Yup, that's a teaser poster for Toy Story 3, sho' 'nuff.The adventures of Woody and Buzz and their compatriots continues on June 18th, 2010.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The photographs of stormchaser Jim Reed
Jim Reed may have the most exciting job on the planet. He gets to capture images of intense meteorological events, like this photograph made less than 500 feet from a tornado...
Click here for more of Reed's pictures of wild weather taken across the United States.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Patrick Swayze has passed away
The very sad news breaking this hour that Patrick Swayze has died at age 57 following a long and hard struggle with pancreatic cancer.
Swayze was no doubt one of the more versatile actors of the past few decades. He shined in every told that he took (yeah even as a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar: a film that I will admit to having watched once and that was quite enough thank you). Most people will remember him from Dirty Dancing and Ghost. My personal favorite Patrick Swayze films are probably Red Dawn, Road House and Point Break: to those movies Swayze especially brought rare gravitas and charisma along with his abilities as an action-oriented actor. And though I never got to meet him, those who were honored to know him have reported that Swayze was nothing other than a fine gentleman and class act all around.
Thoughts and prayers going out to his family tonight.
Fifth INDIANA JONES movie... is REALLY happening?!
So sayeth Harrison Ford, adding that he's already getting in shape and that work on a new Indy movie has progressed further than most of us have suspected..."The story for the new 'Indiana Jones' is in the process of taking form," Ford told France's Le Figaro. "Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work. If the script is good, I'll be very happy to put the costume on again."Others may disagree, but I thought last year's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a fine addition to the Indy mythos. That and that it was as good a homage to Fifties B-movies as Raiders of the Lost Ark was a tribute to the Saturday serials of yesteryear. With that in mind, I'll gladly welcome another Indiana Jones movie (and maybe even one more if Ford is up to it :-)
The 20 most bizarre Craigslist ads
Pope hats? Needs woman to sit in bathtub of spaghetti? Autographed copies of Plato's Republic? They're on Craigslist bay-bee! (click here for the song by "Weird Al" Yankovic)No really, they are. Here are the twenty bizarriest Craigslist advertisements ever (or at least so far), including one for a duck mask ("Hey I got it on my big head, so it works that way") and another - from an Elon University student of all things - offering two bucks for delivery of a carton of orange juice.
Crystal Lee Sutton - inspiration for NORMA RAE - has passed away
It's a sad irony that late on Friday night this past weekend I wound up watching Norma Rae, the 1979 movie about a woman in a southern factory town who defies her employers by becoming a union organizer. It was on one of the channels coming in from my digital satellite service. I'd seen it plenty enough before, but this was the first time that I felt led to research the background of the film.And so it was that I learned the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton. And apart from the changed name, that really was her life that we saw portrayed by Sally Field in Norma Rae. Right down to how Sutton actually scrawled "UNION" on a piece of cardboard and brought the textile plant she worked at to a halt.
Sutton was from Burlington, North Carolina: just down the road from here. And that is where she died late last week following a battle with cancer. She was 68 years old.
Thoughts and prayers going out to her family.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Unbelievably screwy e-mails I've received today
Here are three e-mails from two different senders that landed in my inbox within a few hours of each other earlier this morning.
Here's the first one. Obviously it's a Nigerian scam e-mail, like the one about "RANKLE Jones The Golfer 'Film Production'" (that I'm still laughing about)...
DATE: 13 Sept 2009.Incidentally, the originating e-mail address is NOT from a FedEx-owned domain (but you probably already figured that out ;-)Dear customer,
You have a Package that is registered with us for shipping. However, thecontent is a Bank Draft worth is $886,000 USD (Eight Hundred and Eighty Six Thousand US Dollars).Reg .Number: P-01-402761625/Reg Date: 09/13/2009.
Your package is registered with us for mailing by your colleague who iscurrently undergoing survey project with NNPC (Nigeria National PetroleumCompany). We are sending you this email because your package is registered on aSpecial Order. What you have to do now, is to contact our Delivery Departmentfor immediate dispatch of your package to your residential address. Note: Assoon as our Delivery Team confirms your information, it will take three (3)working days (72Hrs) for your package to arrive at your designated destination.
For your information, Shipping charges as well as Insurance fees have been paidby your colleague.
However, the only payment you are to make is £210 GBP to the FedEx DeliveryDepartment being full payment for Customs Duty Certificate and Tariff. PleaseNote: All registered package with us have a time limitation and you are to meetup with this payment to facilitate immediate attention toward the delivery of your package. Note: Your colleague did not leave us with any further information.
We hope that you respond to us as soon as possible because if you fail torespond until the expiry date of the foremost package, we may refer the package to the British Commission for Welfare as the package do not have a return
address. Contact the delivery department (FedEx Ship Manager) with the details
given below:
Contact Person: Mr. Richard Raynor
Email: fedex.express_nig@w.cn
Tel: +2348066879532.
Kindly complete the below form. This is mandatory to reconfirm your Postal address for clarification.
FULL NAMES:
TELEPHONE:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
Zip/Postal code:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
As soon as your details are received, our delivery team will give you the necessary payment procedure for Customs Duty Certificate and Tariff. As soon as they confirm your payment of £210 GBP USD .they shall immediately dispatch your package to the designated address with the attach Tracking Number. It usually takes 72 Hours being an express delivery service.
Ensure to contact the delivery department with the email address and ensure to fill the above form as well to enable successful reconfirmation.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs. .Mary Maxwell
FedEx Management Team.
All rights reserved. © 1996-2009 FedEx.
And then later on in the morning the following two e-mails arrived within minutes of each other. I'm going to include the address that they came from, because whoever bl1334@cs.com is, he/she/it made sure to include that address within the text of each message...
Subject: you are definitely!! doing the work of SATAN.At first glance I'm tempted to say that BL1334@cs.com sounds like a member of Johnny Robertson's cult, especially since he/she is using words like "debate" etc. But I kinda doubt it now: this person's spelling and grammar is much too good. So I'm probably going to chalk this up as an attempt at parody. But if it's not, remember: You are putting your eternal soul in peril if you "watch VH1, George Lucas's magazine" (so far as I know the only magazine that George Lucas has anything close to direct input on might be Edutopia, which is for teachers and parents of children in school... parse that as you will).
BL1334@cs.com to me
show details 11:53 AM (52 minutes ago)I will not run from a BIBLICAL debate. bl1334@cs.com
Subject: (no subject)
BL1334@cs.com to me
show details 11:57 AM (51 minutes ago)A christian should never watch VH1, George Lucas`s magazine bl1334@cs.com
If anything else unintentionally hilarious comes in today, I'll just amend this post as needed :-)
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Algae-powered car attempting to cross America on 25 gallons of fuel
The Algaeus (pictured at right) is said to be the world's first fuel-powered vehicle running on algae. The other notable components of the Algaeus are a nickel metal hydride battery and an electrical plug. There are no other modifications made to its gasoline engine. It's currently attempting to cross the United States from coast to coast... on just 25 gallons of fuel!Friday, September 11, 2009
Scientists levitate mouse with magnets
Sounds like a Marvel Comic character in the making, doesn't it?
Scientists working for NASA have created a device which uses magnetic fields to levitate small animals (in this case, a three-week old mouse) in an effort to simulate and study various amounts of gravity.
The fourth PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie has a title...
Johnny Depp will set sail again as Captain Jack Sparrow - in my opinion the most delightfully original character of American cinema of at least the past decade - in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Production begins this coming spring with a release date of summer 2011.Read more here, mates!
Chris Knight's Somewhat Sacrilegious Theological Thought O' The Day! (patent pending)
Christian denominations are like all families: go back far enough in the history of each, and you'll find a relative who once wore a rope for a necktie.
Something I've never been able to come up with words for
I'll just let this image and the circumstance surrounding its existence speak for itself.
This is the opening shot of the third-from-last scene of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. This shot and the ensuing dialogue between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu and Yoda are dominated by a brilliant and beautiful sunset, which poignantly echoes the darkness that is now falling across the galaxy...
According to the original online annotations for the Star Wars Episode II DVD on StarWars.com, the background plate in this scene was a photograph made of the Tokyo skyline at sunset.
And this is a photograph that was taken on September 11th, 2001.
If you figure the time zone difference, the dominant element of this pivotal scene in the Star Wars saga was taken from the real world, at about the very same moment that New York City was coming under attack thousands of miles away.
Then again, maybe I don't need to come up with words. Some things... just seem to speak plenty enough on their own.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Pigeons much faster than Internet in South Africa
Telkom is the largest provider of Internet service in the country of South Africa. You'd think that data delivery would be especially speedy over its network, right?Well, Unlimited IT wasn't satisfied. So on Wednesday it conducted an experiment: using an 11-month old carrier pigeon to send data from the company's office near Pietermaritzburg to the city of Durban, 50 miles away. A data card was strapped to the pigeon's leg and sent on its way. As Winston the pigeon was flying out the window, Unlimited IT began transmitting the same data via the Internet to the Durban location.
Winston the pigeon arrived 1 hour and 8 minutes later. The data was downloaded upon arrival. The complete transfer took 2 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds.
By that point, Telkom had only delivered four percent of the same data!
(I don't think my old 14.4 modem was that slow...)
Just the facts: Joe Friday and Bill Gannon lay it down for Obama
Apart from splicing-in the footage of President Barack Obama, this scene is exactly as it was when it first ran on Dragnet. Joe Friday and Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, respectively) give Obama the 411 on health care "reform" and socialism in general...
That has to be one of the better politically-oriented videos that I've ever seen on YouTube. Amazing how a scene from a television series more than forty years ago can be more relevant than ever.
Darn you Steve Jobs!
Catch me anywhere out and about, and chances are I've got my iPod classic hanging on my belt. It's the first iPod I've ever owned, the model that came out two years ago with the 80 gigabyte hard drive. And yesterday was the annual press event where Apple rolls out the newest iPod models. I was expecting to not update to anything new until sometime next year, when I figured that flash storage will finally catch up to the capacity I demand that's currently only on hard drive. And that might happen then, since the latest iPod touch now maxes out at 64 gigs of flash memory (I'd way love to see at least that much on an iPod classic design).Then I saw the 5th generation of iPod nano.
And I am now lusting for one terribly.
FM radio (with Live Pause - sorta like audio DVR - and iTunes Tagging). Built-in voice recording capability. And... a video camera with 376 x 240 resolution.
I could literally not run out of neat ideas to try with this gimmick. All of them legal, of course!
(I can see it now: some pervert using an iPod nano to discreetly "look up" the skirts of unsuspecting ladies. Or even more likely: a certain cult that this blog has been monitoring and chronicling for awhile now that is already ambushing and hurting innocent people with hidden video cameras.)
The 16 GB iPod nano is going for only $179. Not a bad deal at all! So I'll probably be heading to that new Apple Store in Greensboro sometime soon: second visit ever, but first with a purchase in mind.
Darn you Steve Jobs!! I was going to wait until next year to get a new iPod! And you had to make go and make it too better already! :-)
A more realistic political spectrum
One of the people that in the long run has most influenced and impacted my political beliefs is, without a doubt, Matt Mittan: host of the extremely popular show Take A Stand! on the radio and streaming on the Internet every Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. I count myself as a very fortunate person for getting to work under Matt when he was the editor of The Asheville Tribune. And I'll never forget the first time I came into his office and he showed me what his weekly newsmagazine was all about...
"Most people think of the political spectrum like this," he said, drawing a horizontal line on a dry erase board and labeling the ends "liberal" and "conservative". "But that's wrong," Matt went on. "It's really like this!" And he then drew another line: this one going up and down, with the state/government at the top and the individual at the bottom.
"It's really about the state having the power versus the one person having the power." And Matt continued to talk about how at one far end there is totalitarianism and fascism, and at the other wild extreme there is total anarchy.
And that's when I realized, for the very first time in my life, that the whole "conservative and liberal" thing is a con job. It's a fraud, that regardless of which "party" is in control of Washington or the states its only real purpose is to give more and more power to government. I don't want a totalitarian state and neither do I desire a completely lawless land. But in between, Matt suggested, there can indeed be a "happy medium" that upholds personal liberty while avoiding reckless abandon.
That's never going to be a cut-and-dried thing. But ever since then I have come to still believe in it enough to pursue it, with whatever talents and devices I might ever have on hand. Matt opened my eyes wider than he ever knew that day, and I've been praying since that others might come to realize it as well on their own.
Maybe that's starting to finally happen. David G. Muller Jr. has written an article for American Thinker called Rethinking the Political Spectrum, in which he also argues that the traditional "conservative versus liberal" paradigm is outdated and horribly flawed. And while he doesn't abandon the "left/right" model, Muller's model is quite similar to what Matt Mittan showed me in 2000...
Personally, I think this is a much greater and more accurate take on modern politics. It squarely places both liberalism and conservatism as less free mindsets than libertarianism: a school of thought which is enjoying considerable growth even if the party bearing its name has not of late. However, I would extend this range a bit further to the right and put "anarchy" on that fringe. In my mind, that is the ideal: personal liberty that stops short of all-out chaos. "Voluntary order", as V puts it in the graphic novel V for Vendetta.
Regardless of minor details, this is still a much better portrait of political reality than is the tired and obsolete version that most of our politicians and media and too many businesses (and more than a few religious folks) expect us to buy into.
But then: most of them have a vested interest in keeping the status quo going, aye?
Motivation: A requisite for useful artificial intelligence?
Edward Boyden has a fascinating essay at MIT's Technology Review website in which he describes a problem that could possibly arise from super-smart artificial intelligence. The problem, Boyden notes, is motivation: even with all of that intelligence and computational, how does a possibly sentient computer become moved to utilize that power?
Indeed, a really advanced intelligence, improperly motivated, might realize the impermanence of all things, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence, concluding that inventing an even smarter machine is pointless. (A corollary of this thinking might explain why we haven't found extraterrestrial life yet: intelligences on the cusp of achieving interstellar travel might be prone to thinking that with the galaxies boiling away in just 1019 years, it might be better just to stay home and watch TV.) Thus, if one is trying to build an intelligent machine capable of devising more intelligent machines, it is important to find a way to build in not only motivation, but motivation amplification--the continued desire to build in self-sustaining motivation, as intelligence amplifies. If such motivation is to be possessed by future generations of intelligence--meta-motivation, as it were--then it's important to discover these principles now.A second possibility that Boyden theorizes is that a strong AI might simply become overwhelmed by its own decision-making process and become locked-up from contemplating factors and uncertainties (which sounds a lot like the "rampancy" that eventually afflicts AIs in the Halo franchise).
It's a very deep and most intriguing read about what may or may not be waiting for us around the corner from the realm of computers and neuroscience. Click here and partake of the article... if you think your brains can handle it :-)
