Greetings friends, I'm still on the DL from eye surgery but I can sit around a play music on the Radio. WKKL 90.7 FM from 11am this morning until around 2 this afternoon. The live stream is up and running. I checked myself this morning. http://web01.capecod.edu/wkkl
You can also call me in the studio at 508-375-4030
The first hour will be reggae and then local music for a couple 'o' few hours.
Two weeks ago, writing about Apple’s new flagship laptop, the MacBook, I noted with dismay that Apple appears intent on eliminating the FireWire jack. FireWire is a connector, originally developed and promoted by Apple itself, that lets you import video from a tape camcorder for easy editing. It was a cornerstone of Apple’s “anyone can edit video” revolution.
Over 400 of you responded, by e-mail or on the Pogue’s Posts feedback forum. Most of you were equally alarmed; many of you have stacks of MiniDV tapes, as I do, that, in a post-FireWire world, you’ll have no way to transfer to a computer for editing.
But one e-mail response stopped me cold:
“What makes you think you’ll have any grandchildren with the time and inclination to sit through more than a few minutes of your home videos?
“The movies an uncle shot of me and my siblings a few decades ago were projected for about 30 minutes a decade ago, and have not been looked at again by anybody.
“Home movies require a captive audience, for long periods. How many hours could you bestow on your children right now? How many hours would you expect them to sit still for them? And unlike photographs, home movies can’t really be dipped into, flipped through.
“I’m not against home movies. I just question whether the people amassing them at great length have much idea of what they require of the people in them, or who inherit them.
“Kind regards, good luck. I respect your affection for your family.”
I did a lot of thinking about this.
Why do I film every vacation, every schoolyear highlight, every birthday party? Why am I so upset that format loss (including the FireWire jack) might make all of my videos unwatchable?
Clearly, I’m not alone; the crazy-fast sales of digital cameras, year after year, teach us that recording our lives is a fundamental human instinct.
But why, exactly, do we spend hundreds of dollars on equipment to film and store our pictures and videos, without any assurance that anyone will ever want to view them?
In short: why do we shoot?
Maybe it’s just ego. Maybe we record our lives as a hedge against mortality, hoping that some scrap of our lives will live on after us.
And maybe my correspondent is right. Maybe we’re fooling ourselves. Maybe, to some extent, home video and amateur photography are mass delusions on a global scale–a gigantic expenditure of money, time and expertise to create a visual record that, ultimately, nobody will ever see.
But then I considered my own motives, and I have an answer to “Why I shoot.” Lots of them, actually.
First of all, I object to the “captive audience” notion. The whole *point* of transferring video to your computer is so that you can edit it down.
In the early days of fatherhood, when I was a little less busy than I am now, I routinely created five- or six-minute videos: distilled, funny, entertaining highlight reels of our life. And visiting neighbors actually *asked* to see them. (Search YouTube for “Pogue Extreme Baby” to see an example.)
But anyway, here are some of the reasons why I shoot video.
1. For our older selves. Life is fleeting, especially when our children are cute and innocent and still dependent on us. Video and photos are the best way we’ve got to revisit these chaotic, happy days years from now, when they’re grown up and moved away.
2. For our descendants. My correspondent may be right; it’s not clear how interested our descendants will be in watching our ancient videos–if, indeed, our recordings don’t get lost to changing hardware and software standards.
But you never know. Your kid may become famous, or infamous, and the 2025 edition of “Entertainment Tonight” or “60 Minutes” might consider those old movies a gold mine. O.K., it’s not likely, but it could happen.
Furthermore, your descendants just *might* be interested in your life. I, for one, would love to see videos of my own ancestors. My grandfather spent ten years compiling a great big self-published Pogue genealogy, filled with carefully researched facts–but that’s all. Names, dates, places. I’d find it much more interesting to know about their personalities, foibles, facial expressions and accents–to know the people, not just their stats.
3. For pleasure. Getting into photography or video is fun. They can be artistic endeavors, satisfying just to participate. I love trying to improve my shooting, my composition, my technique. It’s a hobby.
(And by the way, “home movies” isn’t always the same as “amateur movies.” Not all amateur movies are intended to document family life, as some of the better YouTube bits clearly demonstrate.)
4. For historians. The home videos of today might become a valuable archive for historians of the future. Remember: an enormous percentage of today’s videos are going to disappear, as their tapes crumble and video players become obsolete. So if 2 percent of it survives, we’ll be lucky. Therefore, the more we film today, the better.
5. For posterity. Finally, suppose that my correspondent is correct that thousands of people shoot video because they believe, mistakenly, that their descendants will give a darn. Suppose that much, or even most, of what we photograph and film will, in fact, never be seen by anyone.
You know what? Fine. We admit it: We’re shooting on faith. Believing that somebody *might* someday be interested in your videos inspires and drives us.
Look, we do all kinds of things based on faith. People expend all kinds of effort now because they hope, without any guarantees, that it will pay off down the line: get married, worship, drink a glass of wine every day. It’s human nature.
And it’s human to want to record our lives, too.
And that’s why I shoot.
Money could be seen as an exteriorized soul to be locked away so that our bodies acquire magical invulnerability. But it need not be hidden away -- it can be circulated and "beget" itself endlessly in usury. It constitutes humanity's one really totally successful experiment in magic: (more)
It is one of the abiding mysteries of Britain’s Neolithic past.
For all the awe-inspiring wonder of the standing stones at Stonehenge no one has ever worked out how our ancient ancestors were able to heave boulders weighing many tonnes over such huge distances.
But now an engineer and former BBC presenter believes he has come up with a theory which explains how the giant stones were moved.
Garry Lavin believes that the engineers who built Stonehenge used wicker basket-work to ‘roll’ the huge boulders all the way from Wales to their present location.
Engineer Garry Lavin, back red T-shirt, enlists friends to help him push one of his prototype willow 'cradles' for moving a large stone
‘I always thought that dragging these huge stones was physically impossible because of the friction on the surface. The key thing is the technology was always there around them,’ he said.
It is the movement of the 60 famous Bluestones which causes historians such problems. Each stone weighs up to 4 tons and they originally came from the Preseli Mountains in Wales – some 200 miles away.
Mr Lavin has come up with a cylinder ‘basket’ to roll the massive and irregularly-shaped stones.
The basket is created by weaving willow and alder saplings to form a lightweight structure that can be easily moved by 4 or 5 men. To complete the rig and to ensure the best rolling and floatation conditions, the gaps between the basketwork cylinder and the irregular stone are packed with thin branches.
This spreads the load as the basket flexes in transit, much like a modern tyre, and creates buoyancy when transported down rivers and across the sea.
One of Mr Lavin’s key discoveries during his earlier experiments was that the wicker cages that contained the stones were able to float. This would have enabled Neolithic man were able to get the huge stones across rivers on their journey, as well as making it easier to transport them over long distances without having to carry them the entire way.
One of Mr Lavin's sketches showing how groups of men could have enlisted the help of oxen to roll the huge boulders
The men would have been able to place the stones in a river, such as the River Wye, and then guide them on their way.
Mr Lavin said: ‘Woven structures were everywhere at the time, there are even wells which they have discovered were full with woven basketwork. It’s just taking that technology and using it in a new way.
‘It is not without some foundation. It was staring us in the face the whole time.’
In the summer Mr Lavin tested out his theory near Stonehenge and succeeded in moving a large one-ton stone in a wicker cage that he had made himself.
Mr Lavin now wants to set out on his final mission to rewrite history by creating a supersize cradle capable of moving a huge five-ton stone.
To do so he has enrolled the help of an engineer, an ancient wood archaeologist and a professional willow weaver to help him with the final test and construction.
He hopes to run the test around the time of the summer solstice next year.
‘The physics is there it’s just so obvious. It’s one of the things that when you think about it you say “oh yes, of course”, ‘ he said.
The cradles were constructed to be solid yet buoyant in water
He believes the original stones could have been moved by two teams of ten men each with one team resting while the others pushed the ‘axles’ containing each bluestone all the way from Wales their final destination.
George Oates, who works for the engineering company Expedition UK that recently designed the Olympic Velodrome as well as the Millennium Bridge, has looked at the new theory from a physics perspective.
He looked at the height and weight of Neolithic men as well as the stone’s weight, the strength of the wicker basket and the inclines that would have to be negotiated.
Mr Oates said: ‘We feel that it is possible that Garry’s theory of a woven basket around the stone, moving these four-ton stones all the way from the Welsh mountains to Stonehenge is at least viable.’
Last week a competing theory from the University of Exeter was published which suggested that the stones may have used wooden ball bearings balls placed in grooved wooden tracks would have allowed the easy movement of stones weighing many tons.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1334166/Stonehenge-built-rolling-stones-using-giant-wicker-baskets.html#ixzz17Nj2KB00
