Rolandt

I really love stumbling on an interesting data set, especially when I can put it to a map.

In this case, Translink has recently released their 2015 Performance Review, a set of documents detailing route statistics over the last  several years.  While they do provide 2015 rail passenger volume data, it is sadly incomplete, however the likely-not-terribly-dissimilar data from 2011 was presented as well for comparative purposes.  As such, I was able to map out what the 2011 Morning Rush hour looked like for rail transit (along with the SeaBus).

Among observations -

• Holy crap is the Expo Line the heart of the system, head-and-shoulders more busy than the most congested segments of the Canada Line, the next busiest line.  
• Holy crap is the Airport Branch poorly utilized. Of course, the Airport doesn't really have a workday peak, so this map isn't entirely fair, but the total day map doesn't look that much better, and this is for an air-train that has a fairly high mode share.  Not that there's really all that many people headed to the airport from downtowns anywhere anyway
• For two peak-only-unidirectional trains per hour, the West Coast Express is a surprisingly large component of downtown rush hour, with 3000 passengers per peak-hour flowing out through Waterfront Station, more than any rush-hour segment of the Millenium Line per direction.  
• And it's really staggering how little ridership the Millennium Line generated in 2011 (and see that ridership is only slightly up since then in the report).  Then again, as Jens von Bergman has noted, hub stations like Brentwood had fewer residents within 800 meters in 2011 than some of the more bucolic stations in East Vancouver, such as 29th Avenue. Since that time, there has been yet more development in Brentwood and a number of other locations, and with the Evergreen Extension supposed to be coming online before the end of the year, this map will look very different when newer, Compass-collected data is available.  
• It's somewhat surprising how few passengers run through to Waterfront, though I suppose it should be less surprising given that it's out-of-the-way for many Expo Line riders.  Burrard, Granville, and Vancouver City Centre are overall much more important destinations for the rush-hour traveler on any particular line and this makes sense given that Waterfront is a peripheral station, with railyards and Burrard Inlet covering most of the north side of the catchment area. 

  Downtown Detail

In Nightgate, by Semidome, you navigate a glowing sphere through a grid of 3D geometric shapes guided by another sphere. This is where I suspect some people might stop me and ask 'Didn't you review this game last week?' No, but I wouldn't blame you if you mistook Nightgate for Gemini at first glance. There are some superficial similarities, but the two games are very distinct.

Nightgate is a follow up to Semidome's Last Voyage, which was among Apple's Best of 2015. The game features 50 levels of puzzles. The goal of each puzzle is roughly the same – guide your sphere through a maze of obstacles by dragging your finger anywhere on the screen to move over specific spots identified by dots surrounded by a circle. After you have flown over each node your companion sphere takes you to the next stage of the game.

The challenge comes from the obstacles, which are red lines and circles that rotate and move across the playing field. Run into something red and you have to start the stage over. There is no time limit and you can try a stage as many times as you want, which is part of what makes Nightgate a laid back experience.

The other aspect of the game that makes it relaxing is the soundtrack. I'm a sucker for a good game soundtrack and Nightgate's is one of the best I've heard in a while. Nightgate reminds me a little of the Stranger Things soundtrack. Maybe not quite so retro, but definitely similar in its ominous and spacey synth vibe.

Some soundtracks are just background music that feels tacked onto a game to add atmosphere. In contrast, Nightgate's soundtrack was clearly composed in tandem with the development of the game. It's part of the gameplay in a way that most soundtracks aren't.

The 3D geometry of Nightgate immediately took me back to 80s arcade games like Tempest and Battle Zone. But here, instead of playing from a fixed point of view, you traverse the landscape as it floats and moves around you. The visuals are a highlight of Nightgate and easy to capture with an in-game camera that lets you frame the perfect shot by dragging your finger across the screen.

Nightgate works on iOS devices and the Apple TV. I played on my iPad Pro and for a little while on the Apple TV. I have to hand it to Semidome for incorporating iCloud sync so you can pick up where you left off on any device. Too few game developers implement sync in their games these days and it drives me a little crazy.

One missed opportunity in Nightgate though, is the Apple TV implementation. Guiding your sphere using the Siri Remote works well, but I couldn't get my Nimbus SteelSeries controller to work with the game. A thumbstick seems like the perfect way to control your sphere.

What makes Nightgate special is how the visuals come together with the soundtrack to create an unified experience. Nightgate is challenging without being hard, which fits perfectly with the game's personality, but means it's not for someone looking to test their reflexes or be pushed hard by a game. Instead, what you get is a fun, immersive experience that pulls you in and provides a nice break from whatever might be on your mind.

Grab Nightgate on the App Store at its introductory price of just $2.99, after which it will be $3.99. If you want to get the soundtrack too, it's available for $6.99 on the iTunes Store and $7.00 on Bandcamp or can be streamed on Apple Music.

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Kevin Kelly, in Amish Hackers:

One Amish-man told me that the problem with phones, pagers, and PDAs (yes he knew about them) was that "you got messages rather than conversations". That's about as an accurate summation of our times as any. Henry, his long white beard contrasting with his young bright eyes told me, "If I had a TV, I'd watch it." What could be simpler?

Unlike some younger Amish, I still do not carry a smart phone. I do own a cell but use it only when traveling. If our home phone disappeared overnight, it would likely take several days before my wife or I even noticed.

I also own a television, a now-déclassé 32" flat screen. Henry is right: having a TV, I find myself watching it on occasion. I enjoy it but have to guard vigilantly against falling into a hypnotic trance. It turns out that I form certain habits quite easily.

I never use beta software just to be on the latest and greatest. So I did not install any of the watchOS betas. Apple Watch is way to important to me to risk serious bugs. You also needed to upgrade the iPhone to iOS 10 beta, which was even more out of the question.

So I waited patiently for the GMs and upgraded both the phone and the watch. And at first I was under the impression that watchOS was working the battery much harder and that I might run out of power before the day was over. But that was not what was happening. Instead it was me who was stressing out the battery.

Now that the novelty has worn off and I am back to normal, the battery holds up just fine. With about 23 hours off the charger and 68 minutes of exercise (HR monitor continuously on), I am still at 26%.

This tweet came my way today:

Now, if they were all in yoga gear, with a mat and growlers in their baskets, heading for a refill on their last stop before docking . . . maybe our work would be done.

Way Back a small seed were planted by few passionate,whose heart shares only one thought and that is Community .  That started growing day by day ,year by year,from one region to another region ,from people to people all because that small team nurturing it like a family.

It turns into a larger tree with long trunks which spreads from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, From Tripura to Gujarat , From Punjab to Kerala  or more precisely it reached to all sides of a country . From Kids to old age ,from a girl to our women , from a non-tech guy to nerds everyone get connected from it . Everyone started singing What does the Fox Say ? Its Awesome , praised by each and everyone around the globe. But then a phase came in front of this & that was out-breaking of ideas, there sounds which needed to directed into a way that fulfill this :

Which was not an easy task. Then Suicide Squad comes into picture(Did you mean Suicide Squad ) No, they are those who are willing to drive this force into a right way and taking all responsibilities onto there own shoulders ? There special efforts produced an optimal result when ~120 Mozillians from all along the country stepped-in into #MInM2016 .

it was such a pleasure to met several of those active , diverse by nature ,but connected by common goals Mozillians &  got to know about there past contributions, present workforce and upcoming goals .

Insights Based on My View : 

All sessions are well defined and instructions led by organizing team were pretty clear (it is almost 1:30 ,go back to Gallilio-1   ) However those who are willing to join multiple sessions , they feel it like half baked cookies (but its okay to be prepare one meal completely rather than preparing multiple half -cooked meals at the same time :P) .

End sessions were affected on 2nd day due to “travel back” term but till that time everyone got a good head start about Restructuring Mozilla India .

I was learning about social media and its influence and at the mean time also letting people know whats happening inside our Conference room. it was such a fun doing task i was handling.

Second thing that I learned is about MozVR ( visit this https://mozvr.com/ or learn it form here : https://github.com/MozVR/vr-web-examples ) that was simply but yet awesomely defined by Ram .

Third thing that I learned is about Brand and Cross Browser Compatibility issues in Firefox,so no more #moz #MoZiLLa or #Firrrrrrrefox thanks Brad for sharing it from a dev perspective.

Apart form these there are many more things that I learned but not sharing here… coz  I don’t to listen from a reader that it is an ultra large blog ,he read it after 2-3 naps

Overall it was a great experience to see the those goals were fulfilled with which this meet was organized . I am hopeful that The tree will again bloom with greenness and prove that why this Community is Called as Most Diverse Open Source Community [No citation needed ]

PS: I was missing blog writing and Sharing about Mozilla ,and with this I just made a comeback

 

The track at the level crossings is steadily being removed from the section between 16th and 33rd.

Redundant street sign warning of the approach to the now removed railway: the stops signs remain in place at all the crossings north of Nanton Avenue where there are no traffic signals.

Track removed at Nanton Ave crossing

King Edward Avenue

King Edward Avenue: some new blacktop added across the median

You can see the edge of the new road surface on the extreme right, where the track used to be. The white truck has pulled well forward of the stop line, which I think is going to be a continuing issue for cyclists aiming to get back to the Greenway.

While the track has been removed, the stop line and detector loops remain where they were. Even so, the white van moves up to the marked crosswalk, and thus fails to trigger the green arrow signal for the left turn onto Arbutus.

16th Avenue

Diverter to encourage people to use the signalled crosswalks: the blacktop used to be part of the off street parking for The Ridge on the other side of Arbutus Street.

Oh for goodness sake, Gregor, we know you haven’t had a chance to clean up this bit yet, but this is ridiculous!

PS for the last word on why paving should be the answer

Filed under: Arbutus Greenway

Jared Newman, Fast Company, Sept 13, 2016

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I've messed around with web apps in the past and I've never really been interested in developing for the mobile app ecosystem. So I'm hopeful something comes of this. "Web apps represent an optimistic view of the world, in which users are free from walled garden app stores, and developers don't have to rebuild their software for a half-dozen platforms." That's not to say there aren't issues beyond the competitive edge mobile apps enjoy, and this article is lavish in its description of them. And it's not a short article. But the work behind "Progressive Web Apps" offers room for hope. "Building immersive apps using web technology no longer requires giving up the web itself," writes Alex Russell, a developer at Google. "Progressive Apps are our ticket out of the tab, if only we reach for it."

[Link] [Comment]

Henry W. Lin, Max Tegmark, arXiv, Sept 13, 2016

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There's a good  Technology Review summary of this article. In a nutshell: why do deep learning algorithms, which simulate neural networks, work so well? Mathematically, they should be much less effective, because they are attempting to select the best answer from an enormous number of possible outcomes. According to this paper, the reason is that the laws of physics are biased toward certain outcomes, and neural networks - which emulate physical processes - are biased in a similar manner. “ We have shown that the success of deep and cheap learning depends not only on mathematics but also on physics, which favors certain classes of exceptionally simple probability distributions that deep learning is uniquely suited to model.” It's an important lesson: the universe may be described by mathematics, but it is not defined by mathematics.

[Link] [Comment]

Paul Ibbotson, Michael Tomasello, Scientific American, Sept 13, 2016

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I've never supported Chomsky's theory of language learning. So to me, this is old and unsurprising news: "cognitive scientists and linguists have abandoned Chomsky’ s 'universal grammar' theory in droves because of new research examining many different languages." The real mechanisms for language learning are network mechanisms. "Children use various types of thinking that may not be specific to language at all— such as the ability to classify the world into categories (people or objects, for instance) and to understand the relations among things." To my mind (and how I argued in papers like 'Conditional Variability' and 'Why Equi Fails') Chomsky's approach founders on the question of context. This is borne out in the new research. "The contributions from usage-based approaches have shifted the debate in the other direction to how much pragmatics can do for language before speakers need to turn to the rules of syntax."

[Link] [Comment]

We’re making a pair of pants. The idea: look great and travel lightly with one pair of pants.

We’ve been testing the women’s and men’s styles for the last few months. It’s been loads of fun seeing it all come together, and we wanted to share that with you!

Our Kickstarter launches on September 14.

We are making two models of pants—one for women, one for men—that travel really well, are incredibly comfortable, and look great no matter where you go. The pants are ethically made and made to last.

We use sustainability-certified performance fabric that is water and dirt repellent, wrinkle-free and breathable. The pants are tailored in a classic European tradition in black that flatters many body types. They will be produced for fair wages in Berlin.

We’ve been obsessed with having pants like this, so we went ahead and made some!

Learn more at our website: zephyrberlin.com

A pants party in Berlin

To celebrate, we’re hosting a launch party on Wednesday, September 14 at our studio in Berlin Neukölln.

There will be pants to try on, conversations about minimalist fashion, and a chance to throw water on the fabric and watch it fly off!

The money raised from the early supporter discounted Kickstarter pre-sales will fund the production of 100 pairs of pants. Secure your pair when our campaign goes live on September 14. By pre-ordering on the Kickstarter page, you are giving us invaluable support to continue pushing forward on this project.

Thank you!

We really appreciate your support. If you like to stay up to date, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter over at zephyrberlin.com. If you know someone else who might like a pair, feel free to pass this along!

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Images courtesy of the artist

In the comic and cartoon worlds, "adult" often refers to excessive gore and sexual material. But what happens when the art form is elevated to a higher level of thoughtfulness with diverse subject matter and lifted out of standard page sizes? Enter Kim Jung Gi, a Korean sketch artist breaking the confines of comic books and graphic novels to create large scale, detailed works ranging from scenes of everyday city life to surreal compositions.

The overlap of traditional Asian techniques and comic art, which both feature heavy line work, creates a sweet spot for this expanded vision of where comic illustration could be taken. "I am mainly influenced by Asian art because of my culture, so I am very familiar with ink drawing," he tells The Creators Project of his preference for ink—although he works in many mediums. He takes that background, combines it with the anatomy-focused style viewers are used to from the likes of Marvel and DC, and then swivels back towards more high brow ideas.

He's created a series of large scale ink drawings, often made in front of a live crowd. The largest piece he's made was a 20 foot drawing in Penang, Malaysia, where he attempted to break a Guinness record. Starting with a blank slate, he builds out these detailed worlds full of dozens, and even hundreds, of characters, immersed in complete scenery. Building on 30 years worth of sketching muscle memory, Kim works at a rapid clip. It's often called performance art, he says, since the line work is so physical and immediate.

"About 60 to 70% of the image is pretty much set, and from there I am trying to find the best composition, angles, etc. that would go well with the situation I've imagined," he explains. The pieces evolve as they build out. "Even when I'm drawing the same scene or subject, what I draw in it changes. For example, the people in the scene and their poses, their expressions and the situation itself can also change."

Some of his pieces are explicitly political, like the Korean flag featuring authorities firing on protesters in the dot at its center and his most controversial piece was about the comfort women during the Japanese occupation of South Korea.

It's not always so serious though. Much of his work is often just whatever he sees on a particular day, people watching or traveling. He indulges in the superhero side of things too, drawing popular mainstays like The Hulk and Batman, or creating his own snipers and cyborgs. His main source of income is from comics, so he's not one to disparage them entirely. He sees them as a way to bring artwork to the masses, but also simultaneously as a new opportunity for artistic expression.

A happy medium is Kim's series of sketch books, 15 of which have been published so far. They’re compilations of loose themes of his choosing, with series like Tiger Long Tail and Spy Games. In one, you'll find the expected assortment of action tropes, packed with characters loaded up on advanced weaponry; and then another is more like a diary, full of musings on paper.

 

See more of Kim Jung Gi’s work on his website.

Related:

An Artist Draws The Entire Internet With Crowd-Sourced Input

Meet the Artist Drawing Wall-Sized Illustrations of Cities and Natural Disasters

Cyberpunk Illustrations of a Dystopian Future

Boris Mann @bmann
@cqwww hey, got an answer for this? I’m interested too. ANYTHING end user friendly in this space? twitter.com/sillygwailo/st…

Cecily Walker ✨ @skeskali
Things I’ve Learned as a Manager cecily.info/2016/09/09/thi…

Alexis Brudnicki @baseballexis
This is why intentional walks need to remain a thing. Also other reasons. twitter.com/RNs_Funhouse/s…

Wire @wire
@cqwww @emd @bmann @sillygwailo @Snowden Not really build as Dropbox alternative but we do have e2ee file transfer.

Ah, it's that time of year when the annual new iPhone announcement comes out. I'm not particularly bothered. I've never bought into the cult of Apple products or services. If you don't think it's a cult, then I recommend your read this brilliant article about a journalist trying to get their press pass to attend. I digress. Judging by my timeline and the flurry of press releases about iPhone 7 compatible headphones and cases that I got within moments of the press conference finishing. A few people I know are upgrading the software on their existing iPhone and some have stated their aim to buy the new handset despite the high price point. I also note that Brexit appears to have put the price up due to our currency devaluation of late.

Do you really need to upgrade your phone? 

You might think that's an odd question from someone working in the industry and actively promoting mobile apps and services. But I am serious. I am conscious of the environmental impact the industry is having. And I was reminded of it this morning when following this discussion on TEN and this related article from Quartz from a couple of years ago, the reminder that the Coltan needed in all our phones, and not just iPhones, is sourced from troubled nations like Congo and Rwanda, that most of our phones are made in China where workers' rights are not necessarily a priority, putting it politely, and the retail workers selling the phones are on low wages too. And that's despite the £599+ price tag for the latest iPhone. And then there's the whole recycling issue - not just of the devices but of the cables, plugs, adapters and gizmos that we use alongside them. Is there anywhere near you where you can recycle cables and gadgets safely and easily?

My lowly Nexus One

I meet with friends from the mobile industry regularly. They joke with me that I usually have a really old phone. They're not wrong. I still use my Nexus One which I got in 2010 (although I can only use it for phone calls, SMS, alarm and, at a push, maps. It can't take the pressure of much else). It still works so why not still use it until it stops working?

I currently complement it with a Samsung S4 (3 years old) and a Google Nexus 7 tablet (also 3 years old). My laptop is also 2 or 3 years old but serves its purpose. Shouldn't our devices and gadgets be built to last? Until I actually need a new phone, I won't be upgrading any time soon.

How about you?

The EU commission has a lot of fun these days to find fair rules to abolish roaming fees from 2017. I’ve written down my thoughts here and here but actually, even if roaming fees go away, we are only halfway there. And that’s because there’s another thing that needs fixing: Rates for mobile calls between EU countries.

Today, only few people consider calling a fixed or a mobile number in another EU country from their mobile phone and usually also not from their fixed line either if they still have one. And that’s because especially on mobile, it’s very expensive.

Vodafone Germany, for example, charges its customer almost one euro per minute for the pleasure. As with roaming, competition between network operators hasn’t really set in. Vodafone has one in store for 5 euros a month for 60 minutes. Nice try. Other network operators who include EU fixed line calls in their standard bundles. But not mobiles. And I’ve come across a few network operators who offer unlimited EU fixed and mobile calls but you have to pay extra.

However, if we really want to have a single European market, a call from a Vodafone Germany customer at home to a Telefonica Germany customer at home should cost the same as a call to a Telefonica Spain customer at home. Technically, there is no difference. But as long as there is a difference between the two for customers, we are not living in a single European market and people refrain making calls to people in other countries. Except of course over Skype, Whatsapp and others because here, there is no difference.

Perhaps it’s time the EU started thinking about that as well because like roaming, competition hasn’t fixed this problem so far for most people, either. And it’s the majority that counts, not the few people who’ve bought a bundle to add this to their mobile contract.

But perhaps Skype, WhatsApp and others will fix the problem sooner than later with their apps on mobiles anyway. In many cases and for many people (including me) they’ve already done that. It’s time to wake up for traditional voice telephony to stay relevant because it’s got a lot going for it…

So…. the Guardian reports: Mark Zuckerberg accused of abusing power after Facebook deletes ‘napalm girl’ post.

Photograph: Nick Ut/AP

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.

“We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community. Our solutions won’t always be perfect, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them.

That’s what happens when you live by algorithms.

For more on this, see the new book: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Mathbabe, Cathy O’Neil.

PS Cf algorithmic false positives, false negatives, wtf – not our fault, it’s algorithmics and we aren’t accountable: Facebook loses legal bid to prevent girl suing over naked picture.

Yesterday, the HPVDT loaded up the van and hit the road to Battle Mountain. They’re going to have to move right along if they want to make it in time for tech inspection on Sunday.

Doing some final paperwork (signing waivers).

Vortex and Eta Prime all loaded up.

The “before” picture of the team.

I noted that this is the first time we’re showing up with a new bike that is already painted. Calvin retorted that this is the first time we’ve showed up with a new bike that has been fully tested!

For the rest of this post, I’ve collected some recent pictures posted by various teams on Facebook.

I like this graphic from Liverpool.

I’d note that the women’s record should show a French flag (unless we are talking about builders, not riders). Also, if Ken was putting out 800 peak watts, then Arion1 was a much slower bike than Eta.

Andrew Sourk all loaded up and ready to make the drive from Michigan.

Latest picture of Larry Lem’s bike.

Team Cygnus on their way.

Delft/Amsterdam is already there. Here they are toasting with a combination of water, Coke, and Sam Adams.

Super Ketta 162 revealed! A huge change from #161. Looks a bit like Eta with a Cygnus Chronos type hatch.

The current weather forecast looks like this:

Looks like Tues may be a washout. The other thing to look at is the wind. The legal limit for wind is 6 kph, so you can see why we run in the early morning, and just before sunset. The hotter the weather, the better (decreased air density).

As a point of comparison, here is the forecast for last year

and what actually happened was that Monday and Tuesday evening runs were scrubbed, as well as Wednesday morning. Here’s hoping that we have better luck with the weather this year.

For those of you who are coming, see you tomorrow!

 

 

In between concerts and time off, The Odyssey, running at almost 50 minutes, took approximately a year to make. Image: Emma Holley. Thumbnail via

At last week's MTV VMAs, it seemed like 2016 was the year of Beyoncé, as the pop icon walked away with eight awards for her efforts on Lemonade, a 12-track musically-diverse "visual album," an artform recognized by the new VMA category "Best Breakthrough Long Form Video," which the songstress won, as well. In reviving the VMAs "best long form video" award—given out once in 1991—Jesse Ignjatovic, an executive producer for the annual show, told MTV News that, “it just seemed that this year [long-form video] was something that was proliferating the music landscape more than the past," and that the VMAs were indeed “always trying to stay on the cusp and reflect culture and what artists are doing.”

Yet, many have seen long-form music videos surge and resurge throughout the years, making the artform just as indicative of the time period as the artists behind it.

“People have been doing long-form music videos for quite some time,” says Alan Cross, longtime radio broadcaster and music guru. “We can go back to the days of The Beatles and look at the films they did for things like Magical Mystery Tour, which really was a long-form music video long before there were such things as music videos traditionally. I think it’s something that we see every once and awhile when people have the funding and support to be able to put together a long piece of audio and visual art.”

A scene from The Odyssey. Image courtesy of Park Pictures

Cross makes a fair point. With the budget for Lemonade sitting at an estimated $1.35 million—compared, for example, to the $500,000 Michael Jackson spent on the 13-minute-long "Thriller" in 1983—a record label probably needs a lot of convincing to shell out that kind of dough, especially when investment in just two or three music videos is likely to yield the same returns in sales. Distribution becomes another issue entirely.

“It’s not like you can go to MTV or any of the other channels that play this sort of stuff,” says Cross. “They don’t really do that anymore, so you have to go to places like YouTube or other online sources. We also don’t see things like Roger Waters’ The Wall because recording studios that support that sort of thing have dropped dramatically. It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s just that things are evolving.”

While Lemonade did screen on HBO with a total runtime of 46 minutes, the payoff for lesser-known artists in creating what’s essentially a short film may not be there. But with film festivals like Cannes now boasting music video categories, long-form audio and visual pieces seem to break away from the industry’s use of a music video as a sales tool, instead becoming a vehicle for immersive storytelling.    

Florence Welch and Vincent Haycock on the set of The Odyssey, the short film nominated for the VMAs ‘best breakthrough long form video. Image: Emma Holley

“If you have an artist that is a good storyteller, or you have a director that has an eye for using music and visuals to tell a long form story, well then you’re almost making a musical,” says Cross. “Maybe what we’re seeing on some level is the evolution of the musical, much like what we saw with movies based on Broadway productions.”

Mamma Mia!, We Will Rock You, and American Idiot are but a few of the many instances when a theatrical production creates a visual narrative through a musician’s album or  discography. For Vincent Haycock, director of Florence & The Machine’s The Odyssey—which was nominated for the VMAs' Long Form category—finding thematic and visual consistency between songs was key.

“We were thinking along the lines of live theater,” Haycock tells The Creators Project. “But when the label came back saying that they still needed singles for each song, we had to work backwards from our big ideas and calumniate them down. We kind of treated it like a really open artform at that point, which is so rare. Our goal was to create this theatrical expressionistic piece.”

On The Odyssey set. Image: Emma Holley

Haycock has been working with music videos for ten years, having directed for the likes of Calvin Harris and Lana Del Rey. Even though he’s seen the budgets for music videos increase throughout the years—Apple now supplying production costs—when it comes to long-form, it remains as an artistic endeavor more than business opportunity.  

“One of the reasons why I’m so skeptical about it [long-form music video] is that it’s nearly impossible to get made,” says Haycock. “The amount of fighting we had to do to get the funds and the amount of effort that it took on Florence’s part to stand up for the project, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do this again.”

On The Odyssey set. Image: Emma Holley

Though it seems unlikely that ‘visual albums’ will become the new norm in the music industry, their rise spells a new aeon for the industry. What they justify, above all, is the field’s attraction for new filmmakers who become inspired with the pure emotional motivations behind a song.  

“I think it’s a natural progression for my generation of filmmakers that want to become filmmakers,” he says. “Doing music videos is just a good way into filmmaking. If you find a song that you can connect with where you can make images and put them together it can be really powerful. The same way a movie has a good soundtrack or score to a scene. I don’t see it much different from making a feature film, it’s just a shorter format.”

What are your favorite long-form music videos? Let us know on Twitter or in the comments below!

Related:

‘The Revenant’ Official Music Video Is All-Natural [Premiere]

Tour Solomon's Temple in Young Magic's New 3D Musical Environment [Premiere]

Belgium's First 360° Music Video Nails It

2-Screen The Clock (1945). Courtesy Warner Bros

When young, confident secretary Alice Mayberry, played by Judy Garland, nervously agrees to a date with traveling soldier Joe Allen, played by Robert Walker, they take a noisy bus ride through New York City—but the words "The End" appear on the other side of the screen. Watching Vincente Minnelli’s The Clock (1945) split in half, in dual-screen format—the film’s first half playing forward on one side, the second half in reverse beside the other—is a study in unexpected synchronicity.

In real time, the second half of the film—played backwards—finishes (but really begins), as if their courting was the beginning of the end. There’s the funny tension between a meet-cute on the screen’s left side, and the intimacy in which it culminates on the right; when Joe asks Alice if she’s married, she already is, to him, in the film’s second half. Cinematic flourishes, like the intensity of Garland’s gaze or the transparent overlay of clocks, lots of clocks, over entire scenes, feel enhanced when they get the immediate contrast of another, equally beautiful detail.

2-Screen The Clock (1945). Courtesy Warner Bros

One wonders why the film critic and historian David Thomson screened The Clock in this way in 1978 for a class at Dartmouth College, halving its run-time and allowing the narrative to unfold so unusually. His book, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies, culminates with this explanation: “I discovered that the [Dartmouth] archive possessed a 16mm print [...] on two reels of equal length. We aligned two 16mm projectors side by side [...] What did it accomplish? Well, it introduced a new mode of film—in reverse—so stunning, so lovely, so surreal, that it helped eyes appreciate all the same lyrical, kinetic things in forward motion, things to which we become so accustomed that we grow blasé.”

2-Screen The Clock (1945). Courtesy Warner Bros

It is indeed lovely and strange, which is why Obsolete Media Miami is partnering with the Miami Beach Cinematheque to screen filmmaker Bruce Posner’s digital reconstruction of the dual-projected film. Posner will be there in person, while Thomson will Skype in for commentary. The sound plays on Reel 1, projected forward; Reel 2 is silent and, during moments of dialogue, one can forget it’s backwards at all. (Well, until Alice pours coffee into a slowly emptying cup.) Posner produced this version with the Department of Film and Media Studies at Dartmouth College where, he tells The Creators Project, he landed on a page about The Clock in David Thomson’s book “Have You Seen . . . ?”: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, leading to his discovery about the initial dual projection of the film. “You’re watching all these tropes and formulas and visual tricks [...] and what you see at this rupture, at this fracture—these things all stand out more,” says Posner. “You can enter and exit the narrative at will.” Barron Sherer, one-half of Obsolete Media Miami, agrees. “Because the film has a self-sufficient meaning, we are free to investigate schematic patterns and visual tropes, and marvel at visual juxtapositions created by Thomson’s presentation.”

2-Screen The Clock (1945). Courtesy Warner Bros

Joe and Alice meet and fall in love quickly, and have just a day to make their romance official before Joe returns to war. They speak of the serendipitous nature of their love. “Suppose we hadn’t met,” she says; “We couldn’t not have met,” he replies. When he enumerates the details of their meeting, he expands it to include “the ships in the harbor, the convoy”—he is to be dispatched on a convoy himself. “They all matter.” When time is adjusted in the movie itself, the characters’ awareness of the objectively preposterous nature of their love becomes a self-referential, meta-cognizant. The Clock is ultimately a story about time, and when time is subject to experimentation, the film’s very predictability heightens its magic.

The dual-screen reconstruction of The Clock makes its world premiere on Saturday, September 17, 7PM-9PM at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. More information on the event can be found here. The screening is presented by Obsolete Media Miami, Bruce Posner, David Thomson, and Cinematheque founder Dana Keith. Its digital reconstruction in 2016 was supervised by Peter Ciardelli, Bruce Posner, John Tariot C.S.I., and Mark Williams for the Department of Film and Media Studies, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

Click here to visit Obsolete Media Miami's website. 

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The Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC) says that phones and tablets are now Canada’s most popular gaming platforms.

Though ownership of game time spent playing console titles hasn’t really changed since 2014, 41 percent of Canadians now report playing video games on mobile devices the most often. This is a significant jump from the six percent reported on mobile back in 2012.

“There’s no doubt anymore that video games are entrenched in popular culture and entertainment,” said Jayson Hilchie, president and CEO of ESAC, in a statement sent to MobileSyrup.

“Mobile games have exploded in popularity; top charts for mobile apps are routinely dominated by video games. Pokémon Go is a great example of a successful mobile game that has combined the popular adventure genre with a nostalgic franchise on an innovative Augmented Reality (AR) platform. No longer relegated to arcades and basements, video games are omni-present thanks to the mobile games phenomenon,” added Hilchie.

Mobile gaming also has captured the attention of a new audience, with female gamers now playing nine percent more mobile titles on a daily basis when compared to their male counterparts.

Related: Nintendo shows off its first real mobile game, Mario Run for iOS

“

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before someone with the plutocrat’s professional ethics made that leap into presidential politics. But the rest of the country had to catch up. We lauded robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould for their business success, but no one suggested for a second that they were statesman material. Now, in an era when the market reaches deep into our private lives and even high school students are expected to be experts in self-marketing, the door is finally open. Enter Donald Trump.

He thrives where others flail. His rivals — including Hillary Clinton — have had to submit to their vocation as politicians and try to sell their character and integrity. Mr. Trump has had to sell only the idea of his success, which, according to the modern law of transitive properties, will make everyone who embraces him successful, too.

No wonder, according to reports, that Mr. Trump possesses such a fondness for McDonald’s, whose motto is “I’m lovin’ it.” The pitch requires no argument, no evidence, no complex rhetoric. You’re gonna love our burgers because the fact that billions of them have been sold proves the validity of the claim. You’re gonna love Mr. Trump because millions of Americans already do.

Seen in the light of modern commerce, Melania Trump’s lifting of lines for her convention speech from a speech by Michelle Obama had nothing improper about it. Success builds on success. There was nothing unusual about Mr. Trump’s acceptance speech in Cleveland, either. People were astonished that he did not tell a touching personal story, as all politicians do, and as Ronald Reagan did to consummate effect. Products, though, have no personal past or any kind of human dimension. A winning product is a result of the seller’s rigid, inflexible, even fanatical belief in the consistent quality of his merchandise.

The same goes for Mr. Trump’s bald lies at this week’s national security forum. He denied, despite hard evidence, that he ever supported the Iraq war. Pundits were dismayed. But his supporters love him all the more for his brazen adherence to the integrity of his “brand” over minor details like the truth.

Yet Mr. Trump seems to suffer from a manufacturing defect. Republican leaders seem to want to recall him as though he were a faulty airbag. And it’s unlikely that enough Americans will buy his marketing pitch for him to win in November.

”

-

Lee Siegel, The Selling of Donald J. Trump

I love the trope of looking at Trump as a product of the hypercapitalist world order, and not as a person.

Products have no personal past or any kind of human dimension.

Hence, no personal story at the convention.

“Stereotypes are harmful. But the voices are funny.”

- Louis C.K.