"Punk in England"

The early '80s documentary film "Punk in England" has been remastered and rereleased, and offers a nice flashback to one of the most invigorating times in rock history.

And don't be scared off by the punk reference in the title. Punk dominates, but mod and ska were in the mix at that time, and get a nice ride in this hourlong history lesson.

Live performances range from The Clash and The Jam to Madness and The Pretenders, powerful visual documents of a period when English punkers, mods and ska bands were slamming the music industry up against a wall. Like many punk documentaries of the day, the audio is sometimes muddy, but the historical value overcomes any annoyance.

Some of the performer interviews are comical in their projections of self-importance, but they capture an engaging innocence and energy to revolutionize music that's still being felt today.

Inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship

BBC has posted a video of the first look inside the Virgin Galactic spaceship that's being built and tested in nearby Mojave. BBC doesn't allow sharing of its videos so I've linked to their page but also include above a larger overview of the Virgin Galactic project.

Tickets costing $200,000 each are on sale at select travel agents. Anyone care to surprise me on my birthday?

The smartest person in content

Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of consumer products, has been called the most powerful woman in the world. That's certainly debatable -- but one could make a convincing case given how her work touches tens of millions of lives each day.

She's also been called the smartest person in content, and evidence of that comes out during this hourlong interview at the opening of the Tow-Knight Center at City University of New York earlier this month.

CUNY's Jeff Jarvis, of Buzzmachine fame, interviewed Mayer and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and touched on a variety of media issues, most of which centered around the belief both have that "local" is an enormous opportunity for audience and revenue.

It's clear from watching this video why Mayer is where she is. She oversees Google's local, mobile and mapping strategies, and has great ideas on how to give people what they want, when they want it and how they want it.

And while Armstrong has interesting ideas of his own, Mayer is clearly the one with vision that's ahead of the curve. Mayer used to work for Armstrong, before he left Google to join AOL. It's interesting that in buying Huffington Post, Armstrong has tied his future to a woman who knows how to make money off digital content. What comes around, goes around, I guess.