News on the March

BBT / SBMwS mashup

2009-07-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

Teachable moment or GOP attack ad for 2010?

2009-07-24T23:01:00.006-05:00

If all three of these men can manage to be humble and see things from each others' perspective, something great could happen.

(P.S. - Tell Al Sharpton and Bill O'Reilly to stay out of it.)

Bonestell art on YouTube

2009-07-18T23:27:00.001-05:00

Related to the previous post on "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow" - Check out this video of the art of Chesley Bonestell:

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? - Recommended!

2009-07-18T21:15:00.011-05:00

I have said before that I am a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. In other words, no matter what the weatherman says, I always take my raincoat to work; However, I think that North Koreans will enjoy the benefits of a free-market, liberal democracy in my lifetime. (Classical liberal, that is.) One of the pillars of that optimism is our society's (and our species's) embrace of technology.

So, let me commemorate the2 ~~recent~~ upcoming 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing and the recent passing of the always-optimistic-about-America Walter Cronkite by strongly recommending a new graphic novel, "Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?".

This is by a guy named Brian Fies, who obviously loves science fiction and comic books (you can find references to Flash/Buck Gordon/Rogers, Galactus, the cover of Batman #1, Fantastic Voyage, the ubiquity of super-powered monkeys, and 100 toy soldiers made of durable plastic, each with its own base!) He also loves technology and the oomph that we as a society feel to try new things. The New York World's Fair of 1939, Ed White's spacewalk, The Experimental Prototype Community of Tommorow, Richard Feynman's ideas about nanotechnology, and the illustrations of Chesley Bonestell all feature in the narrative.

Broken Frontier interview here.
8-page preview here (One panel shown below)
Blast Magazine interview here. Excerpt: “There is a slight sense of disappointment from my generation and anyone who hoped for the promise of the space age,” said Fies. “But there is also a many new ideas, both actual and hypothetical, that seem to be taking the world into a better tomorrow. I want this book to show that it’s a good thing to hope and think that tomorrow might actually be better than today.”

Couldn't figure out the red noses for a minute...

2009-07-04T23:28:00.003-05:00

...but didn't care!

Then I found this.

This is the sort of thing that makes this country great! (Oh, wait - They're not from this country. Whatever.)

Misc. items from around the Web

2009-06-27T15:32:00.005-05:00

Several things of interest that I don't think I have posted yet:

Seven robots that would be cool to see fight the Terminator. My bet would be on Deathlok or Death's Head.
Awful Library Books.
Toronto Globe and Mail series, The Download Decade. Excerpt: Despite the rapid growth of technology over the past decade, only about one in six human beings on Earth has access to the Internet. When the next billion come online, many of them will not experience the Web through a PC, but rather through smart phones and handheld devices. That new influx of ideas and perspectives is bound to have a profound impact on the next decade of Internet innovation and change how information is disseminated and consumed.
Alternate covers of Billie Jean:

Veuillez installer Flash Player pour lire la vidéo

The Bates - Billy Jean (Michael Jackson Punk Cover) sélectionné dans Musique

Watch more Sessions Under Cover videos on AOL Video

Looking forward to Green Lantern animated feature

2009-06-27T15:26:00.000-05:00

Started Wikipedia stub for Girl 27

2009-06-27T09:47:00.005-05:00

So last week we watched a very very interesting documentary called "Girl 27" about a 1937 rape case involving an MGM sales rep and an underage dance extra. (The young lady's name was the 27th listed on the call sheet for the dance extras that were unknowingly sent out as "entertainment" for the MGM sales convention.)

The other day I started a Wikipedia stub for the film; I was surprised to see that there wasn't anything about the movie, the movie's writer/director/researcher, or the incident itself there already.

One of the big points about this film was that even though it was banner front-page news for a while in 1937, MGM fixers managed to arrange it so that the incident was practically erased from Hollywood's memory, so that today, even film historians had no idea that it happened.

I really have to recommend this movie... It sounds salacious, and certainly by definition it dives deep into salacious material. (It seems like something that James Ellroy would have written about, though I don't believe he has.) My thought was "Well, what if they're just blowing things out of proportion?" - You can never be totally sure, but they present quite a bit of evidence in the doc, and also I see that when writer/director David Stenn wrote his biography of Clara Bow, that he actually debunked as urban legend a certain rumor about Ms. Bow and the entire 1927 USC football team. This suggests to me that he is not one to make explosive claims lightly.

You can watch the whole documentary here on Snagfilms. (Make sure to watch the part at about 29:30 where they show the girls dancing in the 1930s and intercut it w/ J. Lo.)

John Hodgman at Obama dinner

2009-06-21T00:07:00.003-05:00

Watch this now!

I love the distinctions Hodgman draws between Nerds and Jocks, and the specification that actual athletes are not Jocks. Kind of reminds me of this recent article about a study on how people tend to place their trust. Excerpt: Don Moore of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has argued that in competitive situations, such blind confidence could drive those offering advice to increasingly exaggerate how sure they are. And it spells bad news for scientists who try to be honest about gaps in their knowledge, reports New Scientist magazine.

Wiki Wiki Wiki!

2009-06-13T21:51:00.003-05:00

New-ish blog: The Wikipedian.

Also - reading "The Wikipedia Revolution" by Andrew Lih.

Check out Google logo for today!

2009-06-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

Happy 25th birthday, Tetris!

Two Tarantino remixes you have to watch

2009-05-25T16:24:00.001-05:00

This is who James Hyman is, btw.

4-20 rolls around again...

2009-04-20T21:52:00.005-05:00

Another year, another April 20th, and another president who used the stuff, and yet marijuana use and possession is still a crime in practically all circumstances in this country. I will repeat myself from a couple years ago:

Now we just need to think of clever double-entendre annual dates for protests in favor of minimal restrictions on immigration, abolishment of tariffs, allowances for gay marriage, and decriminalization of prostitution, and then we'll be getting somewhere.

What they need is to make Ron Paul the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I admire this Obama response

2009-03-24T23:11:00.003-05:00

From tonight's news conference:

It took us a couple of days [to respond to the outrage du jour] because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.

I'm surprised Obama didn't follow up with "He can go about his business. Move along."

The Story of O ('Reilly)

2009-03-18T06:53:00.004-05:00

Bill O'Reilly, you old devil!.

Speaking of Mr. Welles...

2009-03-15T23:18:00.002-05:00

You have to check out this clip from the pilot of Orson Welles's 1978 interview show, never aired or released:

"How do you do, Mr. Welles."

Beware the itemized lists of March

2009-03-15T22:10:00.005-05:00

A beautiful weekend in Chicago! The ♥G♥ and I took Gilbert on two walks. Items:

Grown up Calvin & Hobbes. Make sure to check out the essay on Fight Club.
Visual and Interactive Guides to the Economic Crisis, from 10,000 Words.
Check out the Perfect Magic Cube.
Spring coming - Want to sit on back deck with Gilbert and a cigar and read: Orson Welles at Work, What Would Google Do?, and The Wikipedia Revolution. (Here's a bunch of podcasts featuring TWR author Andrew Lih.)
Snag Films - Lots of documentaries. Excerpt: SnagFilms is committed to finding the world‘s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and making them available to the wide audience these titles deserve. SnagFilms.com is a website where you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we’re also a platform that lets you “snag” a film and put it anywhere on the web.
If you have never seen Grey Gardens, you need to. If you have seen it, check out this interview:
Mark Ford: Cartoon Genius

Been working on Wikipedia page on Booknotes interviews

2009-03-15T15:34:00.004-05:00

For almost 20 years, I have admired C-Span founder Brian Lamb tremendously, and I anticipate that he will remain one of my heroes for the rest of my life. He is such an excellent interviewer, and his whole philosophy is about making ideas and information available to any who are interested. He is very much a demythologizer of political and media processes, and treats Joe Schmoe American with the same respect as he treats heads of state and Nobel laureates.

Lamb hosted the unique author interview show Booknotes for 15 years. The questions and discussion were and are head and shoulders above those of practically any other show -- One full hour (sometimes two), no commercials, serious non-fiction books, no repeats of guests. A good number of the books and authors that I delved into during those years (and in the years since) I was introduced to by C-Span and Booknotes. It occurred to me a while ago (last June, actually) that it would be great to incorporate a list of these authors, books, and topics into Wikipedia, where much has been written about most of them, but never assembled in this context. Soooo... the article List of Booknotes interviews was born. It has taken a bunch of doing (fitting in edits and organization when I had time) but it's actually in pretty decent shape now. You also can see the to-do list at the article's discussion page if you want to pitch in on anything.

Happy Pi Day! (tomorrow)

2009-03-13T21:13:00.001-05:00

The same thing would happen with an article about the Mayor of Uckerby

2009-02-26T21:11:00.004-06:00

Something I cited a few months ago about Crystal on Survivor: Gabon --

Here's the Gutenburg of a short story called "Unspecialist", by Murray F. Yaco. This blogpost sums it up: A machine can be built to do any accurately described job better than any man. The superiority of a man is that he can do an unexpected, undescribed, and emergency job... provided he hasn't been especially trained to be a machine.

Now ask anybody, especially anybody at work , and they will tell you that I am a fan of automation when possible. But, as I mentioned the other day, sometimes silly things happen when you rely on algorithms.

So, here's what happens when you tell a computer not to allow swear words:

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T22:14:00.002-06:00

West Bank Story shows true love conquering all.

When you rely on too much on algorithms...

2009-02-10T22:10:00.002-06:00

Take a look at the text of the first sentence of the Reuters article on Intel.

Wiki White House

2009-01-31T08:17:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago, The New America Foundation hosted a panel called "Wiki White House" -- (Comments here from the panel's "token conservative").

Star Trek videos

2009-01-28T20:57:00.004-06:00

Commenter Sebastiaan van M. has a site with a bunch of Star Trek music videos... Check it out.

I don't know if this one is in that batch, but it sure made me laugh out loud:

Star Trek Rhapsody (Ditto) - The best bloopers are a click away

The 100 Greatest (Non-Fiction) Adventure Books of All Time

2009-01-25T09:59:00.004-06:00

Scanning through some stacks of old magazines to purge from my belongings to see what interesting things I might glean from them before they go to the recycle bin or the resale shop -- Here's a good one: The 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time as ranked by National Geographic Adventure about five years ago. (Better late than never.) The adjective "adventure" does not mean Allan Quartermain, for instance, but rather IRL figures like T.E. Lawrence, Charles Darwin, Charles Lindbergh, Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Richard Burton, Mark Twain, Ernest Shackleton, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jacques Cousteau, Theodore Roosevelt, and others. For example:

17. Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl (1950) Nine balsa-wood logs, a big square sail, a bamboo "cabin" with a roof made of banana leaves—thus did Norwegian Heyerdahl and his companions set sail from Peru toward Polynesia to prove a point: that the South Pacific was settled from the east. Point proved? Maybe not, but it's one hell of a ride—a daring tale, dramatically told.

(Here's a clip from the Academy Award-winning documentary about the Kon-Tiki)