Turn you Mac into a TV studio with CamTwist (free download)

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

Using your favorite streaming provider such as Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, BlogTV, LiveStream and many others you can stream your CamTwist produced shows live on the Internet. Want higher quality? CamTwist fully supports Flash Media Live Encoder as well as Telestream’s Wirecast allowing you to stream HD quality content live online. CamTwist is a capable of 720p output. If you have an input card that supports 1080i or 720p CamTwist can even scale up to 1080p output as well! CamTwist includes over 50 special effects from social elements like IRC overlays to fin effects like broken glass and bubbles. You can apply one effect at a time or stack the effects to get a truly unique image.Want to add some graphics to your screen like you see on broadcast television? Add the ‘Image Overlay’ effect and drop in a Photoshop file. How about a countdown effect which will count down either to a specific time or from a specific number to show your viewers when the next live show will be. In addition to effects that you can add on top of your videos, the Studio function of CamTwist also offers transitions between sources. Cut, Dissolve, Page Peel or even Ripple between your cameras, videos and graphics in real time! Need more power? CamTwist allows you to create your own special effects using Apple’s Quartz Composer.  
Via camtwiststudio.com

Durban #COP17: Climate Justice Experts Available for Interviews at UN Climate Talks, Durban, South Africa

Via Scoop.it – NWT News

To reach contacts listed below, unless otherwise indicated, call Jeff Conant, Global Justice Ecology Project Communications Director: +27 (0)73.623.0619 [to call from outside of South Africa do not dial the (0)] jc@globaljusticeecology.org http://globaljusticeecology.org/pressroom.php?ID=590 [excerpt] Daniel T’seleie K’asho Got’ine First Nation, Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories — Canada. Daniel T’seleie is a Canadian Youth Delegate for Durban COP17 and coalition member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. He is a 2010 Jane Glassco Arctic Fellow, lives in Yellowknife, NWT, Canada and works as Director of Lands and Environment with the Dene Nation. His previous experience has included work on climate change mitigation and adaptation with territorial and national NGOs, a photojournalist with work in Yellowknife and Iqaluit, and held policy positions with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Daniel participated in previous UNFCCC COP meetings. Contact: danieltseleie@hotmail.com François Paulette, Dene Suline, Alberta, Canada. François Paulette is a member of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 Dene First Nation and lives 200 miles downstream from the tar sands industry site in Alberta, Canada. François was previously chief and vice-chief of the Dene Nation and is currently a commissioner with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), a national organization representing 630 First Nations across Canada. ‘As both a father and grandfather, François believes that the way of life for many people living in First Nation lands in Canada is quickly changing, leaving many people uncertain about the future. The drastic drop in water levels in the Athabasca River system and a lack of fresh water for drinking are the biggest concerns for aboriginal communities living downstream from the tar sands development in northern Alberta, Canada.’ François participated in previous UNFCCC COP meetings. Contact: francois.paulette@yahoo.ca
Via globaljusticeecology.org

The art of the mug shot

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

[excerpt] The eyes stare hauntingly across time. Outfitted in bowlers, ties and jackets, newly minted criminals gaze unflinchingly at photographers hired by Ontario police to record freshly arrested crooks in the Niagara area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The 100 striking photographs in “Arresting Images” have been selected from 474 mug shots found at the OPP’s Niagara regional headquarters during some housecleaning in the 1960s. Culled from hundreds of well-preserved studio cards, the photographs are on display at the Helen McClung Gallery at the Archives of Ontario building at York University until Dec. 9. They aren’t mug shots as we’ve come to know them today. These aren’t the dishevelled Lindsay Lohans, Paris Hiltons or Nick Noltes of their day, dragged into sterile police rooms to face cops clicking a camera. They’re mostly petty criminals, arrested for pickpocketing or fraud, hauled off to private photo studios, which at the turn of the last century were still a curiosity. View the photos http://photogallery.thestar.com/1093789
Via www.toronto.com

CNN launches #COP17 Twitter data visualisation tool | The Wall Blog

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

[excerpt] This is really pretty cool. CNN has launched a great Twitter data visualization tool called ‘Ecosphere’ in support of the COP17 climate change conference in Durban, which starts this week. The site picks up every tweet tagged with the #COP17 hashtag and uses them to stimulate growth in a plant or tree in the Ecosphere that represents a certain topic, such as sustainability. The Ecosphere constantly listens to the global conversation on Twitter and every new tweet tagged with hashtag #COP17 is brought into the
environment, scanned for keywords and then grouped with similar contributions, connecting input from around the world, and building conversations within the dynamic environment. It produces a lush 3D environment that allows you to explore, view content up close or zoom out to observe the visualisation as a whole. It is beautifully distracting. The Ecosphere will culminate in Durban with an installation piece at the COP17 Conference that renders this globe as a 3D holographic image.
Via wallblog.co.uk

Fuji’s Upcoming Mirrorless Camera May Pack a Revolutionary Organic Sensor

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

If you’re a fan of Fujifilm’s X100 and X10, then you might want to brace yourself: the company’s next camera might be the one mirrorless camera to rule them all. Fujifilm’s upcoming mirrorless camera …
Via www.petapixel.com

The Hidden Cost of RED Epic and Digital Cinema

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

Since its release, the RED Epic has been pumping out tons of test footage, chart samples and eye candy on Vimeo. It has also been busy shooting well-known features like the Spiderman reboot and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. But while the camera stands to improve on its predecessor, the RED one, in both technology and price, there is a cost hidden within the complex circuitry and 5K sensor of the camera. This isn’t the cost of time or quality — it equates to real money — so if you’re stretching your budget thin already, you might want to pay attention.
Via www.theblackandblue.com

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face | NeuroTribes

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

The challenge of designing a personal computer that “the rest of us” would not only buy, but fall crazy in love with, however, required input from the kind of people who might some day be convinced to try using a Mac. Fittingly, one of the team’s most auspicious early hires was a young artist herself: Susan Kare. […] Kare’s first assignment was developing fonts for the Mac OS. At the time, digital typefaces were monospaced, meaning that both a narrow I and a broad M were wedged into the same bitmapped real estate — a vestigial legacy of the way that a typewriter platen advances, one space at a time. Jobs was determined to come up with something better for his sleek new machine, having been impressed by the grace of finely wrought letterforms in calligraphy classes he audited at Reed College, taught by the Trappist monk Robert Palladino, a disciple of master calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. (The lasting impact of Reynolds’ instruction can also be seen in the playful cursive of the seminal West Coast Beat poets Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, making Reynolds and Palladino the human hyperlinks between desktop publishing and Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums.) For the Mac, Kare designed the first proportionally spaced digital font family that allowed text to breathe as naturally on the Mac’s white screen as it does in the pages of a book. The distinctive Jobs touch was upgrading the original monikers of these elegant typefaces from the names of train stations near Philadelphia — like Rosemont and Ardmore — to those of world-class cities like Geneva, Chicago, and New York. […] There was an ineffably disarming and safe quality about her designs. Like their self-effacing creator — who still makes a point of surfing in the ocean several mornings a week — they radiated good vibes. To creative innovators in the ’80s who didn’t see themselves as computer geeks, Kare’s icons said: Stop stressing out about technology. Go ahead, dive in! […] In time for the holiday season, Kare has self-published her first book, Susan Kare Icons, http://www.kareprints.com/?p=691 with copies signed by the artist available on her website. A modified version of this essay serves as the introduction, though the hand-drawn icons seen here are not included in the book. I asked Kare if she had any feeling at the time that the work she was doing at Apple 30 years ago would be so pervasively influential. ”You can set out to make a painting, but you can’t set out to make a great painting,” she told me. “If you look at that blank canvas and say, ‘Now I’m going to create a masterpiece’ — that’s just foolhardy. You just have to make the best painting you can, and if you’re lucky, people will get the message.”
Via blogs.plos.org

Keystone XL delay boosts prospect for completing Mackenzie pipeline, new premier says

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

The delay of the contentious Keystone XL pipeline is good news for the Northwest Territories in its decades-long bid to get a natural gas pipeline built, its new premier believes. Bob McLeod, a former industry minister who was appointed premier last month under the territory’s cooperative style of government, has spent much of his career pushing for the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline. His territory needs it now more than ever. [excerpt] The government is near its federally imposed debt limit, facing an infrastructure crunch and is anxious for a deal on “devolution,” which would hand province-like control over resources and land down from Ottawa. In short: the NWT needs cash, and a massive pipeline would be a boon. Gas prices have sunk, however, and left the long-simmering project in peril. A long-time bureaucrat in the industry ministry before entering politics four years ago, Mr. McLeod remains an unrelenting believer in the project and has long been a pitchman for it. He travels to energy summits across the continent. His ministry has spent more than $250,000 in travel since he took office four years ago, a shade behind the premier’s office and far ahead of any other ministry, government disclosure documents show. These days, he believes Keystone XL will boost the case for Mackenzie because the same environmental concerns will trip up domestic natural gas production in the United States, leaving the country anxious for gas from his shovel-ready pipeline.
Via www.theglobeandmail.com

Several Vacancies, BBC World Service Trust, Sierra Leone – including Radio Producer and Trainer

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor
JOB VACANCIES in Kenema The BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) is the international development agency of the BBC, using media and communications to improve people’s lives. The BBC WST is running a 3 year skills development project which will promote radio to build awareness and improve the technical capacities of farmers working in the cocoa sector in Eastern Sierra Leone. The BBC WST is now recruiting for 4 new positions to work at our field office in Kenema. These are all national positions offered on 12 month contracts and come with competitive local terms and conditions.
The four positions are; • Project Officer –supporting the Livelihoods Programme Manager in planning and co-ordinating the project, • Finance and Administration Officer – responsible for financial management and administration of the Kenema office, • Radio Producer and Trainer – delivering a range of radio production and training outputs with Eastern Radio, • Driver – to drive the project vehicle and ensure the safety of project and partner staff in the vehicle.
Via www.devnetjobs.org

Bolivia Under Evo Morales Review of Jeffery Webber, From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation and the Politics of Evo Morales

Via Scoop.it – MediaMentor

New Socialist… [excerpt] Bolivia Under Evo Morales Sunday, 27 November 2011 15:01
By Sarah Hines Review of Jeffery Webber, From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation and the Politics of Evo Morales (Chicago: Haymarket, 2011). Bolivia has been on forefront of challenges to neoliberalism in Latin America and the Global South, and stands out for the level of autonomy and power achieved by its social movements. Of all the left-leaning governments elected to office in recent years in Latin America, the 2006 election of Evo Morales, head of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, most clearly resulted from popular struggle from below. Among the so-called “pink tide” governments, Bolivia has been deemed by critics and proponents alike to be among the most radical. Just a few months after Morales took power, The Economist, referring to Morales and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, declared that, “A specter has arisen [in Latin America], one of anti-American leftist nationalism.” Leftists have looked to these governments as beacons of hope and evidence that it is possible to successfully challenge neoliberalism and imperialism at a time when war and economic crisis are ravaging the lives of poor and working people around the globe. Morales’s election was especially inspiring due to the fact that he is the first indigenous president of an overwhelmingly indigenous country and has called out developed countries for their environmental crimes. While there has been active debate among Bolivian leftists about what position to take toward the MAS party and Morales government, leftists outside Bolivia often see their role as supporting and celebrating rather than deeply understanding the rise of Morales and the MAS. In From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia, Jeffery Webber challenges the international left to look more critically at what the rise of the MAS and the first term of the Morales government represent for struggles against oppression and planetary destruction. The book offers an accessible introduction to the trajectory of Bolivian political developments since 2000, and undertakes a deeper analysis of social, political and economic change and continuity than is found in most progressive writing on Bolivia.
Via www.newsocialist.org