Nashvillians use flashlights to protest John Rich’s bright house

Over a dozen Nashvillians rallied behind neighbors upset by the brightness of John Rich’s house Wednesday night Feb. 24, in what was coined Flash Fest 2010.

Neighbors in the Love Circle area raised awareness of spotlights used at Rich’s residence, which they said were unnecessarily bright and displeasing.

Protesters shined flashlights towards the residence, created shadow puppets, and held signs with slogans such as “Fight on Nashville, Flash Back.” One protester dressed as a light-emitting Ferris wheel.

The concept of a flashlight rally was spawned and promoted on twitter beginning the night before. Within a 24-hour period, local twitter users produced around 100 tweets referencing #FlashFest2010.

A metro police officer arrived on the scene and briefly questioned a few of the protesters, who where in the process of dispersing after seeing the police car.

Code names such as Snooki, Al Gore, and Mr. Nate (wink wink) were used to protect the identities of the flashers in the following audio story:

Live from inside the Ferris wheel

8:19 | iTunes | mp3

Photo Credit: Chris Wage, who took photos during the rally:



Link Love and Additional Coverage

Post Politics Flash Fest 2010: Tweeters Take Back The Night From Zach Wamp’s Bestest Buddy
NashvilleGab Angry mob storms John Rich’s house, beams of light involved
Nashville Scene John Rich Gets Flashed
Tennessean’s On Nashville POD FlashFest2010
WSMV Channel 4 Flashlights Used To Protest John Rich’s Home
Jim Reams on dubbing “flashfest2010”
Stephen Yeargin on his protesting history
WSMV Channel 4 John Rich’s House Violates Metro Code
Post Politics The Flash Festers Were Right: Rich In Violation Of Code
Nate News An Open Letter to John Rich and The Flashers
Post Politics Reflecting On Flashfest 2010

Overlooking Florence Alabama on the Fourth of July

15:01 | itunes | podomatic | mp3

Every Fourth of July the Rainer family hosts a fireworks viewing on their lawn, which overlooks the Tennessee River in Florence, Alabama.

The best view in the area is always teeming with family and neighbors.

This is my attempt at capturing the sounds of Florence and the heart of the Rainer household.

Photos of the gathering from 2006 and 2005.

Podcast Stringer for Nashville Needed, Appy Today (GPS Assassin)

PODCAST STRINGING

Based on the 358 attendees of PodCamp Nashville and efforts of NashMash to catalog Nashville podcasts, we have the community to embrace a podcast stringer.

Podcast Stringing is the act of providing a syndicated micro podcast for other podcasters.

Oh, and I just made that up since I didn’t know of a word for it. Comment with what is already out there. I’m fascinated with this idea, but can’t find anything on it.

An example of a micro podcast: Mitch Canter’s WordPulse

There’s a rich tradition of syndication in radio of course, but a venture like this won’t succeed without a rich tech community. I’d love to support an innovation like this in Nashville.

Here’s what it might look like… Oh and feel free to use this.

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AN EXAMPLE

“GPS Assassin iPhone Game in Beta”

Episode 1 of 1: Nate News, syndicated tech news for and about Nashville | mp3 | 1:32

Outros

For Leo Laporte | mp3 | :02

For Raised on Tech | mp3 | :05

Fake Dialogue (Add to a podcast for instant success)

Laughing about Pringles | mp3 | :05

“Check out my MySpace” | mp3 | :05

Talking points and references

• Google Group
• Twitter hashtag: #gpsassassins
• Tom Cheredar, one of first to break the beta story
• There are plans for to develop beyond the iphone platform
• Jackson Miller is one of the lead developers
• It was Nick’s idea and he’s heavily involved
• Beginning stages at Nashville Startup Weekend

Download the MP3s (Then somebody show me how to mix audio)

“GPS Assassin iPhone Game in Beta” by Nathan T. Baker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Jingle is all rights reserved unless in this context.

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APPLY TODAY

Benefits of the position:

• Eventually your content is not just disseminated, but marketed for you.
• Less time to produce
• You can focus on a niche topic you enjoy
• Your concept is innovative and therefore gets short term “new” buzz
• Being tied to a niche topic can help you in your long term business goals

Potential Themes:

• Nashville tech news
• local sports recap
• Nashville tech events and meetups calendar
• Nashville parenting
• Nashville music business news
• This would have to be something a number of people are podcasting about in Nashville

Criteria:

• The micro podcast probably should be between 15 seconds and 2 minutes.
• It’s a topic people must care about
• The content must be creative commons and easy to grab
• You’ll have to be consistent and patient for a chance for it to catch on
• Dont’ expect to make money. Most podcasters don’t. So, do this for the luuuv, to network, or as an outpost to a larger term goal.
• Use your sexy voice

I’m not sure if this will happen in Nashville, but I wanted to share my notebook for how I saw this happening if anyone wanted to try! Let us know so we can try it out. Or, maybe talk to the podcasters, because I don’t have one of those thingies.

What content would you include in your podcast, if anything?

Santa gave me a recording box

mp3 | itunes

10 min. 48 sec.

I left my camera in Nashville and turned off Twitter during Christmas so I could focus on the sounds of family and the Holidays.

Follow my journey through the Cumberland Plateau as I discover the joys of pointing my recording box for the first time.

Credits: Samples from It’s a Wonderful Life. “Bread” song by Hi Stakes featuring KCentric.

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“Santa gave me a recording box” by Nathan T. Baker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.