posted by baby at
4:38 PM
posted by baby at
2:36 PM
posted by baby at
12:41 PM
posted by baby at
8:36 AM
The Prelinger Archives is an incredible collection of old films, many of them accessible via its website.LinkIn addition to old industrial films, quaint hygiene lessons for teenagers, and jaw-dropping things like footage of pre-1906 quake San Francisco, the site now features contributed mashups.
I particularly like "Planet Earth: Our Response," a dreamy mix of archive footage (assembled to look like an introduction to Earth culture) and shots of a guy mucking around with an alien probe.
posted by baby at
7:55 AM
posted by baby at
7:43 AM
There's a ton of great entries already -- I like this one, from R. Serrano:
PROTECT your family!, SERVE your country!Link (Thanks, Bruce!)Would you LIKE some terrorist bombing your son's school with YOUR VERY OWN just stolen and filled with EXPLOSIVES car?
Don't let this happen with CURARE SHOTS! An easy to mount hypodermic syringe hidden beneath the seat of your car prevents burglars, thieves and TERRORISTS to MISUSE your car in ways YOU COULD NEVER IMAGINE by literally stopping them on the seat of your car while a wireless silent alarm* warns the closest police station and a text message is sent to your cell phone**.
PROTECT your family AND SERVE your country well with CURARE SHOTS.
* Alarm sold separately.
** Text message service only available with selected providers.
posted by baby at
7:16 AM
I'm a proud donor to the CBLDF and I only wish I could make some of these boss events. Link (Thanks, JahFurry!)
CBLDF Presents New York Comics Week!Next week the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund celebrates comics in New York City with a week of events leading up to the New York Comic Con!
Tuesday, April 15.
CBLDF's DRINK & DRAW! Tax Day is Over! Now drink up with NYC's best cartoonists and party for a good cause! Featuring Jeffrey Brown, Molly Crabapple, David Finch, Dan Goldman, Dean Haspiel, Alex Maleev, Paul Maybury, and dozens of NY's Finest Cartoonists. Sponsored by ComicSpace.com and Image Comics, premiering Paul Maybury's graphic novel AQUA LEUNG. Additional support provided by ACT-I-VATE, The Daily Crosshatch, SMITH Magazine & JahFurry
7:00 to 11:00 PM at Village Pourhouse
64 3rd Avenue at 11th St, Drink Specials all night!, $5 Suggested Donation; $20 for VIP Schwag BagWednesday, April 16.
RASL Premiere Party! Come meet Jeff Smith in person at his only New York City appearance of the season, enjoy an open bar, and get a takeaway bag of tons of exclusive RASL goodies. Only 100 general admission tickets and 26 VIP tickets are available so get your ticket now!
8:00 to 11:00 PM at Coolture Spain, 409 W 39th St (between 9th and 10th),Friday, April 18.
An Evening With Neil Gaiman! Experience the magic of Neil Gaiman at an exclusive reading to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Gaiman presents the reading at New York Comic-Con! Seating is limited and going fast.
posted by baby at
4:39 AM
posted by baby at
4:13 AM
Every second of this footage is pure gold, from the cornball jokes, the lingering shots of the "tickertape parade" the suburban Connecticut neighbors throw as the family gets into their gigantic land-yacht to drive to the airstrip, the runway footage from Idlewild, and the trips around Pasadena, Knott's Berry Farm and Universal Studios in 1956. The humor is pure "dad" -- loving and corny and just right.
Link (Thanks, Dan!)
In July 1956, the five-member Barstow family of Wethersfield, Connecticut, won a free trip to newly-opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in a nationwide contest. This 30-minute amateur documentary film tells the fabulous story of their fun-filled, dream-come-true, family travel adventure, filmed on the scene at Walt Disney's "Magic Kingdom" by Robbins Barstow.
posted by baby at
4:12 AM
posted by baby at
3:44 AM
Link (via Make)
Before the words were even completely out of my mouth, I knew I had guaranteed new depths of Hello Kitty Hell upon myself. Not only will my wife be looking for a Hello Kitty power sander, I'm sure I will also end up with a Hello Kitty tool set and Hello Kitty tool belt. My only hope is that I also receive a Hello Kitty nail gun (most likely with Hello Kitty nails included) that I can use to shoot nails into my head and put me out of my misery. It's only a matter of time before they end up on our doorstep and Hello Kitty Hell takes on deeper and darker dimensions…
Update:: it's a racing power-tool! It comes from Global Cat-astrophe's Flickr stream. Well spotted, Meerkat!
posted by baby at
3:08 AM
Michael Milken throws a helluva party. His Milken Institute global conference in LA last week attracted such luminaries as Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus, human genome sequencer Craig Venter, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and no fewer than four winners of the Nobel prize in economics. Business guys Eric Schmidt, Sam Zell, Eli Broad, Steve Wynn and T. Boone Pickens all spoke, as did tennis great Andre Agassi, music legend Quincy Jones and comedian, writer and actor John Cleese. There was no way to see and hear it all, but here are some things that struck me as interesting…
On the U.S. economy: The four Nobel laureates in economics—A. Michael Spence, Myron Scholes, Gary Becker and Edmund "Ned" Phelps—more or less agreed that the economy, while slumping, is not nearly as bad as it might be, given the credit crunch, the massive losses on Wall Street and the ongoing housing slump. They vigorously disagreed with the bleak outlook voiced recently by Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobel laureate, who said this is going to be one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression.
"The American economy is performing remarkably well in light of the financial turmoil," said Spence. The Great Depression "was a horrible episode," Becker said. "We're nowhere near that." The unemployment rate is currently 5.1% and unlikely to top out any higher than 9%–compared with 25% levels during the 1930s. But housing prices are going to fall further, according to Spence, because homeowners who are waiting for prices to rise before selling "are going to lose their optimism after a while and throw in the towel." That with further depress home values.
The most serious consequence of the current slump may turn out to be the reputational damage done to big business and the financial markets. Top execs of the big Wall Street firms continue to enjoy fat paydays, despite their reckless behavior and the resulting damage to the economy. Said Phelps: "Our friends in the financial sector have given capitalism a black eye."
On the power of innovation: Yunus, Venter and Schmidt shared a panel, moderated by Milken, about the power of ideas and creativity to change the world. Venter talked about the genome, and about his current efforts to develop a synthetic biofuel to replace gasoline. "If we can't do something about the environment," he said, somewhat facetiously, "there's no point in trying to cure cancer. We have to come up with new sources of food, fuel and water to sustain human existence." For hist part, Schmidt talked about how Google is "chaotic by design" as it seeks to use the power of information to attach big problems in such fields as health care and energy. But it was Yunus who stole the show.
His brainchild—microcredit–has taken Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank to a scale where it has 7.5 million borrowers, about $1 billion a year in loans with an average loan of about $150 and, still, no lawyers or contracts with borrowers. Grameen America recently began operations in Queens, N.Y. Dozens of other microfinance institutions have followed his path.
Instead of worrying about whether "people are credit-worthy," Yunus told the group, we should ask whether banks and other credit institutions are "people-worthy." He talked about how Grameen recently began making loans to beggars, giving them about $10 or $12 each so they could but and then sell candy, snacks or small toys as they go from house to house. About 11,000 of them have been turned from beggars into door-to-door salesmen, and another 90,000 or so "are in the process of closing down their begging division," he said.
"It will take them a bit of time," he joked. "After all, begging was their core business."
On strategies to fight global poverty: Michael Spence, the Nobel laureate, began with an encouraging data point: Thirteen countries since World War II have managed to achieve sustained high growth—defined as 7% annual GDP growth over a period of 25 years. The result is that today nearly 4 billion people live above the poverty level; the number was closer to 1 billion in 1980. Success stories unfolded in countries that took advantage of "inbound knowledge transfer" (meaning they learned from the developed world) and capitalized on global demand. China's the classic example of a country that adopted western manufacturing techniques and then became the world's most productive factory nation.
But many other poor countries are moving in the wrong direction. Richardo Hausmann, an international development expert at the Kennedy School at Harvard, noted that all of the world's 24 rich industrial countries had their peak per capita income since 2000; they are, despite fits and starts, growing their economies. But only 58% of the 112 developing countries have had their peak per capita income in the 21st century. Others peaked in the 1960s, 1970s or early 1980s, often because they relied on an export product that fell out of favor. "Most growth collapses coincide with export collapses," he said. Countries need to aim for more "sophisticated" export packages to insure against commodity price fluctuations.
Maria Eitel, who runs Nike's Foundation, said the company, with help from Spence, thought through its role in fighting global poverty and decided to focus on adolescent girls. More education for girls means later marriage, fewer children, lower rates of HIV, more income that is returned to families than when men work. According to Nike, women do 66% of the work in the world, produce 50% of the food but earn 5% of the income and own just 1% of the property.
On green business: Thanks to my friend Betsy Zeidman, who works at Milken, I moderated a panel called "Green is Green" with Rand Waddoups of Wal-Mart, Eli Halliwell of Jurlique, Dave Haft of Frito Lay, Deborah LaFranchi of investment fund Strategic Development Solutions and Kevin Wall, the founder and CEO of Live Earth. Waddoups is yet another impressive Wal-Martian, obviously excited about the company's far-reaching efforts while acknowledging (as Lee Scott has) that WMT is far from a green company and has a long, long way to go to reach its goals of generating no waste and powering itself with 100% renewable energy. Haft talked about Frito-Lay's "net zero" plant in Arizona, which aims to get nearly all of its electricity from renewable sources. (That will enable the company to claim that its Sun Chips are made with solar power.) He also disclosed that Frito-Lay plans to dig into its supply chain to see whether its suppliers can be persuaded to grow, say, potatoes in ways that are less harmful to the environment. Since 1999, Frito-Lay companywide has reduced its water use by 38 percent, natural gas by 27 percent and electricity by 21 percent, cutting $55 million a year in utility costs, according to this report in The New York Times. To be sure, this is eco-efficiency (and not true sustainability) but it is a step in the right direction.
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2:52 AM
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