September 8, 2006
Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man
No Saddam and Osama? :(
Senate Releases Pre-War Intel Reports. The two sections of the report released by the Senate intelligence committee are: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress" (both PDFs). This seems to contradict previous evidence. [Via TPMmuckraker.]
Help the ragdoll avoid falling icicles (Flash game)
Ragdoll Avalanche II - You against the falling icicles, and your own slow bendiness! (Flash game)
You know that cool intro music for Monsters, Inc?
Ever heard of Andy Martin? Probably not. But have you ever watched Family Guy or King of the Hill, or watched movies such as Spiderman, The Day After Tomorrow, or Monsters, Inc? Andy is on all of them. Trombonist Martin is one of many studio musicians (aka session musicians) in the LA area who are called upon day after day to record the music that we take for granted. Although it may not be the most fulfilling job, it pays the bills, and for someone with a talent as relatively obscure as trombone playing (or clarinet playing, or drumming, or anything else), it's one of the few careers left. Even so, drummer Russ Miller reminds us that studio musicians are rapidly being replaced by synthesizers (Hans Zimmer's score for Gladiator, for instance, uses lots of synths in lieu of real players) and that "we don't have the luxury of just playing our instrument like we used to".
Eat what I say, not what I do.
Paging Dr. Ronald McDonald and Dr. Pepper. To Cardiology ... stat. Despite the innumerable reports demonstrating an sharp rise in childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes in children, many children's hospitals continue to provide a plethora of unwholesome food and beverage choices. Moreover, these choices often contribute to revenue in most of these hospitals. This has been well-documented in community and academic [BugMeNot] hospitals. Different children's hospitals are awfully good at handing out advice to families. Maybe the hospitals should look in the mirror [note: links to .pdf of study].
Arizona Cardinals stadium roll out grass field
One of the stars of the new NFL season will make its debut this Sunday. It's not a player - it's Arizona Cardinal's stadium. It's got a retractable roof, and a movable grass field that can roll out of the facility where it will reside most of the year and get its nourishment, maintenance and grooming. First of its kind in North America. NPR audio piece.
Natty Stoppage or Batty Sabotage?
From Albanian to Wayuunaiki, Arabic to Welsh
Lyrikline: A German site showcasing more than 300 international poets reading their work in 39 different languages.
Ah! But it has intrinsic worth!
Multi-link YouTube Post: Communist China vs. Nationalist China, Satan is Real, Recycling 2 (actually submitted as a school project about recycling), Absurdlutely [more inside]
AmazonUnbox
Amazon launched a new video download service today. It claims to be simple to use and features some superb movies. But are Amazon and the other major vendors missing the point? Will consumers pay for legitimate content with severe limitations on use or will they simply find ways of creating their own unrestricted versions?
“There is no free lunch,’’ Dr. Sharpless said. “We are all doomed.”
The evolutionary reason behind senescence^ is one of the great mysteries of biology. Now cancer researchers may have discovered the key to why we age.
e-ink billboards
Magink has built the worlds first billboard using a type of e-ink, similar to the display technology used in the coveted Sony Reader devices - except it is 10'x20' and in full color. Advertisers nirvana and a colorized glimpse of the future of electronic ink devices.
Inside a cell
BioVisions at Harvard University presents, The Inner Life of the Cell (Flash 8 Player). Explanation of what you see (It's meant to be fairly accurate).
"Hang on, lads. I've got a great idea. Get my Legos!"
"You must have shot an awful lot of Legos sir." The Italian Job trailer, done in Legos. It's amateurish and it's YouTube, but it's only 50 seconds and it's really charming if you're a fan of the movie. There's a serialized version of the whole movie (part 1 and part 2). Part 2 is much better because it has the heist and the aftermath. Lorna, Big William and Camp Freddie are miscast, but otherwise it's pretty good.
Westerns, Noirs, and Sci-Fi, Oh My!
A Dozen Eccentric Westerns, Ten Neglected Science Fiction Movies, and Ten Overlooked Noirs selected by Jonathan Rosenbaum. A follow-up to an earlier post on offbeat musicals.
Open Source Physics
Open Source Physics is a great resource for science eduactors and students alike. Here is a page of great examples that take advantage of OSP.
“Yes, but in my film time is shattered.”
"I would like to do better, to be better than I am". He's the French New Wave maverick and Academy Award winner (at 26, for his first short) who, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz -- with considerable personal pain and the admission that "no description, no picture can reveal the true dimension" of what happened in the camps -- made what François Truffaut called "the greatest film ever made", duly censored by French authorities. Four years later he baffled audiences with "the first modern film of sound cinema", shattering the rules of chronology to describe the “anguish of the future”: even if all he ever wanted was "to stop death in its tracks" (French language link), only for one minute. But he is also the unabashed lover of la bande dessinée who learnt English by reading comic books and in the Seventies dreamed (French language link) of making "Spider-Man" into a movie (the Hollywood studios were not convinced), the MGM old-school musical and operetta nut so in love with design that "half of the fashion photography of the past 40 years owes a debt" to him. Now, Alain Resnais' new work, just shown at the Venice Film Festival where his buddy David Lynch was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion, is a French film inspired by an English play with 54 short scenes, music by the X-Files's Mark Snow. (more inside)
You heard it here first (maybe)
IBM is laying off people in Burlington, Endicott, Rochester and Austin today. The presumptive reason is Indian outsourcing — some employees have posted that they were asked to train their replacements. Why hasn't this made the news?
Set Phasers on Mid-Life Crisis
Star Trek is forty today. The basics of the series are well-known, the cultural impact is worldwide, and the letter-writing campaign to get a third season out of the network has spawned thousands of imitators, though only a very few are ever successful. The show has spawned twenty-seven other series and five hundred movies. (Okay, maybe not that many.) Though exhorted by the original series' star to Get a life, the fans of Star Trek -- whether they call themselves Trekkies or Trekkers -- are without a doubt the nutbars inspiration for the joys and insanity of all media fandom which has followed. I am proud to name myself among them.
K'Plagh!
Hoop Around the Moon
A hoop, to draw the Earth's shadow: illustrating yesterday's partial lunar eclipse with a hoop and some creative camera positioning. Start here and work your way towards the painter. Via Spaceweather. More photos of the eclipse on Flickr.
You favorite musician's favorite Atari game sucks.
Friday Flash Fun: Play a Missile Command clone in a somewhat-hidden section of Ryan Adams' redesigned web site.
(So this is why he released so many albums last year...)
Synecdoche, NY
Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part. It's also the title of the directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, set to begin filming in Summer 2007. He's proven his writing chops and shown us his creative ingenuity with Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but this will mark the first film that will showcase his vision from page to screen. The story centers on an anguished playwright and several women in his life, and is set to star Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Williams.
These guys should have stayed in school.
America Weakly
America Weakly A RNC-produced fake newspaper from the future under a Democratic Congress. Breaking News: Impeachment Hearings Gavelled In. -- Where do I sign up?!
Bill Clinton foils plot for Disney to make Mickey Mouse tee vee
Sex baiting on craigslist
Andy Baio blows the lid off a disturbing new trend: sex baiting on craigslist. The story is pretty simple: man makes up fake Casual Encounters ad posing as a woman looking for a good time, then he publishes any and all responses in a public forum. All hell breaks loose.
What Are They Thinking?
Vegetative Patient 'Communicates' Sort of.
Andrew Tanenbaum is at it again!
The Votemaster has returned. Electoral-vote.com has been re-launched for the 2006 elections. The major focus is on the Senate but there is also some quick analysis of the hotter House races. For those who missed the phenomenon during the heady days of 2004, here is the Wikipedia article and previous MeFi discussion.
The Missing Diver Mystery
You know, for ferrets...
Lonelygirl15 is bogus
It's official. Lonelygirl15 of YouTube fame is fake - an elaborate narrative created via a Hollywood talent agency. More details of how the plot came apart here. Previously discussed here.
MapReduce: running large-scale computations in parallel
A look at an algorithm Google uses to run large-scale computations in parallel on thousands of cheap PCs: MapReduce. Via Joel on Software.
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