The Cute Show – Sugargliders!

While tech and “the internet” is totally my jam the role of producer of a certain show has fallen to me. This show is called “THE CUTE SHOW” and it comprises 3 – 5 minutes of #cuteporn.

Here is a new episode, to be honest I think the host is wayyyy cuter then the animals but hey, there is no accounting for taste.

See the rest of the Cute Show eps here and if you have any suggestions send them to me at erin at vice dot com.

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Women Who Are Actually Funny – BIG DEAL

It’s not everyday that a link gets sent your way that makes your crack up and shriek like hyena amongst your aggro coworkers, but luckily today was that day. For laughs a-plenty check out this vid.

via Laura Willcox / Emily Axford

For more visit Captain Hippo

Free the Network – 30 Minute Documentary about the Battle to Control the Internet

The doc that I have been working on since September 20th (3 days into the Occupation) is live!!!

Available on MOTHERBOARD & VICE & CNN (excerpt)

What a wild ride.

Here is the text for the piece:

You’re on the Internet. What does that mean?

Most likely, it means one of a handful of telecommunications providers is middlemanning your information from Point A to Point B. Fire off an email or a tweet, broadcast a livestream or upload video to YouTube, and you’re relying on vast networks of fiber optic cables deep underground and undersea, working with satellites high above, to move your data around the world, and to bring the world to your fingertips.

It’s an infrastructure largely out of sight and mind. AT&T, Level 3, Hurricane Electric, Tata Indicom – to most these are simply invisible magicians performing the act of getting one online and kicking. To many open-source advocates, however, these are a few of the big, dirty names responsible for what they see as the Web’s rapid consolidation. The prospect of an irreparably centralized Internet, a physical Internet in the hands of a shrinking core of so-called Tier 1 transit networks, keeps Isaac Wilder up at night.

Wilder is the 21-year-old co-founder of the Free Network Foundation. Motherboard first caught up with Wilder at Zuccotti Park during the fledgling days of Occupy Wall Street. The Kansas City native seemed to be running on little sleep. He’d gone hoarse from chanting relentlessly over the first three days of a populist movement that would soon sweep the country and the world. But there was an undeniable urgency and excitement when Wilder told us about the efforts of the FNF, a non-profit, peer-to-peer communications initiative striving to liberate the global Internet from corporate and governmental interference.

It all sounded lofty and arcane and way, way over our heads. But Wilder seemed committed enough to his drop in the bucket of global revolution, which comes in the form of nine-foot-tall Freedom Towers that beam out free, secure Wi-Fi to occupied sites and underserviced communities, that we wanted to hear more.

If the argument for mesh networking, a sort of pirate radio Internet scheme that allows people to talk to one another online through no middle man, is that a centralized ‘Net lends itself to the sort of surveillance and censorship that, however futile, strokes the Internet kill switch of science fiction, is there a way to circumvent that system altogether? Is there a way to build a new network from the bottom up? To occupy a fresh Internet outside the existing confines of the Web? Or is that all just the stuff of ideological fantasy?

To check the pulse of the Internet – and to get a feel for what life’s like in the digital nerve center of what’s arguably the first fully Web-fueled social movement in America – Motherboard has been following Wilder and Tyrone Greenfield, communications director for the Free Network Foundation, for the past half year. Through the thick of Occupy marches, in squats and test-lab offices, on rooftops and all places in between, we saw Wilder, Greenfield and the FNF building and perfecting their Towers and their humble, cooperatively owned, physical Internet.

We even broke a story that popped off on the Internet in the immediate wake of the New York Police Department’s Nov. 17 raid on Zuccotti Park. We traveled with Wilder to a Department of Sanitation garage shortly after he was released from a 36-hour stint in jail. He was looking for things lost in the early morning sweep of Occupy’s epicenter: cash, his backpack and laptop, Zuccotti’s Freedom Tower.

What he found next to a wet heap of clothing and tents were a number of laptops splayed in rows. They appeared mangled and snarled. One was even stripped of its back casing. Whether Occupy’s laptops were purposefully destroyed, or merely crunched under the hydraulic mash of a Sanitation garbage truck, remains unclear.

To be sure, after the incident we contacted the NYPD, who forwarded us to Sanitation. Sanitation was tasked with hauling away all the abandoned property from Zuccotti to an off-site garage, where demonstrators were later allowed to rummage for their belongings. A Sanitation representative told Motherboard there had been no directive to destroy property, but that he wasn’t surprised to hear that some items, including laptops, had maybe been mishandled or misplaced.

In the end, what we came up with is a short documentary called Free the Network. It’s a story about big dreams and cloudy missions, about complex affiliations and what happens when a DIY hack-tech movement confronts the force of the state.

But beyond that, it’s a story about the incredibly high stakes of living networked in today’s world. We all have skin in this game. Remember: You’re on the Internet.

 

 

Free the Network – Trailer

For the past 6 months my colleague Brian Anderson and I have been making a film about Technology. Part occupy, part open source, and all Motherboard we are finally about finished with it. Master Editor (Chris O’Coin) whipped up this trailer for us to send out.

 

The film premieres March 22 in NYC.

You can read Brian’s copy here.

The Internet Is My Favorite

As Seen On Google Earth (via 9 Eyes)

††Picnic Table – The Kickstarter Campaign††

Greetings!

I am currently producing a short film entitled “PICNIC TABLE.” I am in charge of makin’ some dollar bills for the film and I decided that doing a Kickstarter would be the best best.

The film is super indie/quirky/weirdo land and I am in love with it. I’m posting this on my website to try and notify people about the project and how and where to donate.

I can send you the script if you would like.

Here is the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/679242610/picnic-table (watch the vid)

Any amount helps and I would be super super appreciative!

Sending around via Facebook or Twitter also help.

Are you a Black Keys fan? Lonely Boy is raging in my headphones, what a barn burner.

Email me erinleecarr at gmail dot com if you have any questions.

 

The Rules of Modern Day Attraction

Want a recipe for loneliness and jealousy, but in a good way? Booze not doing the trick anymore? In my current role as Associate Producer for Motherboard.tv I spend a lot of time on the internet, and when I say a lot I mean it—you’d think my ass would be permanently adhered to this miserable office chair by now. As such, my eyes sometimes glance upon a certain website that most of us simply cannot live without.

Facebook and Internet culture in general have drastically and lastingly changed the way we know, date, friend, poke and relate to each other. By the way, poking someone means you want to have sex with them right?

Wait. My crush isn’t listed on here. Poking me back. Poking me at all. Could this mean he/she/it doesn’t want me?

When you meet someone, what’s the first thing you do? Come on, you know you start stalking them on the Internet. Scoping out profile pictures, relationship status and if they have any of the Facebook red flags, which I’m wont to say are universal, but am willing to consider are not. Ubiquitous or otherwise, a glossary of relative principles seems essential to say the least. I’ve provided my own list as a guideline.

FACEBOOK TURN-OFFS

  • Less then 10 profile pictures.
  • Pictures with babies. Nobody wants to date a baby momma/daddy at this age.
  • General stupidity with special regard to bad grammar.
  • More than 5 status updates per day.
  • Pictures of your ex(es). Are they hot Liz Lemon lookalikes or are they scary, obese ogre trolls that smile bleakly from behind their 10th red cup of generic beer? Either way, deal breaker central.
  • Number of friends: -50 = bad, +2000 = just plain weird. Who knows that many people?
  • An overwhelming number of pictures featuring cats or other animals (excluding weasels) in them.
  • Music: Nickelback/Creed/Staind = bad. DJ Marcus, any dubstep (excluding Cragga or Nightspitter) and the killer of all potential relationships, Dave Matthews Band = horrible .
  • I hate same-facers. Need I say more?
  • Photos that belong on softcore or hardcore porn sites as your profile picture.
  • If the book section is left blank or says something like, “I don’t read too good”. Umm, thanks. Try again. Wait, on second thought, please don’t.

Picture of a Facebook friend who moved to Florida to work in the adult film industry. Yes that is a giant needle poking through her face.

FACEBOOK TURN-ONS

  • Professional photographs of yourself because you happen to be friends withHalston Bruce.
  • GummoPink Flamingoes, and/or Freaks in your favorite movies category.
  • Your pictures and/or general content has something/anything to do with weasels.
  • Music section includes Funk from the 60s and 70s and This American Life (check out the best ep.)
  • Your interests include: “Masturbating Violently to Antiques Roadshow.” This is an actual group.
  • Links to your blog so I can stalk you more

If you’re saying to yourself: “Jeez Erin, kind of judgmental, don’t you think?” Well, you can shut your hypocritical mouth. We all do this. It’s part of our depressing quest to find a mate. Facebook provides a reasonable platform from which we should all be screening potential partners. Welcome to the future or whatever. Where studies can prove how annoying you are to everyone; how jealous you are and how to rig your profile to attract people.

How has facebook helped my social communication? Well it hasn’t. Instead of calling or meeting face to face, we text or poke or some other such vapid form of “staying in touch.” I’ve wasted countless hours on this god forsaken website. But will I stop? Fuck no, my FB stalking skills are razor sharp, thank you.

One more thing: engagement photos. Jesus. I went to school at the University of Wisconsin and it looks like the goal for graduates is to get married as soon as humanly possible. These people were once smart, capable, and somewhat sane in my book. Now at 23 they’re throwing 40 large down the crapper and promising themselves to someone for eternity. Why? And don’t even get me started about the kissy pictures at sunset on a dock or whatever. Excuse me while I vomit all over my keyboard.