Recently, I had the pleasure of re-reading Warren Ellis’ Cunning Plans. It’s an eBook, comprised of transcripts of talks that Mr. Ellis gave at various conferences in 2012. If that sounds boring to you, you might want to go read a little bit about Mr. Ellis. I assure you, when he speaks, it’s because he has something worthwhile to say.

First, let’s introduce the problem in terms that really drive it home: Every hour, more than 2 years of video content is added to youtube. If you were to start watching right now, and didn’t take a break to sleep for the next 2 years, you’d be able to watch all the videos that had been uploaded in the last hour. Obviously this is more content than could reasonably be proccessed in any meaningful way, and there will be two more years worth in an hour. How is anything new supposed to get discovered in that overwhelming miasma of, mostly, crap?

Since we’ve been making movies 100 years longer than I’ve been alive, there are far too many “must see classics” that I’ve missed. Each month, I devote one or two evenings to silent films, and vintage cinema. I try to enter each film with an open mind, and I’ve stumbled on to some real classics. Today, I had the pleasure of re-visiting Buster Keaton’s The General with a friend who was seeing it for the first time. Watch the film, and read my impressions, below.

BBSs were a weird, wonderful facet of early computer culture, connecting community members in to a distributed, often free, local social network. I want to revive this almost forgotten concept, and find a modern spiritual successor.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was adapted for radio, and broadcast as part of the CBS Radio Workshop on February 2nd, 1952. Huxley narrates the show himself. It’s a great little radio drama, that I have been listening to on my (rather short) commute for the last two days. I’ve just finished it, and I wanted to share it with you all. Listen below: