Coming to Kindle and Smashwords

Coming to Kindle and Smashwords
November 2013

Mar 2, 2012

The Hobbit’s Hyperreal Middle-Earth Perplexes Cast, Crew


Production for Peter Jackson’s film duology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s timeless fantasy The Hobbit is becoming so immersive that it’s getting hard to tell where reality ends and hyperreality begins.
“What’s kind of weird is that you’re on the set in the studio, and it looks so real,” said actor Adam Brown, who plays the dwarf Ori, in The Hobbit‘s newest production video, released Thursday and embedded above. “You come out on location and this almost looks fake. You think, ‘This can’t exist.’ It’s just weird.”

cool.....

Philip K. Dick: 30 years gone, and a PKD festival!

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Total Dick-Head's David Gill reminds us that 30 years ago today, science fiction author Philip K. Dick "disconnected." Public Radio International's "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" has posted a great selection of interviews about the man whose entire life and work questioned the nature of reality. Hear from Gill along with Umberto Rossi, Anne Dick, and Jonathan Lethem. To The Best of Our Knowledge: Philip K. Dick
In other PKD news, the 2012 Philip K. Dick Festival is scheduled for September

Andrew Breitbart: Death of a Douche

Andrew Breitbart speaks at a 'Cut Spending Now' rally at the conservative Americans for Prosperity 'Defending the American Dream Summit.'
Andrew Breitbart speaks at a 'Cut Spending Now' rally at the conservative Americans for Prosperity 'Defending the American Dream Summit.'
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
So Andrew Breitbart is dead. Here’s what I have to say to that, and I’m sure Breitbart himself would have respected this reaction: Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.
I say this in the nicest possible way. I actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart. Not in the sense that I would ever have wanted to hang out with him, or even be caught within a hundred yards of him without a Haz-Mat suit on, but I respected the shamelessness. Breitbart didn’t do anything by halves, and even his most ardent detractors had to admit that he had a highly developed, if not always funny, sense of humor.
For instance, it would be dishonest not to tip a hat to him for that famous scene when he hijacked Anthony Weiner’s own self-immolating "apology" press conference, and held up the entire event by standing at the lectern and congratulating himself at length, before Weiner could let the humiliating healing begin.
For that one, brief, shining moment– still one of the most painful-to-watch YouTube spectacles of all time, right there with Mitt Romney’s priceless attempt at singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" with a group of black voters in Florida in 2008 – Breitbart could legitimately claim to have the biggest, hairiest balls on earth.  
Watching Weiner apologize to Breitbart later in that same event was certainly chilling for a number of reasons (if I were Weiner, I wouldn’t have apologized to that fucker even under torture) but it was hard not appreciate the deliciousness of the scene from Breitbart’s point of view. Watching Weiner pause, swallow hard, and make the extraordinary decision to plant his lips squarely on the loathsome Breitbart’s ass on national television, that was like the ultimate Mona Lisa masterpiece of right-wing media provocations. That the outrageous Breitbart was standing right there, looking gorgeously gassy in his unbuttoned shirt, bloated Joey Buttafuoco cheeks and splendiforous silver half-mullet, made the humiliation of the trim and neatly-groomed Weiner even more abject.
Furthermore, the ACORN videos made by Breitbart and his two young acolytes, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe – it’s hard not to see the inspired humor behind their elaborate stunt. And anyone who’s heard their proposals before ACORN staffers to bring underage girls over the border as part of a white-(or nonwhite-) slaving startup firm, and doesn’t think the ACORN responses (or non-responses, as it were) were shocking, they’re deluding themselves. In the Baltimore office, they ran the whole underage hooker-den spiel past an ACORN staffer, and got the following response: "You are gonna use three of them – they are gonna be under 16, so you is eligible to get child tax credit and additional child tax credit."
That is seriously messed up material. Did they edit the videos heavily? Hell yes. Did they make ACORN’s behavior out to be a lot worse than it was? Absolutely. But there’s no way to watch the raw footage and not grasp how totally nuts some of this ACORN "counseling" was. We have to give Breitbart that.
Breitbart has written some nasty things about me personally, once contrived to publish my private emails online, and even teamed up with Rush Limbaugh to humorously mis-identify me as a behind-the-scenes marionettist of the "media-Democrat industrial complex" (Breitbart thought I was improperly advising Occupy leaders), but all that’s okay. I think today, it’s safe to stand back and simply recognize that while many people go through their lives without leaving distinguishing marks, Andrew Breitbart definitely had his moments.
But he also had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate why someone like me shouldn’t bother to pretend I’m sad he’s dead. He wouldn’t, in my place. So to use one of his favorite words: Good riddance, cocksucker.* Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
* See the following Breitbart quote: “I like to call someone a raving cunt every now and then, when it’s appropriate, for effect... ‘You cocksucker.’ I love that kind of language.”

UPDATE: Well done, Breitbart fans, well done! In less than 24 hours you’ve hacked into my Wiki page, published my telephone number on Twitter, called the Rolling Stone offices pretending to be outraged “advertisers” (anonymous ones, who hung up before we could figure out which “ads” to pull), and then spent all night calling and texting my phone with various threats and insults, many of them directed at my family. “Better grow eyes in the back of your head,” was one; “I’m going to take a shit on your mother’s grave,” was another; a third called my wife a “piece of shit like you,” and many others called me a “pile of human excrement.”
Those last ones to me were the most interesting because that quote is lifted directly from Breitbart’s own obit of Ted Kennedy, which like me Breitbart ran just hours after his subject died. So that means the writers of these letters knew that what I did was exactly the same as what Breitbart had done, and yet they still found a way to be unironically outraged on Breitbart’s behalf. I thought: “These people don’t even get their own jokes.”
The really crazy thing is that I was sort of trying to be nice to Breitbart – the obit was at least half an homage. Not that I liked the guy, but he did have a few attractive qualities, one of which being the fact that he got a kick out of the nasty things people said about him. He even once had a plan to set up a website encouraging anti-Breitbart abuse, and was going to let it ride for a while, even spending six figures to hire an Obama p.r. flack to make anti-Breitbart posters, until finally revealing that he'd sponsored the whole thing. Would a person like that really expect someone like me to send flowers when he croaked? No way: he’d be insulted if I didn’t give him one last kick in the balls on the way out the door.
But I guess no homage is complete without a celebration of the whole man, and the whole man in this case was not just a guy who once said, “It’s all about a good laugh,” but also someone who liked to publish peoples’ personal information on the internet, hack into private web sites, tell lies in an attempt to get his enemies fired, and incite readers to threats against his targets and their families, including death threats. I left all of that stuff out of my obit, but now, thanks to you readers, that’s all in there as well, leaving, for posterity, a much more complete picture of the man.

some special kind of Idiot....

Rush Limbaugh: I'll Buy Georgetown Women 'As Much Aspirin To Put Between Their Knees As They Want'


Rush Limbaugh Sandra Fluke
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh drew sharp criticism from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and others on Wednesday when he called Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, a "slut" and a "prostitute" for publicly advocating that employers cover contraception in their health plans. But instead of apologizing for his offensive comments on his show Thursday, he geared up for round two.
Channeling Foster Friess, a main financial backer of former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), Limbaugh said that he would "happily buy [Sandra Fluke] all the aspirin she wants" to put between her knees in lieu of contraception.
He then expanded his offer to the whole university:
"A Georgetown coed told Nancy Pelosi's hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they're going broke, so you and I should have to pay for their birth control. So what would you call that? I called it what it is," he said. "So, I'm offering a compromise today: I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want."
Limbaugh, of course, was referencing the controversial comment Friess made in February, when he referenced the "gals" in "his day" who put aspirin between their knees in lieu of using contraception.
Fluke's testimony in the hearing was not, as Limbaugh claimed, about the fact that she's "having so much sex she's going broke buying contraceptives." She told the story of her friend who had an ovary removed because the insurance company wouldn't cover the prescription birth control she needed to stop the growth of ovarian cysts.
Limbaugh concluded his sexist rant by insisting that if women want their contraception covered, they should post pornographic videos of themselves online. "So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal," he said. "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has raised a significant amount of money and gained support in the wake of the recent battles over birth control, circulated a petition on Thursday to ask Republican leaders to denounce Limbaugh's tirade.
“Rush Limbaugh has come to Republicans' defense in their war on women," said Jesse Ferguson, a spokesperson for the DCCC, "but now the real question is whether Republicans are willing to stand up to him and his repulsive attacks on women."
UPDATE: 3:45 p.m. -- More than 75 Democratic lawmakers signed a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday expressing outrage over Limbaugh's comments.
"On his February 29, 2012 show, Mr. Limbaugh repeatedly used sexually charged, patently offensive, and obscene language to malign the character of this courageous young woman who has chosen to be the voice for many of her peers," the letter says. "This kind of direct attack on a private citizen is unacceptable. Mr. Limbaugh is as free as any American to speak his mind about the political and social issues of our time, but using his radio show as a means for blatantly insulting a hard-working American with obscene and indecent language because he disagrees with her personal choices is an abuse of the public airwaves."
UPDATE: 4:15 p.m. -- Sandra Fluke responded to Limbaugh's comments in a statement on Thursday.
"I thank the thousands of women and men, including members of Congress, Georgetown University students and faculty, and total strangers of all political stripes across the country who have offered kind words and support following recent egregious personal attacks," she said. "We are fortunate to live in a democracy where everyone is entitled to their own opinions regarding legitimate policy differences. Unfortunately, numerous commentators have gone far beyond the acceptable bounds of civil discourse. No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner. This language is an attack on all women, and has been used throughout history to silence our voices. The millions of American women who have and will continue to speak out in support of women's health care and access to contraception prove that we will not be silenced."

gotta love tim burton...

Frankenweenie, Tim Burton Remakes 1984 Short to Feature Length Film


Frankenweenie is a feature-length animated film collaborative effort by Tim Burton and Disney based on Burton’s 1984 classic black-and-white short of the same name (parts 1, 2). The film’s trailer is now available to view and the film opens in theatres on October 5, 2012

Omniscient Siri, a Siri-Inspired iPhone Case

Omniscient Siri iPhone Case
Omniscient Siri iPhone Case
Omniscient Siri by SaGa Design is an iPhone case inspired by Apple’s Siri digital assistant. The case won the 3D design category in a competition to determine what Siri looks like, hosted by rapid manufacturing website Shapeways.
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Arizona politician: Makeup on a freckle = good; Photoshopping it out = bad


[Video Link] Arizona state Rep. Katie Hobbs has introduced a bill requiring disclaimers on ads that digitally retouch models because they are "deceptive." As video producer Ted Balakar points out, even though Hobbs believes Photoshop is a great menace that needs taxpayer money to control, she's OK with "makeup, lighting, haircare products, cosmetic surgery," and other pre-camera reality hacks.

TED2012: Lucy McRae, Body Architect


[Video Link] Lucy McRae was trained as a classical ballerina and an architect, and her work as a "body architect" incorporates these interests and more. She is the recipient of a TED Fellowship. I interviewed her this morning at TED 2012.