Party For A Purpose ~ “Cents of Relief”
Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Events
Yesterday, via Twitter, I learned my friend John ‘Speed’ Raser was having an event here in NYC. I was bummed out when I realized the date conflicted with my trip to SXSWi. John is super excited to be having this event here in New York City and is anticipating a great turnout! Because of John’s passion and commitment to his friends I feel compelled to share his enthusiasm in a blog post. As a bonus I am including a great video from John’s YouTube channel… It has nothing to do with the event but everything to do with John and his awesomeness. Enjoy the video and please come out to support John and his friends on March 11th.
Cents of Relief (501c3) was founded by John Raser’s highschool buddy, Anup Patel and his fiance Rina Patel to help provide healthcare to women and children caught up in human trafficking / sex trade. John says “Anup is one of the most brilliant, hard-working, and compassionate people I have ever come to know.”
He credits his fiance, Rina, as being the driving force behind the organization. “She is such a strong, sweet, and dedicated woman.” says Anup. I’m happy to help such unselfish and deserving friends.
If you live in New York City, or will be there March 11, 2010, we would love it if you came out to support this worthy cause. I mean it’s at Jay Z’s 40/40 Club and tickets are only $25 bucks in advance ($30 at the door). Not to mention there is a free vodka hour and free Aveda mini day spa included! Need I say more?!?! I’ll be there with some friends from Orlando and would love to throw back some Cristal with you!
You can buy tickets here
Jill Hanner’s RSH ‘Crib’
Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by BrianSimpson in Community, Hotel
While eating brunch trying to figure out another #RogersRooms Give-Away in Lilys yesterday I was graced with the presence of Jill Hanner. Jill is a prominent figure on YouTube, a New York native and Roger Smith regular. Jill graciously agreed to shoot a video and help us give away two room nights for the month of January! Please enjoy the tour of Jills Suite.
To enter leave your answers after the video
or leave them below…
Contest ends Tuesday, January 26th at 5pm.
…and the winner is
Sarah Rush !!!!!
Tech Tuesday: TV is DEAD.
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by Birdsong in Community
Seriously, it is…well, cable TV to be precise.
I was watching “Six Feet Under” the other night, which I’ve just gotten into and is so far pretty good, and I thought: A couple years ago this wouldn’t even be possible. I had just downloaded the show on itunes, for a couple of bucks, and it doesn’t even have to fully download before you can start viewing. It already seems native, but think back…a few years ago I would have had to clean the snow off the car (it was snowing like crazy) drive fifteen minutes to Blockbuster, only to find that someone had already rented it, and I was out of luck. BUMMER. Not anymore. There are so many ways to ingest on demand media now. There are the legal platforms: itunes, hulu, vimeo, youtube, netflix watch instantly, amazon on demand, abc.com, southpark studios (there are a bunch more, but you get the point). Then there are the illegal ones: bittorent (alas pirate bay is dead), and gnutella (aka frost/limewire), and all the bizarre flash based overseas American TV video hubs (awful quality). You’d think the name of the game here is you get what you pay for, but hulu defies that. (at least as of this writing). Hulu has hinted that there will be a pay model, but I’ve read you won’t lose shows like “the cobert report” and “the office”. They (hulu) has hinted at upselling premium content such as HBO and showtime shows. I say go for it. The keyword here is on demand. If I want to watch a movie and I have the choice of renting it on Amazon on demand and being able to watch it immediately, or downloading it from bittorent and having to wait for it. I’ll take amazon everytime. Here is a brief description of some of the free and pay on demand media services available on the internet right now.
iTunes
Who hasn’t heard of itunes? Aside from offering digital music downloads, itunes now also offers movies and movie rentals. I suggest the rentals if you have a bluray and decent TV, becasue if you are going to own a movie itunes downloads don’t match the quality of bluray.
Amazon on Demand
Amazon is making hand over fist tax free $$ with their retail business (I did all of my Xmas shoping with them online.) So why shouldn’t they compete with apple? They should. Competition is good. Competition means lower prices and a wider range of products/service. Thank god itunes has competition. I think the quality of video is little better here on amazon, but it’s a close tie. The video codec they use seems to be a little easier on you computer as well if you have an older system.
Hulu
Free doesn’t get better than this. Seriously, everything here is free. Hulu is my go to place to watch shows like 30 rock. People my age (28) don’t really have landlines. Services like Hulu allow us to get rid of our cable subscriptions too. Screw you comcastcablevisiontimewarner.
Netflix Watch Instantly
Some great movies and TV here and new ones everyday. You have to pay for this, but if you’re into movies you already have netflix and this comes as part of your built in service. Plug you’re laptop into you’re TV, and you’re good to go. Great stuff here.
YouTube
Funny cat videos and people getting hit in the balls is hilarious! I never get bored of it. Check out their screening room for more highbrow content, plus they have a new tv and movies section with a bunch of content (most not that great).
Vimeo
Art house YouTube. Cool stuff here.
Daily motion
Youtube uncensored. Kind of a cool platform, but aside from showing boobs (which is great) I don’t really see how it separates from the pack.
12Seconds.tv
My grandmas spoiled chihuahua on 12seconds.tv (sorry the embed wasn’t working here : )
Cool platform. Short videos.
So…check out these platforms. Invest in a cable to hook up you’re laptop to you’re TV. Cancel you’re cable subscrition. Take a trip with the money you’ll save. Besides, you watch WAY too much fucking TV.
John Birdsong is a Producer Director Editor with Panman Productions and lives in Williamsburg BKLYN with his girlfriend Morgan-Jo and their cat Fanny Fae McNamara.
Tech Tuesday 12/29: Top Technologies of 2009: and Why
Posted on 29. Dec, 2009 by Birdsong in Community, Hotel
This year there were no HUGE advancements in technology (on the consumer level), but it was the year WE really embraced technology. For example my entire family is on Facebook now. If I want to share something with them it’s ridiculously easy. Hi Mom! The point is, the longer this stuff is around, particularly the advancements in communication the more we begin to rely on them not as a novelty, but as a necessity. For example, when cell phones first came out they were very much a novelty. Now, when your plane lands the first thing you do is fire up the iPhone (if you have one) check your messages (voice and email), send a few texts, and probably update your FB status. Another example is GPS, and I’m completely lost without mine. What will we rely on in 2010, and furthermore what will be the next big thing in 2010? (Comments plz).
Without further adieu, here is my list of top tech in the year that was 2009
iPhone 3gs
This smart-phone will now shoot video (unhacked) and send it to YouTube, and if you get lost in the woods you have a nifty compass to guide you out! Price: Your f%*ing soul.
New Intel CPUs
Code named “Nehalem” i5 and i7 core chips with “turbo”. Put them in mac books already!!! I’m waiting ’till they do to upgrade. Price: Get one with a new computer (27″ iMac).
This micro blogging service exploded in 2009. Words like “Tweet-up” “Tweets-giving” and “Tw-izzlers” entered our vocab. I’m @johnbirdsong, holla. Price: Free (or ALL of your free time).
Tinychat.com/Skype
Skype, one of the most effective low/no cost communication tools has been around for a while. The new version allows screen sharing which is AWESOME. Tinychat.com takes it a step further and allows groups (up to 12 cameras) to communicate with a/v in a virtual room. Perfect for online meetings, and bizarre 3.0 interaction. Price: Free
This year my mom and dad both joined Facebook, and they use it (a lot). Price: All of you free time.
Flip ultra HD
Best flash memory video recorder. Reliable, tough, fantastic daylight video, not to bad indoor/low light video. A lesson in minimalism. Price: $170
Any of the LED back lit flat panel HD TVs
Energy sipping, high quality displays for Bluray, DVD, Hulu, Netflix, web browsing, Amazon on Demand, gaming, and oh yeah…cable. Price: $1,000+ (for Samsung, Panasonic, etc) less $$ for Vizio (which gets very high ratings).
Canon D7 Digital SLR
I havn’t gotten to use this pro-sumer still camera yet, but the picture quality and videos I’ve seen are beautiful. With the D7, Canon has embraced creative filmmaking. The cam features full 1080p HD video @24 fps, adjustable exposure control, and a large CMOS sensor to mimic the shallow depth of field look of motion picture film cameras. Price: $1,899 with a 28-135 lens.
17″ Mac book Pro
This behemoth of a laptop has an 8hr battery, two video cards, up to 8GB RAM, and a 3.06GHZ duo core Intel CPU. Price: starting around $3,000
Amazon Kindle 2
Paper books are so passe. JK, but the Kindle is a pretty amazing device. First of all: electronic ink is really cool. Kind of like a 21st century etch a sketch, but with Hemingway and J.K. Rowling instead of that dumb staircase you’d draw over and over. One of the coolest things about the Kindle 2 is that it comes with FREE wireless. The browser is not perfect, but it gets the job done (for the most part). Price: $259
Looking forward to 2010: What’s Next?
1. Wireless electricity…coming soon
2. A proper upgrade for the iPhone…better battery, HD video recording, front facing camera for video chat
3. Faster computers (plz)
4. 3D HDTV
5. Larger capacity more reliable SD cards
6. Flip camera with wireless, optical stabilization, mic jack, AND headphone jack
7. WiMax
8. A redesigned Facebook
9. A new more efficient, less processor intensive video codec. H.264 is great, but is really CPU intensive…takes 20min to transcode a 3 min video. S-L-O-W.
10. A video camera for every cop that records 24/7 and cannot be tampered with, and a less lethal taser. Police need WAY more oversight.
What did I miss? What tech trends do you see for 2010?
Do you disagree? Please let me know.
John Birdsong is a Producer Director Editor with Panman Productions and lives in Brooklyn, NY
