Brian's Blog » Culture

Teal and Orange

Brian — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:00:04 +0000

If you pay attention to the colours tones you see in movies these days, you’ll notice they mainly use two colours: teal and orange. The basic theory is that most skin tones are close to orange tones, and teal is the complimentary colour of orange. Using complimentary colours like this will make each of them pop out.

I won’t go into the details, as this blog post does a great job in explaining it. But if you want your YouTube videos to look just a bit more professional, or annoying depending on how you look at it, apply a teal and orange colour filter.

A Revelation About Internet Marketers

Brian — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:38:28 +0000

While reading Don Tapscott’s book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, I made an interesting little revelation.

Lately, I have been noticing an ever increasing number of people on Twitter have started following me. When I click on the link to these people’s profile pages, in their Bio it usually always says the words, “internet marketer.” So how does this relate to Don’s book?

They All Have Something in Common

All of these people who call themselves Internet marketers are all over 30 years old. Thirty, according to Don, is the magic cut off age for those who are not part of the Net Generation, those who have not grown up digital. It’s interesting that we do not see “Internet marketers” who are under 30, or at least people who would call themselves Internet Marketers.

Internet Marketers Aren’t Reaching Out to a Generation

My personal belief is that all these Internet Marketers aren’t connecting to the Net Generation. Technology to the Net Generation is like “breathing air.” Rather than breathing air, I think these marketers are too concerned about how to breath. Net Gens are communicating their message by participating, creating and interacting.

I don’t think the Internet Marketers are really getting it, and should read Don’s book.

Game Over for Cable TV

Brian — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:26:56 +0000

Nextflix today announced that streaming will be built into new TVs from Korean manufacturer LG. After recently purchasing an XBOX on boxing day, and noticing that you can also rent Netflix movies, as well as watch some independent streaming videos, I am hoping this means the end of Cable TV as we know it.

With cable, you’re paying broadcasters so they can make money off of you.

This is what I do not understand about the cable TV industry. In it’s current pricing model, the majority of what you’re paying for is not infrastructure, but for the content. In other words, you’re paying TV stations so they can make money off of you by selling advertisements. If the viewers go away, so does their revenue. So are not we, the viewers then, a resource that has value?

Wouldn’t it make more sense if broadcasters had to pay for viewers in order to make money off of selling advertising to them?

With the advent of all these set top boxes popping up, including traditional game consoles becoming one of these new media devices, hopefully this model will change. There will be many forces driving the change:

Increased competition
Direct access from the broadcaster to the viewer
File sharing technologies
A new generation of audience

Why do I think we’re paying too much for cable? This is how I look at it:

On average you pay $60 / month for cable. Multiply that by 12, $60 x 12 = $720. How many complete seasons of your favourite shows could you buy on DVD with $720? How many shows do you actually watch? Maybe 2 or 3 on average, 5 at most?

My Letter to the Editor of The Chronicle Journal

Brian — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:46:07 +0000

Dear Editor,

I am writing you in hope that you can provide to me a logical explanation for the cover choices of the publication entitled, “Lakehead Life.”

It seems that every Sunday, when I open up my mail box there is a large photograph of a female, usually displaying a lot of skin. Also on this large photograph is are the words, “Lakehead Life.” Now, I do not understand the cover choices of this publication and its relationship to the concept of “Lakehead Life.” I was hoping the editor of this publication could provide this explanation to me.

My first concern is that I do not believe that any young individual would choose to wear lingerie in -20 degrees celsius weather. My first thought when I see this woman is to quickly run her inside, grab her a blanket and leave her in my sauna. I believe it’s cruel to subject any person to our ridiculously cold temperatures and my poorly insulated mailbox.

I just do not understand the relationship between the models on the cover, and “Lakehead Life” as I understand it, being that I have lived here for all 25 years of my life. Don’t get me wrong, the articles in the publication are very interesting and features the accomplishments of many of our local youths. There is an interesting diversity of articles inside the publication.

Can you, the editor explain to me why woman such as Stefani Donohue and Kalena Nett are not as worthy as a “Hugo Cesar Dorado” model to be on the cover of your publication? Or how come Miley Cyrus deserves more attention than say, “The Fort William Male Choir?”

And how come there has never been an issue of this publication to feature an aboriginal woman on the cover? Certainly “Lakehead Life” includes aboriginals, wouldn’t you agree? I have read stories inside the publication honouring the accomplishments of many of our local aboriginal women, but how come these accomplishments must hide inside the publication? It seems that majority of woman featured on the cover of this publication are skinny white Caucasian females who are never from the North West. If the Chronicle Journal wishes to have someone really famous on the cover of Lakehead Life, you can at least feature Eric Staal on the cover. I am certain that he would look really good topless, and that he would attract the attention of many readers. (I’m sure our local NHL players could sell more calendars than our firemen, no offense to our brave men and women)

Ultimately, my concern is for every son or daughter who is forced by their parents to clean up the recycling, or every carrier who delivers about twenty copies of this publication to every door in our community. It seems as though our local newspaper is trying to sell us an Americanized west coast idea of beauty, at no expense. Certainly beauty is also found in North Western Ontario, in many different forms, from the young to old (our population is increasingly becoming elderly), aboriginal to finnish, african, burmese, chinese, middle eastern…

I just do not understand the connection our community, “Lakehead Life”, has to Victoria Sercret models. If you can provide this explanation to me, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Brian Jones
P.S. The glitter on the cover is a really cool idea.

Facebook Invades Thunder Bay

Brian — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 15:49:41 +0000

It’s seems as though Facebook is gaining market share in Thunder Bay, or at least in my network. I really wouldn’t be surprised if it is, or will be bigger than MySpace. I knew it was popular a few weeks ago when I over heard a girl at Lakehead say, “Facebook, ya it sucks,” which really meant that she’s forced to use it because everyone else is.

Facebook’s strength might be its lack of privacy. I think many studies have been done which suggest that my generation doesn’t care as much about privacy as past generations. It seems like selling feature is the “what is Jimmy The Shy Kid in grade nine doing now? Oh he’s a completely changed freak now!”

Emerging Media

Brian — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 17:58:05 +0000

I wanted to make a quick comment on this for some time now.

The other day I left my computer on while I was doing some work in the other room. When I stepped back into my room and looked at my computer screen, there were pictures of naked people on my screen saver!!!

Those naked people happen to be these two handsome guys. Yes, what happened was I have my screen saver set to display flickr pictures from my friends and family contacts. Carrie just happened to post that picture of Caleb and Keilan on her account.

This got me thinking about something cool that’s starting to happen in our culture, media is starting to break away from being mainstream. Instead of having content forced on us by corporations who probably in most cases value profit than our well being, we are starting to have a lot more control over what enters our brain.

For example, everyday in the mornings, instead of grabbing a newspaper I read through the blogs on my feed reader–each of which are blogs written by my friends, or blogs of stuff I’m interested in. Also, I sync my iPod with iTunes and download podcasts–radio programs produced by any one on the internet–which I listen to in my car while I’m driving. The photos I look at are pictures taken by my friends and posted on their flickr accounts. What’s significant about each of these forms of media that I’m exposed to is that I’ve chosen to have this content fed to me. And, what’s also cool is that a vast majority of this stuff is produced by my peers.

Think about this for a second, what would a world be like if the media and entertainment we’re exposed to was produced by our friends? Do you think that in such a world girls would be as worried about how they look, when the models they’re exposed to look just like them?

I think this is where we’re kind of heading. It’s also a good reason to learn what an RSS feed is, even though it sounds a little bit geeky. RSS is what lets you have a newspaper/magazine/TV channel of stuff made by your friends, or whatever content you’re interested in. It’s a good way of controlling what you take in.

Uncyclopedia

Brian — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:21:52 +0000

For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a website called fake information, which would be a website containing fake information disguised as real information. Its purpose would be to fool unsuspecting students to include it’s information in their research assignments. The only clue they would have that the information was fake would be in the domain name, fakeinformation.com. Obviously, since this site would be rather pointless other than causing some people frustration, I’ve never bothered to put any effort into constructing it–it would be a complete waste of my time which should be spent on better and more productive things.

But anyway, I was reading up on Slashdot about Uncyclopedia, which is a website that has pretty much implemented my idea.

I’m Getting a Tattoo

Brian — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 19:36:16 +0000

Right now I am sitting at Seattle Coffee House, with a coffee to my right, a book to my left, and my PowerBook in between. Normally, I’m a breaker of stereotypes, but the other day I realized that there is one stereotype I’ve unintentionally joined, I became a PowerBook owning blogger and programmer with a Flickr account. There are a good number of us around, out there in the world. I didn’t choose to buy a PowerBook for this reason; I bought it because it was a UNIX based environment with all the open source tools I use. Pretty much the best of both the Windows and Linux worlds, good GUI with UNIX core, and runs everything I need. I think what caught my attention of Apple was all the attention it got on the net, and my conversations with a hardcore Mac friend. It’s been a great computer that’s worked for me, instead of the other way around.

I think it was about a month or so ago I was listening to some friends elaborate on the positive and negative benefits of getting a tattoo. I think I was probably asked what I thought about the issue, but I didn’t really speak up. Sometimes I don’t speak up because I either don’t have the opportunity to jump into the conversation—I’m not really the type to force my way—or my opinion has yet developed into a form where my explanation would make any sense.

A lot of people have good reasons for getting tattoos, spiritual reasons too. I’m not a hundred percent sure what all of them are, but I think one might be that it expresses something about their relationship with God. If you know of some other good reasons feel free to post a comment.

Other people have good reasons for not getting them. A friend of mine received a little note in her mailbox quoting Leviticus 19:28:

“You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.”

Good advice for sure, but the person who wrote it was so charged for concern for my friend that he or she forgot to write their name on the note. I just thought it was hurtful to community to pass anonymous notes around with the intent of forcing guilt, and therefore communicating the idea that if I do not follow this specific way of life, then the community does not love me. I wouldn’t mind getting a letter from a friend, or even someone that I do not know saying, “Brian, I care about you and don’t think that you should do this. Love, your friend.” This way, despite whatever my dumb decision might be, someone is expressing their love.

Back to the discussion I was having earlier about tattoos. I didn’t see in problems with her reasoning for getting a tattoo, the spiritual reasons, but there was something else. The person who was having this discussion was looking for justification of her decision to get a tattoo. If she needs justification, then there must be some opposing force stopping her from just getting a tattoo. This force could be her conscience, her desire to be obedient to God, or it could simply just be her parents. She needs a reason for justifying to her parents why she made the decision to rebel against their will, and ease her conscience a little.

I think probably one of the greatest acts of love we can give to someone is to be submissive, sacrifice something of our own will or desire for their benefit. The issue to wrestle with when getting a tattoo is not the legalities, but whether or not I’m hurting someone else because of my decision. It’s not a decision I make for myself, but for someone else. I think tattoos are trivial things really, I could be wrong, but at least to me it’s trivial. Even if it’s not a trivial issue, but rather a big issue, if you give that up for someone else… then wow, do you realize what you’ve just done? You have given something up something that has meant a lot to you for someone else.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. –John 15:12-13

You think your parents don’t deserve this selfless treatment from you because all your life they’ve been jerks to you? Well, you have finally realized what the cross is about, the pain Jesus went through, and the feeling that goes through God’s mind every time we choose to walk away from him.

Anyway, yesterday I decided I was going to get a tattoo. I figured since both my grandma and grandpa have them that I might as well get one too. In fact, in the photos that I have seen of them, both of them are covered in tattoos, and I think they even have a few on their necks. And also being that they lived in the jungles and longhouses of Borneo, all of the tattoos were done the old fashion way—think pain. However, each one of their tattoos tells a story about their life, something they did—my tattoos would do the same. So when I look at their pictures, covered with tattoos, I think to myself that they must have a lot with their lives. So, my plan is to get a tattoo when I’m 87, if I make it that long. That way if I don’t like them I will only have five or so years to live with them, instead of forty.

I hope I’ll have enough stories to cover myself in tattoos.

RSS Feeds

Brian — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 00:51:06 +0000

People have been asking me about RSS, so I thought I would write a post about it. I’ll try my best to make this as simple and easy to understand as possible. Eventually, Nathan and myself will probably make a video tutorial describing this stuff.

Most websites and blogs have something you can subscribe to called an “RSS feed.” When you subscribe to an RSS feed, your feed reader will tell you when that site has been updated. This is useful and saves time for people who read blogs–you won’t have to check a dozen blogs everyday to see if something new was added.

If you don’t feel brave enough to install a feed reader on your computer, here’s an easy way to start using RSS feeds without downloading anything. Bloglines.com is a feed reader that runs on the web. To start using it, click this button to create an account and subscribe to my feed:

To add more feeds just click on the add link in bloglines and type in the address of any website. Try http://plunge.ca/blog/feed/ for example.

Thunder Bay Flickr Group

Brian — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:16:39 +0000

I’ve created a Flickr group for Thunder Bay:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/thunder-bay/

Join and post your pictures!