From David Brooks at NY Times:
My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.
Photo courtesy Smothers52 at Flickr.
It’s hard to show music. There have been good attempts (thank you Information Society!), but there’s no one-to-one correlary between different senses, so most tries end up wanting.
Mario Basanov and Vidis video for I’ll be gone works because it leans so heavily on our pre-existing associations for visualizing rhythmic events. Would this help a deaf person ’see’ the song? Probably not. But for the hearing crowd, this video’s sonic visualization adds a rich additional dimension of surround sound - go watch the song and see for yourself.
Courtesy fabulously 40:
From Talking Points Memo:
We seem to have arrived at an equitable compromise: Sen. Clinton is staying in the nomination race while Sen. Obama drops out to move on to the general.
America is growing weary of the media coverage for a primary already mathematically concluded.
From Cobra Commander’s Twitter:
I just “borrowed” Destro’s Despoiler for the afternoon. 10:05 AM May 12, 2008 from web
Paid Firefly $4000 to cut the brake lines in Mindbender’s Volvo. Who’s laughing now, Mustache Mary? 01:38 PM May 07, 2008 from web
Impossible to strategize world domination with those incessantly annoying twins riding fourwheelers in the halls. Throneroom needs a door. 02:12 PM May 06, 2008 from web
Related: This film will be terrible.
It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, “the change you deserve.” The first element of the party agenda developed over the past few months by the leadership and select party members will focus on family issues.
A bold new plan could certainly help the Republican party stop the hemorrhaging that threatens their very existence. A courageous stand against the obviously faulty policies of the currency administration—politicized beliefs that fly in the face of conventional wisdom and academic insight on matters of budget, science, war & even infrastructure—could also help provide a real context for a damaged party. But try to co-op the one platform branded so tightly to a current candidate will simply reinforce the belief that most voters of any persuasion already have: that the GOP is yesterday’s party, and today’s problems need tomorrow’s solutions.
The Chilean volcano Chaitén erupted and Terra Networks Chile S.A. captured a stunning series of photos.
In many ways watching music is more riveting than just listening, but all for all the strengths of the Internet music TV has not been one of them. Perhaps it’s a question of scope—there are so many music niches, and a more limited supply of videos that providing quality visual music with specific appeal could be too steep a task. While recently Pitchfork has thrown their hat into the ring, with the competent Pitchfork TV, Tim Bormans’ mashup of last.fm and youtube is far more compelling. A steady mix of live shows and videos of music based on actual listening habits makes for an addictive video stream.Borman’s idea works because he intelligently merges the best of two disparate systems together. Last.fm has a better idea of music preference because it’s based on actual listening habits. Youtube has a breadth of video selection unparalled, which can be a good thing when well applied. Youtube’s weak on it’s on for video hopping, because it may assume that because I enjoy Rocket from the Crypt I’ll also like footage of Rocket Man by Elton John. It doesn’t know me well enough, and last.fm just doesn’t have videos. But together they appear nearly unstoppable.Here’s what I saw tonight:
Overall I heard a series of songs I really liked, The Cake excepted.While this is an amazing way to watch music, it’s not perfect. The full screen interface is solid, but in a smaller window the page layout is distracting.But for half an hour I was engaged and and treated to a series of videos I really liked and would never have thought to look for on my own.
One of the most remarkable things about Iron Man was the closing credits. The sequence by Danny Yount of Prologue is nothing short of brilliant. Do yourself a favor and watch it, then head to the theater if you haven’t seen it already.
After the last of the five “surge” brigades goes home this summer, the U.S. Army will have 13 brigade combat teams in Iraq (the Marines have two more) and two in Afghanistan. One BCT serves as a “global response force,” ready to respond to a small-scale emergency elsewhere in the world. One is in Korea. One is dedicated to homeland defense and security. One, at a base in Fort Riley, Kan., is training soldiers to become advisers to Iraqi and Afghan security forces. That adds up to 19 BCTs. All the other Army brigades are either between deployments or in their 12-month downtime periods, having fulfilled their 12-to-15-month deployment tours. (For a little more detail on these numbers, click here.)
And that’s it. There are no more combat brigades left.
Photo courtesy annibee at Flickr.