farlane.blog

I don’t know but The Great Global Warming Swindle sure raises some interesting questions.

Most interesting to me was the supposed correlation between solar emissions and temperature and the observation about what the prevailing emission-limiting philosophy costs the developing world.

Here’s a criticism of the video as ‘Pure Propaganda’ but I still really think you should watch it.

…and then there’s this.

For the best experience, click to sbemails and scroll to the Technology video…

Strong Bad and Homestar and friends from HomestarRunner.com are probably my favoritest show on the internet. Or off the internet. Anywhere there’s shows, they’re my favorite. Also, I noticed they weren’t in my blogroll so I added them. And deleted some. I’ll try to keep that shorter and change it more.

Anyway, an article from Wired about Matt & Mike Chapman, of HomestarRunner rejecting a cartoon Network deal flashed across my Gmail:

“There was a brief flirtation with Comedy Central and Adult Swim,” Matt said. “The whole TV thing seemed creepy. They wanted to plug it into their model — that all comedy was gag-related, not character-driven. They left the door open, but we liked what we were doing and kept doing it online.”

I love HomestarRunner for many reasons, and the fact that the attitude and tone that aren’t cynical and dark are huge attraction. While I do enjoy some Cartoon Network fare now and then, it’s not something I could watch all the time. If my cable package had a Strong Bad Talk Show option, I would totally upgrade.

Apparently, their online store (I just ordered the Kick the Cheat for my daughter’s birthday) is bringing in enough money that they feel they can stay independent.

If (when?) you are a HomestarRunner fan, you have to watch this interview with Mike and Matt Chapman.

A reader asks…

…why do you always link things like 12 times? Do you think we’re stupid? Are you stupid?? Both???

The answer is actually:
d) By linking to specific (HomestarRunner welcome video, Kick the Cheat) I am providing detailed information to you. By linking to the main HomestarRunner.com and Yahoo! Store page, I am linking to the most popular pages for the general subject as the Google (and other search engines, if there in fact are any left) see them. It also provides the creators with the ability to manage your visit.

Incrediburgable new tech!

One of my favorite blogs, bootstrap analysis, had a pointer to The New Math Of Global Warming in Mother Jones magazine. It’s a slideshow of interesting equations by Craig Damrauer like Inertia = What we are doing / what we should be doing to represent our “action” on this issue.

A post in the global climate change group on Flickr cites E. O. Wilson of Harvard, the world’s most esteemed biologist, as estimating that one half of all species now on earth will be extinct by the end of this century and the fact that seven out of ten biologists believe the world is now in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of species in the 4.5-billion-year history of the planet.

As a writer, amateur photographer and media producer, I’ve always been enamored of the possibility of writing or photographing or filming something that would be so powerful as to wake masses of people up. I think I’ve pretty much accepted that it’s about impossible to wake someone up who is intentionally drugging themselves to sleep.

About the photo: It might be titled Eisberge, Brandsfield Strasse, Antarctica (Iceberg, Brandsfield Straits, Antarctica).

Those who’ve followed the career of the Artist formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince will probably find it no surprise that he’s right there pushing on the bounds of the music business. Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk deconstructs the recent hubbub around Prince’s deal to distribute free CDs to those who buy a special edition of the July 15 Mail on Sunday newspaper or attend one of his UK shows. In retaliation, his label Sony/BMG has refused to distribute the album in Great Britain, and a music industry wag remarked:

…people like (Prince) play a key part in helping figure out what the models may be in the music business of tomorrow, by giving away a whole album on the front of a newspaper, there is a very clear devaluing of music, which is not a positive message to send out right now.”

Buskirk points out that Prince will probably rake in millions from his “devaluing” end-run around his own label and points out that it’s the copies, not songs, that are becoming worthless in the digital age. After reading Buskirk’s excellent Prince Points the Way to a Brighter Future for Music, I was struck by the immense possibilities for all kinds of artists and media producers to capture more value - not less - from their work.

Rarely when I hunt for a photo do I find one that so elegantly dovetails as this one. It’s titled rosita: free from copyright in the name of the dream and it demonstrates that the wealth to be gained from valuing the art over the copy doesn’t have to be monetary.

Of course “everybody knows” that nerves use electric impulses to transmit sensations … kind of like Western Union but without all the stagecoaches. One problem with this model is that it doesn’t explain how anesthetics stop nerves from carrying pain signals.

In A Shocking Idea: Nerves Might Run on Sound, Not Electricity in Wired, Andrew Jackson & Thomas Heimburg, a pair of researchers at the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark a Niels Bohr biophysicist suggest that nerves operate using high pressure waves, like sound through a pipe.

Their theory, published in the Biophysical Journal, explains how nerves and anesthetics work as follows: Nerves are made of lipids that are liquid at body temperature. A yet-to-be-defined mechanism creates high-pressure, semisolid waves that move through the cells, delivering messages.

Anesthetics, they suggest, lower the temperature at which lipids become solid, making it difficult for the waves to form, thereby preventing nerves from sending pain signals. They also suggest that as the waves travel, they change the shape of the cell membrane, producing the electrical pulse that scientists currently mistake for the primary function of nerve cells.

I have to confess that the part of me that gets almost physically transported by music is nodding its head in time with this…

I looked at a ton of photos of violins and violinists and such, nothing struck me so here’s one I took at the Furniture show in Leland last month of a gorgeous table.

I’m amazed that a couple of 13ish-year-old girls conceived and executed this for the Heinz Top This TV Challenge.

I should probably say something pithy about how the contest/reality TV/commercial convergence is bearing down on ad agencies like Columbo on a bowl of chili, but I’ll just tell you to please go over there and favorite her movie and leave it at that!