You should already be aware that this year’s “Shark Week” on Discovery channel started yesterday. In honor of this great event (yes, I love Shark Week!) I’ll be posting a few times this week about the shows that air. This multimedia Monday is all about the Shark Week website, it has videos, games, pictures, interactive guides; let’s just say this post is very geeky but very awesome nonetheless.
Anyone living in Florida, or even someone that visits it often has to be somewhat interested in sharks. I mean, how could you not be given the stats?
I’m a little disappointed this chart doesn’t have 2007. While 2007 was supposedly a low year for shark attacks, Florida had 32, highest in the world, followed by Hawai’i, which had seven. That’s a big difference.
While I don’t play many online games, Discovery keeps advertising their “critically acclaimed” Shark Runners game so I had to play it to see what all the hype was about. The goal is to track down sharks and collect data on them, but the cool thing is is that it is using real sharks and their real movements, taking advantage of GPS tracking. But then when I got to the part of the site where I realize that the game is going on all the time and it’s going to email me alerts giving a certain amount of time for me to log back in a do something, I decided this was something I didn’t want to get into. If you want to try it out, let us know what you think in the comments.
I did try some other games, though some of them aren’t really games, like voting for the coolest shark? I guess voting is a game for some people…I actually prefer other games on discovery.com that are not part of Shark Week, like Life or Death: Lost at Sea. Basically you’re given sets of three items to choose from and you have to choose the right items that will keep you alive, it’s tricky.
While Discovery does have great pictures on the site, like this one:
if you want something high enough resolution for a wallpaper or if you want a shark screensaver, NationalGeographic is your best bet.
The best parts of the website are the interactive features, like the dive, and the pictures. But really, I think the site could have been better. I especially don’t like that they don’t have an option to embed their videos (though the videos are great), and the commercials before them are extremely loud compared to the actual video.
As for the shows though, what I’ve seen so far is awesome. I love MythBusters anyway and the Shark Week Special that aired last night was not to be missed (if you didn’t see it, it airs again Wednesday). See a clip of the robotic shark they created here.
I’m also looking forward to Dirty Jobs tomorrow night. Mike thinks they should have monkey week.
I love food, you probably do too. I also love stop-motion animation, I wish I had the skills for it. Here are a couple videos that combine these two wonderful things. (If you’re viewing this in an RSS reader you may need to click over to view the videos.)
Now those look like crepes to me and not what I would call pancakes, but great video anyway.
Okay, so this one is not real food, but it’s still really entertaining and I love the different things they came up with and how they used them. This video is made by PES, you can find more stop-motion videos from them on their website: EatPES.com; “Human Skateboard” is a good one to check out.
I missed multimedia Monday yesterday, so here are some things you may have missed.
John Mayer had a TV show, appropriately titled “John Mayer has a TV Show.” Watch John Mayer talk to his fans undercover in a bear suit, discuss country and hip-hop music, and talk about boobies. (while it is censored for cable, it’s still on the PG-13 side)
While you may know that actress Scarlett Johansson released a Tom Waits cover album, you may have missed the fact that it’s actually pretty good. And that’s coming from a trained vocalist (you may have missed that I’m a trained—or as we say, tamed—vocalist as well, bonus!) who is very critical of fellow female singers. Listen to “Anywhere I Lay My Head” here.
You’ve probably heard it a thousand times without even realizing it, the Wihelm Scream is probably the most commonly used sound effect. Here’s a compilation:
And now, the final and most fantastic thing you may have missed. There is now an official release date for Woven Hand’s upcoming album, “Ten Stones.” September 9 it is!
You’re thrilled I can tell. More info and a song on the Sounds Familyre blog.
I’ve actually been meaning to write about the water crisis for several months, but have put it off repeatedly. Today I found this video on Virb°, it’s a public service announcement from Charity:Water, that puts everyday Americans in the situation (to an extent, that is) that many in Africa face daily; it pushed me to make this Multimedia Monday’s post on water. (If you’re viewing this post in a feed reader, click over to see the video.)
Other videos, photos, and media on the Charity:Water website are worth your time as well.
One of the things that I wanted to post when I originally decided to post about the water crisis was this photo essay from TIME, which includes photographs from the book Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. Right now you can download the book for free, in pdf form, from that Amazon page. Though, if you can afford to, you can purchase the book from Charity:Water and $70 of the purchase goes to the charity.
While Charity:Water is a great organization, I know more, and feel more strongly about giving to Blood:Water Mission (yes, the charity started by members of Jars of Clay). Blood:Water exists to provide sustainable water sources in Africa by building wells with emphasis on reducing the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Check out the site for information on what they’ve already done, what they’re doing now, and how you can help.
Parkour or l’art du déplacement, translated as “the art of displacement” is an activity in which participants or “traceurs” perform daring moves to get from one place to another. They use a combination of gymnastics and martial arts in what often resembles the stunts in chase scenes of action movies. Now that description may make it hard to view parkour as a form of art, which is why you have to see it.
There’s something special about viewing these stunts as still images as opposed to live action; I think it adds a certain tranquility and really shows that it is an art. Check out the rest of this photo essay from TIME. You can see that the traceurs take their art seriously planning out the moves and noting precautions they need to take.
Of course there is also some pretty awesome live action videos of parkour online.
Though do be aware when searching for these videos that you will find some pretty lame ones as well. Actually, you’ll find mostly lame ones on video sharing sites, but do a google and you’ll find some good parkour sites like American Parkour.
