Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with media

How to download text of Facebook posts and comments from a fan page

trbrts — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:34:30 -0800

Mefites, can you help me come up with a quick and dirty way to download the text of all the comments and posts from a given Facebook Fan page? I'm trying to do a word cloud visualization of our Facebook presence. Thanks.

Good Media Catalog App for Iphone

yankeefog — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:21:11 -0800

When I finish a book or a movie, I like to write down my thoughts about it, and I'm looking for an iPhone app to organize my reading and watching notes. My particular picky bookworm/filmgeek requirements inside. In particular, I'm looking for an app that:

1. Works offline. (It's fine if it needs to be online sometimes to download info, and in fact it's a bonus if my notes are kept synced between my phone and my desktop--but I do want to be able to use it in places where I don't have signal. So, it can't be purely web-based.)

2. My thoughts should be kept private, not posted on Facebook or any other website. (This rules out Goodreads, as far as I can tell.)

3. I should be able to export my notes in some widely readable format.

Ideally, I'd find a single app for both books and movies, but I'm open to having separate apps for both.

Any suggestions?

PS: I've read this thread from 2009 but I'm hoping there have been some new possibilities since then.

Boston and Texas

larry_darrell — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:26:42 -0800

Am I wrong, or does the Boston disaster seem to be a bigger media deal in the US than the Texas disaster. Is it the terrorism angle, or is it that Boston came first? Or maybe Boston is just easier to cover?

I want to know the history of the city without a history

Sara C. — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:03:25 -0800

Please recommend some books about the history of Southern California. I'm specifically interested in the evolution of car culture and the L.A. area as a cultural incubator. The backstory: I work out of a house in the San Fernando valley that was built in the 40's. I was sitting around at lunch yesterday, shooting the shit, and started wondering aloud what Southern California was like before the freeways.

If you lived in Van Nuys or Sherman Oaks in the 40's, what was your life like? What did you do for a living, and where would that be located? How did you get there? When were all the suburban developments in that area created, anyway? Is a house built in the 40's the oldest house in the neighborhood? What was it like before the 'burbs?

I want to know all about the history of Southern California, especially during the 20th century. Mainly in the evolution of car culture and SoCal as a sort of archetypal post-war suburban environment, especially in a pop cultural sense. Everything from drag racing in the LA River basin to the Beach Boys to donut shops with giant donuts on the roof.

I know that there are primary sources in the media for this sort of thing. Raymond Chandler, movies like Rebel Without A Cause and Valley Girl, etc. I wouldn't mind recommendations for things like that, but what I really want is non-fiction. Preferably history, but possibly also sociology or anthropology.

Podcasts, documentaries, and other non-fiction media are also fine. I already listen to 99% Invisible, which has fueled my interest in how the suburban car-centric landscape came about and shaped people's lives. The LA Times website has been a pretty good source of information about this sort of thing, but I want to go deeper.

I am less interested in the history of Hollywood, but I'd be into historical writings about the film industry as they relate to Los Angeles as a city. When did the studios move out to the Valley, and what brought about those changes, for example?

I am not really as interested in historical works about 19th century Los Angeles, though if a work spans the Spanish/Mexican period and goes into the 20th century, that would be OK.

I am also not terribly interested in essays and cultural commentary from people who are not historians. I have read a lot of Joan Didion already.

What are the go-to historical writings about 20th century Southern California?

How to do Social Media without being a Douchebag?

SansPoint — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:57:18 -0800

So, I've recently inherited the community and social media role for the company I work for. I'm hoping to use our social media presence to drive up engagement and get users to use our product (a niche-focused social network in the finance realm), but I want to do it without being a douchebag. Any tips, blogs, books, personal experiences, stuff that is obvious to anyone but me, would be appreciated. My social networking experience has been limited to my personal Twitter, Facebook, App.Net, and LinkedIn accounts, and the Twitter and Facebook pages for my podcast.

Our current Social Media type things focus heavily around our e-mail newsletters, which go out to about 40,000 users (and naturally we want to increase that), Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, and our own network which we want to drive traffic to.

I just want to do this in a way that doesn't piss off our potential, or active, user base, and doesn't involve any skeevy, social media douchebag tactics. No buying followers.

Help me find this mysterious foreign film

emptythought — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:15:44 -0800

Several friends and myself were sitting around draining the worlds supply of beer at the end of last summer, and decided to cap off the night by flipping on netflix. We ended up appointing someone to just pick a completely random movie just by the cover after a bit of arguing of what to watch... The trouble is, now none of us can remember what it was called. I believe it was Spanish or French? Definitely European. The plot revolved around the afterlife, and everything was in sepia tones or black and white, or at the very least very muted colors. Everyone was going about their lives in this world where you could have anything you wanted. Opulent houses, fancy cars, etc. I don't remember if the premise was everything was free, or that everyone was rich. But the catch was that you couldn't derive any pleasure from anything, and there was absolutely no music, art, or anything creative in this universe. It demonstrated this pretty intensely by people who just had sex all day long desperate to feel something, and other little bits like that to really hammer in the fact that no one could get any enjoyment from anything.

Right before i got up and left, The main character had broken through the wall in his apartment in a rage, and behind the smashed bricks light was coming through, and the bricks inside the wall were in vivid color. Jazz music or something was coming out of the hole and he started climbing through to some sort of speakeasy, or something along those lines where people were actually doing pleasurable things and experiencing the joy, as opposed to feeling nothing.

My friends who watched more of the movie said it got even more interesting, but as i said, no one can remember what it was called. This has bugged all of us for months, and i've pretty much melted down google and any other site i can think of trying to find it.

Everyone i ask suggests Wristcutters or Pleasantville or something, but it's none of those. Ignoring the fact that neither of those are foreign, the premise is also quite different. I can't even find anything that sounds similar and it's killing me.

Examples of gay stereotypes in television and film over the years in.

poolsidemuse — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 09:51:31 -0800

Currently working on a project that explores gay stereotypes (and tropes) in American TV and Film along with their effects on society over time. I will be discussing "Soap", "The Children's Hour" and Ikea's first gay couple commercial, but besides "The Celluloid Closet", I was wondering if there were other areas I could explore for more clips, interviews and examples I may be overlooking. Thanks so much.

"co-LOME-bee-uh" versus "CALL-um-bee-uh"

deathpanels — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:21:31 -0800

Why does the U.S. media pronunce certain non-English names with a native accent, while other names are "Americanized" in their pronunciation? Perhaps an example is the easiest way to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Sometimes I have heard the names of certain South American nations spoken by newscasters and journalists by their Spanish pronunciations. For example, "co-LOME-bee-uh" versus "CALL-um-bee-uh" for "Colombia" – the latter being the "Americanized" pronunciation, the former the native Spanish pronunciation.

What are the rules for when a word needs to be pronounced one way or the other? Does it depend on the speaker's background, or do journalists learn specific guidelines for when to pronounce a word the "native" way? Or is it a total crap shoot?

(Spanish seems the most common language to get this treatment. I can't remember ever hearing anyone in the media attempt to pronounce a Chinese or Arabic word like a native would.)

perhaps the Vatican is the center of the universe after all

headnsouth — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:34:54 -0800

Why is the Pope resigning and the Conclave such a big deal in the media? I get that it affects a lot of people and I get that it has some interesting theater, so I get that it's a big news story. What I don't get is why it's the news story. Several days in, it's still the lead on the hourly BBC news summary. It's on both the fluff news like the morning shows (good video) but it's also discussed in depth, ad nauseum, on NPR. Each potential next pope, who likes him and who doesn't and why, etc. Sweet Sistine, seriously.

None of it has actually discussed "well, if this guy is elected pope then he'll likely change policy by doing xyz" or "evangelicals vs. catholics and the new pope would xyz" or anything like that. It's all just horse-race stuff, in another country, about one religion.

There are divisions and schisms and politicking in every religion in the world, and when it comes to a head, there's one, maybe two news stories about it. Why is this story enough to warrant top billing for days on end? Isn't there more pressing news? Isn't this coverage overkill?

Can you recommend some fashion docs for lazy weekend watching?

bluefly — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:52:25 -0800

I'm interested in watching more documentaries or miniseries about the fashion/clothing industry. Three I've rented recently were Valentino:The Last Emperor, The September Issue, and Signé Chanel. I especially enjoyed the last two as they really showed a lot behind the scenes about how stuff is made (both the media and the couture dressmaking sides). I'd be interested in all levels of clothing and shoes, from mass market to haute couture and all aspects from designing to manufacturing to marketing. Also, I'd like it if the films or TV shows were easily available in the US (either can be ordered/streamed online or likely found in a local video store). Thanks!

Inexpensive wireless music streaming

psycho-alchemy — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:46:40 -0800

I want to be able to stream whatever my computer is playing to another room in the house. In addition, I would like to occasionally stream videos to our old, but oversized, TV in another room. I started shopping and looking at media streaming bridges and wireless speakers and frankly it seems there are a bunch of options and I don't know where to start. It probably needs to go 40 or 50 feet away. I don't think bluetooth would work and the only things I own with an ethernet port are my computer and the wireless router. Can someone point me towards a good reliable sytem?

What should I do: Ext. Hard Drives, Media Servers, NAS, etc.

aswego — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:34:00 -0800

Please talk to me like I'm stupid. I have a bunch of video files (~5TB...so far) hanging out on a bunch of external hard drives. Right now I just take turns plugging them into whichever laptop I'm going to use to watch the videos. I'd like something a little more convenient and easily accessible from multiple rooms in my small apartment, but I'm not awesome at setting up networky things (I've never successfully gotten two different laptops in my apartment to even "see" each other over the wireless router). What should I do? More specifics:

Current external hard drives owned (in case these could be repurposed somehow): A Seagate 4TB that needs a wall outlet to be used, a Seagate 3TB that needs a wall outlet to be used, and two 1TB WD drives that don't need wall outlets to be used (but are presumably very fragile).
I would probably be adding more video files to this collection on a daily basis.
Several different Windows laptops and VLC would be the primary potential viewing methods.
Don't own or care about Netflix/Roku/Video Game Systems.
Would avoid using iTunes to the extent possible (have an iPhone and iPad, but use them primarily for podcasts and ebooks).
Though the ability to possibly watch some of these video files on a television someday could be nice, it's not a priority as I don't currently have one.
Similarly, being able to get at the files from somewhere else (via FTP, maybe?) in an emergency seems like it'd be cool, but it's not really a priority.
Don't really care about backing up my laptops constantly...nothing too important on them.
The appeal of having redundant copies of the video files comes from experience with hard drives failing and the months/years it takes to accumulate all those files all over again, as well as the idea that it might be harder to accumulate them next time (basic digital hoarder mentality).

I checked out previous AskMefis, but a lot of the cheap NAS's recommended maxed out at something like an 8TB setup where two 4TB drivers were mirrored for backup purposes. I'm already well past the 4TB point, so I'm hoping for something with even more space. Also, I would probably need a lot of hand-holding setting one up. I can learn this stuff if someone explains it slowly and walks me through, but if somebody starts out by mentioning something like "Tomato" or "firmware," I'm probably lost already.

I also saw the recommendation of the ASUS RT-N16 wireless router, which at least seems like it'd get me partway there by just plugging my two largest external hard drives into it (is this correct?). My current router seems to work fine as far as upload/download speeds go, even though it's pretty old (>5 years), so maybe that money is better spent toward an NAS.

Home Media Nightmare?

drjimmy11 — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:29:32 -0800

I'd like to play blu-ray discs and stream Netflix. It shouldn't be this hard. Here are some devices I've gone through:

1) Cheap blu-ray player. Stopped playing discs after a few months.
2) Roku HD. Worst product I have ever owned. Worked partially at best; stopped working completely in less than a year. (This was a few years ago and I hear they may have gotten better, but man what a piece of shit! I had to unplug and reset it any time it went idle for 15 minutes and that was when it "worked.")
3) LG Blu Ray player with network connection. Netflix worked fine, refused to play any blue-ray disc within a year, including those just out of box.
4) Sony Blu Ray player with network connection. Netflix impossible to set up. UI is literally the worst I have ever seen- no error messaging of any kind, just screen refresh. Currently packaging up to return.

So: Is there a device that does these seemingly simple things? I'd rather have one device, but if there is nothing that reliably does both I will buy two. I would consider Apple TV, though I have no interest in any Apple/iTunes-centric features. I am very tech literate, but not really interested in haxx0r set-ups or Raspberry pis right now- just want devices that work out of the box and keep working reliably.

Thanks.

Looking for different media sources

roomthreeseventeen — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 08:53:09 -0800

After reading this article, I'm interested in varying the way I get my media more. Aside from places mentioned in the article, Ebony, Latino, PODER, Essence magazines, what should I be reading that will give me more perspective from people of color? I should note that I'm not really looking for opinions on the article itself, just some online or magazine writing done by non-mainstream authors of color.

Works of literature or film featuring taxidermy or taxidermied animals?

fleetofblimps — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:18:31 -0800

References both great and small are welcome. Seeking references to literary works (of fiction, primarily) and films that include or depict taxidermy or taxidermized animals. I'm less interested in TV shows with taxidermy (Scrubs, Immortalized, American Stuffers), but if you know of anything good I'd still be happy to hear about it. A few pieces I'm already familiar with:

--Psycho (film)
--Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
--The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

Even minor/brief mentions or depictions of taxidermized animals are welcome. Many thanks!

Help me sort out my messy digital media/device issues

wannabecounselor — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:53:16 -0800

Should I get a new iTouch? Or ditch iTunes and start fresh with something else? Get an Android tablet? New phone? Plus a new OS for my laptop? Feeling overwhelmed! My digital media life is falling apart, and I have a unique opportunity to clean it up all at once - but how?

ITunes just "lost" my entire library and playlists (all files are still present and backed up). I tried to follow online instructions to import an old library backup, it didn't seem to work, and frankly I'm fed up with iTunes anyway, mainly because of lack of accessibility across devices and the fact that it seemed to keep "losing" my music.

Not to mention my iPod Touch 2nd gen just completely died on me - won't start up, restore, charge, or be recognized by iTunes or the computer.

Plus my Dell Inspiron m101z laptop (just over 2 years old) has appeared to kick the bucket, though I think I just need the OS restored/redone. I'm not a big tech person so I'm going to check with my tech savvy neighbor or just bring it to a local repair shop to see if that's the case. (Could this be what caused the iTunes crap-out?)

Finally, I have a Nokia "Nuron" phone on Tmobile - a "barely-smart" phone that lets me very roughly browse the internet (mainly metafilter thanks to the simple design!) check email, facebook, and use a built-in GPS that's decent and a crappy 2MP camera. I'm torn as to whether to upgrade or not. The music player is frustrating to work with, which is of high importance to me, and now that I don't have my iTouch I'm feeling kind of panicky about surviving my commute.

I'm a really budget (and consumerism)-conscious person so I want to keep things affordable and avoid the "latest techno-gadget" black hole. I usually prefer to let things die before I replace them, but I like to buy quality in the hopes that it actually will last.

I'm leaning toward replacing the iTouch or getting an equivalent Android tablet thingy, and leaving the phone and laptop as is for now (aside from fixing the laptop). But.... I was researching TMo's smart phone selection and thinking about the ">HTC S One (my husband has the Samsung Galaxy SIII which is too big for my liking). When he bought his new phone we switched to a "value plan" so we would have to pay for the phones ourselves as opposed to "free upgrades" (when we did the math it was worth it). If I went with a new phone I definitely would not get a new iDevice. I'm also interested in having a good camera in whatever new device I get.

As for the music, I'd love to start a fresh library. I've heard good things about Media Monkey and I used to use Winamp), or do you think I should give iTunes another try? I almost never buy from them, usually just from Amazon or eMusic.

For the record I've started a habit of backing up all my important files (music, pictures, documents, and downloads) on a physical hard drive so nothing was "lost" on my laptop. But I'm trying to decide if digital backup makes more sense....

I know this is kind of all over the place, so I expect the answers to be the same. Any input is appreciated.

How to go from zero to TV?

barnone — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:31:11 -0800

We haven't had a proper TV in over a decade. I would like to have something other than my laptop to watch streaming media, DVDs, Netflix, etc. Can you explain how this works in 2013? I imagine we'd buy something like this Samsung LED HDTV and some kind of speakers. Then what? Do we plug it into a laptop? What exactly is Apple TV and how does it stack up against Roku? This seems like it should be a simple question, but I feel like a caveman emerging from the dark, and am fairly bewildered at all of the options and variations out there. I tried watching TV on my LED monitor and it was fairly grainy and jumpy. That could be a function of my aging laptop, or maybe it was just the video, but I'm keen on setting up a better screen situation.

- Cable TV isn't likely.
- Gaming capacity isn't required.
- Cost isn't a huge consideration, but I'd appreciate tips on where I can save money, and where to spend more for the best value.
- Interested in 'sleeker' solutions, rather than a million different boxes and cables and remotes.

Most of our media comes from:
- Amazon Instant Video
- Netflix
- iTunes store
- Hulu
- Various websites (i.e. PBS for Downton Abbey, ABC for Grey's Anatomy)
- Occasional DVDs
- Downloaded material

If you could start from scratch tomorrow, how would you set up your media system? Any big changes coming down the pipeline that will change things in a year or two? What's a good reference in terms of choosing a screen size?

Any suggestions on speakers? Bonus points if the speakers could be connected (via wifi or bluetooth) to other devices for music streaming.

Thanks for any instructions, tips or links to good explanatory articles.

How to bulk download files of one type from the WordPress Media Library?

houseofdanie — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:56:38 -0800

Is there a quick (or a quicker) way to download all files of a given type from the Media Library of a self-hosted WordPress site? The site in question has about 200 MP3s. I can easily sort out the MP3s by selecting "Audio." But how can I download them all at once? Is there a plug-in? FTP looks like a big pain, too, as these files are organized in folders by year and month, and there are several years here -- and many months with no uploads at all.

Your favourite clever pop culture sites/podcasts/lectures

everydayanewday — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:41:29 -0800

I'm at home ill at the moment, watching lots of films and reading a lot (this week I've watched 14 films and read 2 books). I'd like to find sites (or podcasts/lectures/etc) that intelligently examine media and/or popular culture. I regularly read articles on Popmatters and sometimes the A.V. Club (but not so much). What are your favourite film/media crit resources? Podcasts? Lectures? Thank you in advance for any help!

Expanding my horizons via Twitter

roomthreeseventeen — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 08:30:42 -0800

I recently discovered Commander Chris Hadfield's excellent Twitter stream, and would love suggestions for other great "tweeters" that I am currently missing out on. My general interests are theatre, running, space, dinosaurs and politics, although I'm open to anyone who posts great content.

Better fitness mags for women?

spunweb — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:04:41 -0800

Really over Fitness and its monthly workouts. What should I subscribe to instead? I've been a subscriber to Fitness Magazine for several years. I normally cycle through their monthly workouts (one's typically a weights routine, one's more Pilates influenced, and one's a combination of the two) but recently their last few issues have included routines that seem kind of dangerous -- like the images/videos have included the model's knee looking like it was out of alignment, or your wrist will sprain or whatever. Plus, the recipes suck, and sometimes the healthy living tips read like a pro-ana/pro-mia tips-list. Is there another fitness mag for women that includes monthly routines, somewhat delicious recipes, and is more body friendly?

(I'm open to blog suggestions as well, but like magazines because I like to archive routines I really like in my amazing Hufflepuff workout binder to take to the gym with me.)

Help me become a social media marketing expert

pwnguin — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 19:34:48 -0800

I want to transform my department's social media team into the campus experts on social media. What are the books, workshops, tools, websites and communities I should be looking into? The person who managed this stuff left a year ago, and it's clear that our student team that was hired in the lurch isn't getting enough attention or guidance. What I'd like to do is learn enough to mentor this team, partially to help build my own niche within the dept, and partially to become competent enough to relieve our director of the duty of managing this team.

I know how to use most social media (except maybe Pinterest) on a personal level, but I'd like to figure out the 'srs bsns' side of it. For example, Twitter. We have a few accounts, with a total of around 3500 followers. I'd like to have some guidelines on what / how much to retweet, when to use a hashtag, and what relevant metrics (other than the obvious, followers) to track.

I'd also love to have some software (preferably open source) to queue up stuff and release it over time, to help compensate for variable student schedules. You can tell which days our social media student employee is in, for example, because we get five to ten tweets / posts that day, and none on the others. I think having a buffer will help smooth things out, and let us focus on reaching goals.

I know there's a lot of sketchy advice on SEO and social media, so I'm turning to the metafilter for advice!

Music industry - sideways moves from performing to...?

joboe — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:48:48 -0800

I graduated from music college in the UK about 10 years ago, and recently decided that while this time has been spent developing skills to augment my income as a freelance performer, I'd now like to consolidate those skills into a related career which would leave me more financially stable. For a long time now, I have been interested in becoming a music supervisor in the film/television industry, music researcher or working in a production music library. Whenever I have had any involvement with music rights or negotiating clearances, I've been fascinated by it but have never had the opportunity to have this as my main focus. How do I do this as someone who is not able to do long-term unpaid work experience/internships? I've worked extensively in performing, teaching and editing (mainly print publishing but with some involvement in multi-media), both freelance, salaried and contracted. During this time, I gained a lot of experience in project management (qualification in this), copyright and licensing issues (attended accredited monthly seminars in this) and producing recording sessions, so I'm definitely a lot more experienced than most college graduates but have no relevant contacts in this specific area of the industry.
1. What's the best way to approach companies and show them that I have something to offer? 2. How do I know which companies I should approach?
3. I feel like at 33, I might be too old to be taken seriously - I'm aware that I'll probably have to be an assistant again, but am totally cool with that. Have I missed the boat entirely? I definitely can't afford to go back to study right now.

Use TripAdvisor Facebook app or other FB travel app? Why?

Speculatist — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:43:53 -0800

Hello. I'm curious about why Facebook members use the TripAdvisor Facebook app and / or other FB travel applications. Can you tell me why you use them? Apparently, the TripAdvisor app has 32 million users inside Facebook every month. But what's so good about it, that it attracts such a large user-base? Thanks for reading.

Graduating with a BA in Philosophy (Canada) in April. Job search help

GiveUpNed — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:53:30 -0800

A few days ago I went to see my local Career Advisor at school. She said I was miles ahead of every other humanities grad as I have 15 months of work experience. She told me to contact various guilds and organizations in my area... I got thrown under the bus at the freebie weekly I was working at, however I'll probably get my job back in the summer (12K a year woo!) due to personal changes.
I'm currently writing for a magazine (read by 1-3K people) and an online publication. I'm constantly sending out pitches and connecting with people I used to work with.
A few days ago I went to see my local Career Advisor at school. She said I was miles ahead of every other humanities grad as I have 15 months of work experience. She told me to contact various guilds and organizations in my area (I have, a coffee meeting with my local PR guild representative is being set up) and to hit my network. (I have. However, the company is restructuring and I have to call back in Feb.)

She told me to get business cards, the job market in my city is great and to tailor my resume for the various marketing/comm/pr/advertising jobs at the uni job fair that is being held next week. She said to have a mental script ready (this is who I am, this is what I can do for you and here is my portfolio) along with 4 different tailored resumes for the various positions I want to apply for.

In addition to all this, I should research the 20-30 companies that are hiring in the positions I want and be ready to ask pertinent questions to them and have answers ready for them when they enquire about me.

Is she blowing smoke up my ass, or am I A OK. She told me I should get a job by April as I'm starting my job search now and I have work experience.

If all fails, I'm heading to my local college for a communications degree (they have a high job placement rate).

In addition to all this, I just received a paying job at a new online pub. I only get ~$20 a month for 4-5 articles. Should I ask for more, or should I stick with it as they are a new publication?

I've never gotten below 10 cents a word, but that's a print rate. I've never been paid for online writing. It's funny. Everyone says online is the future, but the money is still in print.