putative.com

Game of Thrones opening sequence interview

A great interview with and concept art from the creators of the opening title sequence for HBO's Game of Thrones, including some cool anecdotes for makers and pitchers of things:

Early on, we did a test render of the Red Keep, which is the main structure at King's Landing. We placed the fully rendered model on a CG board skinned with a sample of beautifully damaged plywood, and showed it to the executives. Somebody said, "We didn't know that you guys had a workshop." And at that point we knew we were on to something... that the artists working on the sequence had really started making something extraordinary.

The other thing the Internet is for

I am loving HelenRuth31 (and if you find yourself losing interest because you are a horrible, jaded person, stick with it for the rap at 2:20)

This is what the Internet is for

This '90s megamix will meta-remind you of the '90s by also seeming like an Internet video from the '90s:

Time Traveler From The Year 1998

... Warns Nation Not To Elect Newt Gingrich.

Risk: Legacy

Okay, who wants to try this? It sounds crazy.

Best PIPA/SOPA blackout

... goes to the Oatmeal:

And now my site could be shut down, too, for hosting it! Contact your senator or representative today, and say something like this.

MLK Jr. tells a joke

Via Slog:

"Volvo of Despair" Orange

This is the color described in the alt-text at the beginning of one of Achewood's most excellent story arcs:

Moonrise Kingdom trailer

This better not be another Darjeeling Limi—YAAWWWWNN:

Are you an Am-hole?

That's the question being asked on SLU light poles:

Why I hate Mac OS Lion

TEXTEDIT crashed? TEXTEDIT? Srsly, Apple? TextEdit and Preview have long been my low-profile, lightining-fast-loading best pals, which I use constantly, but thanks to auto-saving and the arcane system of unlocking and duplicating, they are now buggy and strange. This sucks. I need to go look up how to turn that stuff off, which I've been resisting beacuse I am not a Luddite.

Oh, China

"Hello Kitty restaurant, theme park, hotel and maternity suite":

Fix the NDAA

If there were ever a chance for something to get bipartisan support, you'd think this would be it—now that, you know, people are paying attention. I'm not used to being on Tom Coburn's side of an issue, but I'm thankful that he and Demint lobbied against it.

Let it snow!

I have been mostly unplugged over the holidays (*love* me for that, do not hate me), so I missed the fact that you could type "let it snow" into Google and then watch snowflakes fog up your screen before listening to Kylie Minogue:

What about second Christmas?

Slog: "The DADT Repeal Just Got Its Iconic Image"

Awwww:

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta, left, kisses her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach, Va., Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2011 after Gaeta's ship returned from 80 days at sea. It ís a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings — one lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved one. On Wednesday, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay. (AP Photo/The Virginian-Pilot, Brian J. Clark) MAGS OUT

The tea partier and the terrorist

Follow-up from Louis C.K.

If you didn't go throw $5 at Louis C.K. (and if not, why not?), you probably didn't see this awesome email from him, below. Stick with it for stats on the experiment—and, for Jill, a farm metaphor:

Hi.  This is LOuie.  It seriously is me. Im even going to leave the O stuipdly capatalized because who would pay an intern to do that?? Okay so you bought the thing with my fat face on it and you clicked the button that said i could email you. And i know that now you are thinking "aw shit. Why'd i let this guy into my life this way?". Well dont worry. Because i really swear it that i wont bug you. I will not abuse this privalage of having your email. You wont hear from me again... Probably, unless i have something new to offer you. The reason i'm writing now, in the back of a car taking me to the Tonight Show set, is to let you know that as of now there is some new and cool stuff on my site, related to Live at the Beacon Theater. Theres a thing where you can download and print a dvd box cover and label so you can burn and make your own dvd of the video. And theres a new option where you can gift the special to as many people as you want (for 5 bucks each) and they'll get a nice gifty email from you with a link to the video.

Also, some of you may know, i recently made a statement (that sounds so dumb. Like i'm the president or something) about how the video has been doing online. Im pasting it in here below in case you missed it.
 

Lastly I'm planning to put some more outtakes of the show on youtube and i think i will put one on the site that is only available for free to you folks on this list, who bought the thing and opted in. But dont hold me to that because really i just thought of it and typed it.

 
Okay well please have a happy rest of the year and more happy years after that. And please even have been happy in your past. What?

Thanks again for giving me 5 dollars. I bought 3 cokes with it.

Regards. Sincerely, Actually,
Louis

===========================

People of Earth (minus the ones who don't give a shit about this): it's been amazing to conduct this experiment with you. The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?

It's been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it's going. I've been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there's power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn't expect when I started this was that people would not only take part in this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be important to them. It's been amazing to see people in large numbers advocating this idea. So I think it's only fair that you get to know the results. Also, it's just really cool and fun and I'm dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends, and that wasn't nearly enough. So here it is.

First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both shows). The material in the video was developed over months on the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of material I create is my income, it's like a farmer's annual crop. The time and effort on my part was far more than if  I'd done it with a big company. If I'd done it with a big company, I would have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where I'm actually investing my own money.

The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000.We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the clock for the weeks between the show and the launch.

The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of  Today, we've sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, orDubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked. If anybody stole it, it wasn't many of you. Pretty much everybody bought it. And so now we all get to know that about people and stuff. I'm really glad I put this out here this way and I'll certainly do it again. If the trend continues with sales on this video, my goal is that i can reach the point where when I sell anything, be it videos, CDs or tickets to my tours, I'll do it here and I'll continue to follow the model of keeping my price as far down as possible, not overmarketing to you, keeping as few people between you and me as possible in the transaction. (Of course i reserve the right to go back on all of this and sign a massive deal with a company that pays me fat coin and charges you straight up the ass.). (This is you: yes Louie. And we'll all enjoy torrenting that content. Youfat sweaty dolt).

I probably sound kind of crazy right now. It's been a really fun and intense few days. This video was paid for by people who bought tickets, and then bought by people who wanted to see that same show. I got to do exactly the show I wanted, and exactly the show you wanted.

I also got an education. And everything i learned are things i was happy to learn. I learned that people are interested in what happens and shit (i didn't go to college)

I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Orit can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood.

I want to thank Blair Breard who produced this video and produces my series LOUIE, and I want to thank Caspar and Giles at Version Industries, who created the website.

I hope with all of my heart that I stay funny. Otherwise this all goes to hell. Please have a safe and happy holiday, and thank you again for all this crazy shit.

Sincerely, Louis C.K.

 

What's the single best thing you can do for your health?

Fascinating:

Does fracking cause earthquakes?

Maybe? Small ones? As a Science Interpreter Emeritus, I ask: couldn't it possibly be good to lube up some faults and relieve seismic pressure? Fracking just might save the Midwest from the next New Madrid super-quake.

Louis C.K. on torrenting

Update: the experiment is working!

Well, indirectly. I loves me some Louis, and so I was psyched to see that he was putting up his most recent live performance DRM-free for $5. Go support him and buy it now.

I'm always grousing about how I'd love to give money directly to the people responsible for creating the things I love—like I'm sure one-millionth of my Comcast bill actually reaches Tina Fey or George R.R. or David Milch or Louis C.K. So here is a perfect opportunity to do that.

The site itself seems to be written by him, or more likely just convincingly in his matter-of-fact voice, including this mini-essay on torrenting:

To those who might wish to "torrent" this video: look, I don't really get the whole "torrent" thing. I don't know enough about it to judge either way. But I'd just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without "corporate" restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I'm just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can't stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Sincerely, 

Louis C.K. 

And some nice site flavor:

New pics from the North Lot project

Via New P2. They should start pile-driving in January....

Bobby McFerrin brain-hacking

Don't worry be happy was a number one jam. Damn if I say it you can slap me right here.

But still:

The Swiss government is down with pirating

FYI:

“Every time a new media technology has been made available, it has always been ‘abused’. This is the price we pay for progress. Winners will be those who are able to use the new technology to their advantages and losers those who missed this development and continue to follow old business models,” the report notes.

The government report further concludes that even in the current situation where piracy is rampant, the entertainment industries are not necessarily losing money. To reach this conclusion, the researchers extrapolated the findings of a study conducted by the Dutch government last year, since the countries are considered to be similar in many aspects.

The report states that around a third of Swiss citizens over 15 years old download pirated music, movies and games from the Internet. However, these people don’t spend less money as a result because the budgets they reserve for entertainment are fairly constant. This means that downloading is mostly complementary.

 

The best kung fu movie ever

...in my opinion, is New Legend of Shaolin, for both hilarity and the utter insanity of the battles, many of which include Jet Li's character and his 8ish-year-old son fighting together, with the son standing on the dad's shoulders. The movie even opens with a great scene where they fight together with the son as a baby, and Jet Li whips his son towards him like a yo-yo. It's got it all: the life-changing No Shadow Kick, bad-ass kid and women characters, funny dialogue, secret maps tattooed on kids' backs, a Poison Clan villain with a crazy magic metal chariot, and dudes that are so crazily puissant that they can run across swords flying through the air. 

And good news for you: it's now on Netflix streaming!

Here's that opening scene, sadly without subtitles:

Mitt vs. Mitt

It took me a while to realize that Mitt Romney is, in fact, John Kerry:

Something to be thankful for

Postcardly and wee Silas on page 23 of the Stranger gift guide:

And lest ye think that "World's Best Gift Idea!" is hyperbole, it is—and it accompanied every random suggestion in the guide.

What I am thankful for

Achewood... is... BACK?!

Signs you should be getting more sleep

Silas has been really into the idea of board games lately, and this is one he invented while we were having breakfast this morning. I am the recumbent orange clone trooper, and he's the upright matching clone trooper to the left. He asked me if I was tired and when I said yes, he laid me down—with my feet against the "hot lava" wall so they would stay warm (the lava wall protects us, you see, but it doesn't burn us up because we have armor on). 

FYI, the blue cop was "our boss, who tells us what to do," and the white figures were the "bad guys" on the other side of the lava wall, who were soon dispatched with super balls.

Pepper-spraying cop meme

We can't save the planet or elect a functional government, but we've got this meme shit down: