Link Dump

Yes, there have been a lot of these lately. At this point I figure I should just stop apologizing for it and embrace it. So here you go, links:

• Echo: LoadingReadyRun has been at The Escapist for a while and they can be hit or miss, but some of their more recent videos are really great stuff. Split Decision and A Stitch in Time are pretty good too.
• Right on Cue: Ta-Nehisi Coates responds to Andy Rooney: “Rooney ends this with a jibe that notes his ignorance of Lady Gaga is fine, because kids are ignorant of Ella Fitzgerald. I suspect that he gives himself too much credit.” Heh. His notion of “Digging In The Crates” is an interesting one and I think he may be right.
• Soldiers returning from war surprise kids, loved ones: As they note: “There is a 100% chance you will cry within 30 seconds of this video.”
• I don’t know what the hell is going on in this video, so I am presenting it to you, without comment.
• F**k You: Cee Lo Green’s profanity laden song is pretty great. And of course, the follow up videos have begun… Also of note, this song, which is completely unrelated, but awesome.
• Sun Chips Bag: These videos are all over the place at this point, but this one’s pretty well executed, precisely because the guy doesn’t say anything.

That’s all for now…

Interesting stuff seen lately:

• Wikipedia’s Lamest Edit Wars: Amazing list of recurring edits on Wikipedia. Should we mention House MD’s lack of asian diversity (8,000+ edits and counting). Should “wee” link to the Nintendo Wii or to the article on urine (20,000+ edits and counting)? A goldmine of almost unintentional hilarity.
• A Tale As Old As Time: No comment necessary.
• Predators Teenage Son: A while ago, I participated in an amazingly nerdy debate about aliens and predators, and this video reminded me of that geekout (specifically the part about whether or not the predator would win in a hot dog eating contest when competing against an alien).
• Extra Credits: If you’re not familiar with Daniel Floyd and James Portnow (and now Allison Theus), they produced a series of great videos about video games on YouTube and are now part of The Escapist, posting new videos every Thursday (instead of twice a year, as they were doing before!) I don’t know that I always agree with them, but it’s always interesting watching.
• Double Feature: I was getting sick of my current lineup of podcasts, so I started looking around for some new movie podcasts and found this one, which is pretty good stuff (and a large back catalog for me to work through). Any other good movie podcasts I should be listening to? (Besides Filmspotting, Creative Screenwriting, Filmically Perfect, Left Field Cinema, and The Treatment? I already know about those!)

That’s all for now, see you Sunday.

I have about 5 posts brewing right now, but none are quite ready for the show, so here are some links in the meantime.

• In Praise of ‘Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers’: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas mounts a vigorous and surprisingly convincing defense of what most people consider to be a mediocre entry in an unimpressive series. I love reading film criticism like this, though I have to admit that reading this post is probably more entertaining and interesting than watching the movie itself. As a slasher sequel, I suppose you could do a lot worse than Halloween IV and I will happily admit that the ending was oddly effective in its own way, but it’s ultimately not that great of a movie (especially when it invites comparison to one of the greatest horror movies of all time). I haven’t seen the movie in about 10 years, but it’s probably better than the Zombie reboot series, right?
• Everything I Know About Tennis I Learned from Cow Paths: Paul Kedrosky takes the (apparently apocryphal) stories about desire lines and applies the concept to tennis, noting an interesting difference between 1980 and 2010.
• Heat Wave Strategies, Or: At What Temperature Would You See ‘Twilight’?: The title pretty much says it all, though I think our respective tolerances are a bit different. I’d probably have switched The A-Team and Twilight on her list. Actually considering that I was surprisingly taken by The A-Team, it could probably drop even further than that…
• Rise of the Literature Machines: Madeleine Schwartz notes the popularity of the I Write Like meme and points to another automated literature analysis tool that summarizes entire novels.
• Chewbacca fights Nazis while riding mutant squirrel: No commentary necessary.
• Minimalist Movie Posters: A ton of great ones here.
• Helping Johnny Remember: Creepy kids are creepy.

That’s all for now…

Well, it’s actually been a while since the last link dump, so here’s a few interesting links:

• God of War Movie Trailer: If it were directed by Wes Anderson, that is. Excellent spoof of indie movie tropes.
• I Write Like: David Foster Wallace, apparently. Mayhap I should finish off Infinite Jest sometime. Actually, it looks like they updated the algorithm. I still get mostly Wallace, but I’m also getting lots of other folks (Lovecraft, James Joyce, etc…) which is a bit strange. I mean, I write like everybody! I’d like to know more about how they determine the key indicators for each writer.
• Film Longevity: Box Office vs. Oscars: Sam Stoddard (of the excellent but sporadic All Movie Talk podcast) takes on two inevitable movie topics:
  

  1. Those snooty Academy Awards! Why do they always nominate obscure art films? In 20 years, nobody will remember them. When the films of today have stood the test of time, they’ll have been forgotten. The films people will remember, see, and cherish are the ones that dominate the box office!
  2. The public is stupid! Every year they turn the most mindless drivel into cash cows. But the fame these movies have will not endure. When the films of today have stood the test of time, they’ll have been forgotten. The films people will remember, see, and cherish are the ones that win Academy Awards!

  These claims are obviously at odds with each other. They can both be false, but they cannot both be true, except in cases where the movies that win at the box office are also the ones garnering awards attention.

  He then goes into a relatively thorough examination of the Oscar Nominees and Top Grossing films for each year, going back to the beginnings of the Oscars. Fascinating stuff.

• KFC Drive-Through: Doublelicious all the way. You know, the great thing about laughter is that it just happens. You don’t have to think about it or explain it, which is a good thing, because I have no idea why I laughed so much at this.
• Cognitive Surplus Visualized: Wow.

That’s all for now…

Just some interesting stuff I’ve seen lately:

• Ninja Say What?!: I had no idea.
• Alien vs. Ninja: Apparently a real movie. I wonder how those Ninjas from the first video feel about this.
• Old School Sam Raimi Interview: Harry Knowles reminisces about The Incredibly Strange Film Show, and features an excellent interview with Sam Raimi, circa 1988. Great stuff.
• Luke Skywalker – Worst Scout Ever: Yeah, pretty much.
• The Typewriter: I think Joe Wright just found the soundtrack to his new movie.
• South of the Border: Natural-Born Shillers: Karina Longworth on Oliver Stone’s new “documentary” in which Stone pals around with various South American dictators (such as Hugo Chávez): “South of the Border‘s subjects are masters at cooking bullshit, and Stone just eats it up.” Ouch.

That’s all for now.

Apologies for all the recent link dumps. Time has been short. More meaningful content to return shortly. In the meantime, enjoy:

• 2 Guage Shotgun: When I was in high school, I really hated Biology. So after the class ended, my dad and I took my notebook up to our range. Fearing that the 12 guage shotgun wouldn’t do, we broke out the 10 guage and proceeded to annihilate the notebook. Some scraps around the edges remained, but otherwise, it was pretty thoroughly destroyed. Now, these guys have a 2 guage shotgun and manage to pretty much vaporize half a board of clay birds. Supposedly the gun was mounted to a boat and used for hunting duck, but I don’t really understand. What good is a vaporized duck (or a duck riddled with shot)? I guess if you have a large flock and a longer range, it would work, but still. Amazingly powerful gun.
• Cardboard Mechanics Installation: Sometimes when I watch these videos, I wish there could be an easy way to keep tabs on the people that made them. Did they ever amount to anything? What did they end up doing with their lives? In this case, it’s clear that the creators have a pretty thorough understanding of mechanics and how to get things working, but what are they going to do with all that knowledge (besides make a video like this)?
• The History of the Typewriter: As told by Michael Winslow, of Police Academy fame. I have to wonder how close he actually is to the real thing (I wish they would’ve included that for comparison’s sake, but then, I guess the video is long enough as it is).
• Super Mario Brothers with Violin: It’s the white tux that really cements it. Still, pretty good for what is presumably an improvised performance… Also of note: Beatboxing Mario. It’s amazing how many new viral Mario memes appear every week. Here, look at these Mario themed Filing Cabinets! What about Stop Motion Mario? Marathons! Dance Pads! iPads! Crossovers! I’m consistently intrigued by how much love Mario gets, even today, well over 20 years after the game originally appeared (though it’s a bit telling that 90% of these things are referencing the first game and not the sequels, especially not 3d sequels…)
• The Most Badass Alphabet Ever: This is old, but still awesome. I won’t ruin it by quoting anything, but it’s great.

That’s all for now.

Some more interesting stuff:

• Shortest Possible Game of Monopoly: It took them 21 seconds to play an entire game of Monopoly. The details of all 4 turns, in case you can’t follow the video. [via Kottke]
• Kinect Dance Central: In case you don’t feel enough like a total idiot playing the Wii, check out Kinect! Almost as funny, the description of the video: “nerd can’t contain the funk” No, I suppose he can’t.
• Tony Hawk Ride in Real Life: Worth watching mostly for the last 45 seconds or so of the video.
• Russian Versus Ads: Some Russian marketing company devised a series of hysterical low-fi animated videos in which two famous characters or video games are pitted against one another. For example, Mario vs Pacman. Contra vs Tetris. Jackie Chan vs Eye of Sauron. Great stuff.
• Food vs Inertia: Gravity wins.
• Kung Fu Institute: I have nothing clever to say about this one.

There you have it!

A busy weekend and the Flyers storming back in the Stanley Cup finals means less time than usual, so here’s a few links that I’ve found interesting lately:

• Subway To Start Tessellating Cheese: Remember when I posted this comic a while back? It’s apparently from 2007, and according to what appears to be an internal weekly newsletter, Subway will begin tessellating cheese on its sandwiches. A consumer triumph.
• Trailers From Hell: This has been around for a while, but it’s well worth checking out for movie fans (it tends to lean towards horror, but it’s not exclusively that genre). Basically, it consists of a bunch of famous directors doing a commentary on the trailers of their favorite films. While some well-known movies are featured, there are tons of obscure films as well. The people doing the commentary tend to be horror director mainstays, including Joe Dante, Kaedrin favorite Don Coscarelli, Edgar Wright, Eli Roth, John Landis, and a bunch of others.
• Johanna Blakely: Lessons from fashion’s free culture: Shamus posts this excellent 15 minute TED talk about how the fashion industry doesn’t use copyright, and various implications to other areas of IP. Interesting stuff about a subject I’m always fascinated by…
• Heist!: An intriguing bank robbery in Buenos Aires that Hollywood should be paying attention to…
  

  On the afternoon of (Friday!) January 13, four gunmen walked into the Banco Rio in Acassuso (part of greater Buenos Aires) and took the staff and customers hostage. There was a tense six hour long siege by the police, expertly handled by the robbers – they let each hostage call home, so that family members showed up at the scene; the calculation was that the police would be more reluctant to storm the building immediately if hostages’ relatives were watching. They made sure to release three hostages right away as a gesture of goodwill, but of course the three released included the security guard and police officer already in the building. While one of the robbers stayed on the phone, negotiating with police, the remaining ones got busy cracking open safe deposit boxes. Towards four in the afternoon, the police delivered six pizzas and some bottles of soda, the fruit of all those hours of negotiation, which the robbers passed along to the hostages. And then they went silent.

  After about an hour of no contact and no news, an elite police bank-storming squad stormed the bank, only to find a group of bewildered hostages sitting scared in the smoke. There was no trace of the gunmen.

  I love the cat-and-mouse games robbers play with the police in situations like this, and this one has a few exchanges of that going on…

• Pulsate: This thing had me transfixed for much longer than it should have. My favorite thing to do was to position my mouse in the center of the space and click several times in succession, creating a series of concentric rings. Then I’d move the mouse to one of the corners (quickly, as you have to do it before the original set of rings makes it there) and do another series of rings. Do it for a couple other corners and presto! You’ve got an Aphex Twin song.
• Soviet Space Center: A photo tour of a decommissioned Soviet Space Center. The post isn’t in English, but the photos are great.
• Nothing New to Report: At first, I thought this was the same newspaper, over and over again, but there are probably tons of copies of the same one in use in Hollywood. I can almost guarantee it’s due to the fact that someone had to clear all the stories in the newspaper once, and never wants to pay for the rights again. Understandable for what should be a throwaway prop.
• Duck Hunt Behind-the-Scenes: Pretty sure that’s what happens.

That’s all for now. Possibly something more substantial next week!

Sorry for all the link dumps, but I’ve not been feeling especially inspired as of late. Anyway, some interesting stuff I’ve seen recently:

• The Enemy Within by Mark Bowden: You wouldn’t think that the story of a computer worm would be this interesting, but it is.
  

  The struggle against this remarkable worm is a sort of chess match unfolding in the esoteric world of computer security. It pits the cleverest attackers in the world, the bad guys, against the cleverest defenders in the world, the good guys (who have been dubbed the “Conficker Cabal”). It has prompted the first truly concerted global effort to kill a computer virus, extraordinary feats of international cooperation, and the deployment of state-of-the-art decryption techniques—moves and countermoves at the highest level of programming. The good guys have gone to unprecedented lengths, and have had successes beyond anything they would have thought possible when they started. But a year and a half into the battle, here’s the bottom line:

  The worm is winning.

  Zoinks!

• And I, for one, welcome our new printer overlords.
• Mann Co. – Form letter from a company of awesome people.
• Periodic Table of Fictional Elements – Sometimes I think I’m a nerd, and then someone goes and makes something like this..
• “Adam? …is there a reason your laptop is in the fridge?” – Heroic tale of refrigeration and data recovery. “I share this experience with you, the internet, in the hopes that it is useful.”

Stuff I’ve found interesting lately:

• Total Recall: The Musical – Brilliant.
• Neave Strobe – I can’t stop looking at this. I think my eyes might be broken now.
• Get Out of There – Somehow these clip compliations never cease being interesting to me.
• Iron Man Punches Hugh Grant – There are a surprising amount of similar videos, including a Dirty Dancing one and this one, which doesn’t feature Iron Man until the end, but it’s worth it..
• Scout Walker Command Tower with Speeder Bike Ride – I want one.

That’s all for now!