How To Report the News

Perfect.

Orson Welles on Privacy (55 Years Ago)

An excellent and prescient view of privacy by the man, Orson Welles. Whole transcript here. If you have heard Welles speak, try to read it with his voice in mind...it's great.
Excerpt:

Think of all of those forms we have to fill out, for example, you know what I mean, by police forms, we get them in hotels, on frontiers, in every country all over the world we’re asked, state your sex, male or female, for example. Well obviously, I’m a male, I’m a man, why should I have to answer that? State your race and religion in block letters; well, now why should I have to confide my religion to the police? Frankly, I don’t think anybody’s race is anybody’s business. I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that’s an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal...

Especially timely with all the TSA talk going around. Basically, I would have to agree with Welles here. Government should protect the free citizen, not chase the offenders of that freedom. Government knows how to punish the criminal, but it still does not know what to do with the free man.

Time to Fire the TSA

Joel Johnson from Gizmodo writes a piece about the failed TSA experiment and why it needs to go.
Excerpt:

There is no other way to interpret it: The TSA is saying clearly that they can't prevent terrorists from getting explosives on airplanes, but by god, they'll make sure those planes only explode when the TSA says it's okay.

I want our government to prevent terrorism and to make flights safer. But we are spending billions of dollars and man-hours to fight a threat that is less likely to kill a traveler than being struck by lightning. In the last decade, according to statistician Nate Silver, there has been "one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown [the] equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune." (Sadly, this does mean that in the future we can expect one out of every two round-trip flights to Neptune to be hijacked.)

I have to say I agree. I fly to random places, and I've been through the sketchiest security checkpoints to ridiculous ones (I misplaced my Swiss Army knife into my carry-on instead of checking it in, got through security just fine, but try flying through Miami right after 9/11--every bag we packed was thoroughly checked). I have never felt safer or unsafe, mostly inconvenienced, annoyed, and most importantly, misled. TSA wants passengers to feel safe--this is its whole charade. But what happens when passengers feel safe, but really aren't safe?
If you haven't checked out some of my older postings on the topic, there's some interesting stuff in them (also included are links to the original articles which prompted my postings):
-Our Security in the Homeland
--The Things He Carried (Atlantic)
-Tuesday Update Strikes Back!
--TSA "behavior detection" is wrong more than 99 percent of the time (BoingBoing)

It doesn't work. Let's move on.

Stem Cells Cure Blind Man

Welcome future.
Can I just shout two somethings right now? First, stem cells. STEM CELLS! Second, isn't it quite interesting that this happened in England? IN ENGLAND you blimey scoundrels who paint state-run medicine as the antithesis to innovation. Just saying.
UPDATE: I want to clarify that I'm not blatantly correlating state-run health-care with innovation, especially in the research field--I'm merely trying to silence the claim that a single-payer system would *inhibit* innovation. And while we're all free to draw our own conclusions, I would like note that in my observations, the US hasn't produced or furthered a new technology in health-care that has been extremely notable in a long time.

Climate Change, Evolution, and What We Sound Like

It's always an interesting task to me to characterize a language. Example: what does Xhosa sound like to you? (Clicky?) Finnish? (guttural perhaps?) Estonian? (drunken finnish)
I think I find it interesting because Albanian initially sounded (I think, if my memory isn't failing me) very "k-ish." Haha, I don't know if that makes sense, but I heard lots of "kuhs" and "chuhs" in the language I couldn't understand. But now that I can speak it, I can't hear what I used to. Instead, I hear words and things and objects and actions (if you speak another language, perhaps that makes sense to you?)
So, it was to my absolute delight to hear what English might sound like to foreigners in this uncanny and delightful Italian video from the 70s. The first time I heard this, my mind WAS trying to understand it, and not to mention that this video is just plain hot:


To wrap up, I read two AMAZING articles: one on evolution/human history, and one on climate change (it's actually more about making a change, but climate change is the centerpiece). I thought they were well written and in general represented a viewpoint that I highly agree with (especially about making a change) and I thought I'd share it all with you! They're very fantastic and not too long. Here are some excerpts:

See, humans today may look pretty different from one another but, genetically speaking, there's not much diversity at all within our species. In fact, chimpanzees, which look pretty much the same from one individual to the next, are much more genetically diverse than we are. To scientists, that suggests that humans have come through a genetic bottleneck--a point where our numbers shrunk dramatically, and a relatively small population had to rebuild the species.

"How Shellfish Save the Human Race" - BoingBoing

But if you look at the impact of those emissions reductions in the scope of the world, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I make the decision not to fly. That's not gonna stop the plane. The plane's still flying. Even if the ski industry eliminated all our emissions, we're still out of business by 2050 or 2100 because of the climate.
So what do you do? You gotta fix the whole system.
...
They want me to do rinky dink stuff like bamboo foors and recycling, and I tell them it doesn't matter, that their personal actions don't matter because the problem's too big. That pisses people off — they get mad at me and say every little bit helps. But every little bit doesn't help because the problem's too big. If everyone who was so inclined did every little thing from the Prius to the bulb, we still wouldn't solve this problem. It's gotta be a global mandate, not a voluntary thing. My day is full of people getting furious at me. Last week I had to send the FBI some death threats I was getting about calling the governor of Utah willfully ignorant on climate. This is war. This is a combat situation. and it's gonna hurt people the way wars hurt people. I like to say, we're gonna have to break things and hurt people to make this happen. Just being straightorward and truthful about these things instead of glossing and deluding people is incredibly valuable.
...
What if I said, you know what, I can't justify being here at this five star hotel. I'm gonna go to the peace corps and work on putting photovoltaic installations in Samoa. What have I done? I've essentially made myself powerless. I've changed this from being about climate to being about me personally.

"What a Luxury Ski Resort is Doing to Solve Climate Change" - BoingBoing

And Finals Were Done

Yes. I have finally finished the semester from Hell. 19 credit hours compressed into 3 days a week. Major ugh. But I'm done, and I screamed and yelled at the top of my lungs the whole car ride home from my last final.
I got home, and I was shaking because I was so relieved, so, naturally, I came to find a most fantastic video. It's so interesting and makes me feel insignificant and yet at the same time, a wielder of fantastic power. Take a look. (Turn on HD and fullscreen this baby!)

Reading is fun!

Beautiful!

Cirque du Soleil...

...is obviously something I've GOT to check out someday...

The Magic of H20

Makes complete sense, but it's still quite neat. This is probably the best (on most non-cliche) use of high-speed photography I've ever seen.

History of Male Friendship

I ran across this today, and I have to agree with many of the ideas presented. As I was working yesterday, facilitating a distance education class in social work, this very idea was presented, so I figured the double contact with the subject was a good indicator that I should share. First a little intro:

...men used to enjoy much closer bonds with each other than they do today. In the 19th century, men felt completely free show their buddies physical affection and tell their friends just how much they meant to them without any fear of being called a “fag.” It was only in the first half of the 20th century, when homosexuality started being analyzed, written about, and denounced, that men started to feel self-conscious about whether or not their actions might be construed as being “gay.” Some modern men still can’t get emotionally or physically close to other men because they don’t want others to think they’re a “homo.”
No matter your stance on the morality of homosexuality, men today should feel secure enough in their sexuality not to care if they come off as “gay” to others.

(Emphasis mine. The actual "History of Male Friendship" article can be found here.)
It's interesting to me that in this author's examination, an emphasis is placed on the American male friendship. I have to concur. From my experiences abroad (which might be construed as limited), it almost seems as if Americana represents a backward culture of fear. Perhaps other cultures have never allowed this analysis of homosexuality, perhaps these cultures have already plowed through it. I just don't know...any thoughts?

Improv Anywhere: Lunch, the musical

I love Improv Anywhere. I also really respect what they do. This time they've gone above and beyond, and they even got some awesome NBC equipment to help them. Check it out:


[via Gizmodo]

Tip for the Week

Just read this tip, which I think is most fantastic.

A simple tweezer session might free your hands of wood slivers, but sometimes they're just too tiny, or too many, to try and remove with micro-surgery. If you're fiending for a fix, try applying some glue to the afflicted skin, then peel it off to take the splinters with it. That's one of the more powerful splinter fixes, but you might be able to get away with a banana peel or bath and pumice stone to pull out those ugly little remainders of your latest wood project.

[via Lifehacker]

Sigur Rós - Glósóli

Just came across this. It is beautiful. Absolutely up there with my favorite music videos.

Friends

I love my friends, and I feel like I'm very bad at expressing my gratitude and appreciation for them. I started thinking of them the other day, and to my comedic delight (and surprise), I realized that a great majority of my friends' names are either nouns themselves or homophones of nouns (obviously not proper nouns...that would make this whole post stupid)...check it out:
Chase (a chase)
Lance (like for skewering people)
Max (this is for the math geeks...a max, as in a local or global max)
Brad (a brad, you know, for paper)
Abby (an abbey)
Phil (it works better as a verb, but fill is also a noun)
Mike (mic - short for microphone!)
Mat (self-explanatory)
Derek (oil-derrick anyone?)
Jon (haha...a john)
...even Albanians!
Stela (actually means star in Italian, so stretchy, but whatev)

Anyway, kinda crazy, but funny, I thought...

Italian Motorcycle Display

This is exactly what the great neo-realist films remind me of...I'm surprised I haven't seen this as a scene in one of them...

A Fantastic Look at Marriage and Divorce Trends in the US

Pew Research Center has released a very interesting interactive map. What intrigued me most was to see that the average divorce rate in the country hovers around 9-12%. I had imagined it to be much higher with all the talk of the "alarming" number of divorces happening nowadays...

Monday Update!

So, it looks like Lance and I made it to New York without any problems. I hope you all had a few laughs reading the tweets we put up. It was a long drive, but very doable. Maybe I'll do it again soon, now that I have even more reasons to come out this way!
We'll have some good times here in NY, and I'll be back to Salt Lake on Wednesday night. We're just waiting a for the girls to return before we spend our Columbus Day in Manhattan.
There's been a lot of stuff in the past few weeks that I've been meaning to post, and I figure while I'm waiting here, I should get them out.
First of all, tech excitement: Google Wave. What is Wave? It's a revolution of some sort. Check this short video out:


This is probably one of my favorite photographs and one of my most favorite art projects I've seen in a long while. How do you photograph a redwood tree, and make it look good? Plenty of issues involved, although most are alleviated with the same techniques used for architecture photography. The biggest problem though, is the close proximity of other trees. Here's how one guy is doing it, check it out: Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever. And speaking of photography...digital still cameras are making a wave in the motion picture industry. (A Canon 5d Mk II was the primary camera used in this doc...if that doesn't mean anything to you, I'm sorry.) Also, don't miss the hardest photos to capture in nature.

For those who liked The Beatles: Rock Band video I posted a while back, this is also a must-see. All about the artwork behind the game. More videos too!!!

Time Telescope- I'm in an optics class right now, so this is fantastically interesting to me: Cornell researchers have developed a "time telescope." I quote:

Using the method, they were able to shift a 24-bit light pulse from 2.5 nanoseconds to 92 picoseconds in length without losing any information -- delivering the it to its destination 27 times faster than traditional fiber optics.

This is absolutely incredible. (And no, it does NOT mean that the info was traveling faster than light, Lance and Max.) Along similar lines, NASA is also innovating existing tech. NASA's always wanted 3d printers to develop: it's cheaper to create spare parts in space by printing them, rather than shipping, but until recently, the process has still be kinda sketchy (although there has been some great successes in current 3d printing, like printing a usable handcuff key). NASA, however has now developed an electron-beam printer, which would revolutionize manufacturing--even here on Earth:

Normally an aircraft builder might start with a 6,000-pound block of titanium and machine it down to a 300-pound part, leaving 5,700 pounds of material that needs to be recycled and using several thousand gallons of cutting fluid used in the process.
With EBF3 you can build up the same part using only 350 pounds of titanium and machine away just 50 pounds to get the part into its final configuration. And the EBF3 process uses much less electricity to create the same part.

How's that for green innovation?
And don't forget the Best of Hubble!

If you like documentaries, you should check out SnagFilms. You will definitely find something you should watch! If you don't like documentaries, you're crazy. And regardless of whether you like or not, everyone who hasn't seen Man On Wire, had better.

Here's a great article about how we can make warfare...a little less deadly. I'm a very strong advocate of peace, if you know me, but I also understand that war is, regrettably, sometimes unavoidable. However, there's no reason why this can't be our first option, instead of throwing billions of dollars of munitions, killing millions of people.

And finally, for my friends who are system admins or system supporters or anyone who likes to have a lot of digital tools with them at all times: NirSoft Launcher. Check it out.

Other random stuff:
Minimalist Movie Posters
Hammer v. Feather on Moon
Cardboard Sculptures of Media Machines
Shepherd Fairey and Creative Commons

It's a lot, but I've been a lazy poster this semester!!!

CCTV

No, it doesn't stand for closed-circuit television--although I find much humor in the acronym. Central China Television has created an awesome little ad. It's nice to see some creativity thrive in socialistic countries, proves some of the critics wrong.
Plus, it's good to see Chinese CGI used as CGI, and not substituted for the real thing.

TED this week

My favorite TEDTalks from the week:

Where did the 70s go?

I miss straight-up entertainment. And disco. And hippies. And...funny thing, I never even lived it!

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