Boston Water and Sewer FAIL!

It's amazing that this page came up after I tried to complain about the fact that they are the only utility I deal with that does not allow you to set up automatic scheduled payment.

#EPICstupidUTILITYmonopolyFAIL

I hate bridges...

... but I love #@!% blowing up.

(via BoingBoing)

Need a 2 minute and 15 second 'pick me up'?

If this doesn't help, well then good luck to you.

Via http://LiveJamie.com.

Why isn't it all High Quality?

I know it looks like I posted the same video twice, or maybe Steve Garfield has required me to put his picture on my blog twice.

No, I am just showing that when you embed a video from youtube it automatically uses the lesser quality version.

Watch if you dare:

Low Quality.

But there is a way to use the higher quality video in embeds, but you must add some code.

Watch the difference:

High Quality.

To bypass this, when you get your embed code, add this snippet "&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" to the end of the two urls in the code. (Without the quote marks.)

My question is why aren't all of youtube's embedded videos high quality? Why do you have to click on the high quality link on youtube's site?

Well, youtube, what do you say to that?

Thanks to Make Magazine Blog.

"Boston Media Makers" the trailer

Boston Media Makers from cohnjoyne on Vimeo.

Here's a trailer I made to help promote the Boston Media Makers (of which I am a member). Check out the video or the link for more info. Everyone is welcome.

I tried to make it look old and super 8 film-y. I shot it with the video function on my Canon point and shoot camera and edited on Apple's Final Cut Pro.


Original image

I got the music from Final Cut Studio's audio program called Soundtrack Pro. I was interested in a 70s rock/grind house type track and found something called "Phazed and Infused," which had the right sound.

To take the video edge off of the image and to make it look more like film I added both a "Gaussian Blur" and "Vignette" filter. I also sped up some of the clips to give it that jumpy, off-speed, film transfer look.


Filters added

Of course I wanted to add some scratches, dirt and grain to the image that all good super 8 footage seems to have, so I downloaded this clip from Archive.org (a great source of copyright free and public domain material.) I placed a clip of the longest section of gross, noisy, white footage above the footage I shot. I then used the multiply composite mode to combine the two images. This gave me all the junk I was looking for and also washed out the image slightly.


Composite with film junk

Finally, I added an Earthquake filter to the text to make it more frantic, although I turned most of the parameters way down.

I go to Boston Media Makers because it fosters the DIY, can do attitude that the democratization of technology and on-line media provides. All it took was an inexpensive camera, somewhat expensive editing software, and trial and error to make a relatively cool looking video. I hope you come to our next meeting and can get inspired by the cool things that people are doing.

The homemade Barack Obama...

... Hope-a-Roni Pizza

The (Nerd) Choice is Yours

See more funny videos at Funny or Die