Tag: youtube

Best of the recent TEDxManchester’s

TedX Manchester 2019

Last year I never got a chance to write about TEDxManchester 2018, partly because I tend to take pictures with my camera and its the new venue (Bridgewater hall) policy not to allow cameras in.

Regardless I went to TedXManchester 2019 (without my DSLR), and thought its about time I got back into blogging some of the best talks, especially as they are put on youtube now. Because they are on youtube so quickly, I created a playlist with the best TedXManchester videos. There are a number missing and its worth saying the list is highly opinioned. Theres some key ones from previous years gone by including my own and Carrie’s super popular one.

But I wanted to give credit to the best ones this year and last year.

2018

Last year the outstanding talk was form Vikas Shah’s How to save your own life.

A year later Vikas tweet is a perfect description.

I felt the talk was extremely brave, powerful and honest. The mental health message was powerful.

2019

This years outstanding talks were difficult to pick one. I was torn but decided although everyone loved Ged Kings talk I wasn’t super keen. I found Andrew Szydlo and Jon Carmichael’s fantastic but its not online yet so decided Katherine Ormerod spoke to me like Emma Harvey’s “Whoops, I changed the world” at TedxBradford.

Although I don’t let social media run my life, and use it a certain way which bother some. I find the continuously running theme of living life with these digital tools interesting. There was a talk just before with Chris Bailey (this is from TedxLiverpool) which was good but felt too preachy for my palliate. As I write this blog post in a coffee shop, I’m watching a woman taking a selfie with her tiny dog to a social network. She took about 12 photos before finally settling on one to post. I find the whole thing strange as posted about before, and I wonder how many are in control, following fashion, doing so out of peer/social pressure, etc…

Wired Live: Why We Need to Talk More About Mental Health

When rapper Professor Green was a kid, the word ‘mental’ was chucked about carelessly – but the phrase ‘mental health’ was something he never heard mentioned. When he was 24, his dad took his own life – and there began a course towards greater self-awareness about mental illness and understanding of the need to talk about mental suffering collectively. He speaks to journalist Stephen Armstrong about his work since then, and why things still aren’t getting better.

I found this really good and refreshing to hear. I know very little about Professor Green but its really good to hear his thoughts, in this short wired live interview.

BBC RD ethics of data videos on youtube

The ethics of data videos we created a year ago are now finally on youtube for everybody to watch on the BBC R&D channel.

You might remember it was a project which I talked about last year.  I have personally refereed these videos many times and would still like to see the hours of footage we shot, be used in the future. I mean we had some great guests and a lot of what they said was gold dust.

These videos are also the first public videos to run through a new experimental R&D tool for automatically putting transcriptions into a existing video for subtitling.

If you haven’t seen the videos, this is the time to go check them out, very relevant even now, and enjoy the automated positioned subtitles.

The barbershop world is ripe for disruption

I was talking to a guy in VividLounge recently and we were talking about the new trend for barbershops to create high quality promo videos for themselves. In actual fact when I was getting my hair cut last week at Barberboutique, Damien mentioned the new trend for  videos to be taken out side the shop rather than inside. The whole idea of pictures of people in the chair having their hair cut is old news it seems.

Look at whats on Youtube, theres some serious videos and theres a certain house style which is starting to emerge. Lots of them have taken the gentlemans therapy to another level with Coffees, Whiskey and even Champagne. But I feel theres plenty of room for disruption… Especially around the business models.

Blip.tv does good on its promise to archive

Mike Hudack of Blip.tv

A long while ago I talked about why I used Blip.TV over Youtube, Vimeo and other video uploading sites.

  • Upload video of any length
  • Download the archived original
  • Use there non branded flash player anywhere you like
  • Add a creative commons licence
  • Automatically add content to Internet Archive
  • Add advertising to your video (start or end)
  • Add alternative formats of the same clip

Although most of these features are now supported by the others, blip.tv was promising this in 2006!

It was a shame last year when I saw the message in my email saying blip.tv was removing my videos. I did try and download most of them, but remembered the promise of uploading everything to archive.org.

…If Blip.tv ever pulled a Yahoo/Flickr thing on its users. You could pipe them all to Archive.org and remove them from Blip. Metadata and all..

Well they didn’t exactly do a Yahoo/Flickr thing on us, but their business models changed when they got bought. But they nicely honoured their word and dumped everything requested on to archive.org. I was having a hard time finding stuff (archive.org’s search isn’t the best) but I found everything using this search. Including classics like Mike Arrington thinks the BBC should be dissolved. Remember the firestorm which came from that video and his lack of ignorant comment. Finally it was followed by this.

The only disappointment is the links around the web are now broken as redirection of blip links never happened… Maybe I should contact mike (if he’s still in CEO) to remind him, wonder if he remembers me?

Dataportability for the win…!

Here is a summary of what happened with Blip.tv in full

Women Are Sexual Predators too

The apparently benevolent hangover of sexist attitudes does women no favours. If women are to own their own sexuality, they must also own their potential to be sexual predators with all that this implies.

From the Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Alissa Nutting’s Women Are Sexual Predators. Its a great talk and Alissa really outlines the appalling double standards. Within the talk there are parts which further my thoughts about why I’m a feminist. Equality extends both ways.Its a complex equality…

Got to say the festival of dangerous ideas looks really good, will have to look out for it this year.

Miss America Pageant gives more scholarships to women than any other?

Somebody pointed me at John Oliver’s Last week Tonight show, the other day. They said I will be spitting blood watching it. And to be honest they were not wrong.

Unfortunately to watch it, you need to be in America or on a VPN as its geo blocked.

However basically its all about how The Miss America Pageant claim to give more scholarships to women than any other organisation in America. And if you like me and John Oliver are thinking this has got be bollox. You would be wrong!

Yes a organisation which objectifies women, parades them around like dolls, dismisses women who have had children and many other things. Gives out more scholarships to women than any other…. in America!

Seriously wtf! *sad face*

We’ve all danced on a treadmill

Blame Herb and Laura. It kind of looks like me (same kind of build I guess?), but trust me its not! I use to be a slick dancer but no longer. However, I posed this comment,

“…although I have experimented on a trendmill me and Sarah bought many years ago. Mainly dancing on it rather than smooth moves… You tell me you’ve never tried moonwalking on a treadmill!?”

And as I thought, I can’t be the only one to try it… Quick dive into the vast ocean which is youtube…

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you the not new concept of… Moon walking on a treadmill.