Tale of Mighty Rudd Ascension
As the description tells us, “Short propaganda philosophy tells tale of mighty Rudd ascension” …
Without a doubt, one of the best political satires, and mashups, of the 2007 Federal Election campaign thus far. And, yes, for those who watch The 7.30 Report, I am getting YouTube pointers from Michael Brissenden these days. After all, he’s a keen YouTube watcher himself now; as last night’s report said:
The 2007 election will be remembered as the YouTube campaign – the first time the internet became a real force. Both sides are exploiting cyber space relentlessly but as we have seen already, the net is not always such a comfortable place for politicians.
Bring on the political discomfort! 🙂
Update: NineMSN staff writers seem to like this clip, too.
I’m Making Waffles in The United States of Sparta!
I’m entrenched in marking first-year Flash animation projects today, and so have been thinking about creativity in various ways, but without much time to blog. So, I thought I’d share two YouTube clips which have made me laugh this morning, instead.
The first clip is 1776… … which is what the US War of Independence would look like if produced by the creative team behind 300. Apparently this was created by the Robot Chicken folks. It’s very funny. “Tonight we dine in VIR-GIN-I-A!” [Via Cynical-C]
The second is a wonderful mashup of Shrek and The Queen which tells the tale of a most unlikely romance:
Thanks to Gregg Rossen for the link to this Queen and Donkey clip!
links for 2007-10-23
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“MySpace, the website that redefined the meaning of friends in cyberspace, is showing signs of fatigue, with latest figures indicating that Australians – or at least hip ones – are deserting it for rival Facebook.”
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“A poll by The Times of 3000 fans who bought the album found the average price paid was £4 ($9.20) … On those figures, on the first day alone, the band would have collected more than $10 million, and by cutting out the middle man…”
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Jason Mittell ponders how much authority J.K. Rowling.has over the Potterverse now the books are complete. Is outing Dumbledore canon or fanon? Is it more than a little disappointing being gay really wasn’t explicitly discussed in the books at all?
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According to Cory Doctorow, Bloodspell is “the first feature-length machinima film, made entirely with a game-engine, and it’s a pioneering and important start for a new industry.” (Free download, too!)
Australia Bans ‘Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back’ Videogame
As Asher Moses reports in The Age, Australia’s censors have banned yet another videogame:
Australia’s draconian classification regime for video games has taken yet another scalp, with local retailers banned from selling the upcoming shooter title Soldier of Fortune: Pay Back. The highly anticipated game, which was to be released on PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, was refused classification by the Classification Board for being too violent. Aside from Singapore, which is reviewing its classification system, Australia is understood to be the only country in the western world that does not have an R18+ rating for games. As a result, games that do not meet the MA15+ standard – such as those with excessive violence or sexual content – are simply banned from sale. This is despite recent figures from the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) showing the average Australian gamer is 28, and over 50 per cent of gamers are over the age of 18.
While Solider of Fortune: Pay Back certain sounds very violent, the decision by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) should, of course, have placed this game in an R18+ category, if only Australia had such a rating for games. Instead, games like this are refused classification altogether, implicitly suggesting that videogames are meant for kids (by having no adult game category) despite, as Moses notes above, the average age for gamers being well over 18 in Australia! Really, it’s time for the OFLC (and the Governors General at State and Federal levels, who’d need to push such a plan) to take note of the actual demographics of game players in Australia, and update the ratings system accordingly.
Of course, as comments on The Age‘s Screen Play Blog suggest, officially banning this game will likely result in it being downloaded illegally or simply purchased overseas – and legally – in pretty much any other English-speaking country.
links for 2007-10-21
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The third minisode/webisode leading up to Battlestar Galactica: Razor. See young Bill Adama dogfighting with original Cylon raiders! [Better Quality Torrent]
Support the Creative Commons
The 2007 Creative Commons Fundraising Drive is under way, so if you’re concerned about ensuring that extreme copyright doesn’t kill creativity, please consider donating. For me, ensuring that copyright laws don’t lock away creative potential for the average person is incredibly important and I still think that Creative Commons is one of the great vanguards in the fight to ensure that there are better options than the two extremes of full copyright or the public domain. While both have their place, allowing the average person to make more specific choices about how their creative work(s) can or can’t be re-used is essential to creativity in the present and future, and the Creative Commons organisation, and their national versions such as the marvelous CC Australia, are doing a lot of the hard work to ensure these options exist! And just to prove I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’ve been donating annually since 2005. I hope you’ll consider donating this year.
Inspired by last year’s CC Swag Flickr Competition, here’s my 2007 CC Vision:
And I noticed year’s swag for donators includes postcards made from the winners of last year’s CC Swag Photo competition; I wonder what sort of things will be in next year’s? 🙂
Tama Leaver dot Net by Tama Leaver is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.