by Steve Wettlaufer -

Follow Me. A Short Film About Every Internet Video Making Goober You Ever Did See


Whenever I hear a person described as an “online influencer”, “internet celebrity ” or “thought leader”, I can’t help but think of somebody just like this geek right here. Seriously, this movie is all of them.

A stay-at-home dad and self-proclaimed “internet celebrity” ignores an obvious addiction to social media, and attention from strangers, while embarrassing his family with his cringeworthy behavior and the hack “content” he creates.
Cast: Will Sasso, Justina Machado, Demi Adejuyigbe, Jacy King, Laird Macintosh, Samantha Velez, Marcel Nahapetian

by Steve Wettlaufer -

Happy Birthday, Canadian TV!

This week kind of sort of marks the 65th birthday of Canadian television. There were experimental broadcasts years before then and if you lived in the right place and had a big enough antenna you could pull in some American stations, but until September 6th, 1952, Canada had no actual broadcast television of its own.

It was on that day that CBFT, more commonly known as CBC Montreal, signed on. It was followed two days later by CBC Toronto A.K.A. CBLT. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

On September 6, 1952, CBC TV debuted in Montreal on CBFT. At 4 p.m., viewers tuned in and watched the movie Aladdin and his Lamp, followed by a cartoon, and then a French film, a news review and a bilingual variety show.
Two days later, CBC TV debuted in Toronto. Seconds before the cameras went live, a technician removed and cleaned the CBC logo slide. Producer Murray Chercover shouted at the technician, “Don’t do that!” and the rattled crew member placed the slide back in upside down as the network took to the airwaves. “I can’t remember what we did, or if we shot the poor guy responsible,” Norman Jewison, then a 25-year-old floor director, later recalled.

Say what you want about the CBC, but you’ll never convince me that Canada would be better off without it than it has been with it. You simply won’t find a more reliable, consistent source for news, sports, music and comedy in this country.

by Carin Headrick -

Woe! I feel old!

Jen sent this video to my timeline and holy crap! I have to admit I don’t think I recognize all of the clips in here, but I recognize a lot. What’s more annoying are the clips I recognize but can’t name. For example, the one before the touch tones for the modem. What is that? It’s something to do with cartoons but that’s all I know. The one that’s the slowly rising thing I didn’t even know was the THX sound-effect. So, how many of these do you recognize? And how old do you feel?

by Steve Wettlaufer -

The Floppotron


We’ve posted a few different computer hardware musical creations here over the years, but nothing on this scale, I don’t think.

Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak built the Floppotron, a synchronized array of obsolete computer hardware programmed to play tunes. The current Floppotron 2.0 build sports 64 floppy drives, 8 hard drives, and a pair of flatbed scanners—most of these items have had their covers removed, apparently for improved acoustic performance.

Zadrożniak harnessed the power of the stepper motors in the floppy drives and scanners. By driving those motors at specific speeds, he can force them to generate pitches that sound a lot like string instruments. The hard drives can be gently overloaded to force the read/write heads to whack against metal guard rails—voila, percussion!

Saying it sounds “a lot like string instruments” is awfully generous, but that’s not me saying it isn’t pretty cool and even kinda good.

If you’d like to read more about how it all works and see more videos of it in action, here ya go.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

If The Late Show Is Good Enough To Anger Trump’s FCC, It’s Good Enough For Me

I haven’t watched the Late Show since Letterman left because rare is the night when I’m not fast asleep by 11:30 and none of our good for nothing cable companies will get around to building me a DVR I can use, but if this is the sort of thing I’m missing I might have to work harder to keep my old ass awake more often.

Damn.

Not only is this monologue quite fantastic by broadcast network television standards, but it’s also, according to Ajit (maybe that should be Idjit) Pai, the bloviating buffoon appointed by the gasbag in chief to run the thing, getting Stephen Colbert and company investigated by the FCC. I shit you not.

Colbert faced immediate backlash online from Trump supporters, and others who contend that his comments were homophobic. The host has not apologized for his monologue, though he did say the next day that he probably would have used some less-crude words if he did it all over again.
“I have jokes; he has the launch codes,” said Colbert. “So, it’s a fair fight.”
Trump also has the executive branch of the federal government. FCC Chair Pai recently confirmed his agency is looking into the remarks after receiving complaints from the public.
“I have had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints, and we’ve gotten a number of them,” Pai told WPHT-AM radio in Philadelphia. “We are going to take the facts that we find and we are going to apply the law as it’s been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts and we’ll take the appropriate action.”

Aww, poor baby. Not so funny when somebody turns your mean-spirited dickitry the other way, is it?

I’m sure nothing will come of this. This administration and its apologists will say just about anything at any time for any reason and it’s not as though anything Colbert said was obscene to a sane person especially at that time of day, but even if something does, if I’m CBS I’ll happily pay the fine since I’ll surely make whatever it is back in ad dollars in no time flat.

by Steve Wettlaufer -

If Real People Commercials Were Real For Real

It’s no secret that companies think we’re stupid and have no problem insulting our intelligence. To me one of the worst examples of this is the “we talked to real people to get their thoughts on our brand new…” type ad. Anyone with even the faintest snort of a clue knows that everybody in the commercial is either an actor, knows enough to say nice things because they’ll get on TV or edited to come off even more excited than they truly are. Oh, and that anybody who acts like an asshole to the product is headed straight for the cutting room floor.

But what if these companies weren’t straight up lying to our faces? What if now and then some uncoached guy made it in or things didn’t go exactly as planned? It might look like these Chevy videos from Zebra Corner.






And breaking with the theme just because I’m juvenile and it made me laugh…

There’s a channel filled with these things making fun of all sorts of companies for doing this crap. Prepare to waste some time.

by Carin Headrick -

A Different Type of Disability Etiquette Video

I saw this disability etiquette video which is full of supposed tips for us dealing with the public, rather than the other way around

and after I found the description, I had a really good laugh. I got most of it, but the disabled parking spot scene, the bathroom stall scary music bit, and the drunken puking person really needed description, so I’m glad it’s here.

We so need more of these. I wonder if she has done other videos.