VIDEO: Macbook thief gets defamed on YouTube

I CAUGHT wind of a fantastic story on 5fm while stuck in traffic this morning. Apparently some guy had his fancy new Macbook Air stolen from him. A while later, Steve (we’ll call him Steve) remembered that his Macbook had an auto backup function which automatically backed up his data to an online server. When Steve went online to have a little peruse through his data he skillfully managed to find the identity of the Macbook thief. Not only that, but Steve also came across a video the wannabe rapper had made using his newly acquired Macbook Air.

Steve reported the identity of the Macbook rapper to the police and uploaded the video to YouTube. It has now seen over a million views and is appropriately titled, “don’t steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers.” The rapper has asked that the embarrassing video be pulled from YouTube and that he was sorry for stealing the Macbook. Steve and his new fan base told him to get bent.

Don’t steal computers belonging to people
who know how to use computers

lol

TED TALK: Tom Chatfield chats about the benefits of gaming

I'VE always believed that games can be highly beneficial in many ways. I remember always trying to justify why I played games so much to my folks at a tender, young age. Apart from improving basic hand-eye co-ordination, I argued that I was learning a great deal about history.

Sid Meier’s Civilization was my main ammunition for this argument, but even World War games with real historic footage and snippets of factual information made learning an incredibly engaging and fun process. There is even the chance that gaming could make you a braver person in the real world.

Tom Chatfield gave a TED Talk this year about the benefits that games can have on the way the brain learns new information and responds to stimuli in both the virtual and real worlds. He suggests how universities and business can learn from gaming by applying some simple techniques.

The video takes a few minutes to get into the juicy bits, but it really is interesting stuff and well worth a watch. Enjoy!

Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain

About this talk
We're bringing gameplay into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours -- and real money -- exploring virtual worlds for imaginary treasures. Why? As Tom Chatfield shows, games are perfectly tuned to dole out rewards that engage the brain and keep us questing for more.

About Tom Chatfield
Tom Chatfield thinks about games -- what we want from them, what we get from them, and how we might use our hard-wired desire for a gamer's reward to change the way we learn.

About TED
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading". It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design.

That's www.ted.com

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MUSIC: Das Spiegel music video by The Chemical Brothers

THERE are very few songs that give me goosebumps, but lately I have come across a few musical gems that instill feelings of euphoria within my dark, squishy center. Das Spiegel by The Chemical Brothers is one of them. It takes some time for the song to build up and really kick in (about 3mins in), but it is one that you can actually appreciate having stuck in your head.

The accompanying music video for Das Spiegel is a little weird, which is possibly in true Chemical Brothers fashion, but the tune is timeless. Give it a listen and I'll let you decide for yourselves. Enjoy!

Das Spiegel by the Chemical Brothers

This song got me through a three hour traffic jam the other week. Sitting in stationary traffic when it's 37 degrees outside is no fun, but I have never been more grateful to have aircon and good music. This song really helped too. I was actually having quite a good time while other people were literally hanging out their windows and panting with their shirts off.

Tensions on the highway were high. This one bicep-enhanced guy in a tank top even got out his vehicle and tried to moer a truck driver! I assumed he had being bumped while moving three feet every ten minutes. People who traveled between Durbs and Maritzburg last week might know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm assuming that Das Spiegel has finished playing now. So? Wasn't that great!? Yay or nay? Big ups to the Chem Bros for this great track! Das Spiegel FTW!

Related Sweetness: The Chemical Brothers Das Spiegel live in Montreux

And here's a little (censored) quote from one of their fans:

VIDEO: Jack the Ripper - ripping it up at the Dargle

Evidence has been found that suggests that the character known as Jack the Ripper once resided in the Dargle in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He is known to have frequented Singletons bar, which is now located in the hotel called Tanglewood Country House. The Ripper also never paid for his drinks. Check out this very professionally made mini-docy from Witnessonline.

Jack the Ripper at the Dargle

DID Jack the Ripper once stand drinks at the bar of the Tanglewood Country House in the Dargle? Well, if he did, he didn’t pay for them.

The hotel that is now called Tanglewood Country House was originally a house built by Alfred Singleton in 1864. It was then rebuilt in 1885 by his son, Gilbert Singleton.

Some accounts have the Fannin family involved with the hotel. Certainly it was Thomas Fannin who settled in the area in 1847, and coming across a stream that reminded him of the Dargle stream in his native Ireland, named his farm after it. In time this became the name for the entire valley.

In 1888, a familiar face at the bar of Singleton’s Hotel was a Mr Demming who had leased nearby Portmore House. He gained a reputation for ordering rounds of drinks and then forgetting to pay. Being a likeable chap this foible was overlooked and a bar tab opened on his behalf.

One day Demming (a.k.a. Jack) invited everyone to a lavish tennis party at Portmore with catering provided by the hotel. When the bill was sent the following day it was discovered Demming had skipped along with all his belongings. Bill and bar tab remained unpaid. And so the tale of the thrifty English rogue entered local folklore.

• Was it really the notorious Jack the Ripper in Kwa-Zulu Natal?
  Read the rest of the Jack the Ripper in the Dargle story here

FANTASY FILM: Doraleous & Associates Season 1 comes to an end

Doraleous & Associates is a fantastically humorous video series started by The Escapist at the beginning of 2010. Its first season recently concluded with the 24th episode. If you are not yet familiar with the show, below is the first episode of season one. I personally find it to be a great little video break during the working week (usually Friday afternoons), but you should appreciate it if you are a fan of fantasy, digital animation, Doraleous and great wit-filled humour. Enjoy!

Doraleous and Associates is written and voiced by the very talented crew of Nate Panning, Brent Triplett, Bryan Mahoney, Jon Etheridge and Tony Schnur. Drawn and Animated by Brent Triplett and Jon Etheridge. See a new episode every Thursday at Noon (Friday mornings for South Africans) only on The Escapist.

• Watch the complete first season of Doraleous & Associates

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VIDEO: Interview with Mango Groove's Claire Johnston

CLAIRE Johnston of Mango Groove fame was at Gateway the other week promoting her band’s latest album Bang the Drum. The album is great – a little different in pace to what Mango Groove fans are familiar with but is still in vibey and Proudly South African Mango Groove style. A colleague and I caught up with Claire Johnston for an interview. The video supplement and article follows:

Interview with Claire Johnston

Ryan Calder

IT’S 9 am on Monday morning, and my colleague Galen Schultz and I make our way to the food court of Gateway Shopping Centre, carrying video cameras and dictaphones. Claire Johnston of Mango Groove is instantly recognisable.

Wearing a funky tartan cap, the famous blonde singer is sitting with her EMI rep Kevin at a coffee table in the food court as we approach. They stand to greet us and I immediately note her black and white jersey, which I refrain from mentioning, given the poor run of form of the Sharks in recent weeks. Still, I like that she’s thought about it. When in Rome...

We find the quietest corner of the busiest shopping centre in Umhlanga and get to the interview, which has come about after the release of Mango Groove’s latest studio album, Bang the Drum. The album is the band’s first in 14 years.

“Very good question, why now?” Claire Johnston reflects. “Mango Groove never split up, but we all took a break to pursue various projects which we had all wanted to do for a while. You get to a point where you love what you do, but probably don’t appreciate it as much as you should, and that’s a good time to take a break and explore different things.”

Johnston was 17 when she joined the group 25 years ago, and after Mango Groove’s success went on to pursue a solo career which saw the birth of three albums. “But slowly, over the past seven years, we had each started feeling those stirrings again, which was nice. It was nice to know that we were ready.”

Claire highlights the launch of the band’s website as a catalytic point in deciding to record again. “It was amazing once the website was up, we got responses from people asking where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing.

“We did some shows in Gauteng and people went crazy for songs like Hometalk and Special Star, and we knew the magic was still there. That’s why we’re in this industry: it’s a feel-good industry as much as it is a business industry.”

Claire Johnston knows the hardships of making a career as a musician, having recorded Fearless, a solo album in the UK, which she admits was very different from Mango Groove and “refreshing on a personal level”, but which wasn’t received well in South Africa. She then recorded Africa Blue, a collection of songs “which have influenced me and which I am fond of” which were closer to the sound of Mango Groove.

“I like to think of my solo career as running parallel with Mango. It can be done, you just have to be savvy about it.”

For now, however, Johnston’s focus is clearly on Bang the Drum, Mango Groove’s new 16-track offering which clocks in at close to 70 minutes. Recording the album “was like coming home,” Claire Johnston reflects, “because it was in the same studio where we recorded our first album. They’d changed some of the wallpaper and some of the technology was new, but it really felt familiar.”

Out of the studio has come an album that is typically Mango Groove. “People ask us who our target market is. I just say ‘well, everyone’. Perhaps I’m naive, but I like to think that music can do that, that it can stretch across all sorts of boundaires.” - www.witness.co.za

Related posts: Video interviews with ...

• Watershed • Magna Carta • Guy Buttery

3D VIDEOS: How to create them for YouTube

YouTube has a clever new feature which creates red/blue 3D videos. To create one yourself you’ll need a pair camcorders (preferably identical ones), some video editing software (Movie Maker 2 should suffice) and some 3D glasses to watch the results. You can easily make a home-made pair of 3D glasses if you don’t own a pair already (see link below). Here’s how to make the video:

1. Set up a scene to be recorded on the two cameras simultaneously. You need to arrange the cameras like a pair of perfectly level eyes. Any difference in angle will reduce the 3D effect.
2. Sync the resulting footage using your video editing program by placing the two shots side by side in the same frame. The ‘left-eye’ camera shot should go on the right-hand side and vice-versa.
3. When you upload the video to YouTube, add the tag “yt3d:enable=true”. If it’s in widescreen you need to add “yt3d:aspect=16:9”.
4. YouTube will then analyse the video and create a composite of both sides. When viewed with your 3D specs the video should jump out at you in full 3D greatness.

And that’s all there is to it! If you struggle to create your own 3D productions here’s a list of 3D videos currently available on YouTube.

Related post: How to make 3D glasses

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