Documentary Archive

  • Video: What just smashed into Jupiter?

    Video: What just smashed into Jupiter?

    Posted on June 4, 2010 | No Comments
    Awesome video is awesome? Yes, yes it is. Something smashed into Jupiter a few hours ago, and an amateur astronomer caught the event on video. A similar event happened almost a year ago to the day. Now, does this mean that THE MAYANS WERE RIGHT or some other nonsense? No, of course not. What it does [...]

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  • Will ActiveVideo Networks successfully bring TV-viewing to the cloud?

    Will ActiveVideo Networks successfully bring TV-viewing to the cloud?

    Posted on May 10, 2010 | No Comments
    I, myself, would move to the cloud if it were at all possible. And by that I don't mean move all of my vital digital services to someone else's servers, but float up into the stratosphere and just hang out there for the rest of my days. When ActiveVideo Networks talks about moving the TV-viewing experience to the cloud, they are, in fact, talking about moving servers outside of your house for your own good, enabling what they call interactive video on demand. The overall idea is to make TV-viewing just interactive enough to make it more compelling without sacrificing the "idiot box"-ness of the medium. When you're watching TV, you don't necessarily want to break out GCC simply to change the channel.

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  • Did you know there was a Last Starfighter video game?

    Did you know there was a Last Starfighter video game?

    Posted on March 9, 2010 | No Comments
    I don’t know how I missed this a few years ago but did you know there was a fully-featured Last Starfighter videogame made for a documentary on the film. With all this talk of Tron I wanted to check out the other major CG-infused release from my childhood and after watching it (Don’t. You will [...]

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  • She’s my final fantasy: G4’s ‘Girl at the Video Game Store’ music video is unexpectedly really good

    She’s my final fantasy: G4’s ‘Girl at the Video Game Store’ music video is unexpectedly really good

    Posted on July 10, 2009 | No Comments
    Oh, how I wanted to hate this video. Yesterday was the thousandth episode of Attack of the Show—how did you celebrate?—and while I only caught about two minutes in between commercials of whatever else I was watching (I think it was a documentary about salt; I'm not joking), I did manage to catch the tail end of this video. It's “The Girl at the Video Game Store,” a song written by Parry Gripp; the video was directed by Michael W. Shaw, of G4.

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  • Can you name a scientist? Not too many Americans can, it turns out.

    Can you name a scientist? Not too many Americans can, it turns out.

    Posted on July 2, 2009 | No Comments
    Some hard science-related news for you now. Try this: name a scientist. Go ahead, name one, any one. If you're like me the first name that pops into your head is Bill Nye or Michio Kaku. And if you're also like me you can name several others. The average American? Not so much. USA Today ran a little poll a few days ago asking Americans to name a scientist, and a whopping 23 percent of respondents couldn't name one. That's right: 23 percent of the people USA Today asked couldn't name a single scientist, living or dead, famous or obscure. And only 47 percent could so much as muster the name “Albert Einstein”! What person, let alone American, couldn't come up with the name “Albert Einstein”?

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