I’d been assuming that Bit Torrent would either go the way of other great file-sharing methods: be shut down like Napster, or become clogged to uselessness with viruses and fake files like Kazaa. The longer it goes on — three years at this point — the more I feel like it’s ushered in a golden age of media accessibility, in particular for episodic television. Most of the shows I watch regularly, in fact, started with being able to steal them easily.
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Secret Encoder Ring
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Getting Real and Giving Numbers
The web tech firm 37signals made $175 grand in the past 75 days selling their book online and has posted the details “to show that self publishing is a viable and profitable route for an author/company with a built-in audience.” (via)
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How to Silkscreen Posters and Shirts
Silkscreening is such a great happy medium — nestled comfortably half-way between hand-drawn and mass production, more colourful than photocopying and with an aesthetic all its own. Artist Shannon Gerard broke out her silkscreening gear to make cool shirts and posters for her upcoming comic launch, and despite being crazy busy has shared her skills in this funny and detailed tutorial. Read on to learn how to print your own posters, shirts, or whatever you fancy printing on, and how the Virgin Mary and Spiderman join forces to help her out.
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CTHEORY digs on My Trip
There’s a mention of My Trip to Liberty City as “a great work of popular culture commentary” in the tech journal CTHEORY. (Thanks, Liam!)
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Video Compression Howto
The folks over at Rocketboom talk about the various video compression methods they use to make their daily internet show. (Thanks, Kirby!)
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Selling Ads for Small Mags
Gabino Travassos, publisher of the excellent music mag Mote, has a practical howto on getting ads for small magazines.
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Freeware Rebellion
I’ve done a fair amount of writing about Raigan and Mare, two indie game developers I know. This 10 minute documentary I made was a bit of a revelation, however: instead of writing about how fun and stylish their game was, I could show it. Instead of talking about how they’re not your typical nerd coders, I could show them in person. It’s the cardinal rule at writing school — showing, rather than telling — and with this project I realized that video was really good at this. As the kids say, it’s a powerful medium, but I seem to always have to learn these trite truisms myself before I believe them.I’m going to be screening this video and my six other videogame shorts at a screening of Pleasure Circuit Overload at the megacool Blim Gallery in Vancouver. Monday May 8th, 8pm, $5-7 sliding scale. If you can’t make it, click through to see my mini-doc.