As of 2025, please go to stuff.davidaugust.com, my newer blog. See you there!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Recording ADR

image of the volume meter on an audio mixer
Powering up the mixer to record some automatic-dialog-replacement for "Oregon Trail: Zombie Edition" (though in truth it's a little more manual than automatic). Here is a taste of the voice-over:

Oregon Trail Zombie Edition - Voice Over Preview by David August

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Pumpkin Says Hi

My jackolantern says hello, and wishes you a happy halloween!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Photo Bomb

This plane is photo bombing me (click to enlarge).

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Yellow Flower with Red Center

(click to enlarge)

Monday, October 24, 2011

Get Found: Lecture at USC Business School

I'm guest lecturing at USC's business school tomorrow. Here's a sneak peak at 2 slides from my lecture "Improve the World → Make Things Findable" (they make more sense in the context of my whole presentation).

3 circle venn diagram of where audiences may be online: Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or elsewhere

a simple diagram showing how SEO is earned attention and SEM is money spent

Sites I Cite:
http://davaug.com/befast
http://davaug.com/uptimematters
http://davaug.com/deadpagerank
http://davaug.com/write4search
http://davaug.com/filterbub

Friday, October 21, 2011

Some Thoughts on Focusing on the Positive

When big blue, the chess playing computer, plays chess, it does not try to win. It tries to not lose. It makes the least negative move. This tracks closely what some primate tendencies are: through evolution we, like many living things, withdraw from negative, and notice danger, risk, or the unknown so much because billions of humans over millions of years have managed to survive by doing such threat assessment. This is much as a chess playing computer can out survive by focusing on the disadvantageous; it can out survive its opponent in the game. However, while this may very well serve the need to survive if a rook is bearing down on your king, a saber-toothed tiger is bearing down on your family or a truck runs a red light and is bearing down on you since you were about to step into the crosswalk, it is not the most vital, nor most human.

One of the things I'd like to think separates us from animals and machines is our ability to do more than merely survive, more than simply last a little longer. While I'm all for living a good long time, I also think joy, love, beauty, connection, affection, dreams and sometimes self-sacrifice for others' sake (ex: soldiers) are among the reasons survival has value beyond simply indulging a base instinct to do so. Our ability to focus on the good, the positive, is a big part of why stepping back away from the truck running the red light is worthwhile. Also, focusing on the positive is a lot more fun. As I tweeted last night: you can see your life as nothing but opportunities, or as nothing but obstacles, and whichever you choose, you'll be right.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

It Arrived

And now I can shoot from my eye level :-) looking forward to unboxing my new tripod later.