Kinda like what Branson has to say

by Jeff Foust

Richard Branson, the awesome 1%: “Capitalism has lost its way.”
[Via Boing Boing]

“I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.”—Richard Branson, quoted in The Guardian. (thanks, @stevebrant)

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Branson seems like one of the ones who gets how the invisible hand of Adam Smith actually works in our changing world. And he may be one of the ones who gets us all into space.

How the 99% bat signal was created

Interview with creator of Occupy Wall Street “bat-signal” projections during Brooklyn Bridge #N17 march
[Via Boing Boing]

Earlier this evening, tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters marched throughout New York City, many making their way on to the Brooklyn Bridge, carrying LED candles and chanting. As Occupiers took the bridge in a seemingly endless sea of people, words in light appeared projected on the iconic Verizon Building nearby:

 

“99% / MIC CHECK! / LOOK AROUND / YOU ARE A PART / OF A GLOBAL UPRISING / WE ARE A CRY / FROM THE HEART / OF THE WORLD / WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE / ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE / HAPPY BIRTHDAY / #OCCUPY MOVEMENT / OCCUPY WALL STREET / list of cities, states and countries / OCCUPY EARTH / WE ARE WINNING / IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING / DO NOT BE AFRAID / LOVE.”

A few hours later I spoke with Mark Read, who organized the “bat-signal” project. He tells Boing Boing why and how he did this, and what technology he used.

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I watched the live streaming of the walk across the bridge. The audible surprise of the crowd when they saw these large messages projected on the side of the building was really wonderful.

It was not possible to tell who was doing this or how the messages were being shown but everyone loved the sentiment.

Now here we find out who did it and how. A nice demonstration of how collective leadership can, in some circumstances, provide some innovative solutions. And this was not a youngster who organized this but someone from Generation X and someone who watched the Twin Towers come down from his rooftop. He recognized the importance of these surprising messages to not only the people of OWS but a lot of New Yorkers.

His project was a combination of inspiration and duct tape”

I’d been running around for the last two weeks trying to coordinate the team—you have to be able to live mix it, you need to understand how to make projections look right coming to the surface from an extreme angle, you need to be a VJ, and I’m not. So Max wound up being the guy. They used Modul8 VJ mixing software, a Sony 12K lumen projector that sells for around $10K. It’s huge. It’s more than 3 feet long, about 2 feet wide.

The whole thing was a combination of high tech and super jerry-rigging on the fly. The Modul8 software we were using can do amazing things: sense the angle you’re projecting at, even if it’s extreme, and modify the image so it looks straight. But then, we held the projected in place with gaffer tape, a broomstick, some baling wire. We only had 20 minutes to get it ready.

The software was needed because they did not want the words to look distorted but look normal on the wall.

Just shows that innovative approaches can come from anywhere.