Hey, guess what? I’ve watched more of these crazy videos and I will share some of them with you.
The first of this list is a discussion by Jane McGoniga, who talks about how games can possibly help solve real world problems. Far fetched? Maybe. It is very interesting how she has used that idea to apply to games that interact with real life. I could use to hear the word “epic” less.
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If you’re not familiar with TED.com, it’s basically a repository for really amazing lectures given by people who are much more intelligent than you or me. That’s really all there is to it. I simply want to list a couple that I’ve watched tonight. And don’t worry, all of the talks are very interesting.
The first, which is what is shown above, is a fifteen minute talk with a math genius who can square up to five digit numbers in his mind. It’s really quite fascinating.
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I am not a stranger to odd looks and questions. Living in Oklahoma and wearing Vibrams blows many a mind on a regular basis. I have quite a few conversations about them each week both in my office and out in the wild. There are also those fun times when you hear off in the distance “look at those shoes!” and you know they’re talking about you. It’s a blessing and curse, to be perfectly honest, as sometimes I just do not feel like getting into the conversation of why I’m wearing them. I love my Vibrams, but I don’t always want to talk about them when I’m trying to eat lunch. That is a rant for another day. What we’re talking about today, however, is somewhat along those lines: making your feet as naked as possible and how people react.
Birthday Shoes has an interesting post with the founder of Primalfoot Alliance, a site seeking to promote the idea of “letting feet be feet.” Basically they want to get the word out that wearing shoes is lame.
From the article:
Put simply, The Primalfoot Alliance is an advocate for letting feet be feet first. It is meant to be a unified voice for everyone who believes going barefoot is the best way to function, or who desire to ensure that their feet stay healthy by wearing the most primal shoes possible. We believe that the primal foot is one that is allowed to be free of imprudently restrictive, inflexible or gait-altering footwear. Barefoot is best, but we acknowledge that there are times that footwear is a better choice — just like when people sometimes wear gloves.
I enjoy this idea, but it’s not without its hardships:
The absolute first reaction from others when I go barefoot in public is usually confusion, whether good, bad or indifferent. A vast majority of society has a hard time understanding why ANYONE would want to go out in public without some kind of footwear on.
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I have been told by management or security at a number of establishments that I need to put on footwear if I wish to continue there. They have cited all kinds of reasons; usually they’re not well thought out.
I’ve had the idea that soonish I would try running totally barefoot; I know people do that and have had success. Would that lead to walking around totally barefoot in…IN PUBLIC?! That remains to be seen, but I feel like it would be an interesting social experiment, especially in Oklahoma where a lot things that are different are met with fear and confusion. Well, that might not be wholly true, but I feel like that is the truth.
With that in mind, I can only assume that the public reaction around here would be a conflation of what we already experience with Vibrams plus the added frustration of not being able to go to certain stores. But we shall see.
Is this a phenomenon that should be left only to the experts (like Britney Spears in public restrooms)? Speaking of which, what about public restrooms? Those are already gross with regular shoes and twice as gross in Vibrams. Unshod sounds like a nightmare. Has anyone who happens to read this gone any long period of time where they painted the town red while being barefoot only? Please let me know, I want to hear about it.
Gather ’round children, for a fun story of funness. It all started but a few days ago on a normal Saturday afternoon in downtown OKC…
As some of you know, I host a show and we like to shoot in interesting locations when possible. For the passed few weeks we have been filming downtown because there is always the potential for interesting shots. So we film the show, eat some lunch, and I decide to begin getting footage to make a video for Cities in Minutes. The footage will be turned into a time-lapse film so there was a lot of sitting around to do while we waited on the camera to simply get footage.
It turns out that that weekend was home to a Pre-Paid Legal convention in Bricktown where we were shooting. Massive throngs of suits made their way to and fro, filling the streets and sidewalks with grey (for the men) and various bright colors (for the women who wanted to look serious and cute at the same time).
I want to tell you about one of the best board games ever made. It’s called Arkham Horror. It has nothing to do with Batmans, but everything to do with H.P. Lovecraft and also sometimes Cthulhu.
The goal of the game is to work together to destroy monsters and the gates that they emerge from them. If you fail to do so, an Ancient Other (read: super-demon) comes to town and you have a last ditch effort to destroy it else your group of investigators are devoured. It conflates Lovecraftian lore with D&D elements to create an great game that should not be missed. Let me just put it to you this way: there’s the possibility of being a nun with a tommy gun. Buy this game.
The video above is of myself and a group of friends putting some time into the game this weekend. All told it was an hour of footage, but that was really only about half an hour of gameplay. The initial set up of the game takes some time (especially with newcomers), but it’s all worth it. One full game can run from two for four hours, so bring snacks.
I talked about this briefly yesterday. You know, this whole “time lapse your city and make it awesome” thing. I think tomorrow after work I am going to watch the sunset and get that on film, but we’ll see about all of that. What I’m here to show off today are some of the awesome videos that are in this project. I only hope that my finished product looks half as awesome.
Praha Melody from Matt G on Vimeo.
London in a minute from Tito Sacchi on Vimeo.
Small Life in Dresden from Christoph Schaarschmidt on Vimeo.
There are tons more, but I don’t want to muck this post all up. To see the rest, check out the channel here and then also go to the group they have; there are even more videos there. These are so great; I WANT TO DO THIS.
For the last few hours I have been absolutely hooked on watching all of the videos from this Vimeo project called Cities in Minutes. Basically what it is all about is creating videos (mostly time lapse) of cities around the world to get a one to two or so minute look at the city. Why am I writing about this? BECAUSE I WANT TO DO THIS.
What I am brainstorming right now is about locations. Where are there cool locations in Oklahoma City? Try not to laugh, I’m sure there are some somewhere. Currently my list is as follows:
And that’s about it off of the top of my head. What other places around here would be fun to view?
Alternately, for funsies, here are a few time lapse videos I’ve done in the past:
I may or may not have written on this subject before, years and years and years ago, but I feel it’s about time to bring it back up.
Now, this message is directed firstly towards those who drive in Oklahoma, but I am sure that in regards to the subject matter therein, it can be applied to nearly every town in every state where people who cannot drive are prone to live. My proximity to Oklahomans, however, forces me to narrow the field a bit.
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