Long Winter's Nap...

Taking some time off over the holidays to do a little rethinking a reworking Web Worth Watching. Coming in 2009...a shift to Wordpress and a dedicated Web Worth Watching website (as soon as I can get it built).

I've also been thinking a lot about online video. For those interested in the topic, there was a great Online Video Summit a few months back. Definitely worth taking a look. Their embed codes are not written correctly but you can view the clips here. It's two parts and part two can be viewed here.

Folks have been discussing the integration of internet and television since the early 90s, but now it's finally started to happen. Although I haven't seen it expressly written in the press, it seems to me that companies like Netflix and Sling Media are almost now (at least for a discerning audience) direct competitors to Comcast, DirecTV, etc. I did an experiment over the summer where I "cut the chord" and began consuming media only through the internet (using a Verizon card - which I had already - through my Mac or the Blanche DuBois-approach with open wi-fi). Turns out, I'm $95 better off each month and haven't missed cable at all.

Anyway, I digress. It's a cool time we're living in. More fascinating ideas in video form soon!

-C-

Opium des Volkes?

Over the summer I ran across an inspiring talk by Karen Armstrong about the state of western religion (monotheism anyway) and how is can be a force for compassion and harmony. I decided then that it would be WWW's first Christmas post. Raised with no personal religious beliefs, as an adult I've had a fascination with religion...both our need for what it gives us and the rituals that we execute in pursuit of those satisfactions. Armstrong's work is always thought-provoking and I think you'll find this talk of particular interest.



Then, for an alternate (perhaps contrarian) perspective, here is a talk by Christopher Hitchens, discussing the ideas behind his book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Darwinian Inspiration and Perspective

I set out to pen a WWW post this week that was focused on food, hoping to create a sequel to my post from last August. After all, it is the holiday season and we Americans never met a holiday we didn't celebrate with a overflowing plate. So I started by seeing what was out there featuring Michael Pollan, whose books-on-cd are on the playlist for my annual cross-country holiday drive. And while I did find a great talk that Pollan gave about food, it was really more about a Darwinian view of the world.

And that reminded me of a similar, two-person talk I had seen featuring artist/musician Brian Eno, discussing his Darwinian perspective on creating art, along with videogame designer, Will Wright, the mind behind SimCity, The Sims and, most recently, Spore. So enjoy all three perspectives over a big plate of food at your favorite internet cafe.

A Tour Through Smell

Just one video this week, but that's because one video is all I think you'll need after this one. Here is a fascinating half-hour with Chandler Burr, perfume critic for the New York Times and author of the book, The Emperor of Scent. The economics of patchouli farming alone will dazzle your fellow holiday party-goers for at least a couple round of drinks.

Okay, okay, so maybe you want to go really deep into the science of smell. I can go ahead and hook you up too. Here's a long (90 minute) University of California lecture by Charles Zucker on the neurobiology of taste, smell and vision.

Grey Matters - Perception: Taste, Smell and Vision

Self-reflexivity

When media turns its attention on itself the results can often be pretentious. Hopefully we're going to avoid that this week. I've found a couple of interesting pieces about the Web 2.0 phenomenon on also about video the web. I'm hoping this will be of interest to you as well...since you're here watching some video on the web.

The first is a talk that Al Gore gave in the days following the election at the 2008 Web 2.0 summit.



The second video is a lecture given by Silicon Valley exec Peter Hirschberg, who looks at how the Internet is naturally supplanting TV as the medium of the masses.

Peter Hirschberg: The Web and TV, A Sibling Rivalry

The Thom-Thom Club

A couple months back I featured a lecture by Thomas Barnett on the deployment US military might in a post-Cold War world. Below is a talk he gave in Maine where he moves from a diagnostic to a prescriptive point of view on the the topic. It's a fascinating point of view, proffered by a guy who seems to have genuine fun giving his presentation.

Then, another sequel talk of sorts. I'm sure most followers of this blog know Thomas Friedman, who penned The Lexus and the Olive Tree and, more famously, The World is Flat. He takes a different look at some of the issues Barnett touches on, but from an economic (specifically petro-political) perspective.

Modern Day Piracy

A couple of weeks back, I was reading an article in the Economist on pirates. I have read similar news bites in the past, but still piracy for me was limited to RIAA/MPAA propaganda or one half-decent Johnny Depp film (don't talk to me about the two sequels). But the videos I'm posting today have helped reshape my understanding.

Modern Day Pirates



Then a different point of view on the issue, this one from the Voice Of America. I find this exploration of the issues considerably drier, but perhaps a bit more substantive. If these guys were outside a Indonesian brothel, I'm guessing there wouldn't be cameras around (you have to watch the first one to understand that).


On the Line: High Seas Piracy

Sostenibilidad

Gonna return to environmental themes this week with a couple of videos about how the Spanish are tackling sustainability. The first looks at the Canary Island of El Hierro, which is supposedly on track to be fully sustainable by the end of 2009.

Canary's Eco Island



Next is a video from GreenEnergyTV (so note the potential bias) looking at Barcelona's efforts to achieve sustainability.

Barcelona: Sustainable Energy City



The final video is a talk by Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Recorded in early 2005, he discusses why we must ween ourselves off foreign oil. I don't agree with everything he says (his reference to biofuels ignores the intensive water needs of that 'solution') and the age of the talk shows in his statistics on fuel costs. But what is interesting is what he has to say about the mechanics of conservation for automobiles.

Amory Lovins: We Must Win the Oil Endgame

Gladwell's World

Occasionally I like to tap into some innovative thinkers here in the WWW blog. A while back I featured some lectures by Jarod Diamond, and this week we're going to hear from Malcolm Gladwell. Author of The Tipping Point and Blink, Gladwell is a writer for the New Yorker and has some interesting insights about American (and often, more broadly, Western) society. In this first video, he appears with Mark Kingwell on at CBC radio broadcast to discuss social change.


Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Kingwell on QTV (CBC Radio)



In this second video, Gladwell talks about a man whose studies around the marketing of food lead to an eventual democratization of taste in American culture.


Malcolm Gladwell: What We Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce

War with Iran

Extending our poly-sci coverage from last week, I've found a couple of interesting pieces about Iran. Our foreign policy approach to that country is an issue that will almost certainly need to be addressed by whoever wins the election on November 4, and I've selected these pieces to try and give a little context. These pieces offer very different perspectives on the country. The first is a citizen journalist piece that briefly looks at life inside Iran and the fear that the US may launch a war against the county.

A View from Iran


The second piece is more formal telejournalism and investigates whether or not the US has already started a proxy war with Iran through resistance groups on the Iraq-Iran border.


America's Secret War

A Couple of Looks at 'Fortress America'

With the American elections just three weeks away I went out looking for some different points of view on Election 2008, and I ran across this surprisingly good piece of citizen journalism from Current.com that explored attitudes toward Americans by citizens of other countries. Check it out...

The View from Over There



Of course, most of the folks featured in those videos can't vote in American elections so for a slightly more domestic point-of-view check out this videographic presentation from The Economist magazine on Anglo-Saxon attitudes to many common issues. It's an interesting comparison of American and British cultures.


Divided We Stand

Some Like It Hot...

Figured I'd stick with the arts for another week, but this week the artistic motif is fire. Check out these films from a couple different years of the Burning Man festival (remember how it was before the money flowed in). There's not much else to mention about these, they sort of speak for themselves. Oh, but I will add the first one has a little pixelated nudity...but should be SFW.

The Shiva Vista Project


Flaming Lotus Girls: Mutopia


Then, to cool things down a bit, check out this performance from Pilobolus. (If you're body conscious, don't watch this one after eating.)

Pilobolus: A Performance Merging Dance and Biology


-C-

Minds Wide Open

Ever since I read Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open I've been fascinated with the human brain...how little we understand about it, but how much it governs (whether we like it or not) every...single...thing we do. So I present to you this week, a pair of videos on our brains. It's a topic I'm sure we'll come back to in the future, so if you have any you'd like to see featured here send me a link.

For today, the first is a captivating lecture from Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuro-anatomist who recognized she was having a stroke and what she learned from that experience.

Jill Bolte Taylor - My Stroke of Insight



The second is lecture by Jeff Hawkins, most famous for inventing the Palm Pilot, but also very passionate about brains and artificial intelligence. I'm embedding a 5-part playlist from YouTube of a lecture he gave at the 2008 RSA conference.

Jeff Hawkins: On Artificial Intelligence

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog

I've been looking for an embeddable version of this for a while, and I found it so I thought I'd post a little something fun this week (it's a musical!). This was project that developed during the writer's strike last spring. This was done relatively cheap (by Hollywood standards) and wouldn't usually qualify for WWW inclusion except that A) it's from the mind of Joss Whedon, and B) it exists solely as a web exclusive video. Shows you how far the web has come in just the last two years. Anyway, enjoy! I'll embed the whole thing first and also include the chaptered version below that.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (full version)






Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (Chapter 1)



Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (Chapter 2)



Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (Chapter 3)

A Different Colbert Report...

Haven't done much artistic on Web Worth Watching but I recently ran across these languid pieces from still photographer/filmmaker Gregory Colbert. Embedded here are a couple of excerpts of his work. Can't decide how I feel about these. Either they are hauntingly beautiful or horribly pretentious. I think it all depends on how jaded you are when you watch them.

Ashes and Snow: Feather to Fire


Flying Elephants Presents (Parts 1 & 2)


-C-

Is It Always Greener on the Other Side?

When I first got out of college I lived in southern New Jersey, which had a lot of sod farms. Having cut a lot of grass in my teenage years (8 acres...usually once a week...walk-behind mower...I had good calves) I could appreciate the acre upon acre of well manicured grassland. But it did seem a little extravagant to, in essence, adopt a lawn.

Now, living in the parched American southwest I have developed a new appreciation for grass-free living. Here xeriscaping is all the rage. Don't get me wrong, I still do miss the feel (and especially the smell) of a newly mown lawn. But this week's films, all three parts of Isaac Brown and Eric Flagg's film, "Gimme Green," call into question the environmental impact of this national obsession.

Gimme Green (Part 1)



Gimme Green (Part 2)



Gimme Green (Part 3)


-C-

Tales of a Weather Paparazzi (taken down)

Update (9/30): Seems like Current took this set of videos down. I'll keep looking for it else where and re-post if I can find it.

-C-


As I type this, Hurricane Season is in full bloom. With Gustav now taking a back seat to the very scary TBD that is Ike, I started looking for interesting video on hurricanes. That led me to this 5-part, first person series about self-described "Weather Paparazzi" Doug Kiesling and his experience in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Some might refer to this as "weather porn," but if you've never been in a hurricane this is some pretty intense footage.

Part 1: The Day Before

Part 2: New Orleans, From Dusk Until Dawn

Part 3: Katrina On Canal Street

Part 4: The Escape From New Orleans

Part 5: New Orleans, The Day After Katrina


-C-

Debt & America

According to MSN, the average American household has about $8,000 of credit card debt. While the production values are basic, spend some time with Megan McArdle, author of the blog Asymmetrical Information, as she discusses the historic thread of debt in America and endures The Economist's proposterous set-up of tea. (Come on guys, love the mag, but this tea thing...that's what editing is for.)

Megan McArdle on Debt


Also, Bill Moyers looked at the business of poverty in the August 8 edition of his PBS series. They don't have embed codes up yet but you can watch that clip here.

-C-

Hunger in America

Probably not a video you want to watch on your lunch hour, but check out this short film on about issues of hunger in America. With rising commodity prices around the world this spring, many of us heard about hunger riots in Cameroon and food shortage protests in Haiti. Of course we know that hunger is a problem here in the US, but there is rarely a flashpoint to call our attention to it. This video offers some stats and an interesting story about the DC Central Kitchen.

America's Shocking Hunger Problem

Then take a different look at food with Mark Bittman, food writer and chef who had hosted a PBS cooking series at one point in his past. He talks about what's wrong with what people (who have food) are eating.

Mark Bittman: What's Wrong with What We Eat


-C-

A Diamond in the Wild

Last week I posted the PBS series Guns, Germs and Steel, based on the book by Jared Diamond. Diamond's follow-up to that book is entitled Collapse! He gave a lecture at UC Santa Barbara about the themes of his book and you can watch that lecture here.

Jared Diamond at UC Santa Barbara


He also spoke at CalTech about the book...a slightly more personal presentation divided into three parts. Compare and contrast!

Jared Diamond at CalTech (Part 1 of 4)



Jared Diamond at CalTech (Part 2 of 4)



Jared Diamond at CalTech (Part 3 of 4)



Jared Diamond at CalTech (Part 4 of 4)



-C-

War, Peace, Guns, Germs, Steel...

Ran across this lecture from Thomas Barnett. The dude should be a comedian. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, I think he has something intriguing to say about American foreign policy.

Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon's New Map for War and Peace


Some of Barnett's themes regarding technological superiority are universal. For similarly big thought I found the Jared Diamond's PBS series Guns, Germs and Steel on YouTube...conveniently divided into 18 parts. It's embedded as a playlist below...

Guns, Germs & Steel
Guns, Germs and Steel


-C-

A Peak at Peak Water

Water...if you live in the Southwest United States its hard not to at least think about it (even if it's to absently push its import out of your mind). A couple months back, Wired did a story on the emerging concept of peak water. But the also covered it in the short lived series Wired Science. Interesting stuff...


Wired Science: Peak Water segment


Lack of natural resources has always been a prime mover of civil unrest within and between societies. In the west, the history of water rights is pock-marked with violence so to hear that "the wars of the future" might be over water isn't so surprising. Here are a couple of video from the (admittedly left-leaning series) Democracy Now that address that topic.

Democracy Now: Water Wars (Part 1)


Democracy Now: Water Wars (Part 2)


Slightly more centrist CNN also covered the issue earlier this year as a part of their "Planet in Peril" special. Check out the clip featuring an interview with Dr. Peter Gleick (President of the Pacific Institute).

CNN Planet in Peril: World Water Crisis


-C-

Bronco Roads

Sometimes you find cool videos because you're looking in the right place online, and sometimes you find cool videos because you meet cool people. This is a case of the latter. Check out this episode from a new series being created by Stacy Dean Campbell in Carlsbad, NM.



And while on the theme of the west, as I was trolling Hulu the other day I ran across the 1995 Imax film entitled The Great American West. In terms of information, it's no PBS doc, but it is a pretty beautiful piece of filmmaking.

The Great American West (1995)


-C-

Of Crows and Ravens

I was recently watching this video lecture about crows and was amazed to learn how into learning they really are. Check out the following talk given by Josh Klein, inventor of a crow vending machine...





Thinking about crows got to thinking about ravens (both are species of corvidae), which (as any person who was goth in their youth would) made me think of Edgar Allen Poe. Check out this short performance of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" by Vincent Price. Looks like it was shot on the old set on which Price shot the intros to Mystery! back in the 1980s. Whether it was or not I don't know but it's a nice bit of PBS retro...





Then if you're feeling really brave check out this live version of "The Raven" performed by the Alan Parsons Project, taken from their tribute album to Poe. The video is poor but the audio is good, if you like mid-70s prog-rock.

-C-

Web Worth Watching: Posh Nosh

After last week's climate change post I thought we'd skew a little more fun this week. I was trolling YouTube the other day and as it turns out episodes of one of my favorite BBC series are just hanging out there (until the BBC figures it out and has them taken down). It's a faux cooking show entitled Posh Nosh, starring Richard E. Grant and Arabella Weir. You can view all but episode 2 (couldn't find that one) here...for now...

...oh, the video is slightly better than the thumbnails suggest...

Episode 1: Fish & Chips



Episode 3: Paella



Episode 4: Beautiful Food



Episode 5: Bread and Butter Pudding



Episode 6: Leftovers



Episode 7: Sauces



Episode 8: Comfort Food


-C-

Web Worth Watching: Climate Change

Welcome to a new blog series on KNME.org where we bring you some of the videos and sites that we're watching and visiting. It's true that the web is filled with a lot questionable video content. The goal of this series is to highlight videos that are thought provoking, insightful or just plain cool.

For the first installment, we're looking at climate change. I'm typing this in the Corrales Flying Star (giving a shout out both for the Mediterranean Nosh - try it with avocados - and for the free Wi-Fi) and watching a storm roll in from over the Sandias. There's been a lot of talk of the monsoons arriving early (or at least on time) this year. That inevitably leads to some discussion of our climate change. Most everyone knows Al Gore popularized the issues, but not many know he's been working on a sequel PowerPoint deck and presentation. He gave a conference in Cali a taste of it a couple months back. Give it a watch...





Of course Gore isn't the only one talking about climate change. New Mexico's Senator, Jeff Bingaman, gave a lecture at MIT on April 25 about this issue. It's definitely more of a wonkish presentation of the issue. You can watch that lecture here. (Note, you'll need Real Player...yes, it's still around...to see it.)

-C-