Kyle 1.0: Geek Culture and New Media

Cell phone research...

2007-08-02T16:09:00.001-07:00

So I'm going to be taking a class this semester called mobile lab. Pretty much it will be creating media and applications using cell phones . Now the class will be supplying the cell phones, but one the class is over, we will of course have to give the phones back. =(
Well the past couple of weeks I have been researching different kinds of cell phones to see what I might be able to get for myself incase I might want to continue trying my hand at cell phone based projects. At the moment I can neither afford the type of cell phones that we will be using nor does my current provider, which is Sprint, carry some of the best phones out there for this area. I really don't know what it is, but Sprint always seems to behind everyone in the phone market. I mean it took them nearly a year and a half to finally pick-up the razor. So here I am looking at other cell phones that are of course offered by other providers. One of them being the I-phone which I really want one (many might argue that that is due to my love for Apple) but the I-Phone is for another blog entry.
I got pretty tired of going from website to website and just reading the reviews and looking at pic of the phones. I want to actually see what they were capable of. So I decided to hit youtube. It was here that i found video reviews for many of the different phones out there. The one that have been using the most is from phonescoop, which have a website under the same name. There are other groups on youtube that also do their own reviews of the phones, which can be good just so that you can get different opinions of the phones, but phonescoop has worked out just fine for me for the moment. Now I still haven't decided what phone could work the best for me, but the great thing is thanks to video hosting sites like youtube, it is a bit easier really see the full capability of the product that you interested in knowing about.

My return and Second-life...

2007-07-19T22:30:00.001-07:00

Well here it is nearly three months later. I know that it has been way to long, but better now then never. Its been a long three months, but I ready to jump back on the band wagon and start getting this blog where it was needs to go. Where exactly that is suppose to be, I’m not exactly sure yet, but it's not going to go anywhere if I'm just letting it sit here and collect dust. I am back to start posting my findings about the world of new media. I will be continuing to work on my audio pod-cast, but hopefully eventually I may add video to this blog. I been doing some research over the past couple of months on how to maybe incorporate live video into here, but till then your stuck with what you've been getting so far. =)

Well now to the topic of my entry. I've have been spending a lot of time on second-life and have gained a new interest on there. Among spending time on the virtual plain, I have also been reading a lot of blogs from people on SL that post about machinima. As I stated in an earlier post, machinima is the process of making movies using video game engines. One really interesting this I have found out is that there are virtual companies within SL that specialize in creating machinima. There are even film festivals in SL for people that have tried there handing at creating there own movie. Some are really awesome, others not as great, but still all in all you have to give props to these people for even trying their hand at it. I have only done a little shooting so far. RL video projects haven't allowed me the time I would like to be able to do more, but the plan for later down the road is to try my hand a completed short film. I have already started networking with other people on SL who I plan to use at actors.

I'm not entirely sure what the full title of the video I have posted here due to my lack of Japanese studies. Damn Kanji! Anyway the video is the open sequence to movie shot made in Second-life. It is very well done and you can see most of it posted on youtube. The opening reminds me so much of an opening from any typical anime. Still from what I have watch of it so far, these people have put a lot of time into it.

Well that is it for now. Before I go I will leave a few links to some of the blogs and sites that I have found from people working in Second-life:

moomoney.workpress.com
taotakashi.wordpress.com
www.naturalselectionstudios.com
www.lunadude.com

Sorry...

2007-04-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

for the lack of post or episodes this week. Finals along with grading for me class has just got me so bogged down, but that will all be over by tomorrow morning. Don't worry, I plan on continuing this blog. It's not going to be something that I'm going to just say that I'm done with since the class is. I really want to make this into something. Both with the blog and the pod-cast., and don't worry I plan on making that a weekly event. If i can I want to see if somewhere down the road I can actually get a fan base for it. I guess only time will tell. Well just keep post and I promise this plenty more to come.

Episode #2

2007-04-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

Just here posting the Second episode of Kyle1.0
I'll write more about the show later.
Kyle 1.0 #2

The First Official Episode...

2007-04-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

Where here we go with the first official or my first attempt at the first episode of Kyle 1.o.
Kyle 1.0 #1

First Experimental 1.0 Podcast

2007-04-17T23:05:00.001-07:00

So here is my first attempt at where I may be going with the podcast. I pretty much titled this Kyle 1.0 experiment. This one started out a bit different, but then I put it one hold while I tried another one. The other podcast is considered the First official show and has the format I'm going to try for a while. While I was working on the new one I went back to this one and change it;s format to follow the new one a bit more. I'm calling this the experiment because it's more of an intro to what the show is about, where I next one actually has more of a determined subject. So all i ask is that you guys be gentle with both. I'm probably going to go back and change both of these again, but I wanted to go ahead and try to get some feed back. Screw it I know I said to be gentle, but just rip. Let me know what I need to do differently. Anyway, I hope you guys find some enjoyment in them and here I give you the first Kyle 1.0 Podcast. The next one will follow suit on here tomorrow.
Kyle 1.0 - experimental show

What you'll find in the paper...

2007-04-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

So after I finished teaching my class today I decided to take a stroll around campus just to get myself out of the Atec building (which i need to more often). So I hit Johnson and I'm about get on the elevator when I decide to grab the campus paper. On the front page I find an article about how the internet isn't always safe for students due to social networks like facebook and Myspace. I'm reading the article finding out things like how some big corporations are skipping the interview process on some applicants and are checking their facebook sites. If they see and pictures or comments that they don't like, then they decide against them. They had a list of how different students had also lost their jobs due to stuff the either said or posted on there facebook/myspace site. Apparently for UTD even the police are using it to there advantage. The claim they don't check it that often, but they did mention how they are able to keep tabs of parties that are going on on campus due to students posting them on these sites. Some people in the career center have even go as far to advise students that they should watch what they put up on there sites because they never know just how it may end up hurting them in the future. Now I know that people already had to be careful with there sites due to such characters the sick predators that create false accounts just to get close to young girls, but now people are going to have to be careful with there accounts from the other end of the stick, They now have to be careful from people that are there to help us such as job recruiters and the police. I mean these site were created so that students could have fun and keep in touch with there friends, but now it looks that even that could be taken away from everyone.

Columbine all over again...

2007-04-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm pretty sure that you have all heard by now about Virginia Tech. I first saw it around 1:30 when I flipping through the channels. In my opinion it's Columbine all over again, just at a university this time instead of a high school. I will first go off and say that my heart goes out to all of the families that lost a love one there today. I don't know if they have mentioned anything about the gunman yet, but I plan keeping tabs on the news. Well if your about to ask what this has to do with new media, I'm about to tell you. There are two things that I saw that prompted me to write this post when I was watching the news channels. The first was an uncut piece of video that one of the students took during the event. The footage wasn't all that great and was blurry which made me guess that it was shot using his cell phone. Anyway, it was about 30 seconds and you can hear the gun shots up until you hear a cop telling him and others to get out of the area. I really figured that it would be all over youtube now, but before writing this post, I went ahead and did a search for it, and weirdly enough, no one has posted it yet. This does bring me to the second thing. When watching the new-cast on MSNBC, I was reading the text bars at the bottom of the screen, and saw one that said that students were all ready on Myspace and other networks discussing the incident. I was already amazed at how fast information can be transmitted due to media devices such as cell phones how soon it's available thanks to site like Myspace and youtube, but with this situation, I think we are going to find out so much more. I mean when Columbine happened, we didn't have all of this, but now, forget the press. We are going to be able to get the real information almost first hand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this whole thing happening was a good thing, but were as in the past we would only get half the truth or what we thought was the truth, with everything that society has at it's disposal, we are going to get the what actually happened straight from the people that had to live through it. I don't know whether to say if the might be good or bad in the long run, but it will defiantly change things for the future.

Well it's started...

2007-04-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well I can say that apparently my blogs are actually getting read. Two post ago I wrote about the podcast Scriggity and how the original host had left the show. Well I log back on yesterday to find out that the creator of the show Drew, left a comment on my blog. Now if some random reader had left the comment, I probably wouldn't have thought all that much about it, but when the main person for large podcast replies to me, well that is just something else. I originally stated this blog for Dan's class, over the last couple of weeks I thought about it and I think this will be something that I want to continue you with. I mean I don't know whether this will happen again. I mean really, who out there is reading this blog, but since I want to see just how large of a web presence I can create, this really has started me in the right direction.

Well Drew, I'm glad that the split of Shauna from Scriggity has not destroyed both of your friendship, and don't worry because I'm going to continue to watch. I wish you all the best for the show and I hope we do see great things to come.

So this past week...

2007-04-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

ended up joining a few new social networks. I now have a 1up.com and a vox.com account. At first i just figured I would just a add to the many pages that I already have, but then I decided to try something different. Last semester, one of my professor's wanted us to put our name in google and see just where we cam up in the list. Some came up on the first page, some a few pages later, others...well they got tired of looking. Weirdly enough my name came up as the first link and the second and third and so on. Well I want to go further. I want to see just how much of a web presence I can get. This of course means interacting and updating all of these site, and lord knows if i will have enough time for that, but I want to try. I want to see just how far I can go. I don't know if this will happen do to my interaction with the different sites, or if I will just need to keep joining a whole bunch more, but the next couple of weeks should be interesting.

scriggity - episode 7 (9/13/06)

2007-04-03T18:51:00.001-07:00

You see it happen on TV and now the net. It seems even with programs such as podcast that even their host can't always get along. The first time I heard about this was with the podcast Rocket Boom. The original host Amanda Congdon apparently had a falling out with her partner was the creator of Rocket Boom, and she was let go. She has risen up and made here mark once again in the world of new media. Well yesterday I found out that the same situation happened to another podcast that watch from time to time called Scriggity. The premise of the show is kind of interesting. Instead of talking about the main news, they have people send in their own news such as someone broke up or they've been stung by a bee. Just random crap, but then they make there own little skit by cutting in there own responses as they read the story. Now I will be honest, the real reason I started watch at first was because the main host of the show Shauna was really cute. She made the show enjoyable to a point. So I finally check back in with the cast yesterday only to find out that Drew (the other mind behind Scriggty) and Shauna had split ways and that he was looking for a new host. I tried to do some web research as to find out what actually happened, but apparently both parties are being real hush hush about the subject. It was nice to see that Shauna has her own following of supporters just like Amanda did. Now I have no doubt that Scriggty will still last, but if it will falter any do to the deparcher of Shauna. It also makes me wonder if any other podcast, even more popular ones that people tend to know more about, decided to split. It makes for an interesting thought. I mean what would Ask a Ninja be like without the guy that plays...well the ninja (sorry, don't know the guy's real name)?

Justin.TV

2007-03-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

After seeing this today I just had to post on it. So in class today, my professor shows us all a brand new site called Justin.TV
Pretty much this guy named Justin and his three friends have started a new company in which the want to show people how to stream live video over the net. So here is how it works. Pretty much They have a sight where Justin is streaming video of his life 24/7. He wears a camera attached to himself in which he has it attached to his laptop and publishes the video feed live due to Quicktime publisher. The site has been up live 10 days now and he is getting recognition. He has been mentioned on the news and today G4's Attack of the Show mentioned it. If you go to the site, you can watch the feed of Justin's life, chat with others view the stream in a live chat room, and keep up with reading the blog. He also already has sponsors and has accounts on Facebook and Myspace which have multiple hist already. This is just crazy. I mean this pretty much puts what I was talking about in my last blog true. All it takes is someone to find something that is already there and find a way to change it and make it theirs. I guess I'm going to have to re-think the use of video thing again (joking). After discussing this with my professor, we pretty much came to one of two conclusions. Either he will get his month or so of fame and fade away, or he we get money an start a new social networking site that will allow people to communicate through live video feed. Either way, it's going to be interesting to see where this all will go. Good Luck Justin!

Site Address: WWW.JUSTIN.TV

Six Apart...

2007-03-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

This post is coming from the more and more I think about the company Six Apart. I'm amazed about how it got started. The owners of the company are a married couple. Ben and Mena Trott are a young married couple who reside in San Francisco. The thing that really gets me about them is that They are only a month older than I am. They are only 29 years old and already millionies, and then there is me who is in grad school still trying to figure out where I am going and still have trouble paying all of my bills. Now I'm not going to sit here and bitch about how life is un-fair, and be un-happy, because I'm not. In reality, I'm really impressed. I mean from what i can tell, neither of them has and educcation after high school (if they do I haven't been able to find any information yet) and they have this huge company. They just jumped in to the real world and are still going, where someone like me who has decided to go for his PHD and is continuly struggling with his direction. Another funny thing about Six Apart (which i foound out that they came up with the name due tothe fact they are only six days apart in age) that the reasons for their sucess isn't even something they are responsible for. The success for their company if due to blogging. Now Blogging was started by someone else, but both Brentt and Mena where with in the first wave of blogger, and weren't happy with what they had, so they decided to take current media and find a way to make it better and make it their own. Thus they created MoveableType with was blogging software (due to the fact that they both had a programming back-ground) and TypePad which is a blogging host like Blogger. After a few years of success, they acquired venture capital in which they bought the blogging host system Live-Journal, and now they have even broken into the world of social networking with their new system, Vox. Now I bring this all up, because we are all told to get an education (which I'm not knocking) and create something totally new, but that's how it's happening. People are find ways to break into the business world by taking something that is already there and find a way to either create something else out of it or make it better. It's amazing just what I've been able to find out. I have to ask though, when will it be my turn? I wonder if I might be able to figure out a way to take video and create my own and better version of You-tube. Who knows.

Hospital/On-line communities connection...

2007-03-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

So this past Friday, i received a bit of unwelcomed news. After meeting with my parents for dinners, I came to fin d out that my father had been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Now good news is that it was caught in the early stages and and will be treatable. Still when you hear that someone close to you has cancer of any kind, it can tend to be a little disheartning. So I went with my parents to the hospital yesterday to find out just what would have to be done for my father. While I was waiting with the parents in the waiting room, i picked up an issue of a magazine called Inc. It is a magazine that basically looks at entrepreneurs and people in the world of business. Well as I started skimming the pages, one article drew my attention. It was an article about a company called Six Apart. I come to find out that this is the company responsible for Moveable Type and Typepad, software and hosting for blogs. Aparently the company had also purchased Live-Journal. The main purpose for the article was, even though Six Apart had already made it's imprint in the world of of Web 2.0 through blogs, they really hadn't made a mark in the area of social networking. With the popularity of sites such as Myspace and Facebook, the wanted to find out if they could break into that market also. Well that is just what they did. In October of last year, Six Apart launched a on-line community called Vox. Vox is basically a new way for people to blog, but with more of a sense of Myspace. The main focus is for blogging, but you are able up-load photos and video also, let along still connecting to other sites such as Youtube, Flickr, etc. It's still brand new, but the site has already broken the 200,000 user mark. I'd have to say that's not bad for a still brand new Social Network. I'm still not totally sure all that Vox has to offer, but I'm going to keep an eye on it (probably set up an account like i do on other sites) and see where it and Six Apart will go in the future. With a company like that, I wonder who else we will see step-up and and work to make their mark in the industry.

Cram sessions...

2007-03-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend Atec had it's Game Development Weekend. Pretty much it is a 72 hour cram session in which to create a whole entire video/computer game. I've never taken part in any of the past ones since my focus isn't in creating video games, but I decided to actually par-take in a way this semester. I spent time through out the whole weekend shooting video of the large group of students that were forgoing sleep in the hopes to create a final product. I shot at different times such as 2-7 in teh afternoon and 12-3 in the morning. People came and went. Some only worked a few hours and others stayed the whole weekend. It really came down to what skills people had, and how committed that really were. I ended up gathering up to 4 hours worth of footage in the hope that I will be able to create a 5-6 minute pod-cast to publish to the net to show people just what Atec does in the hetic weekend. Through my shooting I couldn't help but think about the 24-hour video race that I and other students partake in each May. Pretty much Atec sponsers 2-3 teams of college students where we have 24 hours to create a 5 minute film. It's a lot of fun, but also a lot of work given how much work you have to due to lack of sleep. You really start to see how much work and time goes into these pieces of work. I have to admit though, after witnessing the game dev weekend and have worked through multiple 24-hour video races, that you start to realize the work that goes into the creation a real piece of work. I mean with the game dev and video race, you are done after that that short time period. For most, they will never go back to it ever again, with never having to worry about losing anything. With major production companies though, they have so much more to do. You can't just walk away after one weekend. Whether it is a film or video game, these people end up having to work multiple months and over 80 hours a week. Some will go without a day off for many weeks, because for many of them, there is so much invested into it financially, emotionally and physically that if it fails, that is it. It could mean the end of their job let along the possbily end of that company. It really makes me look at how different things really are when it comes to creating content for the net. I'm not saying that the people creating podcast don't put a lot of work into them, but with a lot of the ones that I have seen, these people don't have so much invested into them. I have their income coming from some where else. They just create these podcast in my opinion for one of two reasons. Either to see if they can create the next great show, or because they are board and just have nothing better to do. I think it will be interesting to see what it's going to be like when some of these podcast actualy make it really big and see where it will go from there.

Well I know...

2007-03-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

that I said I was going to post for the two video's that I posted, but that was also before some unexpected circumstances happened. Two months ago I bought a new laptop. Well low and behold, my computer's hard-drives decides to crash on me.
Only two months and away goes my all of my data. So it's been a little hard to get work that I needed done. Well I broke out my old powerbook, which I have taken care of for the last 4 years, and luckily it's still running good. So hopefully I can get blog post done. Just wanted to give an update as to why this has been taking so long. Hopefully getting my new computer fixed won't take as long.

Sorry....

2007-03-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

for the two video's not having a text. I was having issues with youtube yet again. Both of the post will have comments about them in the next couple of days. Sorry for the delay, but I just have a lot going on.

danah on O'Reilly Factor

2007-03-05T20:42:00.001-08:00

So this post yet again deals with on-line communities. It’s interesting how I found out about the women on whom I’m writing about. I was skimming through the flickr account of the host of one of the pod-cast that I watch and I came across a few pics of people that she had interviewed. I decided to find out a little bit more about them. Danah Boyd was the one that really stood out to me. She is a PHD student and researcher that talks about social networking through on-line communities such as Friendster and Myspace. I found it interesting to find out different programs she has been on just to talk about her expertise. I did a youtube search and found this video where she is interviewed on the O’Reilly factor talking about Myspace and talking about on-line predators and them hunting down under-age teens. It got me to think not just about Myspace, but Flickr, Youtube and other social networks and wondering just how safe are they. As in Youtube, you can easily find porn on there. That same goes for Flickr. Now I know that the administrators of these sites do what they can to regulate and secure stuff like that from users who are underage, but just how secure are they really. I mean you hear about kids getting hurt and raped all the time in normal day society, but now people are using these social networks to find and I apologize for using this term, but prey on-line. I mean these sites are meant to create a new method for society to interact with one another, but now people are using to be destructive and find ways to hurt other in spaces that should be safe. I know it has to be hard to regulate and work to secure this different sites especially with people lying about their age just to get to media and people that they shouldn’t, but the more I think about it, is there really way to make it all that safe. It’s like computers and people creating viruses for them. No matter how hard you try to make them secure, their will always be someone to find a way to crack it. I just hate to see people using things that should be used to help society, but instead use them to hurt others.

It's A Wonderful World

2007-03-05T20:35:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I've finally getting to come back and write for this post. I originally had a post for this video, but youtube with all of it wondrous glory, didn't get it published. Which in the long run is a good thing because the more I thought about it; I didn’t like what I had written. Ok now back to why I posted this video. Originally I was going to talk about the game a little, but I kept thinking about it and remembering what Dan had told me, I started thinking beyond the game. I’ve posted about other games before and that is not what I’m trying to get with this blog. So rather the game, I’m going to talk about the system that the game is made for why I think it has relation to this blog. The Gameboy DS is latest handheld system to come from Nintendo (or more so the second to newest since they now have the DS Lite). Anyone that knows anything about Nintendo is that they have been the king of the handhelds for well over 15 years now. Even their competitor Sony with their invention of the PSP have yet to out do Nintendo. The DS unlike its past versions is now dual screened with a stylus and touch screen. It even carries wi-fi capability in which the user can play other people over the net with certain games. The one thing that DS does not have like it’s competitor is the ability to surf the net or watch movies, but I can’t help but think how much longer till the decide to add features like that. It’s funny, even with those features added to the PSP, the DS is still able to out sell it. It also helps that the DS is cheaper and has a better game selection. So with more games that people want and a price people can afford, think what will happen if Nintendo finally decides add web browsers and download capability to the system. People will be able to update their blogs, listen to their MP3’s, chat with each other (which you can already be done between DS’s) and even watch their favorite pod-cast. In my opinion, the DS is the most under used device with the most potential for future use with New Media. Sure we have devices like the I-Pod’s, which don’t get me wrong, I love mine, but the DS is just more innovative and allow the user to interact with the data more. If and when the DS is given that ability, I could easily see it becoming one of the most used new media appliances.

Second-Life Graduate Art Show

2007-03-04T14:19:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

So after my last post talking about my graduate art show in Second-Life, I figured I would show just what exactly I was talking about. After finally finding out how to record footage with SL, I went and recorded a tour of the Atec Island gallery with my show in it. The first two levels hold stills from my videos, and the 3rd floor is where you watch the videos. There are 3 different video feeds which each showing two different video paintings. The two on the sides are just visual, but the center video has audio with them. To hear the audio you will to log in to SL, but at least you will be able to get a little of the feel for what I was trying to accomplish. Let me know what you think.

Past MFA Show

2007-02-28T15:14:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I am actually going back and re-writing this post before I ever publish it. I went back and reread the last one I wrote, and it just seemed like I was trying to glorify Second-Life even though that's not what my intention was. Well yeah, before you ask, this post is about the world of Seond-Life. For those of you who don't know what Second-Life or SL for short is, it is a virtual community. Some might describe it as an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, but un-like those kind of games where there is a story or purpose, SL totally relies on the users to make the story. It is a game and yet isn't in the same sense. SL is way for people to create a new personality for themselves or rather an avatar (their character) and be able to start a totally new life for themselves in this virtual world. This is a world where you can almost do anything that you can in real life. With this I mean. You can work a job, go on dates, create a business, and go to clubs. Stuff like that. The world offers more than that. For beginners you are able to make your avatar what ever you really want. It can be male or female, black or white, human or animal and that's just for beginners. You also have the ability to fly. These are only a few of the crazy things you can do in there. It's crazy what people have done with this world. For some, whom may not even have an ounce of artistic ability in real-life or RL have made a name for themselves as an artist in SL. That is sort of what I did for my graduate project. Atec has their own island in SL, and they have a gallery on the island where they are hoping to showcase different artist within SL. Well for my grad project, I wanted to see if I could have a graduate art show with my video art. Well after a little research and a lot of work. I had my art show inside SL. Actually that way it turns I may very well be the very first graduate MFA art show in SL. That alone is a nice little bit of news to be, but aside from the show came off very well. Plus I made a few art connections within the virtual world. Well the whole point for this story is because after all the comments that I have made about people eventually using these different on-line communities to create new media, people are already doing it with this program. People already steam full movies into this world. As sad as this is to say, I actually spent time watching the second half of The Devil Wore Prada in a made up movie theater (what can I say. Anne Hathaway is really cute). People are also creating their own movies using their avatars. This procedure is called Machinama. This is the process where you use a video game engine to create a movie. Of course this is a whole other blog post. It's fascinating. I've even found a company in RL that create movies using SL. Now I would never say that SL is future of in-line communities. Dan and Dean Terry would say the same. Second-Life still has a lot of issues that seem to grow everyday, but it is defiantly the stepping-stone for where the on-line and virtual worlds are going to head. Now I know it may not be for everyone, but I say go ahead and see what you might be able to do with it. I mean it's free. So what do you have to lose by just giving it a try?

The transformers connection to on-line communities

2007-02-27T18:57:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I almost just wanted to post this just on the bases of my love for transformers and the fact that they have a pretty cool remix of the theme song that goes along with it, but of course I'm posting this for another reason. So, maybe not everybody knows, but there is a cable station out there devoted to video games and the video game culture called G4TV, and one of the shows they air is called Attack of the Show. ATOS as they call it for short, pretty much talks about everything from video games, new tech toys, movies, etc. Well since they have the new live action Transformers film coming out this summer, they have decided to do a segment called stump the expert. They have pulled one of their staffers, who claims to be an expert on transformers, and have him answer questions sent in by the viewers. Now if a viewer is able to stump him then they get a prize. Pretty much like any contest. Well I'm watching this and he answers one right and one wrong and can't even answer the third one due to being a trick question. Now I’m sorry, but any one that really knows me knows that I have a real love for transformers knowledge and I will go as far to wager that I could go head to head even with the best of them. So I’m sitting here watching some guy that claims to be an expert, but who I would bet just happened to collect all of the boxsets and has watched each episode a couple of times. Well by now the hamster in my head in spinning fast in its wheel and I started thinking about questions I could send in that I know he would never get. So I get to school, go the G4TV website and go to submit a few questions, and as I get to the trivia page it says that I have to log in first. Great, yet another on-line community that thanks to my geekness, I may now have to join just so I can try to get some pleasure on trying to prove this guy a fake. I mean here I am pondering whether or not I want to create an account and join the G4TV forums just to submit a trivia question, but then I started to really think about it more and thought about everything that your able to do through their website. Not only do they have podcast that you can watch but you can get into chat discussions with the host of the shows while they’re airing. In some ways, people are able to be a part of the different shows. Now if that is not a use of new media I don't know what is. I mean like I stated in my last entry, how long will it be before some guy shoots there own independent film, creates a Myspace account and tells people to come watch it on a certain date, to when he will up-load it via Myspace video and you can sit there watch the film with out having to leave the confines of your home and deal with traffic and paying $8-9 dollars for a ticket (since a good amount of theaters don't accept student i.d's anymore). Here we have a Cable station that has created a website that in it's own right has become yet another on-line community, but unlike Myspace, allows interactibilty between user and host that other communities do not. I know there are more things that viewers to do, which I haven’t discovered yet, but I have to ask, do I really want to join yet another community? One that in all reality won’t really ever do much me and will probably just sit there with out any use except for when I go into one of these crazes of thinking that I know a subject better than someone and want to prove them wrong, not for some prize, but just so I might a get a little satisfaction of knowing that hey, I know this subject better than you. I know that sounds pretty petty, but transformers is just one of those subjects that if people think they know something, I like to challenge them at it. Past that, I probably will end up creating myself an account on the site, because I almost would like to see how they might use new media to further the use and interactiveness of their site. It’s fun to see where this is all going. I mean it’s like we are climbing a ladder to see how far technology can take us and we have barley gotten off the first step.

2007-02-20T16:55:00.000-08:00

I was going to post on how much Youtube has been pissing me off and why you should use another host provider such as Blip.TV, but as of 2:00 this past morning, I got hit with a stomach virus, and I'm still feeling it. So Hopefully I will be back up and running by tomorrow. Wish me luck.

On-line Communities...

2007-02-19T23:40:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I didn’t post this video do show a pod-cast about video games, but rather a pod-cast created by an on-line community. I have been fascinated with on-line communities for quite some time. On of my professor’s pointed out to me just how much time society spends with each other now on-line. I mean if you look at it, I find out more about my friends sometimes through such site as Live-Journal and MySpace than I do in person. In some ways it’s kinds of sad that people tend to spend more times with people via the web then with people in the real world. People seem to be able spend hours playing World of Warcraft or watching videos on Youtube and telling each other their opinions on them, yet they can’t take a half hour to grab a cup of coffee with a friend they haven’t see in two months. It’s fascinating just how much time people can spend on these sites. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty as other, but I just wonder what it is that causes us to get some caught up and lost in them. I’m on so many of them. I have accounts on Live-Journal, MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Youtube, Second-Life, Blip.TV, PodShow and Friendster; though never really use it that much. I’m already looking to start a Flickr account and one for 1-Up.com which given my love for video games that I would already have one. It’s sites like these in which new media is going to be the center of. Whether or not the site acts as the storage space for the media, or it is a place for you to show it people are starting to utilize it like crazy. We haven’t even begun to see what will be done. I mean people are already using MySpace to advertise their bands and music, but how long until someone advertises the premier of their movie by having viewed on their page?

Dragon Quest IX trailer

2007-02-06T20:40:00.001-08:00

Here is yet another Game that I am looking forward to this year. The Dragon Quest series has had a small success here in the states, but in Japan it is so popular that it is only second to The Final Fantasy franchise. This ad is in Japanese, but luckily it will be coming in here later this year.

Darth Vader Prank

2007-02-06T12:33:00.001-08:00

Ok, this is just plain funny. A friend of mine said it was wrong, but I'm sorry. This is something that I could easily see myself doing.

Super Robot Taisen W

2007-02-05T15:03:00.001-08:00

This one comes out of left field, but I had to put it in here. I have a love for giant Japanese robot series. It was a mech series that got me into anime. Of course it was Americanized version of Macross, Robotech that drew me in, but since then, I've been hooked. It also got me that a few years ago I found out that they had been making video games which including robots from many of the different mech anime's released over the years. The only problem is that they are all in Japanese. That didn't stop me though. Even though they have released two of them over here in the states, I still decided to go ahead and import some of them from Japan. Now they're about to release a new one for the Gameboy DS. So it looks like I'm going to have to catch up more on my Japanese.

2007-01-24T13:09:00.000-08:00

Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 1

Ok, this just blew me away. Now I am child of the 80's and one of my favorite cartoons from that age was and still is He-man (doesn't help that I bought all of the DVD boxsets). Well I was researching different videocast that are on the web, and randomly I came across this one. Unemployed Skeletor! Some guy who dresses up as a villain from the 80's with a beer belly, who can't find work and decides to join the rest of the nation by starting a video blog. I have to say that now I have seen everything. I first thought that maybe is was just a one-time thing for someone that just wanted to have a little fun, but nope, the man has over 40 video posts already, with more coming. The quality of the video blogs aren't the greatest, but then again I don't think he was really worried about that. They video blog is however quite amusing and people continue to watch. All I can say is by watching them, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

2007-01-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

Nerdcore For Life Trailer

So I first found out about nerdcore last week as I was going through the many videocast and blogs that I check daily. Apparently there has been a whole sub-culture of geek rappers out there for a couple of years now, but really started getting noticed recently. Instead of hearing people rap about killing, stealing and making love, you have people rapping about comic books, video games and how much ram they have in there computer. I'm still trying to find out more about it. I can relate to a good chunk about what they are rapping about. I'm really curious to see this documentary now. One thing I did learn from all of this is that there is apparently a nerdcore artist out in Denton. I'm going to have to find out when her next show is just to get the full feel of one of these shows.

2007-01-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

GameScapes . Videogame Landscapes

I keep up with a lot of other new media artist blogs to see what they have all been up to and see what I might be able to learn from. One of the artists that I really like is Cory Archangel. He's been around for a bit. He recently posted a blog about a show they did in Milan, Italy. The show was called GamesScapes. It's basically a show dealing with videogame art. I really found this interesting since all of my art lately has been video game related.

First offcial post!

2007-01-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, the first official post for this new blog. This is a new type of blog. I have one for my art and other video projects, I have one for the class I am teaching, I have one for the new videocast that I am starting, and hopefully I'll have one for a podcast that this blog will help me come up with. Though there is the matter of the topic for this blog. As the title states, I am one huge geek who has embedded himself into the world of new media. So that is where I think I will take this blog. I want to make this one a bit more personal, but have it deal with my environment in all things geeky and new media. I know that can be a stretch, but maybe if I'm able to final post about other things that I'm interested about It, maybe it can both help to learn a bit more about myself, and help me to come up with what I want to do my podcast on.

Start of a new blog!

2007-01-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

Well I hope this will be the start of a new one.