Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the Mom's out there, I say Happy Mother's Day as I'm waiting to board a flight to Atlanta to see my Mom, and having just landed in Chicago!

Wanda Sykes At White House Correspondents' Dinner

This segment was a total crack-up and worth seeing again!

Star Trek Movie Review With Bill and Lars

 

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YouTube, Yahoo, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler


Today, I saw Star Trek with my longtime friends Bill Boyd and Lars Frykman at matinee showing at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, thus following through on a plan we formed almost a month ago and I wrote about a few days ago. It was a cool reunion as I'd not seen Lars for just over 30 years and Bill and I get together for lunch maybe twice a year. Regardless of how little you see of each other, there's something about the friends you had when you were a teenager, especially when they last as long as ours has. Star Trek was always a rallying point for us, so today's meetup was a perfect way for the originators of the Bret Harte Star Trek Club to reconnect.

We're all fans of the original series, and consider ourselves experts on it. What we liked about J.J. Abrams version was the attention to detail in referencing certain episodes and music themes.

The scene where Kirk and Spock (Nimoy) enter the outpost on Delta Vega has music that recalls entering the hatchery of the Horta in "The Devil in The Dark" or the discovery of the real "Balok" in "The Corbomite Manuever". And as in the series Captain Pike was alive and bound to a wheel chair before being disfigured in a reactor accident. To kill him would have not been according to Star Trek history.

In fact, that's where we were confused in the loss of Spock's mother. She didn't pass on in the series, so her death here was not understood by us. Also the Enterprise was constructed in Hunter's Point Naval Shipyards in San Francisco, not Riverside, Iowa as in the movie.

The matter of the shipyards leads us to the Enterprise. What a terrific job Industrial Light and Magic did in making the ship look real, especially the daylight scene where Kirk reports for duty. That's the first time we see the giant vessel as if it were really in drydock on Earth. An excellent achievement.

Bill made the observation that because we're from an older generation this movie didn't have enough dialog. I agree but I don't say the movie wasn't well done. Still we're concerned that a society that wants stimulus over substance can be easily duped in a number of ways and this problem is something I will explore more of.

But even with that issue of style, Star Trek was a good, tight, entertaining film. Did it live up to our Trekker seal of approval?

Yes!

Saturday, May 09, 2009

YouTube Partner Program: What Is It?

 

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I'm often surprised by the number of people who don't catch on to the fact that for me making videos is much more than a hobby, it's a job I earn a living from. I recently created a video on the Star Trek movie that pointed to its depiction of the San Francisco skyline as unrealistic because of the size of the buildings relative to The City's culture of demanding "a human scale" of structures, and Star Trek's new generation of fanboys coupled with Internet trolls jumped all over me, saying "Get a life" and stop making videos, all the while contributing to the 43,000 times my creation was seen..and to my pocketbook.

That's because I'm a YouTube Partner or "YTP". The YouTube Partner's program was established in late 2007 as a way to For YouTube to share its advertising revenue with its most popular video producers like Renetto and Lisa Nova, as well as frequent contributors like me. At first, YouTube sent invitations to channel vloggers - I received mine on November of 2007 - then opened up the program to an application process. In other words, you too can become a YTP and here's how.

First, you have to make videos and upload them to YouTube on a regular basis. For me I have a schedule of a video a day and a subject mix of the topical, local, and political. Some people like Lisa Nova have shows within their channels like "The Affirmation Girl" that draw micro-audiences for that specific video playlist. What ever the case, do what is comfortable for you to start, but do something and do it often. And don't upload TV content because you don't own the rights to it; make something original.



I explain what video blogging is and how to do it above.

Second, you have to gain subscribers and that's the real meat of viewership and not an easy task at all. Michael Buckley of "What The Buck" has over 400,000 subscribers, Phil DeFranco has over 300,000 subcribers, where's Lisa Nova has 41,000, and I have just 3,000. It takes years and constant work - some people use PC-based YouTube subscriber software services - to get to those levels.

Third, make sure you have a blog to place your videos on. Blogs and websites are the main driver of video views other than subscriptions. The more visits your page gets, the more views your video will have.

Fourth, have an email list of people to send your videos to, or work them into your social networks, as I do. I'm on 41 different social networs, some that allow video embeding and I have a network of blogs, each with my video channel's latest creation in a special view box.

Once you've done all of that, and have reached a subscriber base of 300 people, apply for the program. It's connected to Google AdSense, the Google revenue sharing system, so the check you gain comes from them, but you only get paid when your monthly income reaches over $100. So you're wondering "How much can I make?"

Buckley is perhaps the most successful partner, bringing in a reported "six figure" income annually. I'm certain both De Franco and Lisa Nova are not far behind and I know Renetto's made a healthy living from YouTube but doesn't tell people about it, unlike Buckley. It's possible to clear $10,000 a month from YTP, and no, I'm not any where near that at all, so don't ask me for a loan!

So that's the YTP. Give it a try with the steps I listed and if you have more questions just ask. And if you want to know how to make a video, or how I do it. See the video above.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Star Trek Formed My Longtime Friendships

 

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Today the long awaited Star Trek movie is out and like any nerdy Trekker, I'm excited. I got our tickets 10 days ago and didn't have to stand in line, contrary to what you might think. But the real story here is that on Saturday, May 9th, I'm going to see Star Trek with my long time friends Bill Boyd and Lars Frykman.

This is an Oakland Trekker story in brief.

Bill, Lars, and I met in Oakland in 1976 when we were 14 years old at what was then called Bret Harte Junior High School, now Bret Harte Middle School. I was new to Oakland, having moved with my mom to the city from Chicago as my mom was in search of better schools for me. How times have changed!

The Bret Harte Star Trek Club

I was a big Star Trek fan and wanted to start a club at Bret Harte. I had no clue how to do this, so my friends said "You should talk to Bill Boyd or Lars Frykman!" So I was introduced to Bill, who at 14 had the deepest voice I've ever heard in my life, and has the same voice today! Then there was Lars, who's just unique and uses terms like "GROK" the meaning of which I've forgotten.

At any rate, Bill and Lars are white; I'm black. But in Star Trek, as Doctor McCoy once said, "People are different. You get used to those things." We formed a diverse set of people, all interested in science and led by Craig Pryor who famously worked through all of the problem sets in our calculus book before the end of the semester. But whom I bested in a massive debate on American versus foreign cars - I took American and won!

But we were and to this day are great friends. At Bret Harte in 1976 we made the most money of any club at our carnival taking in $104.76. We did it with a game Craig came up with where you throw a set of "Tribbles" (from the Star Trek episode "Trouble With The Tribbles") our moms made from fur and stuffing at a ping pong ball suspended from the air from a vacuum cleaner.

You laugh.

But Star Trek was the show that brought all of us together and caused us to work conventions in Oakland and have parties and get girlfriends. And it was because Star Trek continues to show a positive view of the future and how we relate to each other.

I can't wait for Bill, Lars, and Craig to see this and I can't wait to see Star Trek, even if the movie messes up the San Francisco Skyline.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Why are special interests opposing health care reform?

Single payer is not socialized medicine, it's how Medicare works. Do you know the facts? Medicare runs with between 2-3% overhead - that compares very favorably to private insurance, where overhead by most estimates is over 30% of the cost.

Why don't the big insurance companies want to let everybody have a choice to get affordable coverage? Who has so much influence over Democratic Senators like Max Baucus of Montana that they oppose a choice, as suggested by President Obama? Follow the money.

73% of voters want a choice of a private or public health insurance plan. Have you told your U.S. Representative and/or Senator? It's not about party, folks; this idea has phenomenally broad support, and it's totally congruent with what President Obama and his administration are trying to achieve. It provides coverage to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans without forcing anybody who likes their current system to change.



Broken down by party affiliation, it's:

77% of Democrats
79% of Independents
63% of Republicans

Tell your U.S. Senators and the Congressional Representative from your district what the Chief Economist of the World Bank says:
People who work hard for their money deserve to have a voice in how it's spent. The insurance industry and their lobbyists have been writing rules that boost their profits not protect Americans, and tax-payers are tired of bailing them out while worrying if we'll even have jobs. We need our leaders to take control and look out for our interests, not special interests.

Miss California Nude Photo Scandal Due To Conservative Views

 

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In a short time, Miss California, Carrie Prejean has made herself into a household name first by "outing herself" stating that she believed marriage was between a man and a woman, then by going out and talking about it, then posing with Michael Phelps. But now and I think because of her views, Miss California is going to have her crown taken away.

The cover for this is the discovery of a semi-nude photo of her posing for a lingerie company when she was 17 years old. Personally, my 74-year-old Mom doesn't care about the issue, so why should I? My feeling is yes, she did reportedly sign a disclosure agreement and claimed she didn't do what she was found to have done, but the way all of this came about seems to be based on her views and not on the action itself. Take the way "The Dirty" reported their discovery of the nude photos, using terms like "self proclaimed bible thumper", etc. The point is there's a concerted effort to discredit Prejean because of her conservative views.

I frankly think that's terrible and I'm liberal. But I'm totally tired of these attempts to make someone who has a different point of view "the other" and a bad person. It has to stop. If Carrie wants to make her pointof view known here, why not. I do have concerns with the issue of discriminating against one's civil rights however and I think Prejean should think about what she's doing, but she has the right to say it.

What about the moral issue of the lie about the photos? Look, yes, she lied, but I don't think she should lose her crown over it. She won. OK. I have an issue with her not telling the truth, but it happens in the context of this effort to demonize her so I just can't embrace the view that she should be de-throwned.

Sorry, I can't. Not under the circumstances.