Waxy.orgAndy Baio lives hereBBC Two's "The Net," Episodes 2 and 5 from 1994- May 30, 2008 Back in March, I posted the first episode of a BBC Two series called The Net from 1994. It's a great time capsule of how the media portrayed cyberculture in the early 1990s, very much like a TV version of early Wired Magazine. Thanks again to Martin Brewer, who also contributed the Horizon show, here are two more episodes from the first season of The Net from 1994.Continue reading...http://waxy.org/2008/05/bbc_twos_the_net_episodes_from_1994/ Star Wars Kid: The Data Dump- May 22, 2008 This Friday, I'll be speaking at the Webvisions conference in Portland about Internet memes, how they spread, and how their distribution's changed over time. As part of that research, I've been digging into my original server logs from the Star Wars Kid debacle, five years after I played a major role in what some say is the biggest viral video of all-time. Be warned, this is more detail than you'll ever want about the origins of the Star Wars Kid meme and how it spread. You don't care...http://waxy.org/2008/05/star_wars_kid_the_data_dump/ Garry Kasparov Griefed by Flying Penis- May 19, 2008 In a bizarre example of Second Life leaking into the real world, a political assembly on Saturday led by chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov was disrupted by a flying penis. Kasparov is a leader of the Other Russia movement, a loose coalition of activists opposing Vladamir Putin and the current Russian government. Over 700 people showed up for the event in central Moscow, but Kasparov's speech was interrupted when a large phallus-shaped helicopter started buzzing around the room. The Moscow...http://waxy.org/2008/05/garry_kasparov_griefed_by_flying_penis/ The Whitburn Project: One-Hit Wonders and Pop Longevity- May 17, 2008 How has the record industry changed in the last 50 years Using the Whitburn Project spreadsheet I talked about yesterday, I've been trying to dig into some of the underlying trends. Today, I'll be tackling the longevity and diversity of pop songs, and a look at which decades had one-hit wonders. Longevity of a Pop Song One of the trickier questions I've been trying to visualize is how long pop songs are staying on the charts relative to the past. Are they staying on the charts longer than..http://waxy.org/2008/05/the_whitburn_project_onehit_wonders_and_pop_longevity/ The Whitburn Project: 120 Years of Music Chart History- May 15, 2008 For the last ten years, obsessive record collectors in Usenet have been working on the Whitburn Project — a huge undertaking to preserve and share high-quality recordings of every popular song since the 1890s. To assist their efforts, they've created a spreadsheet of 37,000 songs and 112 columns of raw data, including each song's duration, beats-per-minute, songwriters, label, and week-by-week chart position. It's 25 megs of OCD, and it's awesome. As far as I know, this is the first..http://waxy.org/2008/05/the_whitburn_project/ |