It’s remix time! For my first remix assignment, I’ve decided to Create My Own SuperPAC!

The handy-dandy Super SuperPAC Name Generator mentioned in the assignment was very helpful, as I didn’t have any solid ideas for how to approach this. It generated the following gems:

Hype The Nanny State Foundation
Rock Free Pizza Horde
Resurrect Outdoor Grilling Collective
Enrich The Stars and Stripes Foundation
Super Chill Not Being Tread On Horde
Ebullient Not Listening Legion
Good-looking Internet Committee
Affirm The Purple Mountain Majesty

Each of these names was fabulous in its own way, but I decided to go with Good-Looking Internet Committee. It just seemed to have so many possibilities. The SuperPAC content follows, but first I wanted to discuss the sources.

It was very difficult to find usable material. The poster was easy, but creating a video remix is challenging. I’ve done it before (my favorite being Chewbacca Explains It All), and every time it takes significantly longer than I expect to find clips that I can use, and I usually have ideas for sources that I end up having to cut out entirely because they simply don’t fit.

In the case of the political ad, I wanted to use a number of clips of celebrities (after all, anyone associated with the cause should be good-looking). I might have eventually found clips from each celebrity I brainstormed, but it would have required watching *a lot* of footage. And even then, sometimes it seems like a good fit until you start editing your mash-up, and then suddenly everything falls apart. There was an interview with Leonardo DiCaprio that I thought was perfect for this, and I ended up not using a single soundbite. (And I’ve misplaced the details on it, so I can’t link to it. The clip is from an interview he did with The Early Show about The Departed, available on YouTube if you feel like doing some digging.) I ended up using Matt Damon’s rant on Sarah Palin and an hilarious Tim Gun video from his Liz Claiborne days. And that was it.

I’m happy with the result, but man, that was a lot of work.

The Good-Looking Internet Committee

A SuperPAC For the Information Age

Platform: Who cares about “open access”, online piracy and copyright compliance, or freedom of information? We want the Internet to be good-looking! And we don’t mean attractive web design. We want the Internet to only feature good-looking people.

Candidates We Support: Those who are attractive, or have attractive spouses (let’s be real, Obama is not much of a looker, but Michelle is a fashion icon)

Candidates We Oppose: Those who only care about SOPA and whatever the ITU might be up to, and can’t be bothered to put some effort into their personal appearance. We’re looking at YOU Donald Trump.

War Chest: We invested all of our funds in Facebook stock. Oh well.

Principle Donors: The Internet. That’s right. Cuz the Internet cares about this. (To clarify, “the Internet” is Google, YouTube, Facebook, Huffington Post, Gawker, Perez Hilton, 4chan, Reddit, yada yada yada.)

Ad that you will see at least three times every time you watch anything on Hulu:

Photography by Ryan Lobo

DS106 Assignment:

Image With a Message: Enhance a famous quotation by superimposing it on a “Creative Commons” image and give it proper credit.

The Process:

This assignment is quite simple, actually. I started with searching for a quote-which I decided HAD to be Star Wars. After deciding on a Yoda classic, I searched on Flickr for a suitable picture. Once I found one, it took a matter of seconds in Photoshop to add the text (Although, all that is ESSENTIALLY needed for this project is MS Paint, or something equivalent).

The Story:

I chose this quote because of how accurate I feel it is. The mind of a child is not burdened by the trivial hassles an adult mind may possess. Its potential is limitless, as is that of the internet.

I believe this quote is also reflective of a technology pioneer: Alan Turing. The father of computer science and artificial intelligence, Turing was talented in mathematics and sciences from childhood. His talents and intelligence were utilized in World War II to break German ciphers at Bletchley Park. He concentrated on Cryptanalysis of the Enigma with Dilly Knox, and was awarded the OBE in 1945.

Alan Turing worked on designs for the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), and presented the first detailed blueprints of a stored-program computer. He also worked on software for the Manchester Mark 1, an early stored-program computer.

Though, one thing Turing is most well known for is the Turing Test. This test addresses the issues on artificial intelligence. The test is supposed to assess a machine’s ability to exhibit human-like intelligence. A judge converses with a human and a machine via text-media. If the judge cannot tell which is the machine, then the machine has won.

Alan Turing’s visions set the foundation for the modern computer. He honed the potential he had as a child, and used it to conceptualize and create; characteristics of a pioneer.

~NOMNOMreeses~