US Government to Invest $250 Billion in Banks

The U.S. government plans to invest about $250 billion in possibly thousands of banks as part of a far-reaching effort to shore up the U.S. financial sector, and an announcement of the plans could come as soon as Tuesday, sources have told CNBC.

The planned equity investments are part of a U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. program. As part of the deal, the FDIC will insure all non-interest paying bank deposits and new preferred debt issued by banks.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with top Wall Street bankers on Monday to nail down the plan for the government to buy shares in financial firms to restore confidence in rattled markets.

The evolving plan marks a quick about-face for Washington policy-makers, who until recent days had been focusing on building an apparatus to soak up bad assets from banks.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, reported late Monday that the federal government plans to buy preferred equity stakes in nine top banks as part of its effort to battle the financial crisis.

Emphasis added by me.

So we've gone from trying to split up collections of toxic waste to Plan 9 From The Treasury Department!

In honor of this bold new step, I present a perfect YouTube video in tribute and commemoration.

Plan 9 from Outer Space mixed with Deltron

Now, I have to wonder. Did they devise this plan on October 10th, last Friday? That was the anniversary of the birth of Ed Wood Jr.!

Plan 9!

Gerry Anderson

And here's another leaked clip from Gerry Anderson's Eternity demo reel:

Gerry Andersons Eternity. Swatship cockpit view clip

IN A SINKING ECONOMY (side A)

IN A SINKING ECONOMY (side B)

I found these by searching Twitter.

Both are the excellent handiwork of Jakub Kanczugowski.

This first one in quick clippage does a tour of many features of the new PRS-700:

Vimeo embed code deleted.

This second one shows the unveiling of the Reader Revolution campaign here in New York City at DataVision, with some rare behind-the-scenes footage:

Vimeo embed code deleted.

I've grabbed this screensnap from the second vid:

This is Jim Malcolm, Sony’s Director of Corporate Marketing for Mobile Lifestyle Products. The Reader Revolution campaign is his baby. Well done, Jim!

youTag:

www.youtag.org

www.youtag.org/teste/projecao.php

palavras-chave: database movies . banco de dados . rede . indexadores . tags . metatag . vídeo online . interatividade

descrição e conceituação

Em tempos de tags, metatags e indexadores de busca, o quê é o nome da ‘coisa’ e o quê é o nome possível da representação da ‘coisa’?

Inspirado no conceito de ‘database movies’, o projeto youTag: gerador e de-indexador de vídeos online é um dispositivo de busca de tags e palavras-chave na Internet, associados a vídeos e fotos, como forma de criação de peças audiovisuais remixadas, re-significadas e ‘desautorizadas’ (de autoria muitas vezes bastarda) a partir de material previamente existente e disponível na rede.

O que está publicado geralmente está aceito, ‘normatizado’ e indexado. O projeto youTag: de-indexador de vídeos online propõe um deslocamento do estatuto de estabilidade associado aos tags e sistemas indexadores.

Representar idéias, sensações, sentimentos e ‘as coisas’ encontradas no mundo hoje se tornou para muitos uma questão de busca e acesso. Quando digitamos uma palavra no Google e aguardamos uma busca nem sempre nos damos conta de que o mundo vem sendo reorganizado segundo critérios que obedecem a uma lógica definida por indexadores e processos  lógicos baseados em algoritmos. Encontra-se de tudo (ou quase tudo) desde que hajam formas de substituição das ‘coisas’ por palavras-chave, por codificações que uma vez decodificadas, dão acesso a bancos de dados que permeiam nossa vida: textos, imagens, sons e vídeos.

Uma vez que os tags são a garantia da visibilidade na rede, são utilizados de forma estratégica, não estando necessariamente ligados a uma descrição fiel do conteúdo acessado.

O projeto youTag: pretende disponibilizar ao público/usuário uma ferramenta de re-ordenação e re-significação de seqüências visuais disponíveis na rede. Se o cinema explodiu como advogam os adeptos da idéia de microcinema, uma parte considerável desses estilhaços encontram-se hoje na rede, em sites como Youtube, Dailymotion, Myspace e Google video.

Os formatos que se estruturam a partir de banco de dados empregam formas de gerenciamento de mídias organizadas por algoritmos baseados geralmente em palavras-chave e outras definições atribuídas às imagens pelo autor ou programador. São trabalhos em que o usuário e seus inputs, suas decisões, planejadas ou intuitivas, exercem papel fundamental na construção de narrativas cinemáticas -- em maior ou menor grau, na maioria das vezes, pré-definidas.

O projeto youTag: incorpora conceitos ligados aos generative systems que descreve mecanismos que utilizam formas de processamento randômico e adquirem complexidade independentemente dos inputs iniciais.

A presente proposta considera que tal conceito pode encontrar uma ressonância interessante no circuito do audiovisual, em trabalhos que se ‘regeneram’ pela reorganização de dados indexados a partir de inputs ‘orgânicos’, ligados por exemplo à descrição de cenas ou construção de frases (como sugerido no site Flickr a partir de fotografias, por exemplo). Ironicamente, seria como se houvesse um filme/vídeo lógico associado a cada palavra de uma sinopse.

O projeto youTAG sugere um modelo de desnormalização, uma ‘intervenção econômica’ nos processos de circulação e fruição de formatos audiovisuais.

Entre tantas imagens produzidas diariamente por webcams, handycams e celulares, espontaneamente colocadas em circulação (25 mil uploads diários apenas no Youtube – o que definitivamente não resulta em experiências com significados relevantes em termos de contundência ou discurso expressivo), vale a pena pensar em reaproveitá-las, em atribuir novas configurações de sentido ao encadeamento seqüencial ou causal entre vídeos – seja em um processo de re-significação ou desnormalização.

Através da automação de rotinas de conversão e edição de vídeos em modo online, o projeto torna possível a reflexão em torno da forma como absorvemos e consumimos conteúdos através da Internet nos dias de hoje.

Projeto contemplado pelo Rumos Itaú Cultural Arte Cibernética 2006/2007 na categoria Produção de Obra em Arte e Tecnologia.

Criação e direção/Conceived and directed by: Lucas Bambozzi

Design e desenvolvimento tecnológico/Design and technological development: Claudio Bueno

Programação/Programming: Thomas Gonzales

youTAG é um projeto de pesquisa desenvolvido pelo grupo Interfaces Críticas

youTAG is a research project developed by the Interfaces Críticas group:

Lucio Agra

Priscila Arantes

Lucas Bambozzi

Claudio Bueno

Nancy Betts

Christine Mello

referências diretas

The World Generator/The Engine of Desire Bill Seaman

http://digitalmedia.risd.edu/billseaman/

Korsakow Syndrome, de Florian Thalhofer

http://korsakow.org

Google Will Eat Itself – projeto de Alessandro Ludovico e Hans Bernhard

http://www.gwei.org/index.php

moiNAG – generator NetArtGenerator, de Cornelia Sollfrank

http://net.art-generator.com/moiNAG/

Paisagem0 de Giselle Beiguelman, Rafael Marchetti e Marcus Bastos

http://paisagem0.sescsp.org.br/linguas.html

O Tempo Não Recuperado (DVD-ROM) de Lucas Bambozzi

sites: Flickr, Youtube, Myspace, Google video, Putfile, Break.com, Blip.tv, Metacafe, Vidnet.com, Revver.com

Description: Op het laatste Reader Digital Book model, de Sony PRS-505, is het mogelijk om tot 160 eBooks op te slaan. Met memory stick of SD kaart valt dit nog eens verder uit te breiden tot vele honderden extra.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.709617&w=425&h=350&fv=m%3D43501240%26type%3Dvideo%26a%3D0]

Now traffic is flowing in the correct direction on Fifth Avenue looking out of DataVision's window on the Sony Reader Revolution Cam.

Rep. Brad Sherman Martial Law

OK, kids. Time to go read American Gotterdammerung again!

Digitate un nickname temporaneo e sedetevi in poltrona. Scegliete un video del palinsesto e vedrete il vostro avatar comparire alla base del video player insieme agli altri spettatori, che in tempo reale si aggiungeranno o lasceranno la "sala"

Quando partirà il video (ottima risoluzione) potrete vederlo e dire eventualmente la vostra, chattando con i vostri vicini.

Sono le funzionalità del nuovo servizio online dei laboratori di CBS, visibile anche al di fuori degli USA.

Link | CBS Live Video

Via | Download Squad

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.705833&w=425&h=350&fv=id%3D42297]

There are now also character profiles. She is my favorite, Parker:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.705834&w=425&h=350&fv=id%3D42488]

This is a series that everyone should watch. So far, it's the only thing worth watching this new TV season.

Previously here:

Leverage: TNT December 2008
TV Networks Are Using A Leaking Service?
Leverage: The (Leaked) TNT Pilot
Leverage: Coming Soon To TNT
The Lever That Is The Internet

It has its own website.

I played hooky for a total of several hours today watching this. Some of it is simply spectacular!

They've enhanced the special effects -- and it's all seamless!

They've done things I didn't know were possible, like revising the Year Two titles with the classic Barry Gray/Vic Elms theme music and visual editing of Year One:

Those title shots never existed!

And they've given the date a breathtaking dynamic animation that has to be seen!

They've even corrected mistakes, like this classic error, which was originally the dark side of the Moon:

They also redesigned the Travel Tube to conform to the standing set!

This is all professional-level work. The sound editing especially surprises me. You'll think they had access to the multitrack masters! They insert new music and it's as if it was always in the episode!

They've also changed the chronology to integrate a coherent timeline (something the original series lacked big time!) and created a brand-new episode out of two of them!

I disliked this kind of thing when CBS did it to Star Trek. My sentiments here are different because this is a labor of love, created by Eric Bernard. I'd probably feel it was a desecration if it was a commercial product (which is actually Bernard's hope!).

I wonder if Gerry Anderson has seen this?

iPhone Paper Clip Stand

Website for PDF template

Sanctuary was pointed to at Sci-Fi Channel's site. Unfortunately, the propellerhead who did their site stuck so much frikkin Flash on one page that I couldn't get to the video to play!

So, like everyone else, I went to YouTube.

Within five minutes of episode one, I wanted to bail. It annoyed me slightly less than Gemini Division (which made me want to die after five minutes!), so I stuck with it.

I made it to episode three, then it all hit the fan:

You'll notice I haven't provided any links to the two web series I've mentioned here.

This is called revenge.

GERRY ANDERSON INTERVIEW 19/09/08 - BBC RADIO KENT - NEW SERIES OF THUNDERBIRDS REVEALED!

Well, this is news! Thunderbirds (the entire TV series) is coming to Blu-Ray Disc! I'm so far behind, now I can skip the DVD and eventually get the Blu-Ray.

This next one is eerie for us who are Supermarionation veterans:

Captain Scarlet & Colonel White - The Goliath Plan

Dear God Almighty. Please send an angel to evac me from this insane fucking planet. Thank you. Amen.

Previously here:

Jack Cafferty: Sarah Palin

I was rummaging through the treasure chest of Warren Ellis's archive looking for something else and came up with this gem of an essay:

Holmes

The actor Jeremy Brett found his way into his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes by giving the original stories the first close reading they’d had by an actor in many years. He found this line: “Holmes wriggled with pleasure in his chair.” And that was it. He was in. His pale, spidery, twitchy and explosive Holmes made everyone before him look stupid.

Go read the rest.

That also sent me to my old blog, because I recalled I put a picture of Jeremy Brett there (it's now here). What I forgot was a posting about some Sherlock Holmes episodes with Brett on YouTube. Shockingly, some of those are still up for viewing. If you like what you see, buy the DVDs!

And if that isn't enough to scare the shit out of you, look what a publication not given to bombast has to say after a different video clip on their site. The Economist: The Palin interview

I think what we're seeing is someone who thought she knew everything discover how little she actually knows, and it terrifies her.

Yep.

Qual'è da differenza tra questi due video?! Uno è realizzato da una famosa agenzia pubblicitaria, l'altro da un semplice utente che ha avuto un'idea originale. Semplice, no?!

Ninja cat comes closer while not moving!

Weirdly, clicking on a link in a French newspaper that I thought would lead to Sony France bounced me back to America's SonyStyle site for the Sony Reader.

There I found out they've launched a very ... sad ... promotion for the Sony Reader called the Reader Revolution. (Why does this seem like it's been done before? Has it? Did they do it before?)

This leads to a splash screen ...

Click = large sadness

... where there is actually a point to this (see red underlined text):

OK, I like that sentiment. So, I did the video. And it's not one of those things you can shunt off to the side and let run for its two minutes. No. There is interactivity:

Click = big

However, I was dumb enough to believe in a selfless act. No. Sony wants your email address in order to actually count your viewing as one-fifth of a five-view donation. So, I did that too:

Click = big

Then they wonder if you will let them spam invite four other people:

Click = big

Yeah, well, OK, it's for The eBook Cause. So I did that too!

As it turns out, there's more to this than just this silly retro- barfable- pathetic online campaign. There's actually going to be something happening at some stores that sell the Sony Reader. Click here to see Upcoming Tour Dates. You can get away with just putting in a zip code and area radius for store listings (if any) and a map.

In New York City, it seems that every Borders Store will be having an event on this Saturday, September 20th, from 11:00AM to 5:00PM. Check to see if that's the case where you live too.

Anyone who wants to see eBooks flourish: Go ahead and view the video and spam invite four friends. You -- and they -- can always opt-out of Sony spams emails after the first one arrives.

In the meantime, you'll be helping to get eBooks out there where the non-Internet everyday people can encounter and maybe even use them.

Reading and eBooks: A Revolution I Can Get Behind!

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

There's a video (22 minutes) and the text. The text doesn't have the ad-libs, however, so watch the video first.

Some excerpts I like:

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

Emphasis added by me.

She had The Calling.

What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

Emphasis added by me.

Damn straight. It reminds me of that little bit of dialog from the classic movie Sullivan's Travels:

You see, sir, rich people and theorists -- who are usually rich people -- think of poverty in the negative, as the lack of riches -- as disease might be called the lack of health. But it isn't, sir. Poverty is not the lack of anything, but a positive plague, virulent in itself, contagious as cholera, with filth, criminality, vice and despair as only a few of its symptoms. It is to be stayed away from, even for purposes of study. It is to be shunned.

More from J.K.:

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

And:

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Emphasis added by me.

I must reference:

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

-- Job 3:25

Back to J.K.:

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Emphasis added by me.

That "stripping away" is coming to many, many people, by the way.

J.K. worked in the research department of Amnesty International in London:

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Emphasis added by me.

There is much more. But these are the parts that I chose to highlight.

Go see the video.

Previously here:

J.K. Rowling Wins Lawsuit Against Fan
Orson Scott Card Rips J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling Trial Ends
J.K. Rowling Is In NYC For Her Silly Lawsuit
More About That J.K. Rowling Lawsuit
J.K. Rowling Is Wrong
Quote: J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling: A Year In The Life

Fox Interactive: 11%
Yahoo: -31%
Viacom: -12%
Disney: -2%
CBS: 95%
ESPN: -12%
ABC: 156%
Comcast: -34%
DailyMotion: 45%
Veoh: -47%

Cosa succede al mercato dei video online e in particolare al video sharing.  Stiamo assistendo ud una concentrazione di potere da parte di YouTube. Pochi sono i siti che resistono alla crescita vertiginosa del sito di video sharing più famoso al mondo.

Ma allora cosa accadrà al mercato dei video online?! Già ora, almeno in Italia, il video online è associato a YouTube (niente di più sbagliato, perché il video online non è solo il video sharing!), in futuro sarà ancora così?

I filched the YouTube from him, though:

No Heroics Trailer

Yeah. You'll want a BitTorrent client now. I recommend Halite (if you run XP). (Note, I'm not a BitTorrent expert, but I found that client and it's worked very well the rare times I've used it.)

แหล่งข้อมูล : http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/index.html