So why isn’t DC a state?
It’s interesting to consider that DC isn’t really a state, yet they have nearly as many residents in DC as there are in ALASKA.
Alaska: 670,053 (2006)
DC: 581,530 (2006)
So seriously, should DC be a state? Why or Why not?
Jennifer Connelly performs in a Clean Water Africa Public Service Announcement. Let me tell you it’s worth watching. Imagine you’re in New York. Now, what’s the nearest water source? Central Park? What’s the condition of the water there? It’s probably pretty dirty right? Have a look:
What gets me is, $20 gives single person clean water for 20 years. Now that’s in Africa. How much are you paying for drinkable water out of your faucet or in bottled form each year?
Newteevee.com reported a new Comcast program this week:
The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.
The entirety of Barak Obama’s 40-minute speech of 03/18/08:
via Metafilter:
One of my favorite albums of recent years is now available for the first time. And, it’s free. You Are Not Dead: A Guide to Modern Living by MeFi’s own Fake. {embedded Flash player and link to zipped mp3s} {torrent of better quality mp3s}
And there’s enough trip-hoppy mixage here to keep our resident DJs happy, I think.
About 4 years ago, with the UK launch of the new Battlestar Galactica, people were saying that the old network model of commercial programming was irrevocably broken — the new Galactica was co-sponsored by the UK’s SkyTV (a Rupert Murdoch subsidiary, like the US’ Fox Networks) and by some massive miscalculation, the US partner Universal Television’s SciFi Channel never thought that fans might redistribute the show on their own, by upoading DVR’ed episodes to the internet.
And so it went.
More recently, however, I’ve been seeing talk of The Long Tail and the new economics of media rental outfits like Netflix, Blockbuster and Gamefly that are capable of offering a larger inventory than the old brick-and-mortar stores [more] »
I’m thrilled that Obama once again has beaten Hillary Clinton in the primaries, but the question on everyone’s minds as we look forward to the rest of the race is: What is this “change” that Obama is talking about?
Please examine this video from the Lessig’08 Site, it’s enlightening if you didn’t have a concept for what specifically must happen for Obama to be able to do what needs doing, or for that matter what ANY of these candidates, Republican or Democrat needs to get this country fixed:
Hey now — this is just a plug for Amphy’s new spin-off site, Cineblog.us!
Sometime toward the beginning, middle or end of December, somebody got on the phone to me and convinced me to pack-up many of the reviews I wrote here on this site and in other places to package the thing as a dedicated filmblog.
Joining me on Cineblog will be our very own Woodstock.
So, expect to see fewer film reviews here on Amphy and more in that other place. Right now, there are more than 50 reviews up, spanning not only current releases, but a few favorites from the archaïc ’70’s and ’80’s, because it’s okay to like older movies, sometimes, even if they’re in black & white.
Since we have a cadre of usability and marketing people here on this site, this is also something of an experiment to see if all that book-learnin’ and internet marketing stuff amounts to anything.
The noise, the sturm und drang over whether or not global warming really exists manages to cover up the basic fact that it really doesn’t matter. We can’t afford not to act.
And true to the “what do you know, what can you prove” method so vividly brought to us by Randy Shilts in And the Band Played On, the video below gives a compelling, purely rational explanation for why it doesn’t matter what we can prove. The only thing he leaves out is the fact that in any response to global warming we control the pace and degree to which we respond which, I think, mitigates his Column A worst case scenario quite a bit. Total running time: 09:33
Do you find yourself wandering the mall, thousand yard stare firmly in place as you rack your brain trying to figure out what you can buy that will make your loved one happy this holiday season? The Story of Stuff takes a look at where all the stuff we buy comes from, how it’s marketed, how that marketing and our government keep us buying more stuff, and what the effect of buying, and discarding all that stuff is not just on us but on the planet and on people we’ve never met. Take a look at this trailer and ponder its message as we finish out the Christmas shopping season.
Though Richard Matheson’s novella has been adapted for the screen 3 times and served as the inspiration for George Romero and John Russo’s ‘Living Dead’ franchises, but this is the first time that a film has borne the original title. With each incarnation the story has played against its own specific cultural background:
1964’s ‘Last Man on Earth‘ starring Vincent Price, was quintessentially an Atomic-age Cold War story; Romero and Russo played their story as an American Civil Rights morality tale while a politically disenchanted Charleton Heston found fit to illustrate Matheson’s story as a reaction against the late ’60’s and early ’70’s culture of protest – against the Vietnam War, Voting Rights, Black Power and the rise of cults, such as Charles Manson’s ‘Family’ in 1971’s ‘Omega Man‘. [more] »
Here’s a great little documentary that I found out on the internets; It’s about ‘piracy’ and it uses and impingements. The interview subjects range from MPAA Chair Dan Glickman, to DangerMouse, to some Brazilian DJs who regard copying as an inherent component of their local music scene.
I have no quick and fast evaluations to make here, other than this is a repeat of the old argument 1984 argument about Hip-Hop and Rap music, when they were scratching and sampling and the Corporations were screaming about licensing rights. Are copies’ either important or necessary component of human culure? Is it unnatural to prohibit their transmission?
As it is, GCBC is better than a lot of ‘real’ documentaries I’ve seen recently, and with better production values.
Does anyone remember that George Bush/John Lennon mash-up of ‘Imagine‘ Imagine from about 2 years ago? Well, the artists behind it, Wax Audio, are back wit a new EP, Cut, Paste and Run.
C,P&R and their two previous releases are available from their website, available as single mp3 tracks or as downloadable zip archives.
(After 2 attempts, I’ve found that it might be beasier to d/l the C,P&R tracks individually)
I want so badly to work for a company with the sensibility to do something like this. Check out this amazing work done within the offices of Three RingsDesign, Inc., an Internet Games company in San Francisco, California. The company that made this happen for ThreeRings is a company from West Oakland, California, called Because We Can. How’s this for wild: It was all done for less than it would have been to outfit the whole office with typical cubicles bought from IKEA or elsewhere, and some of the employees got to design their own desks too.
This Film was an entirely happy surprise! ‘Man From Earth’ came out as an extremely limited release at a few festivals and a sneak preview in San Francisco. It is a science fiction film by its premise, but unlike every science-fiction film of the past 70 years, there are no action sequences and no special effects.
For those that don’t know, Jerome Bixby’s claim to fame are the teleplays he wrote for the original Star Trek back in the ’60’s and a couple that he wrote for Rod Serling’s original iteration of The Twilight Zone and a little story he wrote called “It’s a Good Life”. [more] »
Salon has announced Rhino records’ release of ‘The Brit Box’, an exhaustive compendium of British import music released between 1984 and 1999.
Were The Smiths ever a mainstream ‘pop’ indulgence? I suspect only as much as the pre-Goth Joy Division were…
The bankers have figured out how to market to the American ‘Art School Generation’ if there is such a thing.
Unfortunately for them, the target audience likely already has all of the originals in storage somewhere. [more] »
Take a look at http://www.thepeoples50million.org.uk/. It’s a massive Lottery designed to produce and support projects in and around the UK. However, a contest was recently held to identify what the next big project would be. The project to be chosen will hopefully inspire and hopefully change the world. Four finalist projects were decided in October of 2007 and “The Edge” was one of those projects.
Have a look at “The Edge” (http://www.theedge.org/). “The Edge” is an Arcology concept, although at first glance it’s not clear how much in terms of population it can support. It will certainly be a major spot for tourism, which it seems is a really big concept these days when a country stops doing a ton of manufacturing.
The massive building will have an “…oasis, desert, water gardens and underground chambers”. It’s worth investigating, but what will a structure like this really do? It might very well be the next great creative think tank for humanity, or it might just be a big ivory tower to bury our collective heads in the sand.
Thoughts?
“Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government.”
-Mitt Romney Religion Speech, Dec. 06, 2007
Do we? I’m not sure I agree. I really don’t think I’m taking things out of context when I ask for Mitt’s definition of Liberty, and who is doing the defining. I am concerned about this, given that he clearly has the support of Bush Sr., whom I do not trust. (He introduced Romney in the speech.)
We’re reacting now to a Conservative President and a Conservative-controlled, and manipulated Congress who took away our civil freedoms over the last seven years of the “W” presidency. The Patriot Act has not really truly helped us as a people and we’ve seen a corporate-influenced, religion-driven, doctrine-influencing politics, and our daily lives. The prevailing climate encourages a great deal of fear, hate and mistrust among our fellow Americans regardless of religion. Before support ANY presidential candidate, I have to hear that s/he will reverse what “W” has done. Not carry on business as usual.
I have read carefully what Romney is saying here in his speech, and listened to the inflections of his voice. I am still concerned. Romney has identified his “Christian” platform and, if elected, we can expect his administration to follow suit. Like Kennedy before him, he’s stressed that the leaders of his church won’t influence his decisions.
On the other hand, Romney seems to have a conviction that Religion has a place in our government. Romney is extending an olive branch to the religious right and inviting an erosion of the Church and State separation; he’s inviting them back to our schools, offering that Christmas trees and Menorahs be erected in public places, and safeguarding the monetary legend, “In God We Trust”.
Christianity being the dominant religion in America, I feel it already has too much influence. I don’t need God in my government, I need good people to enforce the laws that are already on the books.
(And I care very little how or who they worship in their private lives.)
During the years of the Reagan and Bush presidencies, it never seemed to me that religious fealty helped our Chief Executives to “do the right thing”.
Is a Christian doctrine appropriate for the White House? Clearly we’ve have a situation where our president has said time and again he’s following the will of God. He has expressed a belief that he does God’s will on earth.
Is that appropriate for our government? What does Romney feel God expects of him if he’s elected? Will Romney follow what he believes the Will of God is?
I’m not sure I got all my answers or any of my answers from Romney’s speech. Let’s hope we hear more. Personally, I’m still voting for a Democrat. I don’t see anything here to sway me, despite Romney’s rumored social liberal stance.
Interesting phone. It jingles.