Thursday, May 08, 2008
Sand is BeautifulCheck out these microscopic shots of common sand. Each grain is a work of natural art.
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Top Ten Jackie Chan Fights
I agree with his pick of #1. Dragons Forever has an amazing climactic fight scene.
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
YepI disagree with the sentiment about Obama being the best choice, however. There is no good choice this time. But McCain has a slightly better track record.
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Blame the Censors
When I think back on my life and wonder what lead me to want to be a writer or feel the way I do about certain things, I think about certain turning points in my childhood. One thing I clearly remember was something that happened in the mid 1960s. I was just a little kid then and a big fan of Saturday morning cartoons. Especially Jonny Quest, the Herculoids and some other action shows.
As a consequence of the Vietnam War, a bunch of lefty parents decided that kids should not be exposed to violence on television and the culture, because they claimed boys would grow up to be war-like. So they pressured toy makers to limit or ban toy guns. And they managed to get “violent cartoons” off the air (in other words, the ones I liked) to be replaced by tame, lame crap such as this junk. I was so offended by this junk, I raged about the injustice of these handful of people effecting the stuff I loved.
How could a small group of people have so much power over other people’s interests? That was my first lesson in the power of pressure groups.
I was only 11 in 1968, but I can tell you it pissed me off. So much so that to this day I have a deep abiding dislike for censors and political correctness.
Whatever happens to you as a kid has an effect on your later life. And even though I have outgrown those cartoons of my youth (I have checked them out on Boomerang and I still think they are way, way more imaginative and entertaining than that 1968 drivel and much of what followed), I am still dedicated to opposing the forces of repression. And that includes those who try to tell people what they should think, by banning what they can see, read or watch. The actions of those self righteous parent groups in the 60s made me a libertarian at age 11.
I will keep fighting their ilk until the day die.
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Betty Page (1950)
This was considered risque back then.
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
American Idol: Top 4Wow. It’s a no brainer who should go this week. I’ve never seen someone flame out as badly as Jason Castro on this show. His incoherent version of “I Shot the Sherrif” (which was about growing pot and having the cops on your case--I wonder why he picked that one. 
) was so freaking bad I couldn’t wait to hear Randy and Simon tear into him. And his version of Mr Tambourine man was equally a mess. If he wasn’t high, he should have been. That was a disaster.
David Cook started off with Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” and I knew the what the judges were going to say when he finished because I felt it too. It was kind of phoned in. But his version of the Who’s Baba O’Riley was decent and won him praise,.
Syesha Mercado did a great “Proud Mary” cover, but I knew Simon would compare her to Tina Turner. I think Tina would have approved, even if Simon didn’t. She was good. Her belted out version of “A Change is Gonna Come” appealed to the Audience and Paula (Simon, too), but I agree with Randy. That song was not made for shouting. It’s a smooth, soulful tune.
Finally David A, the teacher’s pet, won the day. Though I have to confess he is boring me now. I almost know how he’s going to interpret each song and while he sings well, it’s too aimed at what the judges want rather than being a unique personal performance. He reminds me of those kids in school who always did it the way the teacher wanted. As if to get their approval. With his dad in the audience each show, it seems he has been groomed for this contest and it does not feel organic at all. He wil probably win, but I don’t really care.
At this point I would rather see David Cook win. Syesha isn’t quite there, but she has shown the determination to win. Jason is a lot cause. If he stays it will only be because he has more fans than Syesha.
UPDATE: Jason got the axe. No surprise. TMZ claims he is saying “Don’t Vote” in this clip. It sure did seem like he didn’t want to kep going. Maybe the process and media attention intimidated him.
I turned off my TV when he started to play his exit song. Once was enough.
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Scam of the Day
In this NBC video, they try to sell us on the idea that arctic ice is melting. Except there are penguins in the videos. That’s ANTarctica. The South Pole. And it’s seasonal that ice melts at the poles at certain times of the year. Around the time scamsters like this try to sell us Global Warming hype.
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Iron Man/Nick Fury
Marvel has announced two Avengers films, the first introduces Captain America, probably showing him being revived from the ice. Followed by his own movie. So this may be setting that up.
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Zeppy
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Freenomics
The birth of a new economic system? Some are arguing that free may be the new price for many goods.
Anderson’s freeconomics thesis is that more and more goods and services are being provided for free and that those businesses that fail to follow suit are likely to go to the wall. “As much as we complain about how expensive things are getting, we’re surrounded by forces that are making them cheaper,” Anderson wrote in a recent article that will form the basis of a book called Free, to be published next year. “Forty years ago, charity was dominated by clothing drives for the poor. Now you can get a T-shirt for less than the price of a cup of coffee, thanks to China and global sourcing. So too for toys, gadgets and commodities of every sort. Even cocaine has pretty much never been cheaper (globalisation works in mysterious ways).”
But freeconomics is hardly a deluded eulogy to global capitalism. Rather, Anderson’s idea is that the internet, by reducing marginal costs, encourages businesses to make their money by offering free goods or services to an extent we have not witnessed before. And that this change in supply alters the nature of demand: free services such as Craigslist, Skype, Freeview, Wikipedia and Google have created a generation that doesn’t just resent paying, but expects stuff to be free. This is the generation that, for example, paid nothing (or next to nothing) for Radiohead’s new album and got Prince’s last CD free with the Mail on Sunday. This is the generation that doesn’t walk into HMV like losers and shell out £15 for a new album, but downloads it for free from one of the many (often legally dubious) filesharing websites.
Making things to where you name the price, or “donation” as the case may be, is a novel concept which is becoming more common. It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.
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