ooooh, these boots were made for walkin'. kind of.

i read very little of this technical history but have been listening to a lecture series about world war one and they were talking about the problem of mounted machine guns shooting through propellers so i sought out more information. that always seemed problematic when watching aerial combat in war movies but they pretty quickly overcame it in reality. hard to believe they could synchronize the guns and propellers at those speeds. who knew? science! (and killing machines!)

The only place I can find in the entire nation (using limited searching tools) the full boat a) IMAX b) 3D c) HFR release of the Hobbit-Smaug movie is the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. In any large city, you can find either IMAX 3D or HFR 3D, but not the trifecta. That is in just the one theater.

I fear the dilution of our precious national frame rate. Don't count on the Europeans to help. Those barbarians think 50 Hz is perfectly adequate. Video delivery in the US is increasing done with mobile and notebook devices -- at 30 Hz rather than good old American 60 Hz. Yes, I said it, 30 Hz video. And somehow that's okay. If that's okay, then why bother with 48 Hz in the theater. And likewise, if the theaters get by with 24, what's wrong with 30 Hz "TV". If Peter Jackson's experiment doesn't gain market traction, we may lose a generation to low frame rate visual imagery.

But the very devices that bring the scourge of 30 Hz video may be the solution. Deep inside the production studios will exist the master format: 60 Hz video. The video production professionals know what's up, and won't let their visual imagery stutter. One mobile device maker will dig deep and tap into that high frame rate video. "Why do sports look like shit on my phone?" "Dear sir, you suffer from low frame rate syndrome. Try one of my brand!"

(I think 24 Hz is a lovely temporal format. But it should be one of many. Personally, I like 120 Hz, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

rainbows and unicorns

GLADWELL: Hold on. Paul to Hilton to Kardashian to … Johnny Carson! I just read the new book about him by his lawyer and confidant Henry Bushkin. It's really about what it means to have been a celebrity in the 1960s and 1970s, and reads like something from another century. So Bushkin tells the following story: Carson used to hang out at a bar run called Jilly's, on 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, which was a big mob hangout. One night, Carson got very drunk and hit on an attractive woman at the bar who turns out, unfortunately, to be the girlfriend of a major Mafia guy.

Carson gets thrown down the stairs and escapes more serious injury only because "Jilly," who is everything the name "Jilly" would suggest, steps in. The mobster then puts a contract on Carson's life, who — terrified — holes up in his apartment and misses three consecutive shows. Desperate, NBC gets in touch with an agent at William Morris known to have an in with the mob, who brokers a deal with Joseph Colombo, the head of the Five Families, in which the contract is lifted in exchange for NBC agreeing to cover the Italian American unity rally on Columbus Day.

when headline writing goes horribly wrong.

Twitter's shock block unlock deemed cockup, gets a lockup
Blocking block BLOCKED after 'blogger blindfold blip

more for the incredible shrinking bag files. the pint of pesto salad i bought from fresh direct felt smaller than usual in my manly mitts last time i bought it. thats cuz a pint now is officially 13 oz! that extra handful of shells must be killing their bottom line. and then just now the bag of pita chips i bought seemed a wee bit petite. shrunk from a size 8 to a size 7.3. i must assume they are just looking out for my figure.

barcelona: the picasso of football brands. when i first saw a tease i was expecting some sort of technological innovation within the fabric but its just a branding exercise at this point.

so let me get this straight. you want to pay us a lot of money to market your brand by putting the logo on the inside of our uniforms where no one can see them except when they are doing the laundry? i think we can accomodate that.

But why are nastiness and snideness taken to be features of our age? One general point of agreement, in denunciations of snark, is that snark is reactive. It is a kind of response. Yet to what is it responding? Of what is it contemptuous?

Stand against snark, and you are standing with everything decent. And who doesn't want to be decent? The snarkers don't, it seems. Or at least they (let's be honest: we) don't want to be decent on those terms.

i havent watched it yet but i have the first season and i keep seeing positive reviews.

Black Mirror gets you like that: First you're giggling, then you're sobbing. It's the rare show that unsettles just as much as it entertains. It rejects easy descriptors, but a first step might be calling it a Twilight Zone for the Information Age...

rosewater tapioca

So, yeah....Due to another complete lapse of fiscal responsibility..(do not read this as regret however) I made a reservation at Atera for last night.  I of course had heard many remarkaable things about this Portland,--right?- chefs "cooking", some from this very blog...!  

Totally cool hidden (sort of) entrance....I guess idea is like going into a enclosed forest cove type thing, def keeping with forage-y food theme...Liked that. Also liked lively music vibe, good for situation that could get too hushed and precious.  Went first to lower level lounge...sort of mega VIP post apocalypse bunker. Could live there if had to I guess.  Had what proved to be an effecting (today that is) cocktail drink to start.  After went with recomended sparkling Huet Vouvray...cool.  First blizzard of dishes, small nutty (as in kooky) things come out...Crunchy Beer foam w caviar, Pickled beet w little greens, wrapped in bees wax new one on me..great tho.  And so...yeah keeps on coming...Little lobster roll...etc...Only item that was not too engaging was Razor clam, garlic and almond...just too much like pile of nuts...Kind of was hoping for the other Razor clam dish I read about...the tromp loi...(sp?) clam painted to look like a shell you can eat.  I fact I dont think we had many, if any, of those fool the eye-- "oh, you cant eat that, looks like a pile of mossy dirt and rocks"---Noma kind of things Id heard about.  However there were plenty of dishes with flavors and textures that put me in the positon of feeling like, "yeah, basically this is like crawling on the ground in the woods and chewing"....Reminded me of going to controversial LA sushi place "Hump" years ago when they flayed a live ell and served it right away, was wiggling on plate I believe...Idea struck me that this how a bear eats in a stream.  So here at Atera too it seems that the ambition for highly refined food these days is to replicate how to eat like an animal...But for more money. Sure Im not first person to make this comparison...but. Im happy to pay, when can.   Lamb thing was awesome, supper slow cooked, like raw almost, Hake fish item fantastic...too many to list dude...!  And then to keep my exploration of Finger Lakes wine going had glass of AMAZING Cab Franc by Element Wines...??? Never heard of...So far been loving Eminence Road Cabs,(thanks Skin). This totally great to compare with, much more Rhone-y than lighter, "pretty" Burg style E Road.  

We also had insanely detailed tutorial on tea...guy gave Michelle tea leaves to take home...nutty...Needless to say we were last to leave.  So we heading out and dudes are like.."Hey so hope we'll see you again Steve....octopus, helicopters, yeah we know.."  WTF??  Guess when you serve 12 people a sitting you got time to Google them.  Cant hide, even in the forest.....

sdb

A man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela's memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a "fake," the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Tuesday.

RIP Bill Porter, door to door salesman.