Charles and Ray Eames: A Communication Primer

February 19th, 2009 · 4 comments or link to (permalink)

The Eames’ showed that films could be approached as a design exercise and as such were the forerunners to much of today’s information design, which has had a resurgence as a result of the Web. Their best known piece is Powers of Ten, but this is another little beauty.

The film is nicely self-referential since it deals with Shannon’s information theory. However, the astounding thing is that the Eames’ were savvy about Shannon’s groundbreaking work which was published only 5 years before. To put this in context, its as if Frank Lloyd Wright had written a book about Einstein’s Special Relativity in 1910, when it wasn’t fully endorsed by the physics community.

Via Kottke Via Infosthetics

4 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: technology

Hoover Dam

June 10th, 2008 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Comments Off tags: technology

Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press

April 23rd, 2008 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Stephen Fry is a supreme technophile with the aura of a bookish technophobe. There is nobody better to present a documentary about early printing technology and how it changed the world. Great stuff – this is the first of six chunks.
via Kottke

Comments Off tags: history technology

The BBS Documentary – Part 1 – Baud

March 29th, 2008 · 6 comments or link to (permalink)

The BBS Documentary – Part 1 – Baud

Part 1 of what looks like a great documentary series about the Balkanized version of online existence before the Internet took hold. As one of the interviewees points out, people seem to think the Internet came out of nowhere rather than being evolutionary. In the same way, people think that the web created the explosive growth in the Internet, but actually things picked up a year or so before, opening up the evolutionary niche for something like the web to thrive. For that reason, understanding the history of Bulletin Board Systems, through a documentary like this, is the only way to understand the history of the Internet in its proper context.

As an aside, the Altair 8800, pictured, was the computer I used (or rather avoided using) at high school.

jason scott 38 min 19 sec Jan 13, 2007 www.bbsdocumentary.com

6 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: history technology

Steve Jobs: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

January 15th, 2008 · 2 comments or link to (permalink)

Playwrights and poets currently garner more cultural prestige than innovative computer makers, but this may be partly because the present rarely has the prestige of the past even if the here and now is where great art is born. The most prestigious art form of Ancient Greece was Lyre playing, hardly a venerated activity now.

I would argue that in a hundred years people will not have heard of most of the people that cover the arts sections of the broadsheets, but that Steve Jobs will be remembered not just as an industrialist, but as a cultural innovator – an artist.

Jobs is considered sartorially elegant, yet he dresses from the waist down in high waisted, beltless, over-length, bleached jeans and sneakers – like an average suburban mall shopper. He is though of as a great speaker, but his delivery is sometimes horribly rehearsed and his voice thin and nasal. But, listen to this speech from when he had just recovered from cancer, it is a masterpiece. For me this is the thing above all others, to show people who don’t get what all the fuss is about when he speaks at a tawdry trade show, tomorrow at the Moscone Center, and people cover it like it was the sermon on the mount.

Link

2 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: talks technology

The Sex Blog Girls

December 21st, 2007 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

I’m hesitant to post this, since the title makes it sound like link bait. Similarly, I’m not really interested in the subject matter itself for exactly the same reason i.e. this is the TV equivalent of link bait. That said, on a meta level, its entertaining enough to blog about watching a documentary about blogging.

In other words, this is voyeurism – and not because of the sex.
47 min 45 sec Dec 20, 2007

Link

1 comment » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: society technology

Jeremy Clarkson – The Century of Speed

August 16th, 2007 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

BBC
28 min 18 sec – Aug 16, 2007

Link

1 comment » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: gear history technology

Hubble – 15 Years of Discovery

April 24th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

The object that has revealed more mystery than any other.

Running time: 1 hour 22 mins.

Full screen

Comments Off tags: science technology

Norman Mailer and Marshall Mcluhan

April 12th, 2007 · 2 comments or link to (permalink)

Two intellectual giants debate violence, alienation and the electronic media in 1968.

Running time: 28 mins.

Full Screen

2 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: interviews talks technology

Teens Hooked on Pron

March 20th, 2007 · 14 comments or link to (permalink)

A ground breaking documentary on the effects of Internet Pron on Teenagers.

Running time: 56 mins.

Full Screen

14 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: technology

1957 Triumph Motorcycle Factory Tour

March 6th, 2007 · 2 comments or link to (permalink)

Great period piece

Running Time: 31 mins.

Full Screen

2 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: gear history nostalgia technology

A Perfect World

March 2nd, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Beautiful and original, award winning short, produced by former entertainment economist, Cyrus Ahanchian. A perfect world looks at the issues surrounding the ability to use technological developments to select or create beauty, through genetic engineering and plastic surgery.

Running time: 21 mins.

Full Screen

Comments Off tags: science technology

DeLorean

February 26th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Documentary about the cult car maker.

Running time: 59 mins.

Full Screen

Comments Off tags: gear technology

The iPod Revolution

February 9th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

The history of Apple’s iPod

Running time: 43 mins

Popout

Comments Off tags: gear music technology

History of Video Games

January 18th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

It began in 1972 with $500 and a company named after a move in ‘Go’…

Running time: 47 mins.

Link

Comments Off tags: games technology

The History of Hacking

January 16th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Running time: 50 mins.

Link

Comments Off tags: technology

1984 Macintosh Introduction Video

January 11th, 2007 · Comments Off or link to (permalink)

Full of classic period footage.

Running time: 1 hour 24 mins.

Link

Comments Off tags: technology

Pirates of Silicon Valley

January 11th, 2007 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

A bunch of people have been linking to this recently. However, to commemorate Steve Jobs’ recent performing of miracles, here it is, the story of Apple vs. Microsoft. Enjoy.

Running time: 1 hour 37 mins.

Link

1 comment » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: drama technology