Archive for the 'Video' Category

Post-Debate Trainwreck

After last night’s presidential debate, MSNBC spoke with undecided Virgina voters in an effort to prove to the rest of the world that, indeed, Americans are complete idiots. The MSNBC panel delivered — big time.

Watch the video here

Host Ann Curry begins by reporting on Obama’s “10 percent” lead, then corrects herself to say “10 points,” despite the fact that these are identical. Unless — and this is a real possibility — she is actually referring to the score of the recent McCain/Obama 1-on-1, no-blood-no-foul, street rules b-ball game (currently in rain-delay.)

Next, she gets the ball rolling by asking the panel for “a show of hams.” Yum.

Panelist Jimmy takes a second or two before deciding, apparently on the spot, that McCain had appeared stronger on economic issues. He then becomes visibly uncomfortable upon realizing that he will be asked to defend this position. Gulp. Ultimately he explains that, in his view, McCain is “lookin’ downna road.” Eloquently put.

After Brian deftly defends the Obama “longer plan-picture”, Renise ruins everything by making perhaps the only reasonable comment of the night: that nobody even knows what the hell is going on with the economy, let alone how to fix it.

Lisa is introduced and described as being undecided because both candidates are just so great! Nobody listens to a thing she says, because we’re all too busy being amazed that anyone has this problem.

Next we have a couple shows of hands which, scientifically-extrapolated, prove that while 50% of Virginians know a racist, a full 100% know someone who thinks Palin is a moron. I’m going to be honest with you, Virgina: this makes me very sad/happy and I am disgusted/overjoyed to hear it.

Panelist Joan now joins the fray and, in a heroic effort to use as many words as possible, speaks of “The general public at large…” Wait, I’m confused. We’re talking about a subset of people here, right? Yes, that was sarcasm. The word you’re looking for is “everyone”. I just saved you 6 syllables.

Eventually we come back to Renise who, after disappointing early, now regales us with tales of Obama’s “temperament”, “discipline” and crowd-favorite “even kiln.” (I can second that one. You should see that dude’s pottery — it is freakin’ amazing.) Nice save, Renise. You are tonight’s big winner. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

Last place goes to Michael, who by virtue of the fact that he is never called upon and, in fact, doesn’t utter a single word, is unfortunately able to maintain an illusion of competence. Better luck next time.

Warren Buffett on Charlie Rose

Like, such as, the Iraq

(credit to Ganesh for noticing the similarity)

2008 US Team Weightlifting Trials

Watch some amazing displays of strength and power here (requires Microsoft Siverlight). Crossfit’s own Coach Burgener makes an appearance about 7 minutes into the video.

Great Nutrition Panel

I just finished watching this Charlie Rose episode where Dr. Mehmet Oz (yes, the dude from Oprah) moderates a round-table discussion on the subject of nutrition. The panel is made up of journalist Gary Taubes, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Barbara V Howard.

Provocative stuff. Highly recommended.

Clown Co. is No Joke

Hulu Logo

Do yourself a favor and check out the recently-launched Hulu service from NBC and FOX. It’s fantastic.

Hulu provides movies and TV shows in high quality with limited commercials. But the best part is, it’s totally legal. More details here.

I just subscribed to an RSS feed for new episodes of The Office. The Simpsons are next.

Google better look out. Clown Co is no joke. Pretty soon I’ll only go to YouTube when I want to see dudes getting hit in the nuts.

U-Dub Crypto Course

University of Washington has a pretty cool Crypto course online. Lecture videos, slides… it’s all here.

(Thanks, Preston)

Learn Computer Architecture From Dave Patterson

Book Cover: Henessey & Patterson: Computer Architecture

Wish you went to Berkeley and learned Comp Arch from the man who wrote the book? I’ve been working for AMD for almost 7 years, and without hesitation I can say that my answer to this question is an emphatic “Yes!” There is always something more to learn.

Well, wish no more. Head over to Berkeley’s CS 252 site and watch the vids.

Update:
Just discovered the slides in PowerPoint and PDF format here

(via Massive Resource List for All Autodidacts)

Videos of Stanford Computer Systems Colloquia

Add Stanford’s EE380 site to your list of killer video sites. My TV is getting more and more useless every day. I’m just finishing Dave Patterson’s talk, it’s great. I can’t wait for Ian Piumarta’s either — I expect it will pertain to his NSF work with Alan Kay.

With net video like this, who needs TechTV anyway?

(thanks to Mike Wall)

Lessig v Barlow at 23c3

I highly encourage folks to watch Lawrence Lessig’s entire talk at 23c3 — it’s rad.

At least do yourself the favor of listening to the last 8 minutes of the video where John Perry Barlow enters the frey. Both Lessig and Barlow agree that “17 year old kids” will always circumvent the DRM du-jour, but they go toe-to-toe on the efficacy of civil disobedience.

To Barlow, it’s simply a matter of time. If we merely continue to violate the DMCA, creating a sort of underground railroad for culture, today’s stodgy “rights holders” will eventually go to that big studio in the sky, and change will be inevitable.

Lessig’s position is that we don’t have 20 years to waste. As long as we allow the powers that be to write the script, we’ll be playing the part of “criminal” (and, surprise, we lose). Instead, if we generate a parallel universe of free culture we can lawfully supplant the current “consumer oriented” system.

Riveting stuff.