All of the planets in our solar system are represented in these wonderful posters by Ross Berens.  Yes, we’ll forgive him for including Pluto, which isn’t technically a planet anymore. From what I can gather, Berens, is a Grand Rapids, MI student.  Regardless, these posters would look ill in anybody’s room.

Speaking of Pluto, is anyone else fascinating that the planet is rapidly changing color?  The gorgeous solar system inforgraphic prints are available for sale here. [via]

Finally confirming what everybody’s believed since 1993 or so, MTV has dropped the “music television” from its newly redesigned logo.  This is the first logo makeover for the Viacom company since it’s inception roughly 30 years ago.  It’s a minor change, but a fairly telling one, nonetheless.

According to a press release: “The logo is part of MTV’s re-invention to connect with today’s millennial generation and bring them in as part of the channel.”  Okay, whatever.  I guess this means it is official that the channel will no longer play music videos, but just keep offering a healthy dose of “Jersey Shore.”

Murtha was also the first Vietnam combat veteran to be elected to the House.  It should also be noted that he was dubbed the “King of Pork” by many of his colleagues.

Fast forward about two minutes into this video to fully understand just how complicated the car you drive truly is.  Fascinating.  [via]

Two scientists have proposed an interesting theory as to what the Big Bang actually was: “the cosmos we live in was actually created by the cyclical trillion-year collision of two universes (which they define as three-dimensional branes plus time) that were attracted toward each other by the leaking of gravity out of one of the universes.”

I was unfamiliar with the term “brane,” which comes from string theory, Membrane theory and Brane cosmology.  Essentially, a “brane” is a a spatially extended mathematical concept that exists in a static number of dimensions.  Anyways, once you open this lid, it’s impossible not to have your brain explode from all of these theories.

It’s an interesting theory.

Well, this is intriguing.  An animated zombie movie that looks as though it was created with adults in mind.  Slashfilm has more.

No joke.  I’m from Barcelona’s latest LP, 27 Songs from Barcelona, is being made available online in full, for free, one song at a time.

The album features one song from each member of the 27-strong pop group and was inspired by Kiss’s 1978 release of four solo albums simultaneously.  Again, no joke.  As of this writing, the band has released fourteen of the twenty-seven songs. [via]

As anyone who’s read my blog knows, I’m a big fan of a certain long-running British SF TV series. One that started watching — from behind the sofa — when I was three. And while I know it’s cruel to make you wait for things, in about 14 months from now, which is to say, NOT in the upcoming season but early in the one after that, it’s quite possible that I might have written an episode. And if I had, it would originally have been called “The House of Nothing”. But it definitely isn’t called that any more.

Countdown. You’ve got about 14 months.”

Though I’m not the most dedicated Doctor Who fan, really it’s more of a passing fancy, this is pretty great.

Here’s hoping Tabor gets the help and treatment he obviously needs. [via]

It is designed by Dean Allen and just look at that contributors list!  Look! Look again!  So good — do yourself a favor, print it out and stash it above the toilet or next to your bed.  You’re going to want to savor this one. [via]

First, I should say, in this particular study it was a relief to read “the instructors did not take a moralistic tone, did not disparage condom use and encouraged students to wait to begin sexual activity until they were ready — but not necessarily to wait until marriage.”

That’s the good, and many people would have you believe the results of the study were also good.  In a sample of 662 sixth and seventh graders, “33% of the students from the abstinence-only program, 52% from the safer-sex course, 42% from the comprehensive program and 47% from the control group had started having sex.”

And so yes, the results are promising, however, what strikes me as curious is the follow up was only two years after the study was conducted.

So at most, the kids were in 8th or 9th grade.  Just before the cusp of real sexual activity (seems like 10th grade is when everything explodes).  In other words, regardless of sex education, at that age only a small sample of students will be truly sexually active anyways.  It would be different if there results were applicable to 12th graders, etc.

So my question is what happens when those abstinence-only students begin having sex in 10th or 11th grade?  The goal of having them delay having sex seems disingenuous to me because at some point they will have sex. Will that sex be safe? Loving? Tender? Will it be meaningful? Will it result in teenage pregnancy because they don’t know how or are uncomfortable using birth control?

And none of those things ever seem to be addressed by sex education in this country, but particularly in abstinence-only education.

Now there are two ways to look at that quote: the first, is that Nolan has crafted a sci-fi film in the mold of his previous mindfuck movies like Memento or The Prestige. The second, is that this could be Nolan’s vanity clusterfuck we all suspect he has inside him somewhere.

As a Nolan fan since little seen first film, The Following, I’m hoping for the former.

“As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating ‘the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.’ The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to ‘produce the intended biological effect.’ Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can ‘ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.’”

That plus limber robots plus artificial intelligence equals a scary notion. No, just kidding.  I honestly am looking forward to the day when all of these things fall into place.

From the Press Release:

STAR WARS AT-AT (Approximate Retail Value: $99.99; Ages: 5 & up; Available: August 1, 2010) In space, size does matter, and Hasbro certainly kept that in mind when creating its all-new, highly detailed STAR WARS AT-AT. The AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) played a significant role in the Empire’s military assault in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and it will play an equally important role in every fan’s toy collection this year! Measuring more than 24 inches tall, nearly 28 inches long, and 12 inches wide, this colossal vehicle holds up to 20 STAR WARS figures – 6 of which can fit in its head alone! – and includes so many play and electronic features true to its on-screen counterpart that it’s hard to believe! From the zip-line in its body and articulated legs for superb poseability, to its LED lights and authentic movie sounds and phrases, this is the must-have addition for STAR WARS fans of all ages. Includes a 3 ¾ inch AT-AT driver action figure and a pop-out speeder bike.

I don’t collect toys, but damn I wish I had a five-year-old son as an excuse to buy this.  Not sure why Hasbro doesn’t do this for more Star Wars vehicles, like the X-Wing or Tie-Fighter.  Between this, and the newly redesigned Millennium Falcon, Hasbro is bringing it. [via]

“Parisian Love,” the Google ad that aired during Super Bowl XLIV, is part of their series of “Search Stories”.  According to Eric Schmidt, it wasn’t originally intended to be an ad.  I don’t know a single girl that wasn’t brought to tears or gave a rousing, “awwwww” for this commercial.  And by “single girl” I mean me. [via]

Still undecided about the new Spoon album, or rather where it fits into the hierarchy of their discography.  It is, by no means, disappointing.  Here’s the video for “Written in Reverse,” which in some respects is the most Spoon-y of songs on Transference. [via]

Oops!: “A Polish newspaper printed an article about the Vancouver Winter Olympics and our old friend Pedobear somehow ended up in a group shot with the official mascots.”

More here about the pedoshop disaster. And just in case you think this is a hoax, other online news coverage indicates this really happened.

Slate imagines what it would look like if Tarantino, Lynch, Anderson, Godard, and Herzog directed the Super Bowl.  [via]

Probably the best SNL sketch in a while and certainly the best in an otherwise ho-hum effort from the SNL crew. Too bad this isn’t how it really is.[via]

Sam Anderson:

I entered the fray on a bright Wednesday afternoon, with an open mind and an eager soul, ready to sound my barbaric yawp through the webcams of the world. I left absolutely crushed. It turns out that ChatRoulette, in practice, is brutal. The first eighteen people who saw me disconnected immediately. They appeared, one by one, in a box at the top of my screen—a young Asian man, a high-school-age girl, a guy lying on his side in bed—and, every time, I’d feel a little flare of excitement. Every time, they’d leave without saying a word. Sometimes I could even watch them reach down, in horrifying real-time, and click “next.” It was devastating. My first even semi-successful interaction was with a guy with a blanket draped over his lap who asked if I wanted to “jack of” with him. I declined; he disconnected. Over the course of an hour, I was rejected by what felt like a cast of thousands: a teenage girl talking on her cell phone, a close-up of an eyeball. It started to feel like a social-anxiety nightmare. One guy just stared into the camera and flipped me off.

Kottke’s experience with the site seems just as fascinating, but no better:

During my session, the average “chat” lasted about 5 seconds and I observed several people drinking malt liquor, two girls making out, many many guys who disconnected as soon as they saw I wasn’t female, several girls who disconnected after seeing my face (but not before I caught the looks of disgust on theirs), 3 couples having sex, and 11 erect penises. In a Malkovichian moment, I was even connected to myself once…and then the other me quickly disconnected.

Regardless of how soul crushing it sounds, both agree this is pretty much the best thing going right now.

Leaving aside the price tag for HBO’s upcoming Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks production of The Pacific, which according to New York Magazine could swell north of $225 million, the only thing that matters is whether or not it will be as good as Band of Brothers.

Thinking back on it, BoB is probably the best mini-series of the past decade.  [via]

The ads for this year’s Super Bowl have been lackluster, unless you love Budweiser, Doritos, or GoDaddy. Actually, the Bridgestone Tires commercial with Shamu was pretty clever, as well as the Coca-Cola Simpsons one.

Currently, this Snickers commercial with Betty White and Abe Vigoda (still alive!) is the best yet.

Apparently, the people of the Philippines also know this and will kill anyone that performs this song during karaoke.

The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?

Also in this fine piece of karaoke journalism is the fun fact that a Thai man killed eight people after a rendition of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

We’ll update as the big game goes on and more become available, but for now spots for, Robin Hood, The Last Airbender, and Shutter Island have all been leaked.

Robin Hood

Still looks too much like Gladiator to have me truly enthralled in this Robin Hood tale.

The Last Airbender

It’s a relief to M. Night stretching his film-making chops. Now, if this movie has an ending that flows naturally and isn’t some hackneyed twist, then I’ll be back on the M. Night train.

Shutter Island

As part of an interview in connection with PBS’s upcoming airings of “Macbeth” and “Hamlet” in April, Sir Patrick Stewart tells Digital Nation that he can’t condense life into a 140 character Tweet, and explains why he is afraid to start “gaming.”

As always, his mere presence brings an immense amount of gravitas to the notion of simplicity not brevity.

Of the 34 nominated films, by my count 28 of the movies are available right now! — if you know where to look and have the desire to not pay for the movies.

According to Baio, fewer films have been leaked this year and they are taking longer to show up online. “Are studios doing a better job protecting screeners and intimidating Academy members? Or was this year’s crop of films too boring for pirates to bother with? I can’t tell if this is a scene-wide trend or localized to the Oscars only.”

I would conjecture that this year’s crop of films are mostly boring for pirates to deal with.  Of the six movies that aren’t available online, only two — Tom Ford’s A Single Man and Jeff Bridges’s likely Best Actor win for Crazy Heart — have any sort of interest in these parts.

Still, this is always one of the most fascinating stories every year, because it offers further proof that those running the studios still have no idea how to maximize technology to their benefit.

I’m not really sure what the point of a trailer for either an LP or a book is, but in the case of the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, (out March 9th) which again features Damon Albarn as the main music man and artwork from Jamie Hewett. 

Only this time the album is chalk full of weird cameos, including Snoop Dogg, De La Soul, Lou Reed, the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, Gruff Rhys and the Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon.  R&B crooner Billy Womack shows up on the first single (already leaked) “Stylo” along with Mos Def.

Perhaps more interesting is that Mos Def doesn’t just have a cameo but he’s also been made a part of the animated band as the character “Sun Moon Stars.”

Plastic Beach

1. “Orchestral Intro”
2. “Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach” (feat. Snoop Dogg and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
3. “White Flag” (feat. Kano Bashy)
4. “Rhinestone Eyes”
5. “Stylo” (feat. Bobby Womack and Mos Def)
6. “Superfast Jellyfish” (feat. Gruff Rhys and De La Soul)
7. “Empire Ants” (feat. Little Dragon)
8. “Glitter Freeze” (feat. Mark E Smith)
9. “Some Kind Of Nature” (feat. Lou Reed)
10. “On Melancholy Hill”
11. “Broken”
12. “Sweepstakes” (feat. Mos Def Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
13. “Plastic Beach” (feat. Mick Jones Paul Simonon)
14. “To Binge” (feat. Little Dragon)
15. “Cloud Of Unknowing” (feat. Bobby Womack)
16. “Pirate Jet”

Other than that, yeah, this redesign is a long time coming and much appreciated.  I’m a bit shocked it took this long, seeing as nobody enjoyed trying to open the packet first and then squeezing out the ketchup second.

Much different than what Fox News aired on television, and a more clear picture that Jon Stewart, a comedian, could perhaps be the last sane voice in news television.  A sad realization indeed. 

I detest the thought of driving viewers to Fox News and hence increase their advertising revenue, so it’s embedded in full above.  Worth watching and comparing to the edited clips that have been floating about for the last two nights.

Pure, sweaty, grungy rock’n roll at it’s finest.  This is the band performing during their CD release party at Mosebacke in Stockholm, Sweden.  Pick up a copy of their album, Balcony and Cigarettes – you won’t be disappointed.  It’s full of toe-tapping rock anthems.

Mp3: The Sweet Serenades – “I Can Never Die”
Mp3: The Sweet Serenades – “Mona Lee”

For example, early in my tenure, our group of very clever graphics experts invented a way to display text on screen called ClearType. It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen. Although we built it to help sell e-books, it gave Microsoft a huge potential advantage for every device with a screen. But it also annoyed other Microsoft groups that felt threatened by our success.

Engineers in the Windows group falsely claimed it made the display go haywire when certain colors were used. The head of Office products said it was fuzzy and gave him headaches. The vice president for pocket devices was blunter: he’d support ClearType and use it, but only if I transferred the program and the programmers to his control. As a result, even though it received much public praise, internal promotion and patents, a decade passed before a fully operational version of ClearType finally made it into Windows.

Can you imagine this ever happening at Google or Apple?

​From the UK Mirror:

The former body-builder – and TV’s Green Cross Code – stunned doctors by making a full recovery after intensive radiotherapy at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital.

Speaking from his home in Croydon, Surrey, David said: “I’ve won the fight and I’m feeling better than ever. Everyone was shocked by how well it all went.”

David admits he was lucky to be diagnosed early after a Prostate Cancer Support Association worker urged him to ask his GP for a blood test.

Now David, whose brother also beat the disease, advises men over 50 to get tested. He said: “I’ve had people saying I’ve saved their lives. I got the same with the Green Cross Code, it’s happening again.”

[via]

Sure, the object is to defend Google from cyberattacks.  But how comfortable do you feel with the notion that the NSA (hello digital aged wiretapping!) is in cahoots with the one company that has more stored private information than any other.  Sure it starts with cyber defense, but how quickly will the NSA lean on Google when they need something, all it takes is whispering into their ear, “remember when we helped you with that thing.”

She recounts what it was like to serve her country under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, that may be coming to an end, for CNN. 

For most of my career in the Navy, I lived two lives and went to work each day wondering if that would be my last. Whenever the admiral would call me to his office, 99.9 percent of me was certain that it was to discuss an operational issue. But there was always that fear in the back of my mind that somehow I had been “outed,” and he was calling me to his office to tell me that I was fired. So many simple things that straight people take for granted could have ended my career, even a comment such as “My partner and I went to the movies last night.”

Having never served in the military, I’m not qualified to say how ending the policy would affect things.  However, it seems to me that if somebody has the courage to enlist in the Armed Forces that person should be allowed to serve openly and honestly.  Especially because we do not have compulsory military service in America.

“With more than a twinge of irony, Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.”

You know, if they really wanted to make a point they would actually try to run for Congress.  [via]

Every bit as good as the Curious George parody, but this one hits slightly closer to home as Mike Mulligan was without a doubt my favorite book growing up.  I probably read that book what seems like half-a-million times and am so fond of it, that I give it as a gift to little guys (cousins, nephews, etc.) whenever I can. [via]