...more recent posts
Thought I had a hangover, but maybe it's that sunspot.
Found a Quicksilver page, but no mention of a violinist, as was suggested last night.
When you look at the economics of it, saving the world just isn't worth it.
couldn't get you a link to this upi story, but here is a more technical paper from the authors, and here are some highlights:
“Spanish and American astrophysicists claim the universe we inhabit contains an infinite number of other universes like our own, called O-regions, that we will someday be able to contact. Jaume Garriga, of the University of Barcelona, and Alexander Vilenkin, of Tufts University, call the concept "many worlds in one."
…these universes are likely similar to our own -- share similar life forms, for instance – because they share a key feature with our world: a finite number of distinct histories. A history is the way something has evolved in time and will continue to evolve. Until now, physicists have never been able to make such an assertion.
Are these ideas far-fetched? Alan Guth (MIT) says no. "Do I think that the ideas are viable? Definitely yes. In fact, I very much admire the precision with which the ideas are expressed. I consider the work of Alex Vilenkin and his collaborators to be the leading work in this field."
”Whenever a thought crosses your mind that a terrible calamity might have happened," Vilenkin told UPI, "you can be assured that it has happened in some of the other O-regions." Furthermore, since some O-regions have histories identical or nearly identical to our own, "if you nearly escaped an accident here, then you were not so lucky in some of the O-regions with the same prior history," he said
Guth also believes the many-worlds hypothesis has profound philosophical implications. "We already know that our planet is merely a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, but now we are being told that we do not even hold a unique copyright on our own identities," Guth told UPI. "Instead, each of us is actually only a single copy of an infinite number of beings that are completely identical to
ourselves."
More collectibles as entertainment.
I possess nothing of value, but Antiques Roadshow has become my excuse for never cleaning anything, just in case it might be worth a fortune.
Yeah, but what does He look like now?
Hello Monday. Any plans for the weekly IRL meeting? I think last week was a pretty big success. Bring your own Bereket seemed to work well. But there was some talk (I think maybe I started it) of going to Grand Szechun International (hereafter: GSI.) Anybody ready to think about this yet? I know it's only Monday, but you can't start planning for the weekend too soon (and yes, I realize that by counting Thursday as the weekend I might be pushing it.)
Mmmmmm... sea cucumber.
Steve Albini eyewitness record reviews.
Can you beat Joe D? (Winner gets a virtual night with MM (not Mickey Mantle)).
Steve, Bill, and I are expecting to meet at the Local tomorrow (Thursday 3/22) after work (5:30 PM). Show up, or let us know if you've got another suggestion.
Oh that clumsy(?) CIA.
Monday, Monday : Papa John dead @ 65 from heart attack, yesterday, yesterday. Ms and Ps made 5th grade kick for me. So many groovie hits in a row ! Nothing you didn't know already (including what he was doing) in todays nyt obit.
traffic outtakes? no, california in the 20s.
William F. Buckley weighs in on Traffic.
from lemonyellow, the invisible library, books that only appear in other books.
this list looks alot better than that one from from RIAA. all hail elvis
Nice new comment feature on drat fink's page.
Spring must be close when your office building issues a
BULLETIN like the one I just received from the PA @ for WTC :
"You may remember that last year, The New York Audubon Society contacted us concerning the dangers migrating birds face in large metropolitan areas, specifically high rise buildings. At that time, The Society advised us that the fall migration pattern was from August through November and the spring migration pattern was from mid-March through mid-June. As mid-March is approaching, we are requesting once again that you turn off all office lights in the evening hours or, at the minimum, close the blinds. We realize this is difficult as many of you have employees who work late into the evenings and it is difficult for us too as the house keeping personnnel are cleaning the offices. However, we would appreciate it if you would ask your employees to turn off your lights once they leave for the evening. Thank You........"
- This request might also apply to the last person leaving Detroit.
Marianne Nowottny will be performing @ Tonic this Saturday
@ 8:00 pm. I hope to be going.
Marianne Nowottny at 8:00pm, $10
"New Jersey teen Marianne Nowottny returns to Tonic this evening
with her torchy resin voice, off-kilter harmonics and Radio Shack
keyboard. Nowottny is able to glide through scale modulation
seemingly effortlessly, stopping at random quarter-tones and angular
intervals that are unique and hyper-personal. Her song compositions,
which explore multi-layers of sound and textures, can be compared to
the early electronic music experiments of John Pfeiffer or the pop-
music simulations of Brian Eno. "Marianne Nowottny is a delicately
balanced combination of warped teenage nihilism, otherworldly
visitation and sheer joy-in-creation."
- David Keenan The Wire
TONIC
107 Norfolk Street
(Between Delancey & Rivington)
212-358-7501 / http://www.tonic107.com
I am in the process of switching over the picture handling system. I'm moving all the pictures out of the database and into the filesystem. Hopefully you will not notice anything about this change (everything will work exactly as before, although theoretically a tiny bit faster.) If you do notice anything is amiss with any photos please let me know here ASAP. I'll keep the old system in place (but not operating) for several days just in case I need to switch back. Thanks.
This site may be known to some of you, but Bill said he hadn't seen Fabulous Ruins of Detroit, so I'm posting the link. It's definitely worth a look.
ebay question (bill): how do i not get items for which "bidding is closed" in my search? i must say, i am not a happy first-time user thus far.
Can anyone with IE on Windows (or just anyone that was having these troubles) comment on the formatting on the discussion pages? Is it still bold? Otherwise screwed up? Thanks.
Just heard something on the radio about a prosecuter named Jordan trying to convince the justice department to go after promotors at "rave clubs" (are there such places?) for creating a culture which supports drug use, specifically extacy. He is arguing that they can bust them for the posession and sales of bottled water. It being "harmless and legal" on it's own but since it is needed by the drugged out, dehydrated raver it can be classified as drug paraphanalia. In addition, the report mentioned something about him also considering the baby pacifiers which are sold at the clubs as paraphanalia. (This one I do support) I didn't hear the whole report and hadn't had my cup of Typhoo so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details (what's new?) And I haven't seen anything on the net about it. So I can't claim a scoop. Dave? Jim? Heard anything about this?
And you thought it was Tinky Winky.
I think it was last night I read Dave's iditarod post, cruelty to animals and whatnot, and it was no doubt the seed for the dream I had this morning in my sleeping bag on the floor at Rocheblave which had me harnessed to a pitbull puppy being dragged about the mundane chores of my life except the pitbull wasn't much of a mule and he had to stop and play every few minutes, and then pee on something.
this is kind of interesting. check out your name transliterated into chinese. im figuring my name dai wei to mean great guardian.
what happened? did she go nuts?
as long we are talking wacky packs, check out the latest -- people cards.
Cinefiles is up. Go crazy. Let me know what is broken.
I know there are some problems cropping up with our increase in usage. Particularly on the discussion pages. The way I am making the indentations to show the nesting of comments is not scaling. My guess is this is particularly apparent in Navigator (which doesn't like so many nested tables.) On the really long threads it might even seem like your computer crashed, but it's just thinking. (Remember, if you get into trouble on the mac - command-option-escape will force quit Navigator, and then you can start it right up again.) Anyway, I now see how to do it without nested tables (which aren't really a good idea, I now see why.) Hang in there. Help is on the way. One thing you can do in the meantime is to try to post comments from the top link on the comments page so that there aren't so many levels of nesting going on.
drat fink references a Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker piece about McDonalds, which I had seen earlier today via Arts & Letters Daily. I couldn't quite believe what I was reading: Gladwell's proposals for "better junk food" include using Olestra (of "anal leakage" fame) to make McDonalds fries, and reviving the McLean burger (the processed meat was good, he says, all it needed was better promotion). The piece reads like an advertorial for scientifically-enhanced food: it made me wonder who's paying the New Yorker's bills these days.
According to AOL, you northeasterners are "hunkering down" for the big storm. Is that true, and could I have an example?
So what's going on with the film page? Did we decide on a name? Bill, are you actually going to start going to movies?
ahhhhh. college days. i dont know whats funnier, the picture or the page itself.
I always wondered about Dave's business model. This shocking photo reveals the truth. Who'd have thought?
no time to kiss these 14 century old Buddhist statues goodbye
jimlouis - the weather man says you are experiencing "severe weather" - hope all is well. take cover.
Here's a fun one from Evhead: this day in music, a site which will tell you the number one song (both in England and the US) for any given day in history. My birthday had the Beatles in top spot on the U.K. charts with Get Back, while Aquarius / Let the Sunshine in by 5th Dimension was number one in the US of A.
as napster is put to sleep, will that just mean more for the hibernating bearshare? heres iNother one.
I was just thinking that since the cinema topic is suddenly well represented by the many people here who actually care about film and write/speak well on the subject that you (we) might start a new page catagory (like the food and art ones). Perhaps we could even post short original films (w/ special guests ?) made for the internet or that just happen to be short and adaptable to this site anyway. Feel free to shoot this idea right down. Names ?
I'm taking it upon myself to take this back to the main trunk of the tree house tree. The length of the thread is boggin' my computer down terribly.
"Plus, Soderberg is arty as hell. I find his use of alternating film stocks irritating. Oliver Stone started this trend, and now everyone's doing it. Did anyone else find the use of the piss-yellow, grainy stock for the "Mexico" scenes to be subtly racist/colonial? Imagine if it was inverted--if the Mexico footage was shot clear and bright and then every time he cut to Washington DC you were suddenly in a blurry miasma. (Might be more interesting, actually.)"
That bothered me too. I think in the case of the Wizard Of Oz the switching of film stock was inspired. But in Stones case it seemed to be a sort of arty crutch. With Traffic I chalk it up to cinematic short hand of the laziest variety as well as a hackneed attempt to seem cutting edge.
"Also, I found it ridiculously coincidental that Catherine Zeta-Jones would call Frankie Flores to do the hit, and even more ridiculous that he would accept the job from her. The last time we saw him he was a broken, weeping wreck. "Another job? Sure, I don't know you, but I'm your man!"
LOL! Right, rediculous. I didn't catch the portrait but even so it just doesn't wash.
I hated Traffic. What a phony crock! "
Right on brother!
"There are
hopeful signs about, not just Woodcocks,
but buds forming, catkins and days
lengthening, and maybe a mild spell has
you thinking we’ll cruise on in from here,
but no, it’s still Winter.
That’s Lent." Amen. Not sure I have the clearence to post this here, but amen.
I just saw "You Can Count On Me" again. For me It stood up to a second viewing.
There'd been some talk of a Thursday get-together. Where we at with that?