Posts Tagged ‘hollywood’

Bookmarks for June 7th through June 12th

Bookmarks for June 7th through June 12th

These are my links for June 7th through June 12th: Class, power & ideology – – the illusion of control causes people to over-estimate the chances of them escaping the working class through their own efforts, and so under-estimate the importance of collective class action . – the in-group heterogeneity bias (which is the flipside [...]


Bookmarks for May 7th through May 18th 2011

Bookmarks for May 7th through May 18th 2011

These are my links for May 7th through May 18th: April2011M 624 – The Case For Making Online Textbooks Open Source [INFOGRAPHIC] – “As companies compete to digitize the textbook market, there is one approach that shakes the traditional publishing business model: open source textbooks, whose proponents believe online educational tomes should be free.” And [...]


Bookmarks for December 11th through December 17th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks for December 11th through December 17th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from December 11th through December 17th:[del.icio.us]

  • ‘Wire’ A Study Topic At Colleges – Baltimore Sun – [del.icio.us]
  • “We did not design the show purely as an entertainment, but as a political treatise and social critique,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Baltimore Sun. “To the extent that academia has found the work and is intent on extending the discussion, we are, of course, pleased.” Simon said he’s also happy that the social themes he worked into the series will be getting more attention – themes including “the fraud of the drug war, the evisceration of the working class, our inability to reform our political infrastructure, the inequality of educational opportunity and, lastly, the declining ambitions and viability of high-end journalism.”
  • Los Angeles News – Truck vs. Church and State: Kogi Bites Back – page 1 -
    “Wow! Little did our Squid Ink food blog editor, Amy Scattergood, know what she was getting into when she asked Church and State chef Walter Manzke a simple question, “Is there anything you won’t eat?” Manzke answered thusly and in the process set off a mini commentary storm: “Anything off a truck. L.A. seems to get caught up in these trends, when one person has great success with something and then no one can come up with anything new so they just copy it. And the most ridiculous one seems to be the truck. I mean, it was maybe cool when the first person did it, and it fits the economy because it’s cheap to operate and all that, but I think it’s everything that takes away from the purpose, the enjoyment and the passion of eating.”
  • Scott Brown on Film Reviews Written Before Cameras Roll | Magazine
    “Can we talk about how much the new Cameron Crowe movie sucks? I mean, seriously, what was going on with that freakin’ volcano? And all that nonsense about the Chinese antisatellite device? And hoo-boy, that far-fetched third-act turn — oh, hang on. You haven’t seen the movie? No worries, neither have I. Neither has anyone. It hasn’t actually been made yet — but the reviews are already in at Scriptshadow. A no-frills Hollywood blog, Scriptshadow is diabolically simple: An anonymous figure who goes by the nom de Net of Carson Reeves harvests scripts from a network of industry contacts (including hype-conscious writers and their reps). He reviews the screenplays, critiquing structure, story, and character development …”
  • Judge denies awarding $391,150 to teacher’s defense team | court, corbett, attorneys – News – The Orange County Register -
    “Corbett, an Advanced Placement European history teacher at Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo, was found to have violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause when he referred to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a fall 2007 classroom lecture.” don’t you think this might have a chilling effect of “free speech”
  • Facebook is the new Compuserve -
    “The real concern is that we share so much behind the closed doors of Compuserve-esque Web “sites” that serve as Hotel Californias for our content. Yes, I want to keep some conversations private, but as more of my ramblings move to Facebook and other closed corners of the Web, I want to broaden the conversation beyond the borders of my “friends” list. I can’t. I’m stuck. What happens on Facebook, stays on Facebook. Even content that is cross-posted elsewhere: the ensuing commentary (often of equal or greater value to the original post) is trapped. Professor Jonathan Zittrain raises a warning voice about this in his “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”, but I can’t help but think that the convenience of Facebook will trump the social benefits of broadening conversations beyond the borders of such services.”
  • Jazz: The Music of Unemployment: How saving a farming village from bandits in feudal Japan is like being in a big band circa 2009 -
    “Because good musicians playing in a big band are like samurai deigning to fight without hope of glory, of course. They have to really love what they do, and they have to be willing to be paid in rice if need be.”
  • Logic made fun A new comic romps through one of philosophy’s greatest debates -
    “What “Logicomix” niftily demonstrates is how well the graphic novel form is suited to mounting sprightly explanations of abstract concepts. Thinkers often employ concrete metaphors as tools to convey difficult ideas — the “infinite hotel” of mathematician David Hilbert, for example, an establishment that, although full, always has room for another guest. In “Logicomix,” Hilbert’s paradox is further visualized by a character checking into an actual hotel and drawing arrows on the posted floor plan. That character is the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, and the scene is played for laughs with Russell’s bemused new bride shaking her head and a German porter exclaiming “They are crazy, these Britons!”
  • In search of Eva Tanguay, the first rock star. – By Jody Rosen – Slate Magazine -
    “To call Tanguay a “rock star” is anachronistic but appropriate. She was not just the pre-eminent song-and-dance woman of the vaudeville era. (One of her many nicknames was “The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous.”) She was the first American popular musician to achieve mass-media celebrity, with a cadre of publicists trumpeting her on- and offstage successes and outrages, and an oeuvre best summed up by the slogan that appeared frequently on theatrical marquees: “Eva Tanguay, performing songs about herself.” She was the first singer to mount nationwide solo headlining tours, drawing record-breaking crowds and shattering box-office tallies from Broadway to Butte. Newspaper accounts describe scenes of fan frenzy that foreshadowed Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theatre and Beatlemania. At the height of her stardom, Tanguay commanded an unheard of salary, $3,500 per week, out-earning the likes of Al Jolson, Harry Houdini, and Enrico Caruso. “
  • Giving tourists a look at gang culture — latimes.com -
    “A group of civic activists, united by faith and a belief that the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, including decayed public housing, sites of deadly shootouts and streets ravaged by racial unrest. After a VIP preview last weekend, L.A. Gang Tours expects to open to the public in January, giving tourists a look at the cradle of the nation’s gang culture — the birthplace of many of the city’s gangs, including Crips and Bloods, Florencia 13 and 18th Street.”

Bookmarks for October 12th through October 15th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks for October 12th through October 15th [del.icio.us]

Bookmarks from October 12th through October 15th:[del.icio.us]

  • Views: Professors Should Embrace Wikipedia – Inside Higher Ed -
    “I propose that all academics with research specialties, no matter how arcane (and nothing is too obscure for Wikipedia), enroll as identifiable editors of Wikipedia. We then watch over a few wikipages of our choosing, adding to them when appropriate, stepping in to resolve disputes when we know something useful. We can add new articles on topics which should be covered, and argue that others should be removed or combined. This is not to displace anonymous editors, many of whom possess vast amounts of valuable information and innovative ideas, but to add our authority and hard-won knowledge to this growing universal library”
  • Terminal Degree: Is he kidding? -
    “My previous employer just blogged about the need for a “health care solution that will enable a healthier place for all of God’s children.” Longtime readers of this blog will get the irony: While I was an adjunct there, I couldn’t get health care through my employer. Maybe that sentence should read “all God’s full-time, tenure-track children.”
  • Betty Draper Affair Advice: Not That You Asked | Unsolicited Advice -
    “Betty. Betty, Betty, Betty. I’m not going to recap your various travails here. I’ll leave that to the experts. But I can give you a few concrete pieces of advice (or plot developments, or whatever) that might exponentially increase your happiness. Ready?”
  • The music of Los Angeles on CitySounds.fm -
    “DavidDavid Weekend fun: Citysounds 2.0 “Exactly one month ago, we introduced you to Citysounds.fm, a really cool mashup created by Henrik Berggren and David Kjelkerud during the London Music Hack Day. Citysounds is built on top of the SoundCloud API and makes it easy to browse through SoundCloud tracks from a specific city around the world. Today, Henrik and David inform us about a big update they just launched and let me tell you that it’s pretty exciting. They’ve added a great set of features and we think that the current look & feel is a big improvement. So what’s new? Show more tracks from one city: when selecting a city on the frontpage, you’ll be able to click through to the city overview page where it will show you more tracks from that city:”
  • SoundGrid @ mifki -
    “SoundGrid aims to be the most advanced matrix sequencer for iPhone / iPod Touch to create stunning audio-visual performances in a moment and wherever you are. It was inspired by famous Yamaha Tenori-On and popular ToneMatrix webapp by André Michelle. Even if you never composed music you will find SoundGrid simple and exciting to play with and will start creating brilliant compositions in minutes with just the tips of your fingers. Then easily share them with other users and in turn browse, download and rate their creations. Or you can record composition to audio file, upload it directly to SoundCloud or export via email. You can even create your own unique ringtones!”
  • 10/GUI on Vimeo -
    Here it is: my crazy summer project to reinvent desktop human-computer interaction. This video examines the benefits and limitations inherent in current mouse-based and window-oriented interfaces, the problems facing other potential solutions, and visualizes my proposal for a completely new way of interacting with desktop computers.
  • TuneGlue° | Relationship Explorer -
    very interesting music mapping site based on band in last.fm
  • Essay – The Collider, the Particle and a Theory About Fate – NYTimes.com -
    “Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I’m not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I’m talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather”
  • Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » The Spotify Guys
    “Spotify employs P2P software, that’s why it’s so damn good. It takes 2-5 seconds to ramp up each and every song, which has reduced bit rate during that window, but usually that’s a relatively dead window and the listener isn’t paying close attention anyway. Yes, there are tricks. Only seventy five percent of the song is downloaded, an algorithm provides the remaining twenty five percent. This is how they all do it, it’s de rigueur. And the files don’t only come from Spotify’s servers, bits and pieces come from other users with the software installed on their computers. Net effect? It feels like you own the track. Usability is equal to iTunes. You can fast forward, rewind, there’s no lag time. Well, that’s a bit different. You see then Spotify depends on the network. Which is why they’ve limited sign-ups in the nations they’ve already launched in. They want the streaming experience to be perfect on your mobile device, after all, you’re depending on it…”
  • Acclaimed composer Terry Riley celebrated at Bard — Page 2 — Times Union – Albany NY:3351: -
    “Most composers notate a piece to perfection — hoping for a masterpiece, perhaps — and then move on. But Riley is a dabbler. “I’ll present a piece before it’s finished, then it will be different at the next performance,” he says. “Then after 10 years it will take a new shape that I’m happy with and maybe change again after 20 years. It’s because I improvise so much.” …his roots in jazz and Indian ragas should both come through on Saturday. To him, the term improvisation seldom means starting from nothing and just seeing what happen “They’re improvisations but built on existing structures, maybe not chord progressions (as with jazz), but modes and rhythmic cycles and looplike patterns,” Riley explains. “We’ll have a little rehearsal the day before (at Bard), but also a bit of flying by the seat of the pants. I like that and I think these players do, too.”
  • THE RESULTS ARE IN (Brown List 2009) -
    “Welcome to the official site of the 2009 BROWN LIST, brought to you by the Hollywood Temp Diaries. As you’ve gleaned from my postings and your own experiences, there are a lot of people in Hollywood who are a real pain in the ass. Oddly enough, there are some decent people in this town too (they probably won’t make it too far, but that’s their problem). Anyhoo, I’ve compiled a list of people’s MOST-LIKED and LEAST-LIKED entertainment industry executives in something I’m calling the BROWN LIST. Click on the .pdf below and enjoy the read. Thanks to everyone for participating.”
  • Cloud Eye Control joins the traditional and futuristic — latimes.com -
    “On the fifth floor of the Los Angeles Theater Center in downtown L.A., the members of Cloud Eye Control are trying to create poetry out of collaborative technology. On one end of the large studio, makeshift tables hold laptops and electronic equipment, with a cluster of musical instruments nearby. The middle of the room is dominated by two free-standing screens… It’s only days away from the debut of the full-length version of “Under Polaris” at REDCAT, and there still are snags to work out, transitions to be smoothed. This performance combines live action, recorded animation, multiple projectors, mobile props, and a five-piece live band, so there’s still much to do. And, in the spirit of what Chi-wang Yang, the director of the group, calls do-it-yourself aesthetics, they somehow pull it all together.”