Swahili Wikipedia

Wow!
My friend Ndesanjo Macha attended the recent Wikipedia conference and was featured in the New York Times for his work on the Swahili version of Wikipedia.
I'm not sure which is cooler, NYT coverage, or helping to create a web based free content encyclopedia in your own language.
I'll vote for the wiki.
Be sure to check out his blogs.
http://jikomboe.com/
http://digitalafrica.blogspot.com/
http://mwongozo.wordpress.com/

File under parasites #3

Hideous Kinky
Originally uploaded by SteveFE.

Great macro shot.

File under parasites #2

Chad Wood: Tree parasite (2)
Originally uploaded by orangeacid.

art that gets under your skin

Tick
Originally uploaded by SteveFE.

Hahaha...
Get it?
Arty picture of a tick...

So I get started on this parasite trip.
Go to Flickr.com>Explore>Creative Commons>Attribution license, and do a search for parasites and you come up with stuff like this.
This amazing arty picture of a tick burrowed up to its neck in this person.
Beautifully composed and exposed shot that makes my skin crawl.
Amazing stuff.

Bird Flu PSAs

Chad has some really neat posts about his experiences covering the bird flu in Indonesia. He's doing a bit of online brainstorming to try to come up a PSA/public health education program to help out. Some good suggestions are using SMS messaging, or hijacking the Indo version of telenovelas, called sinetrons to spread a better meme.
Let's help them come up with a Mr. Yuk for H5N1.

(Mr. Yuk via wikipedia.org)

Bird flu

My friend Chad is back to blogging at http://jakartachad.blogspot.com with some great posts about the avian flu outbreak and the government responses. While he describes some horrific and frightening incidents, he once again manages to put a human face on this tragedy. Check it out.

What I did on my summer vacation...

100_0317
Originally uploaded by NC Sylvis Photos.

Missed this guy like crazy.

What I did on my summer vacation...

080406
Originally uploaded by NC Sylvis Photos.

Missed this one too.

Pouringdown

Wow...
http://pouringdown.tv/
What the hell am I doing??
I need to update my lame excuses book.
-No time
-No money
-No camera
-No talent
-Bad parents
-Planets out of alignment
There, everything's covered.
Now I can get back to sitting around in my underwear, searching Youtube for girls gone wild videos, eating fried egg sandwiches, and draining any scrap of creativity I have left.

48 Hour Film Project debrief

Sorry for leaving everybody hanging.
I was so burnt out from the process that I fled to the comfort of Hogtown for a much needed vacation.
Now that I'm back and I have some perspective on those 48 hours, I'll try to make some sense of it all.
Our genre was horror, our prop was bubble wrap, our line was "It's just like my mother always told me." , and we had to have a character named Bob or Barbara Jones.
We had a great crew of volunteers to help out. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.
We had a great time, and pulled some hellacious allnighters wrasslin' with this beast.
It was fun, frustrating, and like all short/intense relationships, ultimately a heartbreaker.
To make a long story short, Team Daydreamthief did technically complete a film in 48 hours, although we missed the deadline to turn in our project by about 20 minutes.
Because we missed the deadline, our film was not eligible for the contest. Bummer.
Bummer may be the wrong word. The film we turned in was by no means a completed project. More like a very very rough draft.
I'll post some more notes on this experience and I'll try to get a copy of our movie up on the web to pick apart as a lesson in how not to make a movie.

48 Hour Film Festival

I'm in the middle of the Greensboro 48 Hour Film Festival.
http://www.48hourfilm.com/greensboro/
Team Daydreamthief is rocking it old school.
Good times!

What's beef?

Whether you're a Democratic-Republican or a Federalist, pour a little bit of mead on the corner for the original gangsters.
202 years ago today Vice President Aaron Burr fatally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
Booyaka!
Better watch your step when you besmirch the character of cabinet member who packs a flint lock gat.
RIP Hambone.

(image via wikipedia.org)

A declaration of independence

Everyone put their burgers and kool-aid down for a few minutes and let's just take some time to really read this document and think about how this experiment is going.


In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Enjoy your fireworks show.

William S. Burroughs - Thanksgiving Prayer

While technically this is a "Thanksgiving Prayer", this piece by Burroughs really cuts to the dark heart of this holiday. There are a lot of great things about this country, but there is also a really dark aspect to our history. Leave it to the deviant gentleman junkie to pick at the bloody flag that covers the foul smelling wound that America won't disinfect.
Mission accomplished, Dr. Benway.

A little UAV lite taking you up to news hour...

I'm going to start collecting defense contractor videos. Dig that music. I picture some Israeli humming this little ditty while he's hunting down targets. Angel of death elevator music.

That Hawking's such an A-hole...

Colbert nails Stephen Hawking.
Score another one for the gut!

Homeland security

Okay, my man is laying it all out for the Charlotte city council. No ice in the arena, somebody with their hand in the pie, and now a rogue helicopter pilot flying between the magnolia tree (you know the one) and his property line. Looks like they're gonna just sit on their hands again. Well I urge my audience to help my friend out and call John Walsh and urge him to issue a America's most wanted alert.
Is George Shinn a chameleon lemon headed coward terrorist pussy? Maybe... maybe.

Let's open those neural floodgates

Just watched David Cronenberg's Videodrome for the first time.
Whoa...
It's not like I wasn't aware of this film before today. I had seen clips and read some brief descriptions of the plot. But nothing can prepare you for that kind of biomech hallucinatory horror. Amazing. I can't even imagine what that would have done to my 13 year old brain.
I love the original trailer for the film. Like something programmed by some Euro demo coders circa 1983. Beautiful. Looks like Criterion has released a great version with lots of neat goodies.
I had just watched A History of Violence, which was pretty underwhelming. This movie reminded me of the director that I know and love.
Long live the new flesh.

Mount Merapi

Threat levels are raised to their highest levels as approximately 1000 villagers flee from the volcano after an eruption. Let's hope that area will be spared another horrific natural disaster
I'm keeping one eye on the news and another on Chad's blog.

Wheels of steel

Browsing through Robotwisdom and I came upon this amazing video link of four turntablists named Birdy Nam Nam from Paris. Great to see people taking this artform in completely different directions. The scratching that came from the early days of hip hop, pushed by pioneers such as DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Grand Wizard Theodore, has blossomed into this artform all its own.