Tag Archives: day

Anonymous Targets Facebook on Guy Fawkes Day; Skimps on Text-to-Speech Technology.

It seems Anonymous has targeted Facebook on “Guy Fawkes” day (November 5, 2011), but still not invested in any better text-to-speech technology or graphics. Hey, guys. Here’s a site you can turn text into speech free. Sure it’ll have a commercial behind it, but maybe you can convince them to sponsor you.

The video below is a report, and the actual Anonymous video appears below…

Anonymous Founder at Headquarters. Vows to Take Facebook Down on November 5 Using His 1970 Voice-to-Speech Software and His 56K Modem.

Davis and His Muddy Jacket Spill

Okay so the last post was really boring. And the morning post was an April Fool’s joke I hope nobody got.

So let me end your week on a kinder note with my story about David and his mud spill.

His name was David but, to his parents chagrin, we called him Davis. “Hi is Davis there,” I’d ask. “Yes DAVID is here,” answered his parents.

So Davis had this really Liberace-like blue jacket with white fur lining. One day in maybe 3rd grade, Davis decides to jump from the sidewalk to a nearby piece of plywood that was resting still on wet mud. You had snow, but in New Orleans we just had muddy soil.

Naturally, the plywood sails along the mud like an Olympic ice-skater. Davis spills, and now looks like he’s been inside a porta-potty that rolled off a truck and down a hill. I remember Davis’ parents, and they were strict folks. They weren’t happy about the dry-cleaning bill, and I could see Davis’ fear in his eyes.

Flash forward a week later and he’s back wearing his blue Liberace jacket. He acknowledges that his attempts to wash and hide the jacket failed, and his folks were indeed not happy.

Now this is where a potentially forgettable moment becomes a favorite childhood memory. A lot of folks missed “the spill,” and back in the 1970s we weren’t all equipped with smart phones and cameras. So our storytelling is all we had. Despite having been disciplined, Davis’ lights up at the chance to retell what happened. He’s recounting his adventurous spill to the delight of a throng of classmates. We’re all listening intently like Davis was teaching sex ed. Of course me and Mason had seen the spill, but we enjoyed the reenactment equally.

Then Davis, in a moment of exuberance, decides to demonstrate the spill (carefully) for realism. Too real though. He does the exact same spill again. Into the mud. Same jacket.

I’ll bet his parents kicked his ass that night. But it was worth it (for me anyway).

P.S. Normally I’d keep last names hidden to preserve privacy. But I sure would like to find Davis, and don’t think he’d mind me sharing this story. He was David Preuss, and I don’t recognize any of the dozens on Linked-In or Facebook. Hey Davis, where are ya?

YouTube Allows Special Tubers To Post Past 15 Minutes

YouTube will now allow hand-picked compliant Tubers to post clips longer than 15 minutes.

“This is incredible news to me, and I plan to post more than 24 hours of footage a day,” said Charles Trippy in a quote I made up. “I’ll now be able to post footage from 5 different cameras and allow viewers to select what angle they view of my day.”

The vlogger, who has been posting every day for the past 4 years (estimate) will also take advantage of the increased free bandwidth by posting his entire library of outtakes.

“There were 72 minutes of mistakes from my celebrated “Puppy vs. Mirror” video that have not seen light of day,” continued Trippy in my fake interview. “I’m thrilled, and I know my sock accounts will rate my additional footage “thumbs up.”

2011 Prediction 6-9 Trillion Display Ads Seen by 45 People

comScore today announced that in the third quarter of this year (3Q 2010) about 1.3 trillion Internet display advertisements were served to people in the U.S. (a 22% growth from the same period in 2009).

We were too lazy to register to download the report, but not so lazy as to avoid making “wild, unfounded generalizations and predications” based only on that one piece of data…

  • In 2011 6-9 trillion display ads will be seen, with a 32% growth in online-video ads.
  • More than 95% of the ads will never be seen by human eyes
  • Of the 5% of ads that are actually seen in the U.S., 54.7% of those won’t be in the U.S.
  • Just 45 people will see the ads: a staggering 95% of some previous subsegment of the 6-9 trillion ads served.
  • 76.4% of the remaining ads will be seen by high-school kids ages 12-18 who impact .04% of the gross domestic product.

Now here’s what the report will really offer, with italics in my words.

  • The story behind Facebook’s staggering growth (everything edited out of Social Networking: the movie).
  • New strategies and innovative ad sizes offered by publisher (words like “target” and “accountable” and “ROI” will be included, and some sample ad formats will show how to be advertisers can ride publishers like a drunk Texas cowboy on a wounded Mexican steer).
  • Category-level trends and insights (both industries covered: financial, travel AND consumer-packaged goods).
  • Advertising success stories of mid-sized and niche publishers (including data that’s so powerful it’s almost as real as the 3D Yogi Bear… but less interesting).
  • Tools to generate more sales leads and evaluate competition (tricks like “put together a white paper, demand registration, then call the person 5 times in the next consecutive 11 days”).

Oh I’m just teasing comScore. But about the lower-case C…

My Best Video of 2010: Epic Kid Song Mix

I was excited to be in last week’s BarelyPolitical “Man Bat & Catwoman video” with Obama Girl, and post Mark’s obscenely-funny faux “behind the scenes.” It was great to be in Gay Leprechaun by Mediocrefilms. Fantastic to play the knife on Annoying Orange too.

But as far as my own videos go, this “Shnibl” remix video is the peak of my 2010. I can’t stop watching it. The backstory: My 6-year-old son, Charlie, grabbed an old camera yesterday, and did a little song and vlog called “Shnibl Show.” It made no sense, and that was its charm. After showing it to my wife and older kids last night (Katie and Patrick), we all roared with cathartic laughter we needed. Then I tweeted the following… and then there was this surprising response:

Last night's tweets led to this spontaneous collaboration of an ear worm.

So who is this masked man we call “songadaymann,” who sent me this lovely remix of Charlie’s song? He’s Jonathan Mann, also known for SongaTron and via his YouTube channel Rock Cookie Bottom. He’s been writing since he was 12 (just 6 years after my little Charlie), as he shares in his own fascinating bio video.

Most recently you may know Jonathan from his daily songs — the Paul Krugman tune as seen on TV, and the iPhone 4 Antenna Song played by Steve Jobs before his Antennagate press conference in July (2010) and wildly covered during the media hysteria that was iPhone4G’s launch.

Sure I knew about Jonathan, but I never imagined he new me — much less that he followed me on Twitter. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine he’d a) see my Tweet, b) turn Charlie’s little jingle into a killer remix in hours. And it’s friggin’ awesome. It’s like Beatles meets Partridge Family meets hip hop. I had considered writing MysteryGuitarMan (who wrote the Nalts theme song), but was pretty confident he’s too busy and high profile for such a silly thing. Plus I didn’t want to try to hard… I was kinda hoping one would just appear.

This just in- Katinatreesee does the shnibl choir!

What do ya think? While I have your attention, I’d value your feedback in comments (I’m back to reading ’em) on my new YouTube channel design. It may not lok like it, but I’ve been fussing with it for about 6 hours (solo).

Tired of Waiting for Permission to Make My Art (Felicia Day)

I always get a bit upset when people don’t recognize the name Felicia Day or The Guild. Almost like the face I get when I say, “are the Phillies going to make it to the Superbowl?”

If there was a little Felicia Day doll I’d buy it for my daughter (then steal it). She’s so cute, neurotic, nerdy, sincere, curious, passionate. And ever time I see her on television (more and more often), it’s like I’m watching my sister or a neighbor. Did you see her in Dr. Horrible? What about Fox’s Lie to Me? Dang- her nervous chemistry with Brendan Hines while a guy might blow up the White House?

If Ashton Kutcher is the Florence Lawrence of online video, then Felicia Day is Katharine Hepburn or Judy Garland.

And if I wasn’t already a fan, check out the “best acceptance speech ever” (Tim Street says) from her Streamies award.

Did you know Kim Evey (who produces the Guild) is the spouse of Greg Benson of Mediocrefilms? Greg directed some early episodes, and they shot some of it in their home. Sometimes when I’m talking to Greg I ask him to scream “I love the Guild” to Kim. And Kim screams back, “I love Norts or whatever his name is.”

So I’m only 3-degrees of separation from Felicia. And I will meet her some day, and have nothing to say. Just stare like a weirdo.

Ugly Shirt Day: Jan. 15, 2010

I’ve proclaimed it “Ugly Shirt Day” on January 15. There’s not much else going on this month, so why not? Dig into your wardrobe for the nastiest-looking shirt you can find, and e-mail a photo of you wearing it to uglyshirtday@gmail.com. Be sure to name the photo with your username (YouTube or other) so I can credit you. And you never know… someone may want to buy that ugly shirt.

Send it by Wednesday (Jan. 13) if you can. In fact, just go do it now before you forget!

I’ll post the video on January 15 (Friday), so if people give you grief for wearing the shirt that day, you can simply tell them to piss of and do a YouTube search for “Ugly Shirt Day.”

Let the games begin!