In researching a story about the presidential campaigns' efforts to attract young voters, I found a treasure that must be shared. On John McCain's campaign site there's a video game called Pork Invaders.
A McCain logo at the bottom of the screen shoots red vetoes up at pigs, which are dropping little bombs that can kill the logo if you don't maneuver out of the way with the arrow keys. And look for the pork barrels flying across the screen--one I hit was worth 300 points!
Barack Obama's campaign hasn't responded with a competing video game. But he has Nintendorks for Obama on his side. The Nintendorks have an amusing web site. One headline reads, "For dorks who love Nintendo... and Barrack Obama". But apparently "dorks" are not into giving campaign donations. As of Monday, July 7th they'd raised $125 from four people, that despite the offer of a button, magnet or two stickers with the "Nintendorks for Obama" logo.
--Jeff Brady
4:41 PM ET
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07- 7-2008
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I was just surfing the NPR site checking out different types of media when I stumbled on this video about oil in the Nigerian delta posted by WESUN. I was mostly interested in who produced it. However, when the video started, I was surprised to see that the video (actually more of a slide show) had a soundtrack. The music is strong and fits the images, which are incredible. It isn't voiced but does use still text effectively.
It turns out that it was produced by a photog from National Geographic and was posted to accompany his book, which was the subject of the radio interview. The music underlying the video isn't my main concern because I hope that NPR's policy, whatever form it takes, will allow for music. However, the video could be interpreted as being a bit bias and it's not entirely clear weather NPR produced it or not. And, if it is indeed NPR policy not to have music on the web yet, how did this get through?
-- Joel Riddle
3:14 PM ET
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07- 7-2008
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We started our week with David Gilkey, one of NPR's two Videographers, though I'm not sure how they would feel about that title. He gave us a quick tutorial on lighting. He focused on musical performances, or perf chats in NPR lingo, because that is probably the one scenario where we would have enough set-up time to bother with a lighting kit. It was interesting. He discussed the problems radio interviews cause when shooting for video. Basically the mic is in the way so a video shoot would involve asking the performer to redo a song with a mic that wasn't directly in the shot.
Then he moved on to how lighting works. The up-shot was that you need consistent defused light that isolates the person you are shooting. He talked about lighting problems camera operators run into in the field and how to work around those. This led to a broader discussion on the direction of NPR and its future web presence.
-- Joel Riddle
12:35 PM ET
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07- 7-2008
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“In the lingo of the Web, OMG!”
Ladder-style lacing
Photo by Ian Fieggen .
OK, so maybe its not as useful as fifty ways to leave your lover. Still, there is something alluring about creative shoe-lacing.
But first, let me offer a little background:
Us Knights-In-Training are asked to do a story each week. My partner, ATC producer Art Silverman, came up with a good one. The magazine, National Geographic Kids had gotten their readers to send in old sneakers. They were going to string them all together and set a new world record. It was a natural story for this "new media" world - good visuals, activity and even an eight year-old kid who had collected over five hundred sneakers. So we recorded audio, shot stills and video, came back and tried to make something out of it.
But here's the thing. In Knight training, we are asked to present the story in several different ways. There might be a video, a slide show with audio, and maybe a map. In our case we had the overall story, and we had a nice interview with the kid, but we sort of needed one more element.
So we did what anyone would do in this situation. Google.
And there we found Ian's Shoelace site. In the lingo of the Web, OMG!
In addition to 34 ways to lace your shoes, Ian offers extensive advice on pressing problems such as slipping or crooked shoelaces. He provides a treatise on aglets - those would be the usually plastic things at the ends of the laces. And, of course, he has instructions on a variety of alternate shoelace tying techniques.
Ian lives in Australia, and according to his Web site he's just a regular guy and not a "Knotting Nut." Whatever.
For me, at least, he's yet another reason why the World Wide Web really has made the Real Wide World a much more interesting place.
Oh, and here's the video we made of the successful attempt to set a record for the longest string of sneakers
- - Steve Proffitt and Art Silverman
12:33 PM ET
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07- 7-2008
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