February 3, 2013
Captain Harlock: "The sea of space is my sea"
"Few characters are as memorable as he: tall, black-cloaked, face scarred, eyepatch over his right eye, and ever-ready with his saber-rifle. He is the epitome of Leiji (Reiji) Matsumoto's male hero, an SF version of the wild-West lone gunslinger." The Space Pirate Captain Harlock is coming back in a new CG movie, a decade since his escapades were last animated, and back with Toei Animation, who first brought his one-eyed scowl to the small screen 35 years ago. If this is all news to you, read on for more of the mysterious man who fight's for no one's sake. [more inside]
Dung beetles and the Milky Way
Dung beetles and the Milky Way "When you view the Milky Way, you are gazing through the plane of this disk and at the universe around and beyond—which, astronomers report, is imponderably vast and contains billions of other galaxies ... On Earth, at least, humans suppose that we alone seek out the sweep of our own galaxy. But we’re wrong. In a paper in Current Biology, Marie Dacke, and her colleagues revealed that at least one other species takes guidance from the Milky Way: the dung beetle".
Academic freedom under attack in NYC
The Political Science Department at Brooklyn College is co-sponsoring a panel discussion about the BDS Movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel this Thursday Feburary 7th. The event features Omar Barghouti, BDS co-founder and Judith Butler, prominent philosopher. The college has come under widespread attack for its hosting of the event, with a coalition of New York City councillors threatening to defund the school. [more inside]
Beyond untranslatable words
In 1995, an Atlantic story on the first Chinese translation of Ulysses closed with the offhand remark that "no one in China is offering to translate Finnegans Wake." Today on the (day after the) 131st anniversary of his birth, James Joyce's famously difficult work is a bestseller in China.
If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a ...
House of Cards is a new original "TV" series that is not destined for any TV distribution channel. Instead, it was developed by, and is only available through, Netflix. Netflix posted the entire first "season," 13 1-hour episodes, on Friday. (Is this the new thing?) Some of us, cough, watched the whole thing. [more inside]
I'll take the over on the national anthem.
Super Bowl Prop Bets! Neatly organized based on how you think the game will play out, with a few non-football bets at the end. The Las Vegas Sun weighs in with some picks of their own.
"The project began with a mechanical hand"
Bang With Friends
Bang With Friends : presenting a Facebook app to help with your hookup needs. Simply indicate which of your Facebook Friends you'd like to sleep with, and if any of those also indicate they'd like to sleep with you, then you both get notified. [more inside]
Spielberg's adventures of Hergé
Coming to a medium-sized city near you
DARPA has developed a 1800 megapixel sensor array for use on UAVs. It is capable of spotting something as small as 6-inches while covering an area half the size of Manhattan. [more inside]
Pictures of Assholes
Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes out a camera and starts recording his paparazzi. They don't like it. [slyt]
What Made "The O.C." Great, Bitch
Elahi, Elahi, lema shabaqtani?
Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen
At a time when the Lord of the Rings didn't exist as a film or a book trilogy, Fritz Lang created the 5-hour-long film Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs, 1924), based on the 13th-century poem Die Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs). A short clip of
Siegfried slaying the dragon was used as a trailer for the restored edition of the film. [more inside]
There were four in the bed and the little one said "squeeze up"
From April 2013 all working-age housing benefit claimants will experience a reduction in their benefit if their home has what is termed a 'spare bedroom'. Some people have a problem with this, and it is believed it will plunge 95,000 Britons into poverty.
Prime Minister David Cameron has defended the tax saying it is important to "get control of housing benefit". Some who voted for the tax claim to have never heard of it, even though there are some high profile cases in the media detailing how people will suffer.
The Bedroom Tax might be targeting the poor, but there may be a Mansion Tax in the planning stages to help balance the scales -- or not. It's a modern Window Tax!
For revival, sin and soul
The Revival Tour documentary celebrates the annual acoustic folk-punk Revival Tour that was founded by Hot Water Music frontman Chuck Ragan. Now in its fifth year, The Revival tour has featured musicians like Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon, Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace, and British star Frank Turner. This year's lineup includes Chuck Ragan, Rocky Votolato, Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath, Streetlight Manifesto's Toh Kay, Jenny O, Loved Ones' Dave Hause and Jenny Owen Youngs. Folk-punk previously.
The Comics Reporter's holiday reviews
In order to make it easier on himself during the Holiday season last year, Tom Spurgeon ran a series of interviews with various comics professionals on his site: the complete archive is now available. Interviewees range from Alison Bechdel to Mark Waid and from Joe Sacco to Carol Tyler, providing as wideranging a cross section of American comics as you're likely to get anywhere.
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