Simple Bikes young rider Pim van den Bos has a pretty sick setup for getting tricks dialled in. The camera on the tripod is hooked up to the TV, presumably via a hard drive of some sort, and there is an adjustable delay for the playback on the TV. This way you can do your trick, and after you land just roll around and view the stunt you just did on the TV. If you should miss the trick, or want to watch it again, it’s easy to just rewind and check it out again. Pretty tech.
Posted: March 12th, 2010 | Author:Jmy | Filed under:Random | Tags:Funny, Shitluck | Comments Off
Found this in my Google Reader feed. Someone from Shitluck Clothing originally posted it on their blog, I found it pretty funny so I’m re-posting it here.
So, apparently it’s not ok to “song jack”. That’s been proclaimed many, many times in the comments of web edits posted on sites like let’s say… TheComeUp, for example.
I believe the definition of “song jacking” is to use a song that have been used previously for a video section/web edit which I guess is fair enough — to an extent. Let’s say there’s a rider out there who had his whole career or image defined by one or a couple of video sections. Sections that have turned into classics or untouchable masterpieces of epicness, then I do think it’s a good idea not to use that song in a new edit. But who’s going to define if the song belongs to a “classic” or “off limits” edit?
Just like with most things, it can be taken too far. Recently I’ve been seeing posts about how BMX web edits have “song jacked” a skate video. Or “song jacked” another obscure BMX web edit. Ok… so we’re going across sports now, and also including every single web edit ever made? In other words, to make a web edit nowadays you have to know about skate videos and skate web edits as well as all the BMX edits and DVD’s that come out?
Let’s think about it for a moment… a huge number of edits being put out every week and all of these have to use a different song to not be “song jackers”. Then the occasional DVD comes out (not to speak of all the ones that are already out, and all the VHS releases back in the day) and a full skate or BMX video uses let’s say 8 – 10 songs on average. Add all this up, just over a year, and you have an insane number of songs that you absolutely have to know are already “taken”, before even attempting to choose a song for your upcoming edit.
Let’s say I would want to make a web edit right now. I have some footage on my computer that I wanna put online. To follow the stipulated “rules” I would first have to ask all my friends if they know if the song I was thinking of using is “tainted”. I would also literally have to go through my entire collection of BMX DVD’s, write down all the songs used and make sure not to use any of those. But I can’t stop there — because I don’t own every single (classic) BMX DVD that has ever been released! I also don’t own one single (classic) Skate DVD…
Allright, time to go shopping. I’ll raid all webshops of every (classic) title they have. That will cost me a nice chunk of money. But what about those (classic) titles that are not even available anymore? Guess I’m gonna have to chase them up as well somehow… then I can go to work on viewing every single (classic) web edit ever put online… this I would have to do, because my friends might not have collectively seen everything (classic) either.
Then we have to know for how long is a song from a (classic) section/edit/part considered to belong to that one edit/section/part? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? Forever?
I’m guessing I don’t have to go on. You must have realised by now how ridiculous this reasoning is — and yes, I am taking my argument quite far. But unless someone wants to make up a database of all songs that are off limits, then it’s always going to happen occasionally and overreacting is futile. Maybe the anti song jacking crew can get to work on that database. See you in 10 years when you’re finished — then you can get to work on the stuff that has come out after 2009. Good luck!
I’ve been busy with things these past couple of weeks and I’ve been unable to spend time posting in here. Now here’s a random dump of information and videos that have been piling up.
Childstore, the best BMX store in Sweden, and maybe the whole of Scandinavia, recently went live with their new website. Go check it out. It’s fresh.
Tempered Bikes have some sneak peeks of their new stem that is coming out. It’s nice looking and different in some ways. Also, there’s a welcome video for their new recruit Michael Vockenson.
James Wade has the new photobook for january up. As usual, filled with some good random photos.
Simple Bikes have news up about Oba Stanley, Jeremy Muller, Eduards Zunda and Shoji Tanaka.
New web edit with Adrian Malmberg riding an indoor park in cold Sweden:
Posted: February 8th, 2010 | Author:Jmy | Filed under:Random | Tags:Neglect | Comments Off
I’ve totally been neglecting this blog for a while. It’s not because I’m lazy, it’s because I’ve been very, very busy with work, work and more work. So now you know.
Ok, so I use a Mac and rarely check my own blog from a Windows computer. But just now, being bored at work, I decided to login to my admin page to do a few things and I noticed that the theme I use looks totally screwed up in Internet Explorer 8. It’s just plain text and no graphics. Weird.
No one have ever mentioned anything about it being like that, so I’ve been oblivious to it (yeah, I’m no webdesigner, I don’t check my site in all available browsers before launching a new design). Anyways… please, put here in the comments if you can’t view the site properly. Check the thumbnails below… that’s how it should look.
One of my best friends in the whole wide world, Robban Källström, rather recently made some changes in his career. He went from being an electrician to working with what’s called rope access. Whenever you see dudes performing work while hanging from a rope in the side of a structure — that’s what he’s doing now and he’s been keeping busy. Looks like a pretty challenging and exciting line (no pun intended) of work.
Do you have a high building that need some overhaul or installations done? Then check out the website of Klätterservice (Climbing services).
Here’s a trails disaster of a different kind. The guys didn’t cover it because they wanted to let it set properly in the wet weather. Then Swedish winter hit and the lip froze and fell apart. This is just another reason not to live in Sweden…
I’ve never really understood the hype about Starbucks. It’s not like it’s the place to go if you want good coffee — even though they are the self proclaimed makers of the world’s best coffee.
Maybe if you’re in the US and is having a hard time finding a place that serves good coffee, the kind that doesn’t taste like it’s the left over water from rinsing the coffee pot (equivalent of 1 teaspoon of instant coffee in 2 litres of water), then Starbucks might be an option. But “the world’s best coffee”?! I wouldn’t think so.
This brings me to a funny thing I came across about 6 months ago. This rumour that Starbucks was opening up in Jönköping came about. Keep in mind now that Jönköping is the 9th biggest city in Sweden — probably not the best place to open up the first franchise in a new country. Anyway, apparently some crafty person had stickered up a Starbucks logo, with the text “Opening soon” next to it, on the window of a closed electronics store.
This caused a massive wave of teenage wannabe fashionista/blogger activity and they were basically shitting their fashionable sweatpants and leggings in excitement. People were blogging about it everywhere some referred to it as “total happiness” and local newspapers called the landlord of the building and someone even called the Starbucks head office (!) to see who was opening up the franchise. Of course it turned out to be a prank — a very well executed one at that.
While looking for the links to who posted about it I noticed that many of the blogs have removed those posts or closed the blogs. Was it really that embarrassing they fell for the prank? Isn’t it more embarrassing to cover up the fact that they were excited about it?
Here are a few links: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 Even the local news site posted about it here.
However, now it has been confirmed that Starbucks is actually opening for real at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, now that’s a more strategic place to open a first franchise, and the fashion bloggers of Sweden are pooping their pants again. Or to quote one of the original, not so convinced, reactions to the prank story:
“I bet the modebloggare of Jönköpingslän are having babies into their Frappuchinos.” - lillabloggmonstret.blogg.se
I’m guessing there will be a shortage of stand-by flights to Stockholm now, since all the little fashionistas with their pink laptops and Chihuahua-stuffed handbags are going to have to live at Arlanda Airport, so they can get their well moisturised hands on some venti sized caramel-choco-latta-moccachinos.
