Without excellent (and free) video phone service from Skype, I wouldn't have been able to celebrate Christmas with my family this year. Net Neutrality will prove to be a vital force in the future not only for how we interact, but for how we do business and how we are able to access knowledge. Join companies like Google and Microsoft in supporting Net Neutrality.
The year is 1985. Working in a secret laboratory in the Computing Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Russian computer engineer Alexey Pajitno is working on a top secret project to invade the states: TETRIS.
Check out Amusement Magazine for their article Made of Myth with photos by Marc Da Cunha Lopes of the factory work that helped create some of the most beloved Video Games of all time: Tetris, Arkanoid, Pong, Super Mario & Sonic.
If you don't have health insurance or your medications aren't covered and/or you can't get free samples from your health care provider, the answer is probably yes. Even with insurance, some medications can cost up to $40 a day here in the States, but in Canada, that same medication runs about $6 a day.
Enter CanadaDrugs.com, the online pharmacy that will ship your medications free of charge to your home address, even if you live stateside. But how? Especially when many generics in Canada aren't approved by the FDA in the States. Simple. All you have to do is call and give your verbal permission as the customer service rep. records your responses -- the most important, giving a Canadian doctor approval to oversee your prescription.
Does it sound too good to be true? For starving artists who are just starting out and looking to build a resume or who have no idea where or how to network their talents and skills or how to land accounts with leading brands, maybe not.
Zooppa offers cash prizes to community members who create top-rated viral videos, animated sequences, print ads, or even written scripts. To date, over $500,000 has been awarded to creatives, who not only receive cash for their work, but visibility and portfolio development.
Current competitions include campaigns for Hershey's for $6000 and webtel.mobi for $30,000. Past competitions include Earth Class Mail, Microsoft Office Live, and E. Leaven Food Company. Zooppa also provides resources for artists and creatives to hone their skills in photoshopt and video editing. Check it out
What do white supremacy, Islam, and Rochester, NY have in common? All play a crucial role in a new genre of music: PUNK ISLAM.
The movement was born from the imagination of a white suburban kid from Rochester, NY, whose abusive, schizophrenic father drove 17-year-old Michael Knight to study Islam, from which he also rebelled in his 2003 Muslim Punk novel called The Taqwacores.
Since 2007, Taqwacore has rocked the U.S. and is now the subject of a documentary, The Taqwacores. See the website for showtimes in January 2010.
End the practice of viewing words as crimes: Chinese Author on Trial
Liu Xiaobo, the influential Chinese dissident and author, stood trial this morning after being taken into custody by the Chinese government over a year ago for threatening the authority of the Communist Party. Today he was indicted for "incitement to subvert state power" mainly for his advocation of free speech and human rights in the Charter 08manifesto that called for an "end [to] the practice of viewing words as crimes."
"The only purpose of this trial is to dress up naked political repression in the trappings of legal proceedings. Liu's crimes are non-existent, yet his fate has been pre-determined. This is a travesty of justice," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
Mr. Liu faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted this Friday, Christmas day.
nthWORD featured artist Talissa Mehringer's "How To Dress Your Dog According to His Body Type" made the Best of 2009 for funniest videos at Howcast.com. Howcast Media promotes filmmakers across a wide network of web, mobile, and cable partners, providing content on any How To question. Check out the rest of the Best 2009.
Have you ever slammed into the ass of an eighteen wheeler at 65 mph? I have, and the aftermath isn't pretty.Art. Lebedev Studio, the innovative Russian design company, has begun developing an idea they call Transparentius: an ingenious way to avoid a crash by mounting a camera on the front of the truck and projecting the oncoming image onto the back, rendering the hulking road goliath virtually transparent.
Traffic isn't the only number on the run for Etsy, the online store that is redefining what it means to purchase handmade goods by connecting artists and craftsmen with the consumer, with 3.4 million unique visitors (up from 1.7 million last year) but so are sales as they approach the $200 million mark for 2009, close to double last year's amount, as reported by TechCrunch.
When Montreal author David Bernans booked a reading of his novel, North of 9/11 for the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks back in 2006, he wasn't expecting to be shut down by agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in conjunction with university security.
Emails and documents from the 2006 censorship were recently released, citing that Bernans was seen "photographing posters" at Concordia University and that "agents will be informed." Read more about the story at Art Threat. North of 9/11: The novel's plot revolves around a group of punks and youth of the Arab Diaspora who fall under the surveillance of an intelligence agency because of their plans for non-violent opposition to the war in Afghanistan.
If the challenge of filmmaking isn't already enough fun, then the challenge of getting people to go out and see your film when it's screening, especially at a lesser known festival inundated with unkowns, can give you another jolt.
Check out Rhett and Burke Lewis literally couch surf down the sidewalk to promote their first feature film, Bill Was a Def Kid.
Italian student and artist Simona Bonomo was stopped by Police Community Support Officers in London for filming "iconic" buildings. When she told them she was "filming for fun," the Support Officers didn't believe her, under the suspicion of a possible link to terrorism.
Man, this guy is an asshole. When she failed to produce identification, he accused her of cycling the wrong way down a one-way street. The incident escalated when four additional Support Officers tackled Simona to the ground, twisting her arm behind her back, and arrested her, detaining her in a jail cell for more than five hours.
Yes, it's true. Major ISPs in the US (such as Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon) claim that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) aims to violate their First Amendment rights to make a profit because the FCC advocates Network Neutrality -- the freedom from restrictions of information on the Internet, such as the speed of service to certain sites or access to online content, applications, services, and data.
