David Bowie Was An Internet Pioneer

BBC: David Bowie: The internet pioneer

David Bowie is best remembered for his music - but he was also groundbreaking in his use of technology, not least his internet service, BowieNet, which launched in September 1998.

In a time before Instagram, YouTube, Twitter or even MySpace, most artists provided little if any online material to their followers.

But Bowie's platform not only offered a wide variety of exclusive content, but also several ways to interact with the singer himself.

"In my view, BowieNet had to be the most groundbreaking reachout to fans that I have ever seen any artist ever do," Craig Carrington, one of its users, says.

"He just had the attitude that if he was going to do it, he was going to do it right."

Update: BowieNet: how David Bowie's ISP foresaw the future of the internet (The Guardian).

WNU Editor: He may be gone, but his music will last for the ages.

This Video Shows Why Joss Whedon's Serenity Was A Unique, Genre-Bending Movie

CSN Editor: For Serenity out-takes see the video below.

The Entire Dark Knight Movie Trilogy In Three Minutes (Video)

Video: Watch The Entire Dark Knight Movie Trilogy In Three Minutes -- Wired 

Director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, which concluded last summer with The Dark Knight Rises, is probably one of the most well-executed comic book hero franchises in recent memory. So good, in fact, that every now and then it’s nice just to have a little taste – even when there isn’t time to watch all three flicks back to back.

 Luckily, the folks at Screen Rant have done us all a solid and crammed all of the best moments from the three films into one three-minute clip (above) for those who need a Bat-fix, even when there isn’t a lot of Bat-time. Three movies. Three minutes. One great way to bask in the world of Bruce Wayne.

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My Comment: Hmmm .... makes me want to watch all three films tonight.

Watch The Entire Firefly 10 Year Reunion Panel

My Comment: 10 years already .... wow.

Some Star Wars Fun

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars IV - A New Hope (1977) Photo: Allstar/LUCASFILM

Star Wars Superfun Update -- Dark Roasted Blend

Star Wars as You've Never Seen Them Before - in Geek Art and Fan Creativity!

Just finished watching the original trilogy in Blu-ray edition (highly recommended, by the way) - and was pleasantly reminded that we need to update our long-running popular "Star Wars Fun" series (Part 3, Part 2, Part 1)

Since our last update, Star Wars Universe has seen some near-Big-Bang explosion of fantastic art and creativity in made items... inspired by the classic, near immortal, interstellar story of Grand Conflict Between Good and Evil, full of Betrayal, Peril and Redemption at the most importunate times... but I digress; true Star Wars fans stay away from big words and prefer visual proof. Here it is -

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My Comment: A little Star Wars fun.

The Hardest Movies To Turn Off Once You Start Watching Them

The Ten Hardest Movies To Turn Off Once You Start Watching Them -- PJ Media

I hereby provide my list of the Ten Hardest Movies to Turn Off Once You Start Watching Them. These may not be the best movies ever made — or they may be. But no matter where you come in on these films — no matter whether you intended to watch them or stumbled on them while lazily channel surfing — they grab you and won’t let you go. Or at least they grab me — which is more important, because I live here and you don’t.

Except for the first one — the most compulsively watchable film ever made — they’re not in any particular order. And any further suggestions will be welcomed and watched.

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My Comment: I totally agree with this list. And yes .... I love the movie HEAT.

The Flintstones Turns 50: The Five Dumbest Moments

From The Christian Science Monitor:

The Flintstones is a classic. Fifty years after the show first aired, Fred, Wilma, and the gang are still popular enough to gain a seat atop Google's homepage. But their place in the cartoon pantheon doesn't mean that they're infallible. The Flintstones did some pretty stupid things in their day. Here are five of the dumbest. Click through to read them all.

- Chris Gaylord

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'The Flintstones' Rocks On At 50

The series chronicled popular culture and spotlighted icons of the day -- not of 10,000 B.C. but of the 1960s. Flickr

From Discovery News:

Fifty years ago, Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty debuted before American television audiences.

A half century ago, Fred and Wilma Flintstone and neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble put the mythical town of Bedrock on the map when "The Flintstones" cartoon aired on television for the first time.

The show, which parodied suburban life, was the longest running U.S. animated sitcom to be aired during peak viewing hours on television until another cartoon family, the Simpsons, claimed the record in 1997.

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Green Groups To Cameron: Be King Of The Environment!

This ancient willow tree is the epicenter of the Na'vi people.
WETA / 20th Century Fox

From Time Magazine:

James Cameron: nature filmmaker? It's a title even the director himself — a self-described tree hugger — might not have expected. After all, in his budget-busting moviemaking career, Cameron has engineered a planet-killing nuclear holocaust (The Terminator), created acid-blooded extraterrestrials (Aliens) and made a villain out of an iceberg (Titanic). His latest film, Avatar, the record-setting sci-fi epic filmed mostly with motion-capture cameras and computer graphics, is about as unnatural as a movie can get.

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The Secret Of A Film's Success Is All Down To Mathematics, Claim Scientists

Formulaic: A scene from Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith, which fits the mathematical formula perfectly

From The Daily Mail:

Ever left the cinema feeling the film you have just seen is more than a little formulaic? You could be right.

Research shows that many modern blockbusters follow a mathematical formula that ensures they grab our attention.

It seems that they key to their success is not a stunning lead actor or a tear-jerking strip, but ensuring that camera shots of a certain length regularly recur.

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The Superbowl “Green Police” Commercial

From Watts Up With That?

My story today on changing out my incandescent recessed lighting for high efficiency LED units couldn’t have come too soon. I don’t have to worry now.

This video below is one of the most talked about Superbowl commercials today. You have to watch it more than once to catch all the visual gags in it.

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The Third & The Seventh: Unbelievable CG Video

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

From Gawker.TV:

Alex Roman's The Third & The Seventh is a montage of enchanting slow motion shots of cameras, chairs, space shuttles, explosions, stairwells, bulbous water drops, and a trillion other things. It's all computer generated and will blow your mind. Watch!

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Hat Tip: GeekPress

As Elvis Turns 75, Celebrity Worship Alive And Well

From Live Science:

If Elvis were alive, he'd be 75 on Friday. While his musical style and gyrations may have been unique, Elvis Presley's stardom and swooning fans can be explained by simple psychology, trends in technology and pop culture, and a look at our ancestors, all of which reveals why celebrity worship is on the rise.

"The Elvis phenomenon is only a case study of a wider psychological phenomenon," said James Houran, a clinical psychologist and president of 20/20 Skills, a human resources company.

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17 Movies We're Geeked Out For in 2010

From Popular Mechanics:

If you thought 2009 was a great year for movies, look out for 2010: From high-tech spy thrillers to mind-melters to VFX masterpieces, the upcoming season is filled with flicks for geeks. Here are the movies we're most looking forward to.

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Avatar Mirrors Emotions With Motion Capture

From Wired:

Go behind the scenes of 'Avatar' with James Cameron, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana to see the new technology used to capture actors' facial expressions in striking detail.

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The Science Behind James Cameron's Avatar

From Popular Mechanics:

It's the year 2154 and humankind has reached out to the stars in director James Cameron's new science-fiction epic Avatar. The movie takes us to an exotic jungle moon called Pandora where humans are the aliens and a clash is brewing with the natives. Cameron, who has served as an adviser to NASA to investigate a camera for a Mars mission, is known for taking the science in his flicks very seriously. So how did he do? Here we check on some of the movie's scientific bona fides with top researchers in their respective fields to see where artistic license and scientific plausibility meld.

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Google Wants To Stream TV, For A Fee

From FOX News:

YouTube, which is already trying out the movie rental business, wants to get into TV too.

Google's video site has been trying to convince the TV industry to let it stream individual shows for a fee, multiple sources tell me.

YouTube already lets users watch a smattering of TV shows for free, with advertising. Now it envisions something similar to what Apple and Amazon already offer: First-run shows, without commercials, for $1.99 an episode, available the day after they air on broadcast or cable.

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In 2012, Neutrinos Melt The Earth's Core, And Other Disasters

Scence from 2012 courtesy of Columbia Tristar Marketing Group

From Scientific American:

During an early screening of Roland Emmerich's latest disaster flick 2012, which opens today, laughter erupted in the audience near the end of the film thanks to corny dialogue and maudlin scenes (among the biggest guffaw getters: a father tries to reconnect with his estranged son on the telephone, only to have the son's house destroyed just before he could say anything). Nobody wants to take anything seriously in a movie like this, in which digital mayhem is the draw. But if it were an audience of physicists, the laughter probably would have started in the first five minutes. You can't take any of the science seriously, although I give the filmmakers credit for creativity.

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Sesame Street Celebrates 40th Anniversary with Premiere on November 10th

From Geek Dad:

COOKIE!!!

Cookie Monster is no doubt the least good-for-you part of Sesame Street but it was always my favorite. And then there’s Oscar the Grouch, who’s already been the subject of a Geek Dad post.

One of us.

Likely the Cookie Monster is the favorite of many others too, since Google placed him on their homepage to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary, which is Tuesday, November 10, as new segments will begin airing on PBS stations. There are preview clips available at the official website linked above but, be warned, there is video that turns on instantly, so if you’re not in the mood for Ernie, you might want to hit the mute button.

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How the Internet is Changing the Way We Will Watch TV

Splashlight; Courtesy of Broadway Video Enterprises and NBC Studios, Inc. (SNL icon)

From Scientific American:

The Internet stands ready to upend the television viewing experience, but exactly how is a matter of considerable dispute.

It should not be so difficult. In an age when nearly all forms of media are digital, where broadband signals course through the industrial world as surely (and as critically) as electricity and freshwater, it should be possible to sit on one’s couch, push a button or two, and call up to your television any form of video-related entertainment you desire. New-release movies. Last week’s Lost . The first season of Cosmos . Setup should not require an electrical engineering degree, and you should not be forced to sift through 10 incompatible search functions to find the shows you desire.

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