Colbert Rips Washington

Don’t miss Stephen Colbert taking the piss out of Bush, Washington culture, etc. at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (up on YouTube.com). Amazingly gutsy performance, and he keeps his cool when the crowd turns on him. Currently pushing 2000 diggs on digg.com. There are three parts to this video. YouTube allows only ten minute clips, so look for the links to parts two and three to the right of the video. If you can’t find them, here are the links: part two - part three. For the bandwidth-challenged, here is the transcript.

There is now a torrent for the entire show. If you have a bittorrent client and some bandwidth, download and seed this. I use Bitcomet on the PC and Azureus on the Mac. This is the power of the Internet. If the media doesn’t get it out, we now have the power using the collective capacity of our PCs and the existing Network. Unfortunately, the big telcos in the US are trying to take this away via their whore politicians in Washington, the very same folks Colbert rips on a nightly basis, so don’t make the mistake of thinking there isn’t a very real struggle going on.

That struggle includes silence in the mainstream media when somebody does something like this. Colbert’s performance is non-existent:

C-Span links to this article about the dinner:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060430/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_correspondents

No mention of Stephen.

Same thing at CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/30/bush.press.dinner.ap/index.html

Same thing at MSMBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12555176/

Same thing at CBS:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/29/national/main1561619.shtml

ABC video, “Funny Man Bush”. Same account of the dinner as all the others:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1906597

Same video and commentary at FOX:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193709,00.html

People should see what courage looks like. Speaking “Truthiness” to Power through a thin veneer of hilarity. Colbert’s act is quite special. He plays a wingnut commentator, but utterly discredits the right through his hyperbole and arrogance. In other words, his act is more realistic than some think. Satire at it finest. Jonathan Swift would be very proud.

Trax: We’re Breathing Again

See how long it takes you to recognize the samples in this track.

Trax: Sex, Lies and Audiosamples

This track uses samples from Bill Clinton lying about Monica Lewinsky. This is my first try with GarageBand so be kind. Need to mix down Bill a bit I think, but the sample I found is a bit hot to start with. Oh, I’m podcasting these trax so subscribe if you like.

A web page that browses YOU?

With Apple (and presumably other companies) getting closer to rolling out two-way LCD panels, what are the implications for the web? The LCD panel is set to become a big image sensor. It doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch to plot incoming and outgoing photons against each other. What possible relations could they have with each other? And if it is possible with photons, why not other forms of radiation? Infrared? Ultraviolet? Chemical sensitivities?

And what about sound? Why can’t the panel become a highly sensitive directional microphone? Plotting sound as it hits the screen in different areas could tell you a lot about direction and the movement of objects emitting sounds in a space. Imagine a screensaver that reflects the room around it, mixing sounds and images into a pattern…sorry. What about useful things?

I don’t have the answers, just some wild speculation, but the applications could be of a form we have not yet imagined. It seems to me that there needs to be some new APIs that communicate all the possible inputs of these new two-way LCDs with web pages that can gather information.

Medical: “put your hand on the handprint outline so we can collect some vitals on you before we proceed with this remote web-based diagnostic.”

Financial: “Please press your thumb against the thumbrint box on our banking web page.”

Personal services: “Please center your eye in the make-up analysis box and we will generate your ideal pallette of colors for each season.”

Plotting web page input zones or sectors agains actual input would seem to me to be a major advance. We need software that will gather and plot external inputs directly against sensitive areas on a web page. Looks like we’ll need some new form elements. Visible Light Input Box. Infrared Input Box. Directional Sound Input Box. I’m sure there are some smart people out there who will see the potential and figure out how to do this.

Peripheral devices are about to become not so peripheral.

Say Goodbye to the iSight

Well, not right way, but hopefully soon. In the category of true innovation, Apple is once again set to shake things up by getting rid of the traditional lens/ccd combination for digital imaging.

Recall that in Star Trek and other sci fi imaginings the actors all speak directly to each other through imaging technology. Anyone who has used computers to Video conference knows it doesn’t work that way, and the experience is far more askew.

Apple has filed patents for technology to change all that:

The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture.

A large LCD screen filled with image sensors would be ideal for videoconferencing, Apple suggests, as participants would always appear to look straight into the “camera”. The technique could also add a camera function to a cellphone or PDA without wasting space, and light from the screen should help illuminate a subject.

The more sensors there are, the wider and clearer the image. Sketches accompanying the company’s patent show as many sensors as liquid crystal cells in a screen. If some of the sensors have different focal lengths, switching between them would make the screen behave like a zoom lens.

Recalling our previous discussions of the future of the iPod, we have to conclude that the iPod is destined to integrate this view screen technology as well. Combined with enhanced mobile data rates we’re talking about the true audiovisual communicator. No lens or eyepiece to get dirty. Direct eye contact.

Depending on how the technology develops, those old jokes about the secretary holding the paper up to the monitor to use the computer fax modem won’t be so silly anymore. Use your flat panel LCD to scan? Why not? With software image correction, it may not be that far off.

How about signing into a website by pressing your thumb against the sign-in box on the screen? Or how about retinal scanning? Facial recognition? Seems like some important implications for Identity 2.0 may be inherent in this development.

And think of the interesting possibilities if this technology could be coupled with flexible displays. Roll it up and have panoramic image capture. Put it on the outside of a sphere and have an all-seeing-eye for surveillance. No more lenses for wide-angle.

Things just keep getting more and more interesting.

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