Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Glengarry dons a tux and speeds along the digital super-highway

- David Mamet, one of the great playwrights of the past thirty years, explains why he transformed from a brain-dead liberal to a real person.  Greg Gutfeld wonders if Mamet can professionally survive the blacklisting he will surely suffer from the Hollywood and east coast pseudo-intelligencia.  I think Mamet is so talented he will make it through this:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-03-11/news/why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal/



- How many hours of practice does it take to become an expert at something?  People who have studied this claim it's around 10,000 hours.  One man puts it to the test, using golf as his subject:
http://www.tampabay.com/features/can-a-complete-novice-become-a-golf-pro-with-10000-hours-of-practice/1159357




- Mankind nears the end of the Age of Speed.  If you think about it, this is kind of depressing (and significant.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704587004576242450234233350.html




- An interactive map and timeline of every war from the past 500 years.  Uber-fun:
http://www.conflicthistory.com/#/period/1918-1922




-A history of every football helmet, from every team you can think of:
http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/




- You have probably seen the 30 second version of this commercial on TV.  Clever commercial and very catchy tune.  This cat's gotta be the son of The Most Interesting Man in the World.  A link to the full commercial and the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we1c5uzYsTI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5h-LAvQDCQ



- Why humans are more related than you think.  Except for Michael Moore.  He has no genetic connection to anything carbon-based:
http://io9.com/#!5791530/why-humans-all-much-more-related-than-you-think



- What Monty Python taught me about the software industry:
http://www.softwarequalityconnection.com/2011/04/what-monty-python-taught-me-about-the-software-industry/



- Why blue-ray has failed to catch on.  Two words, "The Stream"
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/19/feeling-blue-blu-ray/




- Top 100 quotes from 30 Rock.  My favorite?  "It's after 6PM. What am I, a farmer?"  I want to go there.
http://www.buddytv.com/slideshows/30-rock/100-awesome-30-rock-quotes-58992.aspx

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Captain Kirk saves radiated government shut-down

- Tech firms purposely hire people with Asperger's syndrome.  This doesn't really surprise me.  I had several computer science classes with kids who clearly suffered from mild Asperger's syndrome:
http://gizmodo.com/#!5769261




- A few years ago I discovered the wonderful writings of Matt Labash.  I ignored his stuff (at my own peril) and now I am back reading to his articles.  Matt's writing style reminds me of Berkeley Breathed, PJ O'rourke, and Thomas Wolfe, although I don't consider Matt quite as strong a writer as any of those three.  I suspect my website readers have quite a bit in common with Matt.  Give him a try.  At a minimum, read his weekly faux-advice column.  You won't be disappointed:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/01/11/welcome-to-ask-matt-labash/




- How old is old?  Depends on where you live:
http://www.aging-online.com/how-old-is-old-depends-on-where-you-live




- Another article about humans living much longer lives.  Get use to me posting these articles.  I truly believe human-life spans will dramatically increase sometime in the next 100 years:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/who-wants-to-live-for-ever-a-scientific-breakthrough-could-mean-humans-live-for-hundreds-of-years-772418.html




- 1976 video with William Shatner explaining what a microprocessor is and why microprocessors are important.  Fun stuff:
http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2011/3/11/AT&T-Archives-Microworld




- What certain levels of radiation will do to you, and how much radiation do certain events/places create:
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/03/xkcd.jpg




- Never build a model train set of your home town in the basement.  Here's why:
http://xkcd.com/878/




- All-time domestic movie box-office, adjusted for inflation:
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr=2011&p=.htm




- Some of the major motion-picture studios want to stream movies to your television a mere sixty days after they have been released in the theaters, for $30.  Thirty bucks, at initial glance, seems like a lot of moolah, but let's think about it further.  It might be a bargain.  You don't have to drive to the movie theater.  You don't have to buy watered-down drinks or nasty junk food for outrageous prices.  You always have the best seat in the house, at your own house.  You don't have to put up with some annoying kid sitting behind you talking too much or kicking your seat.  You don't have to drive home after the movie.  It seems to me that movie theaters's days are numbered.  Kind of like the drive-in:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/09/theater-owners-ready-to-fight-over-30-60-day-window-vod-movies/




- Late last night house Republicans struck a deal with Obama and senate democrats to cut 39.8 billion from the 2011 federal budget, thus narrowly avoiding a government shut-down.  Being a die-hard, fiscal conservative, you would think I would be rightly pissed-off that Washington is only chopping off 39.8 billion from a budget that is trillions in the red.  Well, guess what?  I am proud of my representatives in Washington.  Democracy is a messy business.  Democracy is never easy, and it never goes how you want it to go.  Despite the tsunami sweep of Republicans into the house last November, the country is still a very polarized place.  There are still millions of liberals and progressives in this country who not only don't want to cut a dime from government spending, but actually want to increase it.  We need deep, deep cuts in our federal budget.  With the current political climate, and the current political make-up of the house and senate, it's impossible to get those cuts.  As representative-R Daniel Issa said last night, "“We control one-half of one-third of the government.  I think that when you come as far as we’ve come, $79 billion less than it would have been had we not taken control of one-half of one-third of the government, that’s pretty darn good.”


If house Republicans had pushed for much deeper cuts, one of two things likely would have happened:
1. The government shuts-down, and Republicans get blamed.  Exact same scenario as 1995.  It damaged Republicans in the 1996 elections, and it would have damage Republicans in the 2012 elections.  Obama owns the bully-pulpit. It's very easy for a president to turn congress into the bad guys.  It's easy because congress is a large group of people, with no true individual who commands as much media attention as the president, making it almost impossible to fight back against the president's individual attacks.  Clinton knew this in 1996, and took huge advantage of it.  Obama would have done the same.
2. Making monumental spending cuts right now will highly motivate liberals, progressives and independents to vote in 2012.  Too many Americans are completely dependent on the government cheese.  You quickly take that money away, and they will turn on you.  You want a balanced budget?  Putting democrats back in office will accomplish the opposite.  America is a slightly center-right country.  Elections are often decided by which side is more upset and more motivated to vote.  It's a shame democracy works like that.  I wish we could get massive cuts quickly passed, but we can't.  You want a government that can rapidly make changes?  Then you don't want a democracy.  Trust me, you don't want to try any other form of government.  Here's two articles explaining how we averted the government shut-down and who ultimately won:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52853_Page2.html
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/04/09/who-won-shutdown-showdown-it-wasnt-even-close