video

Facebook UI Annoyance With Videos

Thanks to my girlfriend, I’ve become absorbed into the Facebook culture. One thing though that really annoys me about their user interface is the publishing of videos. When I come across a cool video on YouTube that I would like to share, my immediate instincts tell me to click on the Video icon in Facebook. However, this is only for recording a video or uploading a video, I can’t link to a video. Instead, in order to link to a YouTube video I have to take the YouTube video URL and use the Facbook URL icon to share the link. This is annoying to say the least as it confuses my natural instincts and I always catch myself clicking the video icon before I click the link icon.

Oh well, just wanted to get that off my chest.

Justin.TV – Location For Streamed Suicide

I’ve always wondered if this event has happened before and if not, when it would occur. Looks like both of those questions have been answered. News has come out today via ABC News that a 19 year old Florida teen live streamed his suicide on Justin.TV. The teen had been reportedly discussing his suicide before actually going through with it. Those who were watching the stream noticed the teen didn’t appear to be breathing but only after a number of hours passed did someone contact a moderator for Justin.TV who then called local authorities. The teen was found dead at the scene.

While I’m not surprised, it turns out that some of the people who were watching the stream ended up egging the guy on to kill himself. ABC reports that things such as ‘go ahead and do it, faggot‘, were being said in the chat room. Although on the face of it, it seems as though this teen had made up his mind and he didn’t need to be egged on. However, a part of me wonders if what he read in the chatroom may have had any influence on his final decision to go through with it.

A sad story and yet another realization that the web is used by people who feel as though they can be protected by their computer screens and say anything they want without repercussion.

Incredible Lightning Video

While uploading the rest of my footage from the hail storm that hit northern Ohio on August 7th, I came across a featured video on YouTube of a lightning bolt. This was no ordinary lightning footage though as you can actually see all of the feeders traveling to the ground. Once one of the feeder bolts touches the ground, you can see the bolt light up with electricity. This is one of the best videos I have ever seen which clearly illustrates how lightning is formed.

Is this video a fake? Personally, I don’t think so. I think this video was taken with one of those super cameras which can take thousands of frames per second. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post I did on a camera which shoots 5,400 FPS.

Ustream And Quickcam Pro For Notebooks 9000

I’ve just recently purchased the 99$ Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for Notebooks and have discovered that on Ustream, only the audio from the built in microphone can be streamed. The video camera itself doesn’t appear in the flash popup and for the life of me, I can not get Ustream to recognize this camera to stream video from it.

I’ve gone through my Firewall and that didn’t help. I’ve performed a skype video conference call successfully with this camera so I know the darn thing works. I’ve also plugged in a very old Logitech Quick Cam Express with terrible video quality but the video from that camera was detected by Ustream. Last but not least, I’ve updated my browser to the latest version of the Adobe Flash player and that hasn’t helped either.

So, is there an incompatibility between the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for Notebooks and Ustream? I’m very curious to know from other Ustreamers out their with the same camera if you are experiencing these types of issues as well.

The Web 2.0 Bubble Video Pops

The popular web 2.0 bubble video created by the folks at RichterScales.com has been taken off line due to a DMCA take down notice. Based on what I’ve read, the video featured a number of photographs that the video producers did not have the permission of publishing. One of those photographs featured in the video was of Valleywag’s Owen Thomas.

Owen Thomas

This photo of Owen Thomas was taken by a person known as Fetching on Flickr.com. Judging by the content within Fetching’s post and the associated comments, I think it’s a safe bet that in some form or fashion, Fetching has helped to file the DMCA take down notice. It’s not known for sure just who filed the claim, but if RichterScales used a series of photographs without permission, I have to agree with the stance that Fetching has taken.

Richterscales has said that they will be redoing the video to highlight the source of every image used.

We don’t know who filed the takedown or why they did so without first talking to us, but we would like to talk about what it would take for you to cancel your request.

It probably was impolite not to offer full credit in the video in the first place. But those who called us thieves and jokingly threatened us with physical violence were also being impolite. Let’s keep this civil, folks.

I’m not sure if the Web 2.0 bubble video will ever return. But if it does, I don’t think it will be the same.

5400 FPS Camera Video

I thought this was pretty cool. Watch a kernel of popcorn explode into a puffy piece of popcorn via a high speed color camera (5,400 fps)

This color high speed video(zoomed in from original 1K x 1K resolution sequence) shows a close up of popcorn popping on a hot plate. Recorded by the Schmitz family using the Photron SA1 slow motion video camera.

So that’s what happens to a kernel of popcorn! What did you think of the video?