~ajroach42.com

I'm Andrew. I write about the past and future of tech, music, media, culture, art, and activism. This is my blog.

Silent Cinema: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

A few days ago, I posted an article about using Jekyll to power this website. I used a still from the 1920 adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde to illustrate the post, because it’s in the public domain and marginally related. As the film was already on my radar, and I had an hour and a half to spare, I chose to watch the movie last night. It wasn’t horrible, but it had some flaws, and doesn’t live up to the atmosphere of the fantastic poster. You’re welcome to watch it yourself, and read my impressions, below.

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How to Fix Content Discovery

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?

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Silent Cinema: The General

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.

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