When [It] Strikes Me

If Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite print cartoon (and it is), then its online counterpart is xkcd.  The brainchild of former NASA robotics engineer Randall Munroe, it is a webcomic that mixes romance, sarcasm, math, and language.  Most of all, it speaks to the sense of humor of the internet and geek culture in general.  Some of it is obscure and flies over my head, but a good number of the comics just hit home and tickle the funny bone.  And, in the case of my favorite all-time comic ever (Spirit, featured in this post), tugs at the heart-strings.

xkcd also features a great online store with some cool posters, pins and apparel.  I rock the “Science: It Works….” t-shirt in my wardrobe (though it admittedly gets less use than it should).  Munroe operates under a solid creative commons license, so I’m hosting several of my favorite comics here, though I encourage everyone to visit xkcd.com and to buy the xkcd: volume 0 book on Amazon.

Click on through to see Part 1. Read more…

I’ve been meaning to write a bit more and clarify my thoughts and feelings on the Cordoba Initiative’s plans for a community center and mosque in lower Manhattan. Last week, I strung together a bit of a rambling post discussing how disappointed I am in the sweeping tide of anti-American behavior taken up in the name of “American values” throughout this nation.

The proposed Cordoba House is an uncomfortable issue for most and brings up conflicting feelings and desires to both defend American freedoms and empathize with the families of September 11, 2001 victims.

Part of my desire to discuss the topic more was the realization that I hadn’t articulated well exactly what it was that I found offensive and anti-American. So let me be clear, opposing the Cordoba House is not anti-American. It is merely the attempts to use the government or government means that is anti-American and, quite simply, unconstitutional.

While technically, the movement to have the former Burlington Coat Factory building landmarked was not specifically tied to the building of a mosque (and it would not have completely blocked the construction, but simply made the plans more difficult as the exterior of the building would have had to be preserved) and was, therefore, not relating to the establishment, promotion or obstruction of religious freedoms. Despite this, few would argue that the facts really hid the between-the-lines anti-Islam motivations thereunder. This would be no different than the post-Edwards v Aguillard move of creationists to remove overt religious references to religion or god in the newly revamped intelligence design movement. Everyone knows the motivation has no basis in science, but in religious ideology.

In the case of the Cordoba House, pushing to landmark and make more difficult the conversion of the building at the proposed site was a measure to use the government to obstruct the construction of a privately funded, otherwise legal religious building and institution. In other words, this move represented an effort to violate the Establishment Clause.

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I think Rubicon might have what it takes to be a real winner and a hit. As such, I’m putting some faith in it and am anointing it with instant recap status.  To read prior Quick Hits for the show, click here on my posts tagged #Rubicon.  Here are my Quick Hits for Episode 1.03, “Keep the Ends Out.”

As in past episodes, a scene without dialogue was deftly shot to narrate the story.

The third episode of Rubicon made me, for a moment, question whether the series was going to be too slow in its pace for its own good.  I love that the show gives you the time to process and I’ve enjoyed watching each episode so far a couple of times.  That said, not everyone is going to deal with a lack of action well… particularly when you draw some comparisons to the more high octane spy genre.  But the series continue to hint at big payoffs for the investment viewers are making.

The bicycle scene in Travers’ apartment best exemplified my excitement over this show. For the third straight episode, the finest segment was a nonverbal run-through by an actor seeking answers and wondering if what they’ve found is just new questions, rather than any resolution.

In this particular scene, Travers examines the bike that David left him, which he’s brought up to his apartment. After spending the night tearing it apart over a few beers, Travers flips through the Norton Commando’s manual, finding a photo of David guiding his son Evan on the bike. Doing so, you could see the resignation in Travers that he did, indeed, have to return this prized possession to David’s natural son… but on looking closer he noticed an anomaly.

In a show so keen as to ensure the veracity of his griminess with dirt under fingernails, Travers finds a something slight askew and keys in on it immediately. In the photo, the bike seat did not include a stripe down its middle. Examining it closer and peeling back the white, he found a series of ciphers: 10 Arabic numeral digits across and scores of lines down. He also noted that the bike seat had been stitched down the middle. On opening it up and reaching in, he finds and pulls out a Glock.

This epitomizes the show so far. There’s basic, on the surface activities that are relatively innocuous and drawn by regular activities and desires.  But there’s the promise of real pay dirt.  Yes, they haven’t yet delivered on promised action, but much like a sexy starlet will repeat, sometimes the big fun is in what’s not shown but anticipated.  We’re being granted questions and data to puzzle over, but only offered the promise of great action not seen.

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I’ve strayed from TED a bit in the last few ones of these.  So why not bring on the queen of the JPL to bring it back into focus.  Especially with the US debut of Wonders of the Solar System this past week on the Science channel, a talk about Saturn and the Cassini probe seemed to be a great idea.  Carolyn Porco is the awesome head of the Imaging Team on Cassini and is a regular on the Science and History channels and the celebrity astrophysicist circuit.

At TED2007 in March 2007, she spoke about Cassini and showed off some of their cooler images.

Click on through for some more science talks. Read more…

Does Extract stand a chance at getting a laugh out of you?

On a recommendation from my boss, I checked out Mike Judge’s Extract.  I actually was quite jazzed to watch it, as I am a big fan of Jason Bateman and his work on Arrested Development, as well as Judge’s prior workplace comedy.  Office Space was one of the funniest movies of the 1990s and perfectly encapsulated the tedium of cubicle life.  Its cast was very well chosen, featuring an oft-overlooked, likable guy (Ron Livingston) and a beautiful female lead trying to break out of TV (Jennifer Aniston).

Extract has a similar formula, with Bateman and Mila Kunis headlining the cast.  Judge managed to surround Bateman and Kunis with a stellar supporting cast including SNL standout Kristen Wiig, headliner Ben Affleck and top notch character actors JK Simmons and Clifton Collins Jr.  With a great supply of human capital to work with, Judge tried to tap back into the winning formula he struck with Office Space.

Bateman plays Joel, the owner and operator of a flavor extract manufacturing and packaging company.  Although he’s hardly the cog in the wheel that Livingston’s Peter Gibbons was at Inetech, Joel suffers from a sort of middle age malaise.  He’s ready to sell and get out of the extract business, hoping to retire and be able to spend time filling his life with something to enjoy.  Unfortunately, his home life is stale and his friendships consist solely of a relationship with local bartender Dean (Affleck).  When Kunis’ Cindy, a serious bid on the business and various other pratfalls enter his world, Joel’s life gets turned upside down.

Click on through to read my thoughts. Read more…

I think Rubicon might have what it takes to be a real winner and a hit. As such, I’m putting some faith in it and am anointing it with instant recap status.  To read prior Quick Hits for the show, click here on my posts tagged #Rubicon.  Here are my Quick Hits for Episode 1.02, “The First Day of School.”

The second episode of Rubicon kept up with the promise of the first.

There’s always a bit of a worry that episode two will not follow up to the excellence of a well run pilot.  This is because it is often the case that a pilot sees far more production glare and refinement.  I think Rubicon may avoid that problem as the season moves on, in part because the pilot was not so ambitious as to overreach.  Many pilots are designed to be able to operate independent of a greater story; they attempt to create an experience which is fulfilling so as to guarantee their good stead.  The producers here did not seem to sacrifice the story-telling methodology I’ve identified to date.

“Gone in the Teeth” served a role of introducing certain characters and themes without opening up too much or being too aggressive.  “The First Day of School” followed in that tradition.  We continued to see a bit more into the character of Travers, while getting a better glimpse of Maggie and our first real look at Katherine Rhumor.

It is with Katherine that the episode really hits home.  In an emerging pattern, the producers do seem to like their dialogue-less, visual storytelling.  In the pilot, we saw this twice with scenes featuring Travers identifying the crossword code and, later, searching David’s office.  In each case, they played the delicate balance well of conveying the dutiful intensity of Travers with enough intrigue to keep the audience intrigued.  Watching someone work a crossword is not exactly what most of America considers entertainment, but the producers were adept enough to make it interesting.

Keep on reading, after the jump. Read more…

I’ve still yet to finish my finale recap for LOST, so I’m not actually going to watch this yet, myself.  That said, it is the 12 minute epilogue to the series that will appear on the LOST: The Complete Collection Blu Ray Box Set (click the link to order).

[EDIT: Disney cease and desisted the online video of it]

I’ve settled into a nice niche with respect to Twitter news.  Yes, you can get some breaking stories truly from the masses via Trending Topics, but I also rely on two specific sources for news updates.  One is for headlines and the other is for commentary.

Click on through to check em out. Read more…

Mike Bloomberg marked the Cordoba House victory from Governor's Island (nee Nutten Island), where the Dutch first settled New Amsterdam.

This past week has seen two important victories for liberty in America.  Yet somehow, the news accounts are all over the place.  If you look at a Red station/website/paper (e.g., anything owned by Rupert Murdoch), the sky is falling.  If you’re on Twitter or Tumblr, you’d think everyone had decided to sing Kumbaya and that all the world’s ills are over.  Obviously, the reality is somewhere in between.  And, at least in my eyes, these victories for liberty were but speed bumps that have not halted a harsh and brutal wave of oppression that ironically brandishes the name of freedom.

The victories of which I speak were both very important.  The first came on Tuesday when the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously against a measure to grant landmark status to the building that once housed The Burlington Coat Factory and now is planned to be torn down and replaced with a 13-story community center called the Cordoba House.  The second was Wednesday, when a California jurist enjoined enforcement of a ballot initiative that effectively banned same-sex marriage in the state.  While these two levees pushed back the waters of hatred and bigotry (of late, quite commonly in the name of fundamentalist Christianity), this country is leaking like a sieve elsewhere and that the victories were necessary at all is reflective thereof.

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Glenn Beck is not a good person.  That shouldn’t come as any sort of a surprise to an intelligent individual who a) can think for themselves and b) has been exposed to the world at large through travels, news or talking to people not named Glenn Beck.  Unfortunately, the guy has a large and scary following who dogmatically listen to what he says.  This extends from politics to salesmanship.

There’s been a concerted effort (spearheaded by StopBeck.com and other websites) to pressure advertisers to dump Beck.  This has driven him to ingraining low-grade, ethically challenged advertisers like gold companies into both his programming breaks and his programming itself.  So little old ladies now a) still don’t believe that Obama is American and b) are getting hosed in their gold by telephone purchases.  The Big Picture has produced a solid infographic explaining just how.

The lesson learned is that if you’re going to trust a crazy person on Fox, that crazy person should be Sheppard Smith.  Click through for the infographic. Read more…