Archive for the ‘video’ Category
Finding Ada Day: Interview with Kate Carruthers, and Countess Lovelace
A really big thanks to Kate Carruthers for coming to the digital cottage for the in-studio interview.
Show notes:
- Letters, Posts, Redux from last week
- Meta-backchannel Producer is Dekrazee1: thanks! direct Qs to her in the chat, and we’ll get ‘em sent to us via the meta Backchannel
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29827248/ “if you had a pulse, you got a loan”
- Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times: gives his verdict on the plans of the Obama administration to rescue United States banks. Obama is wasting his political capital. Radical reform is required. (Krugman has predicted the #gfc)
- #gfc is now The Great Recession source: crikey.com.au // Alan Kohler; The reason the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn called this one the Great Recession is that every economy in the world, except, at this stage, China and India, is contracting at once, which makes it quite different to those other five. But the United States remains the key to ending it and preventing it becoming another Great Depression. And the key to that is stabilising the US financial system: fiscal stimulus and money printing won’t cut it.
- Luddites and Lollards [days news as up to the minute, online.]
- Luddite: Social movement against the mechanisation of work in early 19th Century. Now used as a term to describe those against technical progress and change. Lord Byron spoke for the luddites in the house or Lords My ancestors put out of hand loom linen weaver work in early 19th century by mechanisation, restored to farmer labourers; ultimate emigration to Australia. (as free people, not convicts)
- Lollards: Radical English Iconoclasts who started a reformation from mid 14th Century.
- Luddite 1: Conroy: disconnect between accepted satire of Fake Stephen Conroy vs. anti-democracy free speech ACMA list
- Luddite 2: MSM: via Kawker ‘Newspapers demand Google Welfare’ NYTimes web site vs wikipedia for ‘gaza’
- Lollard 1: iiNet: iiNet yesterday pulled out of the federal Government’s internet filtering trials, blaming drawn-out negotiations with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, constant changes in policy, and last week’s leak of a secret internet blacklist.
- [at 8:40pm] The Kate Carruthers Interview
- why the love of LOLCATs?
- which female inspired you the most?
- where and why IT career?
- did you have support from the people around you?
- MBA, Law (now) .. what drives you to continue to study and learn new things?
- Battles/Strange Reactions from people?
- Is there a truly a hidden secret network of feminists?
- Has the glass ceiling broken: women CEOs, members of Boards?
- [at 9:00pm] VIDEO 2: Jenny Morris / You I Know 4m01s [written by Neil Finn]
- [at 9:04] The Right Honourable (father was a Baron) Countess of Lovelace (from Husband), Augusta Ada King
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace
- http://www.google.com/search?q=ada+lovelace&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Somerville
- Melvyn Bragg: In Our Time Podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20080306.shtml
- The world’s first computer programmer; even without access to the hardware
- Hence: ADA programming language
- Ada was born in December 1815
- Lord Byron, her father, wanted a son. Left the marriage within weeks of her birth
- Lady Annabella Byron (Ada’s mother, also a smart and educated woman) split from Lord Byron during one of his depressive episodes; estrangement between parents Ada often sick when young, had tutors, gifted in mathematics at an early age (like her mother)
- Tutors in mathematics: Mary Somerville; Laplace translator into algebra
- why? insanity of her father (Manic depressive) used mathematics as a mechanism of driving out the insanity; mother did not want Ada to become a mere poet. She was manipulated to hate her father.
- Introduced by Somerville to Babbage 5th June 1833; at about 17 years of age
- [2 minutes] Short video clip of Ada’s letter to Charles Babbage from Powerhouse Museum (science intellectual circle of the time: go to Babbage’s.)
- Saw the Difference Engine; began correspondence with Somerville.
- 17 year old: called it a thinking machine. Wanted to look at the blueprints.
- Mother and daughter: go on a tour of the Midlands of UK, saw Jacquard Looms
- Others in Ada’s network: Charles Wheatstone (measuring resistance, telegraphy), Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday (work with magnetic fields)
- Augustus de Morgan, Somerville and Babbage helped with Mathematics
- Her unique skill was foresight.
- Ada married William King in 1835; money from Lord Byron, Ada “wore the pants” in the family
- William King was extravagent nature (gambler). 220 estates at beginning, borrowing from Lady Byron
- Babbage on Lovelace “The Enchantress of Numbers”
- Babbage: Difference Engine (half built, govt funded) : idea for Analytical Engine (1834, notice timing) due to his personality, he finished neither during his lifetime. Two working Difference Engines exist 8000 parts 5 tonnes.
- 1836, 1837 and 1839 (1842: 3 kids under 6!) Three children, only one had ‘issue’ » now the Lyttons of today. She was not keen on her children.
- 1838 title of Countess of Lovelace via her husband
- During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician (future PM) Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine (from presentation in Turin), the Analytical Engine from French to English. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are three times as long than the memoir itself and include in Section G a complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the engine, recognized by historians as the world’s first computer program or series of steps. Contention of work was Babbage’s or Ada’s; strong written evidence Ada strong influence over the content of the notes: language, included.
- Letters of the day delivered 5 times a day. twitter of the day
- Collaborated with Wheatstone and Babbage on the notes
- The article, and subsequent notes: http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html
- Letters of the day delivered 5 times a day. twitter of the day
- Ada refered to manipulation of symbols, rather than the pure repetitve crunching of numbers
- In this document, published in Richard Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs Volume 3 in 1843, there is a difference shown between Pascal’s calculator from the 17th Century and the planned Analytical engine, she correctly seperates data from the program, recognises the importance of a correct programming, subprograms, and mostly can see in Section G has the foresight to see the implications of computing (as we know it today)
- The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated patterns in the fabrication of brocaded stuffs. It is in this that the distinction between the two engines lies. Nothing of the sort exists in the Difference Engine. We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.
- Alan Turing, another icon of the beginning of computer, had knowledge of Lovelace’s notes, but not the design of the Analytical Engine (blueprints not fully researched until 1970s, Collossus not known about until Bletchley Park)
- This was the peak of her intellectual work; and due to lack of acquaintances and projects, health especially mentally (Bipolar?), declined. To offset the early pain of cancer: Drinking, Laudanum (opium) and probably inherited depression caught up with her.
- Probably died of Uterine Cancer (and excess bleeding) in 1852 aged merely 37
- [9:24pm] THANKS+CLOSE: To Kate, Dekrazee1 (Rai) and Cameron Reilly
Next Week: No show next week, presenting IronPython at the Sydney Python User Group
Thinking Thursday
In a strange confluence of the digital universe, two of Australia’s leading internet thinkers: Stilgherrian (Stilgherrian Live) and Cameron Reilly (G’Day World Live); conducted live broadcasts last night.
The round out the seriousness, I broadcast and recorded my second “Stilgherrian’s Understudy” show
Some forwarning. I do swear. I do use technical words. Great music is included, and I do dis my present employer. And I have much to learn with this broadcasting caper; including getting thoughts out clearer. Almost scripted. Thanks to @stilgherrian for the inspiration.
Things for next time:
- Music correctly sequenced at the beginning, and thematic
- Opening sting of some sort
- Don’t drop words, and put thoughts into clear linear thoughts.
- White balance at the beginning
- Animate and vocalise more
- Deliver jokes better
- Determine a mechanism to make it true Q&A (maybe questions beforehand)
- Learn switching process between videos and camera to make smoother
- The recording does something weird at 19:34 when I played the music video
Painting in Sand
Respecting the Snacker: Video Producer’s Perspective
- Audio is not video without pictures: respect the form and video
- Respect the form: movement, rule of thirds, watch other’s videos, adapt
- Respect the time of the viewer: what is the story you are trying to convey?
- When producing, have a time budget in mind.
- Short form, editing is OK.
Thanks jjprojects for the ping.
Microsoft Popfly, Builderau Interview
Want to be famous? Go large at Virtual TechEd 2007
Virtual TechEd will be at TechEd Australia. This is a major coup as Microsoft continues to evolve the TechEd format.
As you can see from the existing content on Virtual TechEd, if you have something to say to the world: now is the time to stand up and be interviewed!
Comment here/send me an email and we’ll schedule you in.
Also, I’ll be at the Blogger’s lounge with video camera, laptop and a wireless connection. Come and have a chat!
AUReMIX07: The Movies
Photo: delic8genius
Just before I depart for a holiday, I’ve pumped out three videos
- Interviewing ReMIX attendees on WebJam
- My Microsoft Popfly presentation
- The Geek Stories, ReMIX
Alive at Pamplona
Hey, Jeffa The Geek Stories has the scoop, before The New Inventors: watch the interview with the Alive Tec CEO Bruce Satchwell — that blue device attached to the patient is made on the Gold Coast!
Emailing Bruce last night, apart from complementing me on my sharp eyes and good memory — he also broke the news that Alive’s Web Developer, Tim Hilliard, is wearing the monitor for the running of the bulls in Pamplona in a couple of weeks.
Alive have made a very crude map of the bull run route using Windows Live maps.
Map view
Birdseye view
Youtube video of the run in 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTHHgxFOD_g
I hope this doesn’t end in tears.
Beginning of Gonzo Video Journalism
A unique program on the ABC 10 years ago, John Safran ruled.
“Race Around the World” pitted amateur videographers against each other, as they traveled around the world getting stories.
Handicams, simple editing and excellent stories pre-dated the intraweb pseudo-stars doing long-form interviews or strapping a camera to their head.
Go have a look at John Safran’s work:
In 1997, the ABC gave John Safran, “Australia’s most exciting guerilla filmmaker”, his big break on Race Around The World. Although he came last in the competition, it’s not too hard to fathom why he won the popular vote, with these submissions: Don’t screw with the rules in Japan, The ambulance chaser (Mumbai), Anarchy in the Renault family hatchback (Bristol), The right to bare grudges (Cote d’Ivoire), Mum I’m not Jewish any more (Cote d’Ivoire), Father Pino vs the Devil (Sicily), Mohammad’s guide to busting a move (Lebanon), Football’s my religion (Jerusalem), The series of unfortunate events and The happiest place on earth, my butt (Disneyland).
via: Metafilter
Don’t Stop Now — Crowded House
(Photo: Matt Sherrod, Neil Finn from video clip Don’t Stop Now)
Neil Finn and Crowded House at their best. video: Watch the video now
Guitar weirdness at 2:20 and lyrical changes at 3:00 into the song. Love it.



