Take a moment to read Andy Budd's thoughtful consideration of SXSWi 2011. "In reality in think SXSW jumped the shark in 2008/09 and is now an entirely different conference. It’s just taken me a couple of years to reconcile the difference and develop a new set of coping strategies. This year I finally gave up on the conference itself, going to a handful of sessions. I met many more who hadn’t seen a single session and several who didn’t even bother buying a ticket. Instead people spent time seeing friends and maintaining the weak ties in their social graph. I say that somewhat wryly, but SXSW really has become about networking in the most real and genuine sense of the word." more ›

Chris Hardwick makes a no doubt decent living from extensive television work, from his former gigs on MTV’s Singled Out and PBS’s Wired Science to his current position as host of Web Soup and a segment reviewing gadgets on Attack of the Show, both on the G4 network. Plus he voices Otis in Nickelodeon’s Back On the Barnyard, has appeared in a couple of Rob Zombie flicks, has a musical comedy duo called Hard ‘n Phirm, writes for Wired (the magazine) and has his own podcast entitled The Nerdist. He’s a busy boy. more ›

The 2 Bobs was written and directed by Austinite Tim McCanlies, writer of Iron Giant and director of Secondhand Lions (speaking of which, someone ought to check in on that Haley Joel Osment, we haven’t heard from HIM in a while). It was also shot right here in Austin (support local film!). more ›