Fire-Wired Blog

, Recently I've fallen down a rabbit hole of modern independent film. Indulging heavily in the works of Jeff Nichols, Lynne Shelton, Mark and Jay Duplass, David Gordon Green, Joe Swanberg and many others. Normally this wouldn't be something worth posting about, but somewhere along that path I came across a smattering of interviews with Joe Swanberg talking about his film Drinking Buddies . Joe is quite prolific and he ascribes much of his work to the community he travels in of filmmakers, writers, and actors. I love the idea of a "community," people who live and breathe filmmaking and creating. Time and again I've espoused my love for the traveling film competition, the 48 Hour Film Project. Filmmakers and fanatics banding together for a whirlwind weekend creating a short. As great as it is, the Des Moines 48 Hour Film Project is two days, two out 365. For many that's plenty, but for the rest of us it's not nearly enough. Considering Joe Swanberg ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The rise of high-speed Internet and online streaming video over the last decade has definitely shaken the broadcast and pay TV business. While burgeoning Web technology has contributed to lower ratings and dipping revenues, it appears what the TV industry is most afraid of is a tool older than the medium itself, the antenna. Aereo , an online streaming video service, leases customers dime-sized antennas that retransmit locally broadcasted TV content over the Internet. This means someone living in Oregon can lease an Aereo antenna deployed in New York City and watch TV content hours before its broadcast in his or her actual time zone. The streaming video start-up has upset the broadcast TV industry so much, it’s scheduled to defend its legality before the United States Supreme Court in April. Broadcasters are challenging Aereo’s legal right to stream their content online without paying providers retransmission fees. Cable pro...

  This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Many of my childhood Saturdays involved the errand of tagging along with my father to his office to pick up something he forgot. He worked in a cubicle maze for a large financial institution in Des Moines. To a small child, spending anytime there was pretty much the equivalent of being sent to “time out.” But for me, I loved those little trips, because my dad’s office had a magical door. Even though the office was dark and locked for the weekend, every time my dad came within 10 feet of the door, it would open without any provocation. It wouldn’t do it for me or my brother, but it did for him, and I was spellbound. Years later I would come to understand the building used a technology similar to RFID (radio-frequency identification), meaning a passcard in my dad’s wallet unlocked and opened the door from a few steps away. Today RFID is everywhere, eliminating the need for punch-codes and easing product tracking. While ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com What is a dollar worth? If we’re being literal, the value of a dollar is tied to the gross domestic exports of the country. But if the recent recession taught us anything it’s that if the stock market takes a plunge, the dollar in your pocket could quickly be worth half its value. So came the hot-button alternative currency, Bitcoin. Unregulated, anonymous, global and short on supply, Bitcoin is one of many “cryptocurrencies” that could supposedly save the U.S. from future recessions. Why is gold so valuable? Because it is rare, and there is a finite supply. That concept of supply-and-demand is the basis for all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Existing purely as a digital currency of exchange, Bitcoin and its peers offer a way for investors and consumers to safeguard their earnings against recessions and other economic disasters. How? Bitcoins’ value is derived solely from demand and supply. If investor interest grows, ...

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In January, a 1991 Radio Shack print ad was circulating the Internet. It featured 15 different top-of-the-line consumer electronics for the time: a portable CD-player, a VHS camcorder, high-fidelity speakers, a desktop computer and many more. Combined, all of the items could be purchased for just more than $3,000 and maybe fit in the trunk of a car. Today, all 15 of those electronics are obsolete, replaced by any common smartphone, which, in some cases, are sold for one penny and fit comfortably in your back pocket. The industrial revolution has brought the world some amazing inventions — automobiles, airplanes, radio, television — but few, if any, have the explosive potential of the smartphone. Barely a decade since first being introduced, and already one out of every five people on the planet owns a smartphone. The computer for sale in Radio Shack’s 1991 advertisement featured a 20MB hard drive, early office suite softw...