Links

Sometime between March 30th and March 31st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo’s New Penguin Exhibit Almost Ready: "We got a behind-the-scenes look at the new Humboldt penguin exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo a few days ago. Construction is mostly complete, and they're finishing up some signage and plantings in anticipation of its public opening May 2. The penguins, brought in from a number of zoos, are in quarantine behind the exhibit, and are slowly being introduced to penguins outside their own groups before jumping into their new home."
• I Invented … the Apple Logo: "'For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up. I just stared at the wedges for hours,' recalls Janoff. The fruit of his labor: a simple 2-D monochromatic apple, with a healthy bite taken from the right side. Jobs loved the conceit-only he suggested it be more colorful."
• Old Moon Images Get Modern Makeover: "Imagery gleaned from the Lunar Orbiters over 40 years ago is now getting a 21st century makeover thanks to the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP). By gathering the vintage hardware to playback the imagery, and then upgrading it to digital standards, researchers have yielded a strikingly fresh look at the old moon. Furthermore, LOIRP's efforts may also lead to retrieving and beefing up video from the first human landing on the moon by Apollo 11 astronauts in July 1969."
• Marketing Genius, Episode II: The Camblr Strikes Back: "The leanness of the script leaves very little room for audience-directed expository dialogue. The word 'X-Wing' is only spoken when an officer must notify Darth Vader what type of ship is landing in Cloud City. The word 'lightsaber' is only used once in A New Hope, by Obi-Wan, to tell Luke what it is he's holding. And heck, of course the word 'Ewok' is never spoken — how would Leia know they were called Ewoks, when the Ewoks themselves could only talk in vowely gibberish? ¶ I now consider this to be an underappreciated stroke of genius: the characters in Star Wars are written to be familiar with their environment, just as their environment is designed to be familiar with them. Neither the environment nor the dialogue is compromised to cater to the audience."
• Marketing Genius: "A few minutes ago, I read this post by John Gruber about this article by Dan Vebber about how the word 'Ewok' — a household term — is never actually spoken in Return of the Jedi. At this point in time — thanks to books, toys, and licensing — everyone and every in the Star Wars universe has a name, species, or designation, but what other relatively well-known Star Wars terms were never actually used in the movies?"
• Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, 2008 the Other Half of Famous Twins: "Both Charlie Sheen and Jenna Jameson had twin boys recently, joining the growing ranks of parents with multiples like Julia Roberts and Brangelina. When these little bundles of joy grow up will they be the next Mary-Kate and Ashley? Or will one seek fame while the other chooses a more subdued life out of the spotlight. We went looking for celebrities that have an unknown twin and were surprised by the stars who have a not so famous other half."

Sometime between February 27th and March 4th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Skittles.com: Interweb the Rainbow. Taste the Rainbow.: Bizarre and really interesting — Skittles is crowdsourcing their website. Rather than building their own promotional site, they're pulling in their Facebook fan page, Twitter searches, Youtube videos, and Flickr photos. Nice little experiment!
• What Were Arcades Like?: "I was reading about arcades and how you'd have to queue to play popular games as well as follow rules like no throwing in fighting game or the others wouldn't let you play. This seems rather strange. The money cost must have gotten expensive pretty quickly as well. I'm not old enough to have been to them when they were around so I'm curious about what they were like."
• METAL MACHINE MUSIC: Nine Inch Nails and the Industrial Uprising: "This film traces fascinating and reviews the fascinating history of industrial music, via its 1970s origins, through its enormous rise to prominence in America in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s with NIN as the focal point, to culminate with the current activities of Trent Reznor as he uses marketing and promotional initiatives in a manner just as creative as the music he continues to compose. "
• Thousands in Scramble for Free Books After Amazon Supplier Abandons Warehouse: "The warehouse, whose lease recently ran out, once contained as many as five million books destined to be sold online. After the lease expired, he firm running the secondhand book business moved out, leaving it full of books. Managers of the industrial estate invited people to help themselves so they can free up space at the site."
• It’s ‘Potter’ vs. ‘Twilight’ at Great Literary Debate: "Be prepared for lightning bolts and bared fangs as teens square off to defend their literary faves March 21 in 'The Great Debate: Harry Potter vs. Twilight.' Co-sponsored by Seattle Public Library and TEAM READ, the free event is intended to settle (or not) the burning issue of which mega-selling fantasy series reigns supreme." It's a little disturbing how tempting I find it to show up to this, camera in hand, just to see the sparks fly. And not glittery-vampire or broken-wand sparks, either.

Sometime between February 25th and February 27th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• The Whedonite’s Dilemma: "Dollhouse is not an enjoyable television program. … Being truly granular about what makes the show an affront would require the use of holographic data storage, but in general terms the show (as delivered) doesn't work. … It's a science fiction retelling of MTV's The Real World, and it works about as well as you would expect."
• New Frontiers Sweepstakes: Win a trip to the Red Carpet premiere of the new Star Trek film, or a trip on the "Vomit Comit" Zero-G space plane. Disclaimer: using this link to enter also helps my chances of winning. ;) Be a buddy, help me out, and maybe you'll win instead!
• Young ‘Slumdog’ Stars Back in Mumbai Slums: "On Sunday night, Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali were in Hollywood, California, getting celebrity treatment as eight Oscars were awarded to the movie they starred in, 'Slumdog Millionaire.' ¶ Thursday night, the two children were sleeping at home in Mumbai, India. Azharuddin sleeps under a plastic sheet in a shantytown beside a railway track, where the smell of urine and cow dung lingers in the air. Rubina sleeps with her parents and siblings in a tiny shack beside an open drain."
• Yoda Is a Muppet: "Not until Yoda dies do things go right for the rebellion against the Empire. Yoda's rise is the rise of the Empire. Dude is a muppet through and through."
• Mermaid Dream Comes True Thanks to Weta: "Nadya Vessey lost her legs as a child but now she swims like a mermaid. Ms Vessey's mermaid tail was created by Wellington-based film industry wizards Weta Workshop after the Auckland woman wrote to them two years ago asking if they could make her a prosthetic tail. She was astounded when they agreed."

Sometime between February 24th and February 25th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• ‘Trek’ Cast to Reunite on ‘Family Guy’: "'Stewie blows a fuse when he doesn't get a chance to ask his favorite 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' cast members any questions,' reads the logline. 'He devises a plan, builds a transporter and beams the entire cast to his bedroom so they can spend a fun-filled day together in Quahog.'"
• "Dear President Obama": The President Reads 10 Letters a Day From the Public, With Policy Ramifications: "Every day President Barack Obama is handed a special purple folder. The folder contains ten letters, and every day President Obama takes time to read them. ¶ Are they from world leaders? From members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Members of the intelligence community? ¶ No, these letters have been culled from the thousands the White House Correspondence Office receives each day from Americans who have taken the time to sit down and write to their president. ¶ 'They help him focus on the real problems people are facing,' says Axelrod. 'He really a absorbs these letters, and often shares then with us.'"
• FIRST PHOTOS: Weird Fish With Transparent Head: "With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes–topped by green, orblike lenses–in a picture released today but taken in 2004." Freakin' bizarre fish. The eyes are entirely enclosed inside its transparent head.
• EMI Music Debuts First iTunes Pass With Depeche Mode: "EMI Music today announced the debut of the first iTunes Pass with groundbreaking electro legends Depeche Mode. With iTunes Pass, music fans can get new and exclusive singles, remixes, video and other content from their favorite artists over a set period of time, delivered to their libraries as soon as they're available." Sounds like a music version of the iTunes "season pass" for TV shows: pre-pay a certain amount for whatever is released by an artist for a set period of time. Interesting idea…especially if the value of the merchandise exceeds what you'd pay if you bought it all piecemeal. According to Apple via MacRumors, "the price of the pass will not exceed the value of the contents offered." So you'd at least break even. Let's hope that it's a better deal than that.
• doubleTwist: Promising looking multi-device multimedia manager. Mac/Intel-only…which means I can't play. More and more software (including, apparently, the upcoming Snow Leopard revision to Mac OS X) is coming out as Intel-only. As good as my Dual G5 is — and it is — I need to start planning to replace it and turn it into a home backup/fileserver.

Sometime between February 23rd and February 24th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Safari 4 Hidden Preferences: $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO to kill the tabs-on-top 'feature'. Admittedly, I haven't installed the Safari 4 beta yet (that's on the dock for this evening), but just from the screenshots and Erik's notes, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.
• And the Circle Is Complete: Star Trek novels with new titles photoshopped in based on the cover art. Some really funny stuff in here.
• UserFriendly comic plagiarized multiple punchlines from Metafilter comments: The author's a long-time Metafilter user and apologizes here, while people keep finding more. (Ironic disclaimer: all of the preceding text was <del>borrowed</del> <del>copied</del> <ins>plagarized</ins> from Waxy.org links!)
• Last.fm – the Blog · "Techcrunch Are Full of Shit": "On Friday night a technology blog called Techcrunch posted a vicious and completely false rumour about us: that Last.fm handed data to the RIAA so they could track who's been listening to the 'leaked' U2 album. ¶ I denied it vehemently on the Techcrunch article, as did several other Last.fm staffers. We denied it in the Last.fm forums, on twitter, via email — basically we denied it to anyone that would listen, and now we're denying it on our blog."
• Roger Ebert: The Oscars are Outsourced: In his post-show wrapup, Ebert mentions one of my favorite bits of last night's Oscar ceremonies: the set. "By moving the orchestra onstage and replacing a traditional orchestra pit with the semi-circled seats of nominees, they made the Oscarcast feel a little less like a show, a little more like a party. ¶ The new design also made possible a crucial new camera shot, looking directly at the nominees from behind the presenters on stage. The looks in the eyes of Viola Davis, Marisa Tomei and Amy Adams as they were praised by Oscar legends was dramatic–infinitely better and less sadistic than the the traditional practice of framing the nominees in little boxes so we could see the instant reactions of the losers."

Sometime between February 18th and February 23rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Reality TV Helps Break Down Racial Barriers: "Despite decades of public pressure on the major networks to diversify, the lead characters in all but a handful of prime-time scripted shows this season are still white — and usually young and affluent. In contrast, reality programs consistently feature a broader range of people when it comes to race, age, class and sexual orientation."
• Can You Really Just Waltz Into SAM, Say You Have No Money to Pay the Suggested Donation, and Be Let In?: Apparently, yes you can: "Before I could finish, she said, 'Oh–absolutely, here you go,' and handed me a ticket printed with '1.00' in the corner. She was the epitome of friendliness. As we passed a museum guard, who'd heard the interaction, she smiled and gave us directions to Hopper. We looked at Hopper's women, and looked at women looking at Hopper's women." This is really neat — good for you, SAM!
• Re: The P-I’s Online Plan: "It's hard to overstate how big a change this represents. For a daily newspaper to abandon its belief that important local news should be conveyed first through its own trusted reporters, and its own trusted reporters only, is a tremendous shift. It fits with something else that's been becoming more clear lately: Hearst wants to hold on to the P-I brand, and the online traffic that comes with it, but it is ready to jettison a lot of old notions about what makes a journalistic enterprise."
• The Mystery of Ireland’s Worst Driver: "It was discovered that the man every member of the Irish police's rank and file had been looking for – a Mr Prawo Jazdy – wasn't exactly the sort of prized villain whose apprehension leads to an officer winning an award. ¶ In fact he wasn't even human. ¶ 'Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence,' read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda's traffic division."
• Wil Wheaton: Spoiler Alert: WATCHMEN is fucking awesome.: Wil says good things about the Watchmen movie in his (actually spoiler-free) review, which I was going to link to anyway after reading it in Google Reader, but when I tried to click through to Wil's site to link the page, I got this, which I thought was funny: "Your request to URL 'http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/02/spoiler-alert-watchmen-is-fucking-awesome.html' has been blocked by the Webwasher Real-Time Classifier. The page was classified as sexual, erotic or adult content (90% probability in meta information) which is not allowed by your administrator at this time. "
• Writing Star Trek Novels, Or, Why Don’t You Get a Morally Acceptable Job?: Vonda N. McIntyre: "Years later, the opportunity to write a Star Trek novel came along. The folks who invited me to write it knew I'd been fond of the series and they trusted me to treat the characters with some respect.¶ My editor happened to be coming to a convention in Seattle just before the book was due, and asked me to give him the manuscript there, so I did. ¶ To my surprise (and not a little discomfort), my editor sat himself down in the middle of a small party and started reading. After he'd read fifty pages or so, he said, 'Paramount will either love this, or they'll really, really hate it.' ¶ Fortunately, the former."

Sometime between 07:00 and 13:31, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Non-Hierarchical Management: "A better way to think of a manager is as a servant, like an editor or a personal assistant. Everyone wants to be effective; a manager's job is to do everything they can to make that happen. The ideal manager is someone everyone would want to have. ¶ Instead of the standard 'org chart' with a CEO at the top and employees growing down like roots, turn the whole thing upside down. Employees are at the top — they're the ones who actually get stuff done — and managers are underneath them, helping them to be more effective. (The CEO, who really does nothing, is of course at the bottom.)"
• Irony for Me: The Trilogy Tomatometer: "Do you know how many hours are wasted amongst men and women determining the best movie in a trilogy? Trillions, that's how many." The Trilogy Tomatometer uses SCIENCE — and the Rotten Tomatoes movie review site — to determine the relative awsomeness of movie trilogies.
• No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest: "Twice in the last five years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority proposed a ban on photography in the subways as an antiterrorism measure. And in 2007, the city proposed severe restrictions on filming in the city streets, but retreated when visual artists and activists gathered 26,000 signatures on petitions of opposition within a few weeks. ¶ Both times that the transportation authority tried to ban photography, it, too, dropped the idea because of opposition. Even so, people taking pictures in the subways are regularly stopped by the police and asked to let the officers see their images or to delete them. ¶ 'They don't have to do that, and it's completely unlawful to ask them to delete them,' said Chris Dunn, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union. 'But it comes with the explicit or implicit threat of arrest. It's a constant problem.'"
• Facebook Backs Down on Privacy Terms: "Facing a federal complaint from a leading privacy advocacy organization and a revolt of tens of thousands of its users, Facebook on Tuesday night backed down from what many have seen as an onerous privacy policy. ¶ The policy had seemed to grant Facebook perpetual rights to users' uploaded content, and the threatened complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had demanded, essentially, that the social-networking service return to its previous terms. ¶ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post late Tuesday that the company had decided to do just that."
• YouTube – the Simpsons – NEW Main Title: The Simpsons gets a new intro sequence — the first since it began, I believe — for its transition to HD.