About a year ago I was wondering how I could use the web to make myself be more productave, I decided that I wanted an easy to make to-do lists, share them with friends and visa versa. In July I spent a few days with my good friend Chrys and we began designing and programming the site (I did most of the designing and Chrys did most of the programming that PHP magic elludes me). Now almost six months later we have gotten the website known as “twodoit.com” to a stage where we can launch a beta version for feedback and bug testing.
I’ve embedded a demo below, if you are intrested give it a try: http://twodoit.com.
Today is Blog Action Day, I am proud to be participating in this for the third year in a row. For those of you just joining us now, Blog Action Day is when thousands of bloggers around the world dedicate a post to one specific topic or threat (2007 was the Environment then 2008 was Poverty) this year it’s Climate Change. The 10,403 blogs participating this year include but are not limited too: whitehouse.gov, The Google Blog, Mashable and Greenpeace USA (no surprise there).
I don’t really consider this blog a forum for serious topics such as climate change or global poverty, mostly I like to talk about films I’ve seen and occasionally dabble in some new technology or website that intrigues me. However I try and post every year on blog action day because these issues are quite important to me, and this years theme effects everybody in one way or another.
Back in 2007 I dedicated my blog post to climate change and I was thinking of being lazy and just reposting that. However instead I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the state of things purely opinion.
The good news is that in the past five years we’ve seen a major trend in the direction of more climate friendly products from cars to washing machines consumers are telling corporations that they want environmentally friendly products. Hybrids and fuel efficient cars rule the roads and many products boast a high environmental rating on the tag. Good news certainly however it’s not enough and there is still a lot to be done, there are tons of things you can do to decrease carbon emissions you know them inflating tires, washing in cold water; all that fun stuff. One of the best things you can do is shop smart, climate change or not there is one thing that every corporation responds to: money. Buy environmentally friendly products boycott the polluters, personally you’ll be emitting less and saving money but you’ll also be sending a powerfully message. Lets hope that this trend of green capitalism not only continues but increases exponentially over the next five years and into the future, but it’s really up to consumers to make the decision weather we’ll be living in a greener world or not.
In closing I thought I’d share a neat blog from everybody’s favorite search engine talking about what they do to make the world a little greener: Google Blog.
That is all for now, back to my usual trivial nonsense next week.
In today’s installment of ‘If I was head of a network’ I will take the seat of a cable network executive and choose four shows from the past decade that I would have made a bid for once they got the axe on broadcast.
With the exception of ‘Alias’ none of these shows ran for over three seasons and if you ask me a good chunk of the blame can be placed on the network.
So lets say I am the head of ‘The TF’ a channel that comes with your basic cable. (To spice it up we also have a deal with Hulu). These are my picks (arranged from, ‘I would jump in front of a train to get this show on my network’ to ‘I would like to have had a few more seasons but if not, it ended well as is’).
1) It would be hard to have a list of great shows canceled to soon and not have ‘Arrested Development’ on it. If you have never seen ‘Arrested’ stop reading this garbage, run to your local video store and rent all three seasons. It may take a three or four episodes to warm to however after that you’ll be hooked on what was, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, the funniest show to ever hit airwaves. I don’t want to judge but from what I can tell, the network messed this show up, throwing it in all sorts of crazy time slots, even airing an episode during an opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics! Creator Mitchell Hurwitz said he felt he had taken the show just about as far as he felt he could, however I still would have made a lucrative bid to bring ‘Arrested Development’ to my cable network.
2) I guess the only way to describe what happened here was that ‘television was just not ready for Pushing Daisies’ seriously. This show from Brian Fuller (who left ‘Heroes’ for it), is amazing, it’s dark but upbeat, morbid but happy, and very, very colorful. A man who can touch dead people, bring them back to life just long enough to find out who killed them and collect the reward. When I think of this show one word springs to mind, ‘delightful’, it actually makes me happy watching it it’s TV’s anti-depressant.
3) From Joss Whedon creator of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ came ‘Firefly’, canceled after just 14 episodes. The premise was simple; a western in space. A bunch of soft hearted smugglers always just one step ahead of the Alliance, hoping from one quirky terraformed planet to the next always delivering cargo on time and undamaged. Think ‘Han Solo heads to the Ok Corral’. An elaborate pilot was written for the series which took time to carefully introduce each member of the large ensemble, but the network felt that it did not offer enough action and demanded Whedon write a faster paced first episode, that’s where things began to go array. Hungry for more action the network took the episodes they had shot, which in order told a coherent story, and aired the ones with the most action first. (Imagine watching ‘Lost’ or ‘Heroes’ in order of which episodes had the most action).
4) Of the four shows on this list, Alias is the least deserving. It got a great run of 5 terrific seasons fully supported by the network. I stuck it here because I love it so much and would have loved another season or two (a network exc. thinking with the heart not the head). Season 5 felt a bit rushed although they were a bit limited with Jennifer Gardner’s pregnancy and several other people leaving. I feel if we had gotten a sixth season it would have allowed a bit more exploration of Prophet 5.
There you have it, feel free to comment, argue, sympathize, weep, express your rage, (Browncoats go to town).
Finally, I was thinking about including Rob Thomas’s ‘Veronica Mars’ however I just started watching so I can’t really say for sure. I’ll give it an honorable mention.
As I was doing my daily internet trawl I came across a very puzzling gem over at /film.
It’s a video that popped up online a few days back, check it out then I’ll explain.
Good yes? The question is, what is it? Apparently it has a bunch of Half-Life related stuff but it also uses music from Lost and if I’m not mistaken around the 5:40 mark there is music from ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’.
Many people have suspected that it’s a viral marketing campaign for a new Half-Life game but I tend to doubt this because of the music. I don’t think a game publisher would go to the trouble of acquiring rights for this music when they could just use songs from the game.
There are a few things we know, the description on Youtube reads: “This is a early temp version. Will be deleted soon” that may explain the mixed music sources. Also according to /film this video was shot in the Netherlands.
There is also a website now: www.whatsinthebox.nl which is just about as helpful as the film it’s self. But your welcome to check it out.
So what is this? My theory: it’s a student film or something made by some people who really just like to mess with our heads. Whoever made it knew what they were doing the effects are really amazing considering what it is. Whoever made this spent a lot of time and effort on it including making a website. I doubt it’s a company effort because of the copyright music issues.
But whatever it is I eagerly await the next installment. If you find anything interesting let me know.
Disclaimer: the following post has massive spoilers about Heroes, Lost, and Fringe if you are not up to date on any of these and don’t want anything spoiled I suggest you read this or this or any of the other fine posts my blog has to offer. However if you are up to date on one or two of these shows but not all 3 I have made it easy for you with a little message before each paragraph telling you what the paragraph spoils.
Heroes and Fringe Spoilers here;
I follow 3 dramas that are currently on television, ‘Lost’, ‘Heroes’, and I just started watching ‘Fringe’. It was in a recent episode of Fringe where Olivia (Anna Torv) discovers that John (Mark Valley) is not actually dead (or it appears that way). This is when I realized that the three shows I watch all have something in common; (no it’s not that JJ Abrams co-created two of them), they all have dead people popping up going “surprise, we were part of a creepy lab experiment”, or “surprise I’m only a hallucination that you and a few others can see”. The latter of those two would be Linderman (Malcolm McDowell) from ‘Heroes’.
Keep in mind I am a big fan of all of these shows, and most of the time when somebody who was dead pops back for a visit it’s awesome. So I am not posting a hate rant, merely an observation that on television death is not what it once was. Gone are the days of ‘The Fugitive’ when Dr. Kimble’s wife died we knew she would not be coming back.
Heroes spoilers here;
Look at it, Heroes is, awesome. Yet pretty much in every episode this season they have brought back a character who is dead or as good as dead, Nathan, Linderman (yes hallucinations that more then one person can see do count), Adam, and Future Peter (but he can’t die so that doesn’t really count).
Fringe spoilers here;
Now look at Fringe, Agent Scott, died in the pilot came back in episode 4. Fringe is still young I’m sure we’ll see this again.
Lost spoilers here;
Finally Lost, who knows what’s going on there? In season one Jack kept seeing his dad (yes it was a hallucination), however in season 4 when Hurly looks into Jacob’s cabin he sees Jack’s Dad (Christen Shepherd), looking alive and well.
You’re probity thinking I need to watch shows grounded in reality like ‘ER’ ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ and ‘House’ however I also discovered a theme with those shows, they all take place in hospitals!
So on TV today you can choose between a show that takes place in a hospital or a supernatural show and I choose supernatural.
Ok it’s been over a week but I was just letting my last brilliant post sink in. That sounds a bit egotistical and pompous but seriously I just was busy. But good news for you horror/halloween/odd fans. I will be one of MANY mirror providers for this years DVX User Hallows Fest. This festival is a ritual that occours ever year on The DVX User Forums
In case you have not heard Raidohead is releasing a new album called “In Rainbows”, it’s not necessarily the music that’s revolutionary but the way in which they plan on selling this puppy. Radiohead does not have a big label backing this album in fact they don’t have one at all, no they have decided to go the way of the Artic Monkeys, no label. However it’s not this labelless fad that people won’t shut up about. It’s the fact that on October 10th the whole album will be available for download for however much you want to pay! To be more clear say you don’t want to pay for the privilege of hearing In Rainbows, you don’t have to! Say you want to pay 80 pounds (the site is in pounds but for those of you who are not up on world finance that’s about 162 US bucks), you can. That’s the genius not only is Radiohead getting endless amounts of publicity they are also letting costumers download the whole thing for free, if they wanted. This is where human nature comes in, take the average man lets say Travis Fantina well he hates spending money however knowing that he does not have to pay for something will make him more inclined to pay for it. See when people extend you an offer of good will you are more likely to repay them.
I have no plans of spending anything close to what I would for a normal CD however I plan on giving two or three pounds. While there are some who will exploit this system, this is of corse there right as Radiohead is allowing free downloading, I feel that many will take my own point of view and put a few coins in the cup.
There is no doubt that Radiohead will make money not only from people like me paying a little for our downloads but also for die hard fans Radiohead is also a Diskbox set which includes a CD (with some bonus songs) 2 vinyl records, some digital photos and artwork along with some other neat tidbits.
Well it’s October, and most somewhat credible blogs are saying that Apple will be releasing there latest OSX “Leopard” this month. Quite exciting news for us Apple fans, however I have no real plans of upgrading until I buy a new computer (sometime in the spring I hope).
I really have nothing to say other then I am utra-excited (like more excited then I was when Tiger came out) and I hope to review this amazing OS within a few weeks of it’s release (If I can get my hands on a computer running it).
I recently signed up for one of the coolest things ever! Blog Action Day, basically on October 15th bloggers will post something about the environment, what we’ve done to it what we can do to help anything along those lines. If you’re a blogger I definitely encourage you to go check it out!
Travis Fantina (website)...
About a year ago I was wondering how I could use the web to make myself be more productave, I decided that I wanted an easy to make to-do lists, share them with friends and visa versa. In July I spent a few days with my good friend Chrys and we began designing and programming the site (I did most of the designing and Chrys did most of the programming that PHP magic elludes me). Now almost six months later we have gotten the website known as “twodoit.com” to a stage where we can launch a beta version for feedback and bug testing.
