Internet

I’ve been blocked by W3C

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged Internet w3c on by

You wouldn’t think I’m important enough for the World Wide Web Consortium to worry about my reading its posts. Well, not really the W3C, but whoever runs its Mastodon account. Access from my Liberdon account is blocked, following my disagreeing with their statement that access to information is a “basic human right.” Prior to the block, they had responded to my comment by suggesting that I should not follow their account. Humans who question their views don’t have this right, apparently. It doesn’t cause me any trouble; as the link in this paragraph shows, it’s trivial to get around the block. The hypocrisy is just amusing.
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Silent movie update

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet music silent movies on by

Presenting and accompanying a silent movie a month on Twitch hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped, so I’m making a couple of changes. I’ve also added a silent movie schedule to this website. Feel free to bookmark it or link to it.

First, I’m moving to YouTube. While I’m not thrilled with attaching myself too much to Google, it looks like a better choice than Twitch. There’s little live music anymore on Twitch; it’s mostly gaming, DJs, and talk. It pushes content creators toward a weekly schedule, which isn’t practical for the stuff I do. YouTube is a more popular choice for live concerts, not to mention Ben Model’s silent film watch parties. In experimenting on YouTube, I’ve found some other advantages. Twitch doesn’t support private test runs; I’ve already done one on YouTube to work out the details of streaming with OBS Studio. YouTube lets you post links to events in advance, which I find very nice. Finally, YouTube livestreams stay up indefinitely if I want them to.
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May 1 silent film show: Short comedies

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet silent movies on by

Because of other stuff I have scheduled in May, my next silent film show will be on the first Wednesday of the month instead of the second. That’s May 1, 8 PM EDT. The show, with my live accompaniment as usual, will consist of three short comedy films starring famous actors:

Scene from silent film Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde. Pryde (Stan Laurel) is menacingly approaching a boy with an ice cream cone.

  • The Goat (1921) with Buster Keaton. A case of mistaken identity leads to Keaton’s character being chased by everyone.
  • Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925) with Stan Laurel. This spoof is based chiefly on John Barrymore’s 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Laurel was a noteworthy comedian by himself before teaming up with Oliver Hardy.
  • His Royal Slyness (1920) with Harold Lloyd. A prince asks an American who looks exactly like him to impersonate him, so the prince can stay with his girlfriend. Lloyd’s brother Gaylord, who looked a lot liked him, plays the prince.

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Time to flee Glassdoor

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing as business and tagged Glassdoor Internet privacy on by

Glassdoor is a site which lets employees and ex-employees report anonymously on what it’s like to work at companies. It used to place a high value on user privacy, since people reporting bad stuff about their employers can get them into trouble. Recently, though, it’s not only reversed itself but, in a single bound, become one of the worst websites for privacy.

I’m unusually close to Report Zero on this matter, and I think the person making this report would rather not be too widely identified, so I’ll link only to secondary sources here, such as this Ars Technica article, checking them against the original reports for accuracy.
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The Lost World and Gertie the Dinosaur

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet music silent movies on by

My next silent movie night will be on Wednesday, March 13, at 8:00 PM Eastern US time. Once again, I’ll provide live, improvised keyboard accompaniment. Live accompaniment is what makes silent movies special to me. You can react in real time in chat and even (gently!) criticize my playing.

The main feature will be the 1925 The Lost World. It’s based on the Conan Doyle novel of the same title, and he makes a brief appearance at the start, effectively putting his stamp of approval on the movie. The main character, Professor Challenger, is as smart as Sherlock Holmes but his opposite in temperament. Holmes is always calm and analytical, but Challenger has an explosive temper, especially when anyone doubts his claims. His present claim is hard to believe; he says he’s discovered a land in the upper Amazon basin with living dinosaurs. He organizes an expedition to go back there with two aims: to bring back proof and to find the missing member of the earlier party.
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