In 1946, Encyclopedia Britannica Films created a filmstrip to teach children about despotism, and how to determine whether the particular country you lived in was led by despotism or democracy.
Check it out.
In all honesty, I can’t give it as much credit as I’d like to. It comes across as fairly Communist in its tone [...]
One of my earliest science fiction memories is The Tomorrow People, a British science fiction series about gifted teenagers with immense telepathic powers who got transported around. (I think I was exposed to them before I was exposed to Star Trek, so that this was my first exposure to the idea of someone having [...]
Copyright law prevents aliens from listening to The Beatles
Amazing. They wanted to include “Here Comes the Sun” on Voyager I, but felt the copyright status was too “murky.”
(tags: amazing ip.abuse stupid as.hell)
Frightening Christian alien TV puppet sings
This is one of those things that is not intended to be freaky, but gets so freaky within [...]
Chicago Tribune: Millennium Park loosens its photo rules
“With Memorial Day and peak wedding season around the corner, the City of Chicago is telling most of these lensmen, ‘Click away. No permit, no problem.’”
(tags: cool chicago)
Music Thing: The Mac Startup Sound
“It’s a C Major chord, played with both hands stretched out as wide as possible (with [...]
I was rather amused by MTV. They’re not even trying to hide their corporateness, their sell-out status now.
For the upcoming MTV Music Video Awards, Nine Inch Nails wanted to perform their single “The Hand That Feeds” in front of a backdrop of an unaltered photograph of George W. Bush.
MTV wouldn’t let it go forward, [...]
Chicago Tribune: Metra train delivers on boy’s dream
“Metra announced Saturday that it had named locomotive No. 401 after the train-loving little boy, marking the first time the commuter rail agency has named a train engine after a child.” *sniffle*
(tags: chicago powerful sad)
How to Do Google SMS
(tags: reference google)
Flickr: Take a look at how a [...]
From the O’Reilly Radar:
The Top 10 Reasons Episode IV is Better Than Episode IIIby Marc Hedlund
10. Vader kills someone with his bare hands in the first five minutes.
9. Unlike her mother, Leia doesn’t sit around her apartment crying all the time.
8. Not just a silent Jar-Jar — no Jar-Jar at all.
7. Even old, [...]
I went to go see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith last night. I went in, honestly, with the expectation that it was going to be rather good. This wasn’t an entirely unreasonable anticipation. Ebert gave it 3.5 stars; Rotten Tomatoes has 83% of critics appreciating it; and numerous [...]
Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It
(tags: cool as.hell sex funny girls)
Eclecticism: Feed Types
“Here, let’s rank RSS feeds from worst (least useful for readers) to best. Worst: headline only feeds with ads.”
(tags: geekery insightful interesting)
Mimi Smartypants: “Nora noticed him while digging in the sandbox and immediately ceased excavation, went over to his bench, and [...]
Bono had an interview with the Tribune’s music guru, and doing so paid a very nice compliment to Chicago (as well to the iPod). Heavily edited excerpt follows:
Greg Kot: Why is the idea of associating a song with a product a good idea?
Bono: You’ve got to deal with the devil. The devil here [...]
I think a “holy shit” would be appropriate right about now …
Wired News
May 16, 2005 2:00 am PT
Super Water Kills Bugs Dead
by Skip Kaltenheuser
A California company has figured out how to use two simple materials — water and salt — to create a solution that wipes out single-celled organisms, and which appears to speed [...]
5-8-8, 2-3-hundred …
If you’re a Chicagoan, you probably just sung out the word, “EMPIREEEEEEEE!”
Empire Carpets’ advertising jingle is one of those local jingles that is ingrained in the heads of almost every Chicagoan, even if we’ve moved elsewhere; I once ran into a Chicagoan while attending college in Pennsylvania who knew it, too.
But I never [...]
Another thing I recently rented from Netflix was the bonus material DVD for “Donnie Darko: Special Edition.” (Great flick.)
Among the extras was a documentary called “#1 Fan: A Darkomentary.” It was purporting to be the winner of a contest they held on the website for documentary submissions.
I watched the actions of Darryl Donaldson, [...]
I recently rented The Silence of the Lambs: Special Edition from Netflix. At one point after the movie was finished, I thought to myself, “They couldn’t have included bloopers on here, could they’ve?”
(Yes, I’m not exactly grammatical in my inner thoughts.)
Sure enough, they did.
The two most funny bloopers is Hopkins fairly bloody (from the [...]
Even though she killed someone at age 17, she’s nevertheless a funny comedian:
“I’m proud of George. He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse.”
— Laura Bush
![[Obama '08!]](http://www.windycitymike.com/images/obama-08.jpg)
