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Thursday, March 30 2000

Violence is Part of the Dance

AP story - Bill Clinton says that despite ending in death, American Beauty "was an anti-violence movie."

Salon article - Alan Ball, who wrote the screenplay, explains that the plastic bag scene - film of a plastic bag floating in the wind - was beautiful to him (some critics took the drug-dealer's appreciation of the plastic bag's beauty as a sign of insanity in the character).

Recall that in the movie itself, the character who brings us the plastic bag scene is also the character that finds great beauty in (someone else's) violent death. It's not an anti-violence movie. If there's a message to the movie (and there is), Russ Spencer gets it right in the Salon article:

"...fate does what it wants with us, and even if we are going around in circles on a dirty street, ultimately, if seen from the outside, there is a beauty in our little dance."

Violence is part of the dance.

Discovering Other Planets...

According to an article at the San Jose Mercury News, planets about the size of Saturn (about 100 times the mass of Earth) are being discovered by new telescopes and analysis techniques (previously, it was hard to find anything less than the size of Jupiter, about 318 times Earth's mass). Contrary to expectations, scientists are not yet finding solar systems like our own - in which planets have somewhat regular, concentric-circle orbits (which, hypothetically, would make it easier for life to develop). BBC News also has an article on it. About 30 extra-solar planets have been discovered so far...

Digital Divide Changes

Freedom Forum reports that another survey from Forrester Research on differences among races of Internet access. Perhaps most surprisingly, 50% of Latino (Hispanic) households have Internet access, compared to 45% of white households; 35% of black households have access, as do 74% of Asian-American households. For those making $25,000-$35,000, 39% of blacks are online, 40% of whites. For those making $15,000-$25,000, 20% of blacks, 27% of whites.

Tuesday, March 28 2000

Anti-Smokin' Campaigns

News articles about the anti-teen-smoking campaigns financed as a result of the tobacco settlement (less than 2% of the settlement money is going to these campaigns, though) at US News & World Report. With link to The Badvertising Institute, which has a bunch of tobacco spoof ads.

Elian and the Virgin

CNN story says the Miami folks who've taken possession of Elian Gonzalez are claiming the Virgin Mary is appearing in the kid's mirror.

Gimmeafuckingbreakman.

Monday, March 27 2000

Best Line From The Sting

TBS was running a bunch of past Oscar-winning movies a few days ago (maybe a whole week ago). Flipping through channels one day, I caught part of The Sting.

The scene: middle of the night, Robert Redford knocks on the door of a woman he's just met, and says he wants to take her out. The dialogue:

Loretta: I don't even know you.

Hooker (Redford): You know me. I'm the same as you. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody.

Wednesday, March 22 2000

Movie #4: Mission to Mars. Director: Brian de Palma. Genre: science fiction

Like 2001

Slow, sad, scenic, space epic,

But not quite as good.

Monday, March 20 2000

Chip Helps Paraplegic Walk

A Frenchman who was paralyzed in a car accident 10 years ago can now walk again, thanks to the implant of a computer chip. He walks by pressing buttons on a frame; the frame sends impulses that move his leg muscles.

Related info found from the Washington Post: Wired article on Kevin Warwick, who has already had one computer chip implant (later removed) which allowed a computer to open doors for him when he approached, plans on having another implant which records his emotions (as does his wife). From the same Wash Post article comes the info that Ted Kaczynski (jokingly) created some Gods for himself while in the woods; among others, Grandfather Rabbit, a rabbit which would leave tracks in the snow but which he never could find.

Federal government salaries

The U.S. Government Info section of about.com has salaries for Congressmembers (base $136,673, leadership positions get more), as well as info on (and history of) the U.S. president's salary (base $200,000, $50,000 expense account).

Not-Quite-Reality Sites

A site called For the Love of Julie claims to be a hidden webcam run by a nut stalking an L.A. woman named Julie, but really is a publicity stunt. Wired news article talks about it, plus links to an article about the fake virgin deflowering that was supposed to take place online in 1998.

Pseudoscience Debunker/Watcher

A friend of mine (who'll soon be launching funnysf.com) pointed out a neat web page/subsite hosted by the American Physical Society - What's New by Bob Park, which gives short takes on pseudoscience - claims that are made, claims that are debunked. Lots of good info, but unfortunately Mr. Park doesn't link to more-detailed-resources.

Wednesday, March 15 2000

daterape.org (Wired articles)

Article 1: Date-Rape Site Taken Down. "A Web site advocating date rape was shut down Monday following complaints from outraged feminists."

Article 2: 'Rape' Site a Free Speech Test? In an interview, the creators of daterape.org say they put it up to test the limits of free speech.

The site, after being taken down, is now up at http://sigma.hurontario.net/~daterape/. A picture on the home page of George Bush, with a bit o' white stuff on his nose, proclaims "DateRape.Org proudly supports the George W. Bush 2000 Presidential Campaign."

Reminiscent of rotten.com, and the brouhaha that erupted in 1997 when they published a picture of a car crash that turned out not to be the Princess Diana crash.

Ken Goldberg

At The Chronicle of Higher Education: an article about Ken Goldberg, an industrial engineer who's also gained some fame by putting devices/art on the Web - a Telegarden that Net citizens can tend to by controlling a robotic arm remotely; a box in which you can remotely configure lights to (barely) illuminate interior objects; an experiment at which visitors were asked to try to tell the difference between a real and counterfeit hundred-dollar bill using various invasive methods.

Tuesday, March 14 2000

Mars Movies

The Economist has an article talkin about 4 Mars entertainment projects coming out this year and next. Including "Mission to Mars," which I liked (despite the bad reviews you might have heard).

From The Economist's archives: history of eclipses. Links to a NASA page where you can find out what eclipses are coming up and where.

Bill Joy (Sun chief scientist) on humanity's extinction

A sobering article by Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems. Joy is despondent about humanity's chances about avoiding extinction over the next 100 years, based on reading Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines and Hans Moravec's Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, as well as Frank Herbert's The White Plague and various articles.

The danger he sees comes from the 21st century's GNR technologies - genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. There are 2 key differences between these technologies and the destructive technologies of the 20th century (NBC - nuclear, biological, and chemical)

1. the new technologies have self-replicative abilities - genetic changes can be transferred, nanobots will be able to create other nanobots, and robots will be able to build others just like, or better than, or nastier than, themselves. A single nuclear bomb won't wipe out humanity; a single robot that builds more robots can be the catalyst for all of our deaths.
   
2. the new technologies are being developed commercially, and the commercial applications have more overlap with military/destructive applications than was the case with previous technologies.
   

Read the article, and wonder about the world's "knowledge for knowledge's sake" attitude. (And recognize that in practicality, it's often really "knowledge for money's sake.")

Monday, March 13 2000

Gameshow fever

Salon.com's got two great articles on game shows. First, a former gay porn "star" (and prostitute) talks about how he was rejected as a contestant to be on the island for Survivor, a game show in which CBS is going to put 16 people on an island to compete for a million dollars. But even better is an article on non-US extreme game shows. About Za Gaman, a Japanese endurance show: "One episode brought the victims to a frozen northern location, where they were made to drink a stupendous amount of beer -- and then stand out in the snow with their heads spinning, jiggling their knees in torment as their bladders swelled. One after another, the contestants would give up and start running to the toilets..."

James

James Gleick, recognized Chaos Theory expert, has a website, http://www.around.com. I found it through a mailing from Dave Winer of scripting.com, who linked to Gleick's article on patent madness.

Friday, March 10 2000

Movie #3: Less Than Zero. Director: Marek Kanievska. Genre: Brat Pack comedy.

Post-high-school cokeheads

Teach college boy that to live,

you must keep moving.

Wednesday, March 8 2000

Date Outside the Race? Get a note from your parents

Short article at The Chronicle of Higher Education, requires a paid subscription: students at Bob Jones University can now date people of other races. But only with a note from their parents.

Friday, March 3 2000

The Late Ryan Fogge

A sometime scatological entry to The Finger. Pull quote: "...life is like a German-Chinese restaurant: half an hour after you leave, you're hungry for power."

Wednesday, March 1 2000

McCain and Bush

Time magazine article about McCain's win in Michigan: according to the entrail-readers who've been doing detailed analysis of voting patterns, McCain won 37% of the Republican vote there, rather than 29%; and Republicans turned up in greater numbers than thought - 60% not 48% (60% turnout among registered Republicans, or 60% of the voters? wording makes it unclear.) Also, in one poll, 60% of the Michigan Democrats said they would vote for McCain again in November.

Web site for Bob Jones University.

Patenting Humans

• European patent covers human cloning - the European Patent Office mistakenly allows a patent which includes human cloning. Greenpeace caught the mistake, but the patent stands for now.
  
• Woman Tries to Patent Self in protest of the patenting of gene sequences by corporations
  
• Plants product human protein - Monsanto has gotten tobacco plants to express a human protein, specifically one used to treat hypopituitary dwarfism in kids
  

Patent on exercising a cat

In 1993, Kevin Amiss and Martin Abbott filed for a patent on using a pen light to get cats to play or exercise. In 1995, the patent was issued.

2 million Americans in prison

I don't see citations for any particular study, but a Salon discussion thread is discussing the current state of the U.S. prison population: 2 millions people are in prison. A Reuters story from 1997 says 1.18 million people were in US prisons at the end of 1996.

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...