Today is the 37th anniversary of the day I was born. Our plucky little planet has once again successfully circumnavigated the sun and you have to admit there were times during the Bush administration when we were uncertain it would make it.
I recently found a series of YouTube videos called the Everyday videos. These were originally started by a photographer in New York named Noah Kalina in January of 2000. Noah began taking photographs of his face every day and continued for 6 years. He then streamed all of these images into a video that shows the world flashing around him as he ages 6 years in about 5 minutes. This is classic Geek innovation and Noah deserves serious credit for originating the concept.
One of the striking things about the images is that time seems to blast the world around Noah like a wind tunnel while the only the unchanging constant is his gaze and expression.
Noah Kalina Everyday
Ahreelee
Another very striking change is Johnathan Keller’s video. Both Noah and Ahreelee seem to have almost ageless faces but Johnathan starts his video as a young man and changes from a gangly teenager into an adult before your eyes.
Johnathan Keller
To find more like this, search YouTube for “everyday”.
On Tuesday I hosted another online web seminar dealing with embedded web development. Specifically, I covered AJAX with the Rabbit embedded microcontrollers.
I also wrote up a beginner’s workbook which I think is pretty nifty. It makes me think I could do the same kind of presentation and workbook for fencers someday.
I went to see the new Star Trek film last night and the thing that struck me was that all the reboots of recent franchises like Batman, James Bond, and Star Trek are grittier and more difficult for the characters.
American action movies developed this cliche where the hero would punch some trash-talking bad guy and then recite a canned pithy statement. It was tame and safe violence that reinforced the cowboy aesthetic that we were always right and violence was justified. We’ve lived through the Bush era now and Americans as a culture have begun to understand that the pithy cliches have consequences in the real world.
In the film Witness, we see this play out magnificently when Harrison Ford is accompanying an Amish community into the local town. When a redneck heckler starts bullying the Amish, Harrison Ford punches him. It’s classic cowboy cliche and we’re all prepared to lean back and feel good about it until the camera remains on the scene and we start to see the uncomfortable consequences of the violence.
In the first five minutes of the Star Trek film, we see an unwinnable conflict in which people die. I remember when Americans thought women shouldn’t be in combat, but here you see women not only fighting, but dying as well. It’s harsh, jarring, and more sincere.
It’s clear that these characters are paying a price for their actions. When Kirk fights in the bar it isn’t Smokey and the Bandit, it’s more like Fight Club and his face is so bloody and battered at the end, that you worry he’s going to lose teeth. Kirk’s life is hard and he’s struggling to cope. His battered face and the visible emotional struggle behind it are light years away from Shatner’s suave, father-knows-best character.
