Brian Stokes: The Intermittent Super-genius

Where Is Brian? Ubatuba, Brazil

2008-05-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

A few hours south of Såo Paulo is a little coastal town called Ubatuba. Normally, this place would be bustling with tourists and surfers, but this is the beginning of the off season, which explains why we're the only ones staying at this Pousada (bed and breakfast). The weather is, well, disappointing so far. Apparently, we just missed a week worth of sun. Now it's pretty much overcast with alluring hints of blue sky here and there.

Food-wise, there's an abnormal number of pizzerias along one main street, the common self-service BBQ buffet places, a few japanese/sushi places, an arabian restaurant and a mexican place.

More to come...

Mash-up Idea: The Office theme vs. A-Ha's Take On Me

2008-05-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

This mash-up exists only in my head, but it's stuck there like toe fungus at the moment. The theme from the American version of The Office vs. A-Ha's Take On Me.

Succinct Explanation For Why ID Should Not Be Taught in Science Classes

2008-05-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

"An unknown intelligent designer did something, somewhere, somehow, for no apparent reason” is not a model.

--Wesley Elsberry

For some odd reason, relatively famous person Ben Stein (Jewish) decided to participate in a Creationist propaganda film called Expelled. Thankfully, this movie did not generate much buzz even from the religious folks who flocked to see the producers' other Hey-look-everybody-the-non-Christians-are-evil-so-get-outraged film, The Passion of the Christ. I haven't bothered writing about it before because the last thing I wanted to do was bring any sort of attention to this absurd creation. But others, like John Derbyshire over at the National Review have critiqued it well.

While it is fine for people to believe whatever they want about the creation of life, the filming and marketing of a propaganda film under false pretenses, with um, misinformation (or lies, maybe?) about what actually happened to certain scientists, and trying to get people outraged over Science itself (and non-Christians by association) is deceitful and it undermines the core of what their religion tells them to be as human beings.

Ben, even if you believe strongly that we were all created by a loving god and not by "mud hit by lightning" (Where did Darwin or scientists ever conclude that, hmm?), why would you collaborate on a project with these generally anti-Jewish producers?

And now I hear you're equating scientists with gas chamber operators? Come now.

Will the Real Issues Please Show Themselves?

2008-05-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

This is hardly the first time the network news outlets have focused on irrelevant nonsense instead of things the American people ought to be caring about. It is also not the first time that creating smoke screen non-issues has been used for political advantage (Swift Boating).

I'm referring to the whole non-issue about a former pastor that presidential nominee Barack Obama had some association with in the past. The alleged problem? This pastor allegedly made strong statements during speeches that some might interpret as negative, racial, and perhaps anti-American. (Never mind that in our country, statements like this are protected, free speech).

Obama calmly reacted to this, basically saying "I have nothing to do with these statements, whatever they might be." But the media has not let go of it, trying to fan the fire. Have any of them ever bothered to show or play these speeches in context, or even analyze what these soundbites might actually be saying? Of course not. (All except one radio station, where it was clear this pastor was unhappy to have his soundbites taken out of context.)

Then the ABC Debate fiasco. Instead of helping us elect a president who can get our country out of a recession and deal with our Wars, ABC chose to treat it as a game show with inane questions like "Would you wear an American flag pin?" and more about this irrelevant pastor.

Here's a great parody of how the Lincoln Douglas debates might have been like today.

Seriously hoping whoever gets elected can bring us back to being a mature, intelligent country again. Reality TV shows are making us all stupid.

Beatboxing with Scratching?!

2008-04-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

This dude seems to have swallowed a Technics 1200 and a Roland TR808 drum machine. Send help immediately! *ambulence siren sound*

More beatboxing examples here.

Nokia's "Get Out And Play" Site

2008-04-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this impressive site for Nokia's N-Gage platform (which sadly won't work with my Motorola KRZR. Bummer!)

Play the initial Break-out game while everything's downloading, watch the human "snake" and then try the pixelated human version of Break-out. Very clever!

via Guz off of Tumblr.

Fascism's Ugly Head: Your Laptop Can Now Be Screened at Border Crossings

2008-04-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

At what point do we stop calling America the "Land of the Free," or a "democracy" and call it what it's becoming, a fascist, totalitarian police state? It really doesn't matter what the reasoning behind policy changes such as this example, where cops can arbitrarily decide to peruse your laptop when you cross the U.S. border without probable cause. This is hardly the first example to take place in Bush's post-2001 America. The excuse to eliminate our Constitutional rights is the same as China's. "We must protect the country."

The one thing we have going for us is that, in theory, we can replace our leaders with those who'll revert us back to being a true democracy, with a Constitution, with civil rights. You know, those sorts of things we've been fighting to protect in the first place.

1980s HBO Title Sequence

2008-04-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

This is a charming little behind-the-scenes clip showing how a small New York studio made an elaborate intro sequence for the then=fledgling cable channel, Home Box Office (HBO). I just love the craftsmanship and time it took, the ingenious streaking effects done optically. The 65-piece orchestral theme. Plus, they even wrote a song* (reminds me of the "Coke Is It" jingle of that era) just for the documentary!

via Cartoonbrew
^*Performed by this guy.

The Intermittent Part

2008-04-13T03:43:00.000-07:00

One of the hazards of being an intermittent super-genius is the intermittent part. Creativity (along with happiness) seems to come in spurts and in my case, lately it seems like those spurts only appear when I'm mildly intoxicated and hanging out with a receptive, laughing group of people. Then, safety net in place, my mind takes bold leaps into the abyss of possibilities and returns with something amusing.

But most of the time, it wants to find comfort in things can't have right now, and that are possibly contradictory -- wanting a peaceful, sensible world of curious creative people working together, helping each other and others less fortunate, combined with a strange selfish desire to be famous, well-liked and wealthy. The former is only attainable in a small scale with lots of hard work, and the latter is something that's best when you're happy with yourself.

That's not always easy. Some of the things they tell you when you're not feeling happy about yourself (they being psychiatrists and friends) are don't compare yourself to others, set low expectations, follow your bliss, don't be too hard on yourself, focus on what you want or what actions you can take (vs. the things you can't control or trying to squelch the bad), smile, and don't forget to exercise.

I don't know about following your bliss -- my natural inclination would be just to nap, or walk around national parks all the time. I'd get nothing done at all, and would anyone pay me for that existence?

Difficult not to compare yourself to others. Friends and strangers have things you want -- houses, wives, children, cars, money, prestige, affection, free time. Sure, we can become desireless reeds like the Taoists suggest, but I'm not a vegetable, I seem to want more than water and sunshine. Besides, to get good at something, you must compare yourself to the best, not in terms of "My god, they're so much better than me. I suck." but more asking questions like "How do they do it and what do I need to practice?"

I've heard the Danish are the amongst the happiest people because they have low expectations. Victor Borgé was a creative genius, but other than him I'm not aware of successful Danes to admire. Claire Danes, maybe. She's cute.

Smiling is surprisingly difficult sometimes. I don't know if some stray botox entered my cheeks a while back or that somehow the feedback loop telling me "Ok, you're smiling" is stuck at "on" even I'm not smiling, but apparently I don't smile enough and am not realizing it.

Have to remember to enjoy what you have. That's certainly something I'm guilty of neglecting. Typically my brain is doing mental window shopping for the toys it lacks, yet when was the last time I used my scanner or watched that VHS tape of Robin Williams playing with dolphins?

Anyways, eventually the Super-genius part comes back, happiness returns (with groceries), coincidence and serendipity come over for dinner, and the five of you enjoy life as it was meant to be.

Bootie LA with surprise cameo from B-52's lead singer

2008-04-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

I went to my second Bootie LA event last night. Last time around, the venue had a packed upstairs for dancing and a somewhat chill downstairs. Both played mash-ups, though the downstairs ones were particularly bold combinations (Tom Jones "It's not unusual to be loved by anyone" over Blondie's "The Tide is High", The Muppets Mahna Mahna over several different tunes, etc.) while the upstairs stuck to more straightforward, though still novel arrangements including one with Salt N Pepa's "Push It" on top of Grease's "Tell me More". The crowds at these things seem to be diverse, not your typical "L.A." crowd. At the last one, I saw people dressed as Vikings and pirates, something you'd expect at a Comic Con party, not an L.A. club.

Last night's was at a larger venue, the Echoplex. The dancing area was still a dense sea of people, but there were more places to sit or even dance further away from the main area. Unfortunately though, I wasn't quite as impressed with the musical selection this time. (I think that's most of the fun at these Bootie L.A events -- the "Oh wow" of recognition when you hear two songs you know being thrown together and having it work.) Still, there were some highlights:

Yaz's Situation vs. Foreigner's Urgent
Nirvana's Come As You Are vs. a 70s funk groove
Toni Basil's Mickey vs. Material Girl vs. Quiet Riot's Cum On Feel the Noise
DJ Dangermouse's 99 Problems vs. Nena's 99 Luftballoons
Diana Ross's Upside Down vs. Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Right Round
Fergie's Fergilicious vs Salt N' Pepa's Supersonic vs Push It

Sometime later, the DJ got up and introduced a special guest: Fred Schneider of the B-52s! So I swam through the sea of people to shake his hand.

Web-based Random Generators: The Future

2008-03-30T13:37:00.000-07:00

My god, there are a lot of random generators out there now. Band names, insults, British town names (!?). There are portals with nothing but random generators now.

My poor old Random Logline Generator is feeling a bit under-appreciated. Been wanting to bring it into the modern world for some time now. I've been thinking of the ideal system for generators (including the RLG) since 1996 or so. Though I do admit sometimes too much grand thinking gets in the way of actually implementing things (Project Xanadu, anyone?).

Still, the random generators out there are fairly primitive (even compared to mine in some ways, which is written in old-school Perl). Sure, they're much prettier, written in PHP or Javascript, and some have extras like letting users submit words and their favorite results. But behind the scenes, things have not progressed much. For example:

Inflexible (Fixed) Grammar Sequences
Most of these appear to be using fixed patterns, typically just one to make a result. RLG's backend can support dynamic sequences.

Proprietary & Closed
While some of these newer generators can be made into widgets usable on various platforms (blogs, Facebook, etc), there's no standard way to grab results or portions of the results to make your own mash-ups of random things across sites.

No Editing of Results
All of the sites I've seen, what you get back is it. You want something else that's similar to what you got, but maybe you don't want "sexy accountants", you want something else but keep the rest? Not possible. Your only choice is to shuffle everything, getting a totally different result. (RLG had a klunky interface to do editing but I took down because few could understand how to use it.)

Here's what I propose: an open-source approach, akin to RSS and Atom, for getting randomized content at the atomic (word or image) level and at a sequence level, from multiple sources.

In plain English, this would enable the ultimate hat full of cards. Each "card" deck classified by what kind of thing you wanted, and as big as all the cards your "friends" or you had in the deck when you asked for it.

So if someone wanted to build a random anything generator client, they would make calls to the API requesting the tagged thing itself (e.g "occupation") and would be able to include their own lists of things, optionally making those lists available to everyone else too via subscription.

The interface should be RESTful, offer both JSON and XML results, and anyone with a web server should be able to host lists.

However it works, it needs to be fast enough to aggregate the results from all the sources, while maintaining the information needed to shuffle any subset of the results.

How about it, Google? Yahoo!? Anyone?

My 1970s Childhood TV Experience: The Krofft Supershow

2008-03-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Oooh, boy. They don't make shows like this anymore, do they? Kids minding their own business in a park are given balloons by some stoned adults in crazy spandex costumes who lead them them to downtown Atlanta.

Don't get left behind!
Take a trip with us today...
We will lead you to a land of dreams.
Krofft has some super shows;
They will blow your mind away
When you join us, you'll know why we say

Chorus:
It's just a crazy world
where anything goes down
and most of what appears isn't true
And in this crazy world
We like to be downtown
And laugh at life along with you...

The Krofft Super Show (x2)

My 1970s Childhood TV Experience: Jabberwocky

2008-03-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

I was a young boy near Boston during the early 70s. My portal to imagination was all the crazy children's TV programming on TV at the time. You're probably familiar with famous shows like Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Schoolhouse Rock, and Mr. Rogers. But there were also now largely forgotten, local programs produced, and some have stuck with me. I can't remember the episodes really, just the theme music and a bit of visual imagery.

Take for example, Jabberwocky, a show with a Gilliamesque animated opening sequence and a tune that is difficult to remove from your head once you hear it:
I've been looking for any sign of this show for years. (The Museum of Radio in NY did not have it.) Never expected to actually see it again. Thank you, youTube and Internet video!

TED: Dave Eggers and his After-School Pirate Supply Store Writing Center

2008-03-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I went to a Revenge of the Bookeaters fund-raising event for Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia project, an after school writing program for kids. Dave put both a magazine and a tutoring center in one place so that kids could have one-on-one access with professional writers. What's novel about the San Francisco location is that it's not "Center for Teaching Kids Writing" or some dull name -- it's a crazy cool pirate accessory store! Having that sort of atmosphere expands kids' imaginations, and writing just becomes a means to express and dignify children's ideas. Other places have opened around the country and even Ireland, all with a nifty theme. One is time travellers accessory store, another a superhero store with a capery... I love it!

Mystery Science Theatre 3K for Films You Have or Rent!

2008-03-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

It was certainly bound to happen. Remember Mystery Science 3000? An early 90s cable TV show with the combination of bad movies with comedic commentary, featuring silhouettes of the commentators sitting in front.

Now, a website called Rifftrax by some of the original cast of this show offers downloadable synchronized files to play along with popular movies you might already own, or have rented from sites like Netflix. Some even feature special commentator guests like Weird Al Yankovic.

Seems like this concept could increase rentals of less popular, even god-awful movies out there on DVD. I wonder if other meta-content sites like this will emerge and catch on.

Strange Coincidence

2008-03-20T10:59:00.001-07:00

I decided to watch Ricky Gervais's HBO series "Extras," now that I've been one. The first episode with Kate Winslet has two elements that parallel my experience: nuns, and someone with cerebral palsy. How bizarre! I wonder if Chris watched this...

Tablet Mac Now Available!

2008-03-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

Are you an illustrator, photographer, animator, or DJ? This might be the Macbook for you. No, it's not sold by Apple, but it's licensed by them and is essentially a Macbook Pro made of stronger magnesium vs. aluminum, merged with a very strong 13" glass screen covering a Wacom® tablet. Unlike the Macbook Air, it has your choice of CDROM or Superdrive, and unlike the Wacom® Cintiq line of portable tablet screens, you don't need a Macbook or Mac Mini standing by with a cable.

Of course you writers and accountants can hook up keyboards to its USB port if you really want.

Random Mash-up Idea

2008-03-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

"Easy" (Commodores / Lionel Ritchie) with "Cold As Ice" (Foreigner)

Comic: Trust Us, the Iraq War Pays for Itself

2008-03-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Life as an Accidental Movie Extra

2008-03-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

So yes, if you partake in extra-curricular activities in Los Angeles, there is always the random, remote chance you'll meet someone who'll invite you to a film shoot. If this happens, you will wind up on a movie set unexpectedly. Since there's generally not much exciting to do, the casting director or director (if he/she knows you and the scene calls for it) might very well ask if you "Do you want to be in the movie?"

The answer should be "Yes" with the following caveats:

It will involve waiting.
You might not get more than 5 minutes during the day to talk to your friend, who will be busy non-stop.
It may take all day; possibly two or more.
It will mean you are part of the hierarchy, somewhere below actors and crew.
You will likely meet very interesting people, some who do this sort of thing a lot, others like you, find themselves here for the first time.
You will probably feel like a pawn, with assistant directors giving you vague, sometimes nonsensical instructions just before the rehearsal; Those instructions might be irrelevant as soon as the camera rolls.
Asking anyone "What is happening next?" will result in "I don't know" up until after it happens.
You may feel uncomfortable, over-caffeinated and tired, but once it's all over and done with, you have the chance of being in something seen by millions of people.

The Truth is Up Here

2008-03-08T12:05:00.000-08:00

I'm in Vancouver rather suddenly, pretending to be a nurse on an upcoming movie. Not allowed to take photos, sadly.

Why? Well it has to do with who I met in DJ class back in April of '07, the creator of the 90's sci-fi paranormal activity TV show, The X-Files.

UPDATE: Saw Mr. Carter at an X-Files panel at the Arclight. He told me "You're in the movieee..." as he signed my autograph book. Whohoo!

What If Voting Were Global?

2008-03-05T19:36:00.000-08:00

Thought of the Day:

What would the world be like if instead of being confined to vote locally and federally, we could also vote internationally?

TED Talk: Purple Cows, and Being Remarkable To Those Who Care

2008-03-03T22:22:00.000-08:00

Marketing expert and Author Seth Godin talks about the changing landscape of creative success. The old model was to spend millions on interrupting people with the message about your product, a product that is "safe" and appealing to the masses. The new model is to recognize that "the idea that spreads, wins" and that this idea must be remarkable ("easy to remark about"), different, not boring, and appealing to people who care ("otaku"). If you let these people work for you, you win.

(The R.I.A.A raises its hand.)

"But can't we sue them? I mean, come on. They're ruining our old business model, and this new one where we can bully them into paying up is pretty neat. And we save so much $$$ not paying artists--"

Seth Godin stands up, answering "Well you can, but you'll lose. People will either get their intangibles for free or they'll care enough to buy them, preferably from the source. And anyway, you're boring now."

"Aww man."

(R.I.A.A stands up, sulks, walks out as Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, and I escort him out, consolingly)

"There there, cartel. It'll be all right. Have you ever considered a new career? Prison management maybe? Or smoking ban enforcement? I hear that's big in Europe now."

(R.I.A.A smiles hopefully) Ohhh!

To be continued...

Nanotechnology + Consumer Electronics = Magic

2008-03-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

Nokia's R & D group seems to be interested in developing super-cool, shape-shifting consumer electronic devices.

LifeFormz: Livin' In the Fridge music video

2008-02-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

One of the best ways to learn video puppetry, in my opinion, is to lip-synch to songs. It's how Jim Henson started -- he used the local TV station's record collection of Stan Freberg comedy sketches as well as popular songs. When I started LifeFormz, I discouraged new puppeteers joining us from jumping right into character dialog work.

"Aww, come on Brian!" they'd say. "This is just for fun, who cares if my head's in the scene or my puppet's head is flapping?" Well actually, the audience does. Do it right and the audience will believe in the character and respond to it. Do it wrong and it may laugh at how bad the puppet's moving or the funny dialog, but it won't have any connection to your character.

So when we started, all we did were music videos and very few spoken bits. With songs, we could focus on these techniques first:

Proper lip-synch
Eye gaze
Rhythmic choreography

This music video (to the song "Livin' In the Fridge" by Weird Al Yankovic) was actually one of the last clips I worked on before graduating and it was finished and shown after I left. Unfortunately, you can tell -- note the difference in lip-synch of the red monster for the song up until he gets pushed into the fridge. Head-flapping! Stiff! Heh. Oh well. I think it turned out rather well despite my absence.

I love how we somehow found a real fridge, yanked off the door and attached it to a fake fridge interior with holes in the back. Making all the food puppets was really fun. We learned a lot about coverage -- how do we fill up the time with the lead singer, cut to close-ups of activities inside the fridge, and keep things reasonably consistent. The psychedelic sequence was really fun to make although it's a bit crude. (Layers of S-VHS tape being duplicated over and over just don't hold up, apparently.)