Cinematic Titanic Lives!

The first episode is available. Enjoy!

Consider again, that dot...

Today is the 11th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death.



I want "The Pale Blue Dot" to be read at my funeral.

World Magic Awards

When I turned on the TV tonight, I found that the World Magic Awards were on, and half over. I have no specific comments except to pose the following question: Why do stage illusions need to be so needlessly complex? Like... almost comically so. "There's this thing. And then we do this, and this, and this, and, look, still empty! And now we shoot flame throwers at it and take a chainsaw to it and hit it with some sledgehammers and, TADA!" I like a simple presentation, and I think that most people are with me on this.

In unrelated news, and purposefully tucked secretly at the bottom of this post, I've turned to the dark side and registered a WoW account. Having now done my part to immanentize the coming zombie apocalypse, I will see you all in hell.

The Humdinger Windbelt.

The Humdinger Windbelt is a device that utilizes the property of things to flutter in the wind (things like laundry lines and bridges) to generate power. It's a type of wind generator that doesn't use turbines. (I think I remember reading in a Bucky Fuller book his assertion that we need to improve efficiency by moving away from rotating mechanisms.) The Humdinger website claims at least an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency over current micro-turbines. I think it's super cool and eagerly await independent confirmation by way of the soon-to-be-released developer kits.

Cinematic Titanic has landed (at ILM).

By way of the Star Wars Blog comes a review of the recent Cinematic Titanic live-action premiere at Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco. The review is positive. I'm really looking forward to the release of the pilot.

In related news, Slashdot reports that watching movies in groups is more fun.

Cinematic Titanic update

I got my first email through the Cinematic Titanic mailing list today. It included a poll to gauge the interests of those who are on the email list as well as assurances that the first installment is on its way. Things I learned from the poll include:

• There might be a new release every month.
• You might be able to get it in a ridiculous number of formats (DVD, flash viewer, download, iPod)
• The actual film of the month might be a secret until you actually watch. (So you don't know what you're getting until you fire it up.)
• There might be a yearly subscription option.
• And you should join the mailing list because there might be neato freebie extras.
  

For those of you who like toys...

And who among us does not like toys?

I direct your attention to the A.V. Club "Cheap Toy Round-Up 2007."

I need to track myself down a "Stretchghetti & Critters" for $1, which I will leave unopened and tuck away somewhere so that 10 years down the road it will bring me dividends of joy through the magical speechlessness of rediscovered crap that I spent $1 because it was funny. Dividends of joy!

Or, you know, I could spend my $1 on a soda. Which will pay off in dividends of tooth decay.

Nothing new under the sun...

Uri Geller is claiming that he started blurting out dates when challenged by Criss Angel to reveal the contents of one of two sealed envelopes by psychic means on live television. He furthermore claims to have been close to revealing the contents of one of the envelopes.

Unfortunately the whole challenge was, you know, broadcast live and is now available online for everyone to see. And I certainly didn't notice Geller "blurting out dates" when I watched it.

Also, there's another envelope... funny how he nearly divined the contents of the one that he now knows the contents of... (an index card with "911" written on it)

What about envelope #2? I won't hold my breath.

Do schools kill creativity?

Another TED talk today. I'm a sucker for TED talks, I guess.

Ken Robinson discusses the topic of "Do schools kill creativity?" There are a lot of great ideas in here. Enjoy.

Did you see Highlander 2?

If so, I'm sorry. But remember how they put a shell around the Earth in order to protect it from the sun? Well scientist David Keith pretty much proposed just that at his TED talk. He even name drops an alien invasion. (Of immortals from Zeist?)



"This improved science and engineering will, whether we like it or not, give us more and more leverage to affect the planet, to control the planet, to give us weather and climate control. Not because we plan it, not because we want it, just because science delivers it to us bit by bit with better knowledge of the way the system works and better engineering tools to affect it." -David Keith

Not a Ninja: Chung Ling Soo.

Chung Ling Soo was a famous stage magician in the early part of last century. His name was actually William Robinson, but he took the stage name Chung Ling Soo and started dressing "Oriental" and only speaking in Oriental-sounding nonsense words while in public to the point that, despite his huge success as Chung Ling Soo, very few people knew that he was actually just a white guy in a costume and some makeup.

His ability to pull that off makes him sound kind of like a ninja.

But ninjas don't get shot while trying to do the bullet catch trick.

Only Ozymandias can actually catch bullets. (And live.)

Chung Ling Soo was definitely not a ninja.