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July 6, 2007
7/7/7
marks the 100th birthday of
Grandmaster Robert Anson Heinlein, born July 7th 1907. Long live
Lazarus Long!
While
any attempt at
a tribute would but naturally turn into a
passionate link infested paean to this
visionary genius, one of the Big 3, along with Asimov and Clarke, one
must honour his contribution with a pointer to the
Heinlein Concordance, a portal of his stories, characters, concepts and timelines.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. ~ Robert A. Heinlein 1907 - 1988
posted by infini at 10:35 PM PST - 93 comments
It's been said before that the US Army is broken:
in April, last December by
Colin Powell and
Pat Buchanan, by the
head of the Army Reserve in 2005, by
several generals as far back as 2004.
But now, even as another Republican senator,
Domenici, joins Warner, Voinovich, and Lugar in abandoning support for Bush's War,
Joe Klein in Time Magazine says
the end is inevitable, regardless of what politicians want:
According to the Broken Army clock, troop levels will begin to wane in March 2008, no matter what Congress decides in September; the current 20 brigade combat teams will be reduced to 15 by August 2008. There is growing speculation in the military that Bush will try to pre-empt the Petraeus testimony by announcing a gradual drawdown from 20 to 15 combat brigades later this summer.
posted by orthogonality at 6:55 PM PST - 104 comments
Now Then is an exhibit of 25 comic artists showing a comparison of their drawing style now and when they were just kids. Also, check out 50 artists riffing on the theme of
Duck! Fun stuff from the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:57 PM PST - 7 comments
Frederick Remington was an American artist who in 1898 became a war correspondent and illustrator for the
New York Morning Journal during the Spanish-American War. The
Journal's editor in chief, William Randolph Hearst I was an American newspaper magnate whose paper had, circa 1895, fought to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule by writing sensational stories of Cuban virtue and Spanish atrocities in an attempt to influence US opinion. In 1898, Hearst sent Remington to Cuba to report on the war which Hearst was certain was about to begin. However when Remington arrived, he telegrammed Hearst saying "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return." Hearst responded "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Not long after, the war began. These telegrams are often cited as one of the most famous (if not the first) examples of
yellow journalism (so much so it is mentioned in
Citizen Kane) and is meant to speak to the powerful potential effects of the news media.
But did The Remington-Hearst "telegrams"actually ever take place, or is this simply another urban legend?
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:03 PM PST - 8 comments
John Kanzius can make
salt water burn using radio waves. It is not yet practical for energy generation, more energy is consumed than produced, but increases in efficiency could make salt water a viable replacement for fossil fuel.
posted by stbalbach at 12:28 PM PST - 70 comments
Walking is a crazy animation of a character walking around the walls of an art gallery, where each frame of the animation was painted on the walls & then wiped clean for the next frame.
Via.
posted by jonson at 8:43 AM PST - 30 comments
Newsfilter: Murdoch Buys The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones After some protests from editors about what sort of control News Corp. would have over the paper, a deal has been reached with the Bancroft family that runs the paper to sell for $5 billion. Murdoch gave up some demands for editorial control but still has the ability to hire and fire editors at will, making this the same sort of
fig leaf agreement he made with the Times of London.
posted by destro at 8:31 AM PST - 53 comments
The conservative city of Rajkot (Gujarat, India) received something of a shock this week when
Pooja Chauhan, 22, stripped to her "inner-wear" and
walked through town, brandishing a baseball bat. She was
protesting against the mental and physical harassment she's had to endure at the hands of her husband and in-laws for dowry, and for having borne a daughter, and also to denounce the local police's inactivity despite her repeated complaints.
Controversy,
video,
her side,
follow-up.
posted by progosk at 3:28 AM PST - 97 comments
You folks out there in MeFi Town been keeping up with the
water themed
MeFi Music Challenge? There's been some mighty fine uploads for you to check out! But if there was
ever a piece of music deserving the
water tag, it's
this drenching wet masterpiece by Brazil's brilliant, eccentric musical genius
Hermeto Pascual, in which Hermeto and his band play bottles full of water, and flutes full of water, and, well, the lake. Música da Lagoa: water music at its very best. And its very wettest.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:09 AM PST - 8 comments
