Tag Archives: videos

Lists

Funny videos

Here’s the classic “Who’s on first?” routine from Abbot and Costello. Must-see comedy — still funny after all these years. It’s interesting to see how they distilled bits and pieces from their earlier routines into this.

Graham Chapman was part of that seminal group of British comedians known for “The Monty Python”, and other wonderful pieces of comedy. He died in 1989. Here is a segment from his funeral service. (Yes, it’s funny.)

Richard Pryor, on kids telling lies.

Have a look at how authorities respond to perceived terrorist threats in Australia. Not much different from the US, really.

Weird Al Yankovic’s “eBay” song, mashed up with a user-made video:

Here’s Bill Cosby on dentists (absolutely hilarious):

… and on natural childbirth:

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Thoughts

How many of my photos were stolen?

For the moment, this is a rhetorical question. I’ve been re-thinking the way I publish my photos online in view of the recent and very prominent theft of Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir‘s photos from Flickr. Call me naive, but I really believed, and still would like to believe, that people will wish to stay legal and pay for the right to use my photos, especially for commercial purposes. That’s why I’ve been publishing my photos at full resolution. I wanted folks who weren’t able to pay (developing countries, for instance), or only wanted a nice desktop background, to be able to download a photo of mine and enjoy it without financial obstacles.

But I talked with my brother this morning, and he told me some things that made me think twice about my approach. He’s a professor at a university in Transylvania (Romania), and he does a lot of field research in ethnology and religion. He takes a lot of photos, and shoots a lot of video. When people ask him for copies of his work, he’s very nice about it and does so, hoping they’ll respect his academic work and cite him or ask for his permission when they use it. But he’s been finding out that they don’t. They’ll reuse his photos and his videos, and he won’t hear about it until he sees his work somewhere else. Just recently, someone entered one of his videos in a contest as their own creation, and he found out about it only after that person won. It was very disheartening. He’s now thinking of watermarking both his videos and photos, and of only publishing lower resolution copies on the Internet. He’s tired of constant theft and no attribution.

So I had to ask myself: how many of my photos have already been stolen? I haven’t yet heard of or seen a particular instance, but I also haven’t really looked around to see. It’s probably just a matter of time before I start finding my work in someone else’s portfolio, website or printed materials. When you combine high-resolution photos with people that have no respect whatsoever for someone else’s hard work, you’re asking for trouble. As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, good people, those that respect other people’s property, are few and far between, and it’s best not to tempt the thieves or uneducated ones by making good photos easily available.

I’ve taken some steps already. I used to upload to Flickr at full resolution. Not anymore. Since they offered Rebekkah no help whatsoever, and even deleted the photo where she complained of image theft, along with the thousands of comments that she received there, I’ve lost respect for them. If that’s how they’re going to treat one of their best users, then I sincerely hope they get what’s coming to them, and I hope it’s a wallop.

I may also start to watermark my images. As much as I hate this (it uglifies an image, imo), I’ll do it, just to make it harder to pass my photos around without crediting them properly. I may also start to copyright my photography with the Library of Congress, and pursue damages to the full letter of the law (up to $150,000 per incident).

Finally, I may also stop uploading at full res to Zooomr. I keep waiting for them to push out the Mark III upgrade, and it seems that every time Kris is ready to do it, something happens to stop it. This week was the third time the promised upgrade didn’t materialize, and I’m pretty disappointed. Mark III is supposed to have this really nice image theft prevention built in, so I could continue to upload a full res, but restrict the sizes available to casual visitors or even my contacts at certain resolutions, and only make the full res size available to buyers. But if Mark III doesn’t show up any time soon — and since Zooomr has no photo replace feature like Flickr — I may just delete all of my photos, or make them all private. I do not want to see my hard work go to waste.

It’s a real shame that we can’t function equitably as a society, at the local, state, national or global level. If only everyone would respect other people’s property (physical or intellectual), things would work a lot better. One would think the concept of property has been around long enough for most people and cultures to grasp it…

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Lists

Great ads

I like to save great ads. I guess I’ve always been interested in cool advertising — the kind that gets the message across in a catchy, entertaining sort of way. Here are a few of my favorites. I’ll probably post more like these in the future.

This one’s for Ameriquest Mortgage. The title on YouTube is “I’m Her Daddy”.

This is a Women’s Health ad filmed in Australia and shown in Germany. A phone rings in a woman’s purse, and she… answers it.

This next ad is for the classic VW Beetle, and it’s from South Africa. Although very touching, the concept isn’t new, and is likely inspired by an old Disney cartoon. I have it at home, and I’ll try to look for the title.

A funny ad for L’Equipe, a French sports newspaper, actually asks parents to spend more time with their kids.

This next ad’s been making the rounds since last summer. It features a dancing midget. I can’t figure out what it’s advertising, but that dancing midget makes the ad really sticky. Just try and turn away while it’s playing… Overall, high on the weird factor.

This is an unfinished ad featuring 3D animated rabbits. It’s not in any language I know or understand, but I think it’s one of the Nordic languages. Great atmosphere, good warmth and the animation works very well.

Yes, I know, alcohol ads push alcohol, and that’s not cool, but this Bud Light ad is pretty funny. You’ll think the ending is predictable, but there’s a nice twist.

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Lists

Music videos

This is the original Jerry C video. For those of you who don’t know about it, he’s a teenager from Taiwan who plays the guitar. It goes without saying that he’s good, or else he wouldn’t have gotten over 20 million views. Judging by his later videos, he favors rock pieces, but fortunately (for him) he decided to play a classical piece in his initial video.

The wonderful combination of a classical score with a rock guitar struck a chord with people, and he became famous overnight. He’s gotten invited on TV shows, and also held concerts. If what I heard was right, he’s also been offered record deals. Here’s his official site.

Richard Hyung-Ki Joo and Aleksey Igudesman are a funny musical duo. They do stuff like this in their shows. Their site is here.

Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand band that likes on-stage banter just as much as playing whimsical music.

Quinn Sullivan is a little boy that can play the guitar and sing. It’s funny to see him sing adult lyrics. I have to wonder if he knows what they mean.

The Yoshida brothers play the Shamisen, which is a traditional three-string Japanese instrument related to the guitar. But they play it very differently, and that’s what sets them apart. They’ve got a TV show appearance video here, but I prefer the more polished music video below.

This pan flute music video from the Andes, called “Espiritu Andino” is pretty cool.

The pan flute is also a traditional Romanian instrument, but the playing style differs there. Here’s one of the undisputed masters of the instrument from Romania, Gheorghe Zamfir, in concert.

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Lists

Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-14

Today’s calorie-free serving:

  • Clive Thompson from the NYT has a detailed write-up of what’s involved if small bands want to get their name out there these days. The almost-requisite MySpace page is a given… But while the web makes it easy for them to get their names out there, keeping up with the fans becomes a full-time computer job — just what they were trying to avoid when they became musicians. And at some point, the relationship reaches a plateau. A single human being can only keep up with a limited number of fans before they are overwhelmed. But the fans don’t care, they each want personal interaction. Sounds like a very non-fun experience for the musician.
  • Mandy Sellars in England suffers from a very rare condition called Proteus Syndrome. She will likely lose her legs. The article talks about her desire to experience life, and daily struggles.
  • This is good reading for us IT geeks: Top 7 things system administrators forget to do.
  • The NYT has a great profile of Walt Mossberg. The article not only talks about his career, but also about where things are going in terms of journalism when you factor in this “new media” we keep hearing about…
  • Mental_floss talks about the world’s most wanted (and expensive) poo. It’s ambergris. Yuck.
  • Look At This has posted a full-length movie called “When the Wind Blows“. It’s about an elderly couple who build a bomb shelter. When nuclear war breaks out, they survive, but unfortunately succumb to the fallout radiation while waiting for the government to help them. Here’s a direct link to the video.
  • According to this article, Bill O’Reilly uses old propaganda techniques to bias his listeners toward those he doesn’t agree with. Interesting stuff.
  • A pair of falcons has made their nest in the building of the San Jose City Hall, and they’ve installed a falcon cam for us web visitors. Neat!
  • Some charlatan who claims he’s Jesus Christ incarnate is fooling plenty of people down in Orlando. Don’t these people bother to read the Bible?
  • A brave little terrier saved 5 New Zealand kids from being torn up by violent pit bulls. Unfortunately it ended up so injured they needed to put him to sleep, but the children weren’t hurt.
  • Apparently ceiling height can affect how people think and act. A taller ceiling can make you more creative and artistic. Very interesting stuff!
  • Weirdomatic has a post with examples of old, creepy ads. I don’t know, Max Factor’s beauty micrometer seems reasonable enough, given the need to look fairly perfect on screen. Have a look and decide for yourselves.
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