Obama to Robots: I’m Watching You

I don’t know about you, but I like a President who can throw a funny, geeky sci-fi reference once in a while. Clearly, el Comandante en Jefe has watched his Terminators and scary Big Dogs a few times. Obama said those words while presenting his “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which aims to promote the development of new inventions by students all around the country. – gizmodo

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Movie Review: I recommend seeing this movie.  It was funny, unexpected and did have a few connections to some strange things that really happened.

Here is an interesting report from TDG on the topic:

With the new public attention on the story, a number of the individuals involved have thrown some doubts on the veracity of Ronson’s account.

John Alexander has long disputed a number of the claims in The Men Who Stare at Goats, and in a recent article (“They Stared at Goats Because…“) states that even the title is incorrect, as the goat in question actually died after being struck using a martial arts move. Meanwhile, Stargate remote viewer Paul Smith, in an Amazon review of the book, says that while Goats is an entertaining read, it is not an accurate summation of the actual history – and at times, uses plenty of ‘artistic license’ in presenting material. And Jim Channon, whose ‘First Earth Battalion’ idea is central to much of Goats (and who has been very sporting and good-humoured about his treatment in the book), has a press release on his website which says that “Ronson’s tongue-in-cheek account is classified as a work of ‘non-fiction,’ but it is so loaded with speculation and inaccuracy, it sets the stage for much of the confusion.”

Nov. 5, 1955: A Flux of Genius | This Day In Tech

… According to archival footage, Brown was standing on his toilet seat on the evening of Nov. 5, 1955, attempting to hang a clock in his bathroom, when he slipped and slammed his head on the side of the sink. Upon regaining consciousness Brown reported having “a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head.” A picture which he crudely scrawled down on a piece of paper and subsequently spent 30 years of his life and family fortune to build.

That picture, of course, was the flux capacitor. And as every high school physics student knows, it’s the device that makes time travel possible.

The main hurdle Brown faced with the flux capacitor was delivering enough power to make it function. The capacitor required a staggering 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to generate a time-displacement field. Brown first surmised that meeting the capacitor’s power needs could be accomplished in two ways: either by channeling a nuclear reaction or harnessing a bolt of lightning. Lightning as it turned out, was pretty much out of the question, because it’s impossible to determine when and where a bolt will strike.

Brown decided to go for the nuclear option. He hypothesized that within 30 years, material like plutonium would be easily obtainable — probably available in corner drugstores. It turned out he was dead wrong.

By 1985 Brown had squandered his family fortune and allegedly committed several acts of insurance fraud to finance his time machine. Built from a Delorean DMC-12 (whose stainless steel body had a direct and influential effect on flux dispersal), it was fitted with a working flux capacitor that was powered by a nuclear reactor. Desperate for fuel, Brown duped a group of Libyan terrorists into providing him with weapons-grade plutonium.

At 1:21 a.m Oct. 25, 1985, Brown (with the help of his protege, Martin McFly) was able to successfully — and safely — send his dog forward and then McFly back in time. After a series of setbacks resulting from the first temporal displacement, Brown and McFly would travel to the years 1955, 2015 and 1885.

Unfortunately, because of a railroad accident near Hill Valley’s Eastwood Ravine a day later, Brown’s DeLorean along with its flux capacitor was destroyed. Despite repeated requests from the media and scientific communities, Brown has declined interviews and refuses to share or replicate the flux capacitor’s technology.

The incidents leading up to the time machine demise also served as the basis for the award-winning documentary, Back to the Future.

via Nov. 5, 1955: A Flux of Genius | This Day In Tech | Wired.com.

Monty Python celebrates 40 years of silliness

It’s been a Monty Python world lately — and we’re not even talking about the absurdity and silliness of current events, such as balloon boys and confessional celebrities.

No, it’s a Python world on TV, with the lads being showcased in a multipart IFC documentary — which started this week — and re-airing of their classic TV episodes and movies.

Last week, the paparazzi were out in New York to see the group, a bunch of self-confessed silly old men.

The five surviving members of Monty Python made a rare joint appearance at the premiere of the IFC documentary series, “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut).”

“There shouldn’t be this sort of thing for being silly,” Michael Palin said as he saw the chaos surrounding them on the red carpet leading into New York’s Ziegfeld Theater, where “Almost the Truth” was set to debut. Video Watch the Pythons reminisce »

Palin, along with John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and the late Graham Chapman, became comedic legends with the creation of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” 40 years ago this October. They produced 45 TV episodes for the BBC and five feature films together before going their separate ways in 1983.

Those broadcasts and shows still resonate among fans old and new. Many of today’s comedians cite Python as a key influence, which can be seen in comedy including “The Daily Show” and “The Simpsons.”

And many fans can quote some of the films chapter and verse.

“One of the embarrassing things is that the fans know these lines better than I do. So they come up and I have absolutely no idea, and I just nod and go ha ha, yeah,” Cleese said.

But the fan base has spread past the original audience. “Kids of 10 or 11 now see Python as the cool thing. We’re old enough to be their great-grandparents,” Palin said.

The surviving members are still a little bemused about the whole phenomenon.

“It’s kind of unreal,” Palin said. “We did all of this when we were kids.”

Jones added, “We’re just totally lucky.”

And according to him, the survival of Python is lucky in more ways than one.

“If we had gone out a week before, we would have been in black and white,” Jones recalled. “We were in the first week of BBC doing color. So if we’d been made in black and white … you wouldn’t be watching the TV shows now, so that’s lucky.”

And that wasn’t all, according to Jones: “We’re also lucky because the shows were nearly wiped [erased] by the BBC.”

He said in 1971 he got a call that the BBC was going to erase all of the original tapes to save money. “That is what the BBC did in those days; they wanted the videotapes to reuse.” According to the documentary, Gilliam came to the rescue, buying the run of “Python” episodes before they could be erased.

Jones knows his history, past and present (he’s a Chaucer scholar as well). But in the case of the Python documentary, he had a partner: The IFC’s documentary series was directed and produced in part by his son Bill.

“This documentary is the result of greed and nepotism,” he jokes.

The Pythons have aged pretty well, with all of them moving on to successful careers of their own, even as they continue to generate money from their Python properties.

“I’m making them money, and the ungrateful bastards never thank me,” Idle joked. “Who gave them a million dollars each for ‘Spamalot’?” It was Idle, who adapted “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” into the musical hit “Spamalot.”

Several of them are feeling and looking their ages, which range from 66 to 70, pointed out Gilliam, the American Python. “There seems to be a lot of excitement, but I don’t know who these people are. I’ve seen pictures of the Pythons, and none of these people look like those guys,” he said.

Added Cleese, “We’re a bunch of siblings, but it’s not going to matter, we’ll be dead soon.”

The only Python who has passed away, Chapman — who died 20 years ago — has not been forgotten. At a joint question-and-answer session for the documentary, the five surviving Pythons made sure to include him with a cardboard cutout onstage.

For all the history, Idle said that this reunion isn’t about being best friends with everyone.

“We weren’t like the closest friends, but we spent a lot of time together in stupid costumes so it was more like a great football team where we played very well together.”

He added, “When we get together, we do that now.”via Monty Python celebrates 40 years of silliness – CNN.com.

I need to laugh more

I’ve started a pursuit of happiness program this week.

1. Take a full hour and write down everything you want. Anything that comes to mind. Brainstorm.
2. Then prioritize. Sort your goals until you have, in order of importance, what you want from life.
3. Translate your goals into actions: I want ____ and so I do _____. Each goal could have many actions. Some actions can help you meet several goals.

Then jump in! Make things happen.  Use all of your resources. Don’t hold back.  Don’t get out of balance. If you want to be in shape, exercise!  If you want love, make it. If you want to be happy, _(fill in the blank)____.

This how I figured out that I need to laugh more.  Birds don’t care if I laugh or not.

Canadian circus billionaire heads to space station

Canadian circus tycoon Guy Laliberte turned space into his big top Wednesday, boarding a Russian rocket and lifting off on a mission that mixes a serious message on water shortages with some clowning around in the cosmos.

Laliberte, an experienced fire-eater and stilt-walker who founded Cirque du Soleil, joined Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and American astronaut Jeffrey Williams aboard a Soyuz craft that soared off the Kazakh steppe and set a course for the International Space Station.

The billionaire who calls himself the first clown in space paid a reported $35 million for his nine-day stay at the station, where he plans to publicize the world’s growing shortage of clean water. His space extravaganza will culminate in a satellite linkup with shows in 14 cities across five continents featuring rock band U2 and Colombian pop star Shakira, as well as an appearance by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

With a puff of white smoke, the Soyuz craft carrying Laliberte and his crew mates shed its first rocket stage minutes after liftoff from the Baikonur launch facility and then disappeared from view.

Laliberte’s friends and family on the ground waited anxiously and then burst into cheers when an announcement that the ship had reached orbit blared over a loudspeaker. There were ecstatic hugs, sobs of relief and chants of “Guy! Guy!”

They then broke into an impromptu rendition of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

“I’m very happy for him. It’s amazing,” said Laliberte’s partner, former model Claudia Barilla, tears streaming down her face as she cradled their youngest son. “Now we know he’s up there.”

She wore a yellow clown nose as she watched the launch. Laliberte had donned a bulbous red nose before the launch and said he was taking nine of the novelty noses to the station for other occupants to wear. He has also mischievously warned he will tickle them in their sleep.

Also among the spectators was Quebec pop star Garou, a friend of Laliberte’s.

“I feel a lot more mesmerized than I ever thought I would be,” Garou said after the launch. “Having your friend rising up that fast and that impressively is beyond what I expected.”

An acrobat, fire-breather, philanthropist and a keen gambler, 50-year old Laliberte plans to use his trip to publicize the world’s shortage of clean water by holding a global artistic performance organized by his One Drop Foundation. The Quebec-born entrepreneur is worth an estimated $2.5 billion and holds a 95 percent stake in Cirque du Soleil, which he founded 25 years ago.

via Canadian circus billionaire heads to space station – Yahoo! News.

John Was Right: Beatles Top Jesus, so does Pizza

The Beatles really became bigger than Jesus when more people searched for the band than the son of God on Google over the last month.

Graph showing the relative popularity of the search terms Beatles and Jesus on Google over the past 30 days

More than forty years after John Lennon invoked the ire of Christians by claiming his band were bigger than Jesus, he has been proved right by an analysis of search terms on the Google search engine.

In the last four weeks more computer users have typed in the search word “Beatles” on the Google website than “Jesus”. The popularity of The Beatles has increased substantially during September thanks to the re-release of all of their albums digitally-remastered.

The last month also saw the release of the video game The Beatles Rock Band, which allows players to pretend to be Paul, John, George or Ringo by playing along to their songs on plastic instruments, while watching cartoon versions of the band on a screen.

In March 1966 Lennon caused uproar when he told the Evening Standard: “I do not know what will go first, rock’n'roll or Christianity … we’re more popular than Jesus now”.

Across America, angry Beatlemaniacs burned their Fab Four vinyl in protest and Lennon was forced to issue a rambling apology: “I wasn’t saying whatever they’re saying I was saying. I’m sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologise if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.”

Computer users can find out which topics people are searching for on Google by using the Google trends website, which allows you to analyse in detail the words people are typing in from different countries and different time periods.

Though the graph clearly shows that The Beatles caught the imagination of more people during September than Jesus did, video games experts point out that The Beatles Rock Band has not fared as well in the shops as expected with rival music game Guitar Hero 5 outselling the Fab Four’s version.

- via telegraph

Also topping Jesus at least for a while in 2009: Michael Jackson.  For you South Park fans, Santa does not beat Jesus, even at his strongest time of year.

But people, you may want to sit down for this… I think you need to know the truth now … Okay, I’m just going to say it….  pizza has been consistently more popular than Jesus Christ for the last five years in a row.

I am so sorry. I know this must be hard for you to accept. But, take heart! Xeno’s First Virtual Pizza Church will be opening soon on a web browser near you.

What is fate?

A priest asked the Master, “What is fate?”

The Master answered:

It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.

It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.

It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.

“And that is fate?” said the priest.

“Fate… I thought you said Freight”, responded the Master.

“That’s all right” said the priest, “I wanted to know about Freight too.”

Istanbul by They Might be Giants

And now, for something completely different.

I’ve always liked this song but hadn’t seen this video. Thanks to Mercy for sending the link.

Believe the Bible is True?