If you’ve been to youtube lately (or… ever), you have probably noticed evidence of the over-population of Windows Movie Maker users, eager to show off their madskills at generating white text on a blue background with their favorite to 90’s track pumping. Advanced users will also add real, full-color photographs with transitions such as wipe and crossfades.

For people who are playing with video editing software for the first time, this is great. They can throw something together and upload it to YouTube in a few minutes, and gain some sense of accomplishment without having to do anything overly technical.

For people who are on YouTube looking for an actual video (which I assume is all or most users), this is just awful. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that most people searching for something on YouTube are not overly critical, they will tolerate mediocre-quality video and amateurish production – that is the whole appeal, but it is fair to assume that these people are, at the very least, looking for video. Not slideshows.

And you can’t blame the MovieMakers. Making slideshows is easy, and fun. But what I cannot fathom is how YouTube has fostered the growth of this truly unwelcome phenomena on their service. If I am searching for an eagle attacking a wolf, I would expect, at the very least, to see an eagle attacking a wolf, not a handfull of photographs someone found of the same, with a cheezy hip-hop midi in the background.

Considering all of the energy Google has devoted to identifying copyright-protected content in YouTube, you would think they could use some of that same mojo for at least identifying what content is actually a video. How many “videos” for example, are there out there, that are just a still image with a full-length copyright song? Come on!

The technology required to identify slideshows and still images is pretty basic. This could be implemented where the user uploads a video. They could tick off a radio button that identifies the content as “full motion video” or “slideshow”. Viewers could also flag content as a slideshow when the creator does not. And furthermore, the video itself could be analyzed, either when it is uploaded, or on a random / periodic basis, to determine if there is motion from one frame to the next. Really, there is no excuse for them to leave all these slideshows “in the soup” of a site intended for video.

All it takes is a little “Mark as slideshow” link, like this:

Make: television Preview – Music Machines from make magazine on Vimeo.

This is me when I retire.

The “What is a switch?” project is a Tellart classic.

It takes the form of a workshop or a longer course, and, by using low-cost materials and familiar design tools, is meant to demystify electronics for design students and artists – expanding their conception of what it means to design with embedded electronics.

via What is a Switch? – Tellart [stream].

Obama has made a name for himself as the most media-savvy president in history. He has also earned his reputation for his ability to deliver a message with clarity and impact. Obama further cemented his reputation last week beginning his first in a series of weekly TV addresses, available on whitehouse.gov to view as an embedded youtube video, or as an mp4 download in full 1280×720 high definition wonder, so web audiences worldwide can now receive the leader of the free world’s message fully and clearly, with each freckle, creeping stubble, errant eyebrow and stray hair for the world to see.

I wasn’t surprised when this week, the weekly address was posted at a slightly more modest resolution of 720×404, and changes in the lighting. The president was looking like he could use some sleep… understandably, with the mess he has to deal with, but it makes one wonder if he got his implant yet. No news of falling down after choking on a prezel yet, but we’ll stay tuned. For now, one thing is certain, Obama’s media team and make-up artists are hard at work.

BRISTOL (NEWS CENTER) — Volunteers in Bristol and several other midcoast towns are making storm windows to help low income families keep warm. A group at the Carpenter’s Boatshop in Bristol has been building the simple, wood and plastic windows for about two months. They’ve made about two hundred of them so far, and more are coming. They say the windows are simple to build, and they make a real difference in comfort and in heating bills. Groups in Bath, Edgecomb and Westport Island are also building windows.

The design comes from two local men — Guy Marsden and Topher Belknap – who belong to the Midcoast Green Collaborative. Marsdem refined the design, and has full instructions on how to build it on his website. There is also a list of workshops where you can get instruction on how to make the windows.

via WCSH6.com | Portland, ME | Storm Windows Can Save A Bundle.

 

This is the most brilliant thing I have seen all year. It’s remarkable what you can do with wood, plastic, hairdryers, and nice people.

This is the first prototype of the Alarm Clock Project. It is currently hooked up to a doorbell chime. This demos the user interaction style with the rotary encoder. The 5-digit number on the top line is for debugging – it represents the time of day expressed in total seconds elapsed since midnight.

I don’t know what thrills me more… The idea of walking around in a blanket, or walking around in a blanket with an LED booklight. Products like this evoke so many conflicting emotions, I dunno where to begin. Combine a brilliant concept, with the benefits of comfort, economy and environment, with something that is outright disturbing, in a Jonestown sort of way. Could this be how the illuminati is preparing us all for 2012, by donning us all with sacrificial robes? No bloodstains, no problem!

So what do you do when you:  1. Were arrested for hacking into US Military networks with a dial up modem to get a glimpse of some UFO pictures, 2. Are facing extradition to said country, and to top it all off, 3. Suffer from Asperger’s syndrome?

Why, you get a green screen and make yourself into an internet star, fashioned after the cool retro stylings of Seal, of course.

This video may be ghetto as it gets for 2008, but when you follow the whole McKinnon story, you have to stand in awe of the guy. Gary, please put some tracks up for sale on iTunes so we can all get behind your cause. Then perhaps your next video can feature flame throwing gestures and CGI dolphins.

Only Bjork can inspire robots to make out and gush milky warmth over a sterile laboratory floor. I can always appreciate her work as she consistently supports the fearsome quantum principles that the world presented to us is, at best, an illusion that is entirely subject to individual interpretation.