Internet Mixtape

Who's that Asshole? Oh, that's me...

About a week ago, I sat down with CNBC's Dennis Kneale to talk about social media, the interwebs, and how most companies are totally f-ing it up when it comes to engaging audiences online. Unfortunately, I don't hear nearly enough conversations in the marketing world that go down the uncomfortable paths Dennis and I explored.

I was worried I'd end up on the cutting room floor, but they were pretty generous...take a look! "Social networking guru?" More like full-fledged PR scumbag!  

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Re-Imagined as a 1950's Serial

What if Forrest Gump was made in 1949, directed by Frank Capra, and starred Jimmy Stewart? Or if in the late 40's, Charton Heston introduced the Indiana Jones character in Raiders of the Lost Ark, racing Peter Lorre to find the Ark of the Covenant alongside Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn?

YouTube user whoiseyevan, a self-described "writer/filmmaker trying to get his big break,"  has put together an amazing series of trailers for popular movies from the 1980's and 1990's, re-imagining / editing them as if they were created in the 1940's and 50's

Here's his hacked trailer for Raiders of the Lost Ark...given his avowed love of old adventure serials, I have to imagine George Lucas would really appreciate this labor of love:

A quick dive into the notes for this video explains that to make this trailer, whoiseyevan took publicly available clips the following movies: The 10 Commandments, Prince Valiant, Naked Jungle, Secret of the Incas, Jungle Queen, Zulu, Look to Lockheed for Leadership, Casablanca, The City of Brass, Mr. Moto takes a Vacation, Star in My Crown, A Pain in the Pullman, On Dangerous Ground, Patton, King Solomons Mines, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Greatest Show on Earth, David and Bathsheba, The Screaming Skull, When You Know, Mysterious Mr. Moto, Lawrence of Arabia, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and Superman at Bay.

Here are some of his other trailer pre-makes, for Ghostbusters and Forrest Gump, respectively:

Less than 24-Hours Later, the Kanye Mashups Begin

And this is probably the best possible application of this priceless bit of audio imaginable. I thought that nothing could quite top the Family Guy / Christian Bale freakout mashup, but this comes pretty damn close:

Whoever made this is an internet genius.

Senator Al Franken Draws Detailed Map of the United States from Memory

A post title that requires little elaboration. The following video was shot at this year's Minnesota State Fair by NPR's Minnesota Public Radio, and serves as a lovely, whimsical counter-balance to another, highly-discussed video featuring the comedian-turned-senator from the same event.

As incredible as it would be if this was the first time anyone saw him do this, apparently drawing an extremely-detailed map of the USA is kind of a regular parlor trick for Franken, which he performs from time to time in front of crowds. Kind of like how when there's a lull in a party, I can sing the entire Animaniacs "Names of All 50 States & their Capitols" song.

Best. Joy Division Cover. Ever.

If Ian Curtis was still alive, this is what hell would sound like for him:

I'd like to see Steel Harmony cover some other classics. You know, like NIN's "Hurt," or "Needle in The Hay," by Elliott Smith.

Playing a sad song on the steel drum is like trying to divide by zero. When someone eventually manages to do it, the only thing left will be the Large Hadron Collider, innocently purring into the darkness.

Turn Your iPod into a Taser

I really, really love what the guys over at Household Hacker are doing, and this just might be my favorite project:

To be able to use your new musical taser, you're going to have to download and add to your iPod three custom mp3's created by the Household Hacker guys. You can find those here.

At the end of the day, though, there's no substitute for a good old-fashioned crane kick.

The Keyboard Cat Meme Achieves Perfection

This is what it looks like when a meme reaches absolute perfection, leaving nowhere to go but down. It's not fair, really. Don't get me wrong...ALL keyboard cat videos are great, but when you compare all the other keyboard cats created up until now to this video, it's like comparing 1 carat diamonds to one of those diamonds that has it's own name, like the Marquess du Papillon, or something. They're all diamonds, but only one was stolen from a dragon, has the power to both start and end wars and might even be cursed.

Not even TV Carnage, my favorite necromancers of vintage television programming, could have done better with this old anti-PCP PSA clip featuring Helen Hunt (is that even what this is?). 

Unusual Bubbles Friday

When I used to magically find myself at the Children's Museum in Boston growing up (I never knew how I got there, I just would occasionally all of a sudden realize that I was somewhere amazing), my favorite room was the bubble room, in which giant tables of soapy water waited to be turned into giant bubbles with all kinds of interesting bubble tools. My poor parents.

I had no idea that dolphins also enjoy bubbles. Don't believe me? Check out that smirk they always have. And watch this video:

This is a curious behavior that seems to have been observed pretty often in dolphins, who are apparently way too intelligent and good at hydrodynamics for us to trust them. Here's a quick explanation of what's going on, provided by Deep Ocean:

"Dolphins create bubble rings by blowing air in a water vortex ring: by flipping a fin they create a vortex ring of water. The then blow air in the ring, which goes to the center of the vortex ring. In the water vortex ring the natural location of the air is in the center of the vortex. When air and water move in a circular path like they do in the vortex ring, air and water are separated due to the centripetal force. Since density of water is larger than air, water moves at the outside, while the air ends up in the middle."

It's basically like blowing smoke rings. Only underwater. By dolphins. If you're interested in the science behind this and want to use some formulas to make your own rings, say, in the bathtub, click here. Humans can apparently make them, too. If you just like looking at pretty pictures, however, here's a progressive image:

Then there's this video, covering a completely different field of strange bubbles. This time, we're looking at a spheroid of water suspended in the zero gravity of space. Basically, it's like an inverse bubble, made of water suspended in air instead of air suspended in water:

Unfortunately, the miracle you're witnessing is completely overshadowed by the narrating astronaut's voice. I can't believe they let a guy with a voice like this into space....if I had to share an upside-down treadmill with him, I'd absolutely get the "space jitters." It's like this guy went up into space and then the singularity came and killed everyone on earth and now it's 10 years later and this guy is still just quietly orbiting by himself with no one to talk to but his giant water bubble and a Flip cam.

Insightful Post FAIL #42

Tonight I had planned on writing a post about what brands and the communications industry can learn from open source. Or if that didn't end up going well, I was going to write my manifesto about how the API has the transformational power to vastly improve our country's infrastructure. And if that got too boring, I was maybe going to offer a brief survey of weird American utopian movements.

But as you can see, tonight you'll find nothing about any of those interesting topics. No...instead, I bring you "Troops." This is much, much "better."

(via ToplessRobot)

Chiptunes Magnetic Fields Cover

Tom Milsom is so digitally whimsical its almost painful, but in a good way. Is that a compliment? I'm not sure, but I really like his chiptune cover of one of my favorite songs, the Magnetic Fields' "All My Little Words":

I did some shallow digging and found some of Tom's other work, as well. Precocious, talented and fluent in lulz, the nineteen year-old British musician / artist / vlogger reminds me of a younger Patrick Wolf, had Patrick Wolf been born six years later and not fallen in with gypsy bird people and feral film stars inhabiting a bizarro 1930's London hidden behind a half-bricked wall in Camden.

(via @trent_reznor)