In my trips to Africa, I have seen many unbelievable things. But this—this footage is beyond any of them.
It tells me two things: first, nature is beautifully unpredictable. And second, the power of documenting man’s environment no longer belongs to conglomorates but is in the hands of everyone. This incredible footage wasn’t shot by a news network or heavily-funded documentarian; it was uploaded to YouTube by a tourist.
There was something incredible about this photograph.
Theoretical physicist Steven Hawking experiencing zero gravity, all expenses paid by Richard Branson of Virgin, on the Zero G (it cost him about about 100K but regular trips are about $3500; book your seat today.). One of the smartest men in the world experiencing something he only imagined, sponsored by one of the coolest men in the world, who can imagine with the best of them. And suffering from advanced Lou Gehrig’s disease, there’s not a whole lot of great sensations that Hawking gets access to.
Branson seems to be around here a lot these days – in Toronto recently creating an environmental campaign, and speaking at what looked suspiciously like a get-rich-quick-conference, if only for the presence of Donald Trump. Organizing this one really shows his creativity and compassion. It’s a treat for all of us.
I think it was Coudal’s blog that noted the dali-esque nature of the shot. Brilliant.
There is a very cool online back-up service called Mozy that I was in the process of researching and signing up for, when I was hit with the importance of Value Added on the web. I happened to have a quick look at Mozy’s blog, and discovered a very cool post about the Monty Hall Problem. Now, anyone who knows me knows that math is not my strong suit. I am functionally math-illiterate, and break out in a cold sweat when I try to get my head around math problems.
As I read the post in question, I began to get that old drowning feeling, but then they had a very cool little app to demonstrate the probability of the problem. And I began to get it. Now, this has nothing to do with Online Backup of important computer data, but it did implicitly tell me that the company I was considering for this service could communicate to me in a way that I could understand. That’s great sales.
Check out their post about the Monty Hall Problem. It’s great.
Not that many other web professionals read this blog, but in the event that one does trip over it…
Nobody really knows about the dynamics of the web as a professional experience – thus spake the incomparable Zeldman who is, for my secular friends, kind of the grand-daddy of the whole web standards movement. (I can say that; he’s slightly older than I am.)
Two years ago, when I mentioned to my partner Rob at our traditional-media-corporate-communications-experiment Wild Imaginations Inc., he greeted it with something just this side of indifference. It wasn’t something that either of us knew anything about. He was happy that I was happy, but that’s about it.
But now we’re growing it. It’s bearing fruit—and it is absolutely compelling. I can’t remember being more excited about a prospect. It’s exhilarating, even though most of the people that I end up working shoulder to shoulder with are a little over twelve and seemingly 100-fold smarter than I am. Scary.
So that’s why this survey is important. And if you’re a web professional: fill it out.
One Day I’m Going To Take Up Surfing. Or Maybe Not.
I’ve always imagined that I would like to surf. Until I saw this.
Greg Long rides a wave in Dungeons, South Africa.
Tomorrow’s Friday – and I’ll post a little more detail about this shot…