, were absurd and obviously irrelevant. Indeed, all the things that had been ceased to seem very consequential—even the prodigies of the regal Spitz himself.”•

________________________________________

“Our greatest hopes and worst fears are seldom realized”:

Tags: , ,

“I Do Apologize To The Audience For Being So Intensely Nervous”

December 15, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

I remember from when I was a kid that there were few people as famous or revered as the actor Richard Burton was during his life, but does it feel like his star is falling piece by piece to the Earth as those who watched him act live die off? The fame and infamy mean little now, the marriages and the drinking and the off-stage drama, and his performances, as least those on stage, are known directly by fewer an fewer. His famous name is recalled but without full knowledge of his talent. Here he sits down for a long-form interview with Michael Parkinson in 1974, having just completed a stint in rehab for his titanic problem with alcohol.

Tags: ,

“Taking Pictures Rather Than Concentrating Fully On The Events In Front Of Us Prevents Memories Taking Old”

December 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I don’t know that we needed research to show that observing something and photographing that same thing affects our brains differently. Two distinct acts even from the same perspective will necessarily send disparate bits of information to the brain. Focusing your iPhone is not the same thing as focusing your brain sans iPhone. From Sarah Knapton at the Telegraph:

“Taking photographs at a birthday or a wedding has become as natural as blowing out candles or cutting the cake.

But our obsession with recording every detail of our happiest moments could be damaging our ability to remember them, according to new research.

A study has shown that taking pictures rather than concentrating fully on the events in front of us prevents memories taking hold.

Dr. Linda Henkel, from Fairfield University, Connecticut, described it as the ‘photo-taking impairment effect.’

She said: ‘People so often whip out their cameras almost mindlessly to capture a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening right in front of them.”•

____________________________________________

Edwin H. Land brings instant gratification to photography, 1948:

Tags: ,

“Was I Consuming Media Or Was The Media Consuming Me?”

December 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I’ve read a thing or two in the Hollywood trades that made the British anthology series, Black Mirror, sound like it’s right up my alley. Charlie Brooker’s Twilight Zone-ish program looks at the dark side of all things digital, which is a favorite topic of mine. (Though the bright side of technology is equally a fascination.) The first two paragraphs from Andy Greenwald’s wonderfully written Grantland consideration of the soul-shattering show and how we now live inside a series of screens, which seem like mirrors until we realize, perhaps too late, that they may be something else:

“Midway through ‘Be Right Back,’ the soul-cleaving fourth episode of the British anthology series Black Mirror, I sought refuge in a second screen. It happens sometimes when I watch TV, usually when things get too emotional, too painful, too intense. The mind can’t wander, so the hands do, fiddling with pens and scraps of paper, drumming on the desk. Eventually — inevitably — I found myself lifting up my iPhone, my thumb moving circles across its screen as if it were a rosary. The mindless swiping of Candy Crush Saga didn’t help me process my feelings about ‘Be Right Back,’ didn’t make it any easier to see Hayley Atwell’s face shattering like a dropped wine glass. But I guess it didn’t hurt much, either. Distancing myself made the experience of watching seem less passive. It restored a flickering feeling of control. I couldn’t handle what was coming at me, so I threw up a wall to stop it.

Modern life is full of little walls like that, tricks we can pull to blunt unwanted or unexpected impact. There’s always a game just a click away. Or a photo. Or a ‘friend.’ It’s actually what ‘Be Right Back’ is about. The episode begins by toying with our natural need to be distracted, placated, and protected from the world before demonstrating, in disturbing ways, how the world is increasingly designed to meet that need. It’s about how we’re willing to submerge ourselves in the comforting warmth of denial right up to the moment reality sidles up beside us and rips our hearts out of our chests. So was it ironic or inevitable the way I was idly crossing striped candies when Atwell yelled at Domnall Gleeson for not being fully present? (Gleeson played her boyfriend, or at least he had earlier in the episode. The specifics are both too confusing and too important to the overall experience to discuss here.) I was hovering on the edge of two screens, fully engaged in neither. Did that make me the viewer or the subject? Which one was the game and which was the drama? Was I consuming media or was the media consuming me?”•

__________________

The entire history of you:

Tags: ,

“Wow, That’s…That’s Awesome”

December 11, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

NASA has created a life-size robot that will protect you unless you say something that hurts its feeling in which case it will eat you. From Rich McCormick at the Verge: “NASA has created a robot for DARPA’s upcoming Robotics Challenge Trials. The Valkyrie is a 6-foot-2-inch humanoid machine with detachable arms, sonar sensors, mounted cameras, and a glowing Tony Stark-esque circle in the middle of its chest. The space agency says it’s mobile and dexterous enough to enter disaster zones to provide search and rescue functions.”

Tags:

“What You Say About Anyone Else Reveals You”

December 10, 2013 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

James Baldwin, in 1963, examining the N-word to explain that bigotry has just as much to do with projection as power. Essentially, what you hate is what you are.

Tags:

“A Journalist Is Not A Historian”

December 10, 2013 in Politics, Videos | Permalink

An excellent interview by Richard Hefner with Mike Wallace in 1984, when the journalist was at the height of his powers with 60 Minutes snaring fifty million viewers some weeks. What’s unsaid here is that Wallace was also at a personal low, depressed and contemplating suicide as the Westmoreland trial proceeded. The interview begins with a discussion about a Wallace profile of Oriana Fallaci.

Tags: ,

“Whatever Gentleness Or Wisdom Or Love I Have, It Only Comes Out In Extraordinary Or Cruel Circumstances”

December 8, 2013 in Books, Videos | Permalink

Here’s a video from the New Yorker site with a frequent contributor to that publication, the short-story writer George Saunders, whose work is as informed by genre films and stand-up comedy as by literature. I can’t tell you how many times this year I’ve found myself thinking, from out of the blue, about “The Semplica-Girls Diaries,” a selection from his most recent collection, Tenth of December.

In this video, Saunders refers to Donald Barthelme’s essay, “Not-Knowing,” which you can read here.

Both Saunders and Barthelme have suggested reading lists.

Tags: ,

“His Body Abused, But His Mind Is Still Free”

December 6, 2013 in Politics, Videos | Permalink

It obviously takes not only an extraordinary person but also an extraordinary challenge to end up with someone like Nelson Mandela. The question: Now that he’s gone, who among us comes close to measuring up to him or will come close to that standard in the near future? Do we know that person’s name yet?

“Nelson Mandela,” by the Specials.

Tags:

“Adopting A Fixed Residence Went Hand-In-Hand With Cultivating Fields And Domesticating Animals”

December 5, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From Ian Tattersall’s Nautilus article, “In Search of the First Human Home,” which isn’t an easy assignment since the definition of “home” is a tricky thing:

“But if an archaeologist had to pick an example of the earliest structures that most resembled our modern idea of home, it would probably be the round houses built by the semi-sedentary Natufians, an ancient people who lived around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea (Israel, Syria, and environs) at the end of the last Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago. A typical Natufian village consisted of several circular huts each measuring about 10 to 20 feet in diameter; these villages testify to a revolutionary change in human living arrangements. Finally, people were regularly living in semi-permanent settlements, in which the houses were clearly much more than simple shelters against the elements. The Natufians were almost certainly witness to a dramatic change in society.

The end of the Ice Age was a time of transition from a hunter-gatherer mode of subsistence to an agricultural way of life. But it also involved a Faustian bargain. Adopting a fixed residence went hand-in-hand with cultivating fields and domesticating animals. It allowed families to grow, providing additional labor to till the fields. But becoming dependent on the crops they grew meant that people found themselves in opposition to the environment: The rain didn’t fall and the sun didn’t shine at the farmers’ convenience. They locked themselves into a lifestyle, and to make the field continuously productive to feed their growing families, they had to modify their landscape. Today, we carry out such modifications on a huge scale, and nature occasionally bites back, sometimes with a vengeance. Back in Natufian times, we catch a glimpse of this process in its embryonic stage.”•

_____________________________

Two anti-house songs from David Byrne:

“Burning Down the House,” 1983.

“Glass, Concrete & Stone,” 2004.

Tags:

“The Robot Is Balancing And Supporting Its Own Weight”

December 5, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Two-legged robot walks (somewhat unsteadily) outdoors at the University of Michigan campus. You can tell it’s not NYU because the robot isn’t trying to sell you weed or steal your backpack.

Will machines like this one be walking around on their own among us during our lifetimes? Maybe the Amazon delivery drone is merely Cyber Monday hoopla, but there would be plenty of uses for this type of system.

“Even After Many Years, It Is Still A Very Upsetting Story”

December 3, 2013 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Here’s an oddity: In 1991, Doris Tate, mother of actress Sharon Tate who was among those murdered by the Manson Family, appeared on To Tell the Truth hosted by Alex Trebek. The elder Tate became a campaigner for the rights of crime victims. This short-lived iteration of the venerable game show, which had a harder, more provocative edge than such fare usually has, provided a platform for Tate’s work. She passed away the following year as a result of a brain tumor. Begins at the 8:18 mark.

Tags: , ,

“Without The Dedicated And Well-Documented Cosmic Explorations Of Aldous Huxley…The Decade Would Have Looked Very Different”

December 2, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From a recent L.A. Review of Books essay by Steffie Nelson about the Los Angeles experience of Aldous Huxley, who enjoyed one final hit of acid and died the same day that JFK was assassinated:

“Huxley freely admitted that the novel as a form may not have been the best container for his prodigious flow of ideas – this is an author who was contracted, during his peak years, to produce three books a year. But Brave New World’s setting in a future where control is exerted through the monitored supply of mindless, artificial pleasure sounds uncomfortably close to our present reality. As recently as 2010, it was number three on a list of books Americans most want banned from public libraries.

I would argue that it wasn’t until Huxley moved to America — specifically, to Los Angeles — that the seeds of his lifelong fascinations with technology, pharmacology, the media, mysticism and spiritual enlightenment fully blossomed and bore fruit. It’s often said ‘The Sixties’ officially began with the death of JFK and America’s ‘loss of innocence.’ But without the dedicated and well-documented cosmic explorations of Aldous Huxley and his cohorts, the decade would have looked very different. It’s not an exaggeration to say that, without Huxley, Timothy Leary might never have tuned in and turned on, and Jim Morrison might never have broken on through.”

_____________________________

Mike Wallace questions Huxley, 1958:

Tags: ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »