Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Robert T. Gonzalez: Wow - this gorgeous timelapse was made with a crummy point and shoot (io9)
Featured here is "A Forest Year," a fantastic little timelapse that distills 40,000 photographs into a single three-minute video. It's undeniably beautiful (the dramatic seasonal shifts visible at 1:00, and again around 1:35, are particularly breathtaking), …
Maureen Dowd: Repent, Dick Cheney (New York Times)
In his memoir, W. described feeling "blindsided" again and again. In this film, the blindsider is the éminence grise who was supposed to shore up the untested president. The documentary reveals the Iago lengths that Cheney went to in order to manipulate the unprepared junior Bush. Vice had learned turf fighting from a maniacal master of the art, his mentor Donald Rumsfeld.
Lucy Mangan: the queen and I (Guardian)
'It is hard to throw off the shackles when someone still holds the ends of our chains.'
Tom Meltzer: "Lara Croft: the reinvention of a sex symbol" (Guardian)
The Tomb Raider icon is back - and, according to her creators, has finally evolved from a cartoon-like adolescent fantasy into a rounded human and feminist. Are they right?
Interviews by Kate Abbott: "How we made: The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (Guardian)
Writer and actor Richard O'Brien and composer Richard Hartley remember how three weeks at the Royal Court turned into a gender-bending 20th Century Fox extravaganza.
Scott Burns: Variable Annuity Watch, 2012 (AssetBuilder)
The big claim for variable annuities has always been that they allow investors to invest and watch their money grow, tax deferred, until they need it. The basic idea is that you can avoid paying at a high tax rate now and pay at a lower tax rate later, probably when you are retired. … Unfortunately, what seems to be a good idea doesn't work in practice, largely due to fees. Nothing shows this more clearly than results over the last decade. In a sense, investors got hit with a double whammy: low returns and high fees.
Hero mouse wins freedom after attacking snake that killed his friend (MSN.com)
A mouse at Hangzhou Zoo in China has been give its freedom after zookeepers witnessed it attack a venomous snake to save its friend.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Marty's Annoyed
Link Removal
From the realm of no good deed going unpunished, I've been hit with a barrage of 'remove my link from your site' requests.
These sites had information, or something that I found interesting, or useful, so I linked to them. That's it.
In a variety of manners they state that Google has determined that the use of their link on my page is 'unnatural' and in return, Google is mucking with their rankings.
I am then requested, and in some cases, demanded, to remove their link from an archived page.
Sometimes they demand all the text surrounding their link also be deleted.
This annoys me on several levels, ranging from freedom of speech, altering history, extra work, and how effing dare you accuse me of trying to pull some kind of fast one that has upset Google's ranking system. Jeez.
Yes, I realize these sites are dependent on Google ads.
But I don't have advertising, and to put it bluntly, there is nothing in it for me to comply with these requests.
Here's a partial list:
educational leadership , com
Criminology , com
Credist Score , net
Clinical Psychology , net
Psychology Degree , net
mesothelioma help , net
online mba programs , org
Online Counseling Degrees , net
OTOH, so far, I have complied with all the requests, but I'm not happy about it.
Who knew Google uses advertising to control internet content?
~ marty
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and summer-like.
Beatles' Secretary
"Good Ol' Freda"
For Freda Kelly, secretary to the Beatles and chief of the band's fan club, work sometimes involved trailing the Fab Four to the barber shop, sweeping their locks from the floor and mailing strands of hair to adoring female fans.
Kelly, one of the Beatles' longest-serving employees, worked for the band for more than a decade - longer than the British band was together - but has never shared her stories publicly until now.
She breaks her silence in a new documentary, "Good Ol' Freda," to have its world premiere on Saturday on the second day of the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
The film features four Beatles songs, which required the permission of many people, including the living Beatles. It also includes never-before-seen photos of the Beatles.
The film's title comes from the Beatles' 1963 Christmas recording, in which Harrison thanks their secretary in Liverpool, and they all yell in unison, "Good Ol' Freda!"
"Good Ol' Freda"
Unconcerned with Critics
Cheney
The former vice president got straight to the point in R.J. Cutler's latest documentary "The World According to Dick Cheney," telling the filmmaker he doesn't care what his critics think.
"I don't lay awake at night thinking 'gee, what are they going to say about me now?'" Cheney remarks in the upcoming film.
In an interview for ABC's "This Week," Cutler responded "He does say a lot that he's not interested in what people think about him, but it's hard to imagine that he's not invested in what his legacy is. He is a significant figure of American history."
The documentary, which premieres March 15 on Showtime, features an extensive interview with the retired politician and offers a rare glimpse into Cheney's life since leaving Washington.
Cheney
Releasing No. 1 Issues Digitally
Marvel
In comics, the first issue is where the story starts and the legend begins.
For readers, a print copy of issue one can be hard to find and expensive to buy. But those rules don't apply to tablets, laptops and smartphones both for comics fans and those curious about characters they may have seen in film or on television.
Part of that fascination with superheroes and their growing cachet in popular culture is why Marvel Entertainment, home to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Avengers, among others, is making more than 700 first issues available to digital readers starting Sunday for free through the Marvel app and the company's website. After Tuesday, they'll be sold for $1.99 to $3.99 per issue.
The titles go from the 1960s Silver Age to contemporary issues with characters including Wasp, Mr. Fantastic, Power Man and Iron Fist, said David Gabriel, senior vice president of sales.
Marvel
Nothing, Remixed
Seinfeld
"Seinfeld" went off the air in 1998, but we are still laughing at Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. This is not just because of pervasive reruns. The characters in the sitcom that was famously "about nothing" continue to have new nonadventures, written by people who had no connection to the show. They occur in the abbreviated form of social media. Modern Seinfeld is the most popular example, closing in on 500,000 Twitter followers; Seinfelt, on Tumblr, is probably my favorite; Seinfeld Current Day is the weirdest, and most meta. In the last few months, post-"Seinfeld" microfiction has become a genre.
Why? It's easy to understand riffing on and reacting to current popular culture, an amusing and creative way to connect in real time. But while reanimating characters from a 1990s sitcom seems like an odd development, it is actually deeply traditional.
The premise of Modern Seinfeld (which started in December and appears to have been the genre's first mover) is that the characters exist today, their familiar traits and foibles playing out endlessly against contemporary signifiers: "Jerry convinces Babu Bhatt to open a food truck. The truck is stolen. 'Kramering' (bursting into rooms) becomes an Internet sensation," one recent episode/tweet (tweetisode?) reads.
The creators make a point of injecting the conjectural plots into current events-Kramer at the Oscars, Elaine's role in a Harlem Shake video kills the trend, etc. This works precisely because it involves characters who are so familiar to so many people that they are practically archetypes, or figures from something like mythology: We can hear, or tell, their stories over and over in infinite contexts.
Seinfeld
Forget Typing
Google Says
In the future, the experience of searching the web is going to be like something out of "Star Trek." Or at least, that's what Google's vision is.
"The destiny of search is to become that 'Star Trek' computer and that's what we are building," Google's Search Head Amit Singhal said at SXSW Interactive this morning. Singhal shared that computers will know what people want and users won't have to type their queries into a small box on a clean white page.
"You can walk up to a computer and say, hey, computer," Singhal explained.
Of course, that is dependent on other technologies, including improved voice control, touch and sensory tech, he said. Singhal told ABC News something similar a few months ago.
Google Says
Archaeological Crusade
Ancient Treasures
The fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones has long enthralled movie audiences, taking on assorted villains in quests to find mythical treasures, with some limited help from the government.
Minus any bullwhips, the real-life U.S. State Department works with other federal departments in a journey to protect important archaeological sites and ancient treasures in the face of conflict, according to professional archaeologists Morag Kersel and Christina Luke in their new book "U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage" (Routledge, 2012).
Luke and Kersel both worked with the U.S. State Department's Cultural Heritage Center (in Kersel's case, as a contractor). They met on Luke's first day of work, Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks, and in the years ahead they saw the State Department's role in overseas archaeology (particularly antiquities preservation) grow and transform.
Government support for overseas archaeology is nothing new. For instance, in the 19th and 20th centuries the American government helped set up overseas research centers throughout the Old World in places like Rome, Athens, Cairo and Jerusalem, centers that now face budget cuts.
Ancient Treasures
Artifact Shown In US For 1st Time
Cyrus the Great
A nearly 2,600-year-old clay cylinder described as the world's first human rights declaration is being shown for the first time in the United States.
The Cyrus Cylinder from ancient Babylon will be displayed beginning Saturday at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery. It will be in Washington through April 28, on loan from the British Museum. A yearlong U.S. tour will follow, with exhibitions planned in Houston, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The cylinder carries an account, written in cuneiform, of how Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and would allow freedom of worship and abolish forced labor. The account also confirms a story from the Bible's Old Testament, describing how Cyrus released people held captive to go back to their homes, including the Jews' return to Jerusalem to build the Temple.
The cylinder was buried under a foundation wall of the city of Babylon. It's long been held as a model of good governance for a vast, multicultural society, and it made Cyrus famous from accounts in the Bible and writings by Greek authors. When the cylinder was discovered on a British expedition in modern-day Iraq in 1879, it was considered the first physical evidence of the biblical account.
Cyrus the Great
There Is A Season
Sperm
Autumn is the time of year most associated with bumper crops of new babies, and according to an Israeli study there may be a scientific reason for it: human sperm are generally at their healthiest in winter and early spring.
Based on samples from more than 6,000 men treated for infertility, researchers writing in American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found sperm in greater numbers, with faster swimming speeds and fewer abnormalities in semen made during the winter, with a steady decline in quality from spring onward.
"The winter and spring semen patterns are compatible with increased fecundability and may be a plausible explanation of the peak number of deliveries during the fall," wrote lead researcher Eliahu Levitas from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva.
Taking into account the approximately 70 days it takes for the body to produce a sperm cell, the researchers found that men with normal sperm production had the healthiest sperm in the winter.
Sperm
Bronze-Age Donkey Sacrifice Found
Israel
Archaeologists in southern Israel say they've uncovered a young donkey that was carefully laid to rest on its side more than 3,500 years ago, complete with a copper bridle bit in its mouth and saddle bags on its back.
Its accessories - and the lack of butchery marks on its bones - lead researchers to believe the venerated pack animal was sacrificed and buried as part of a Bronze Age ritual.
Donkeys were valuable beasts of burden in the ancient Near East. Donkey caravans helped open up vast trade networks across the Levant and Anatolia in the 18th and 17th centuries B.C., according to archives from Amorite settlements like Mari in modern-day Syria. Ancient Egyptian inscriptions from around the same time show that hundreds of pack donkeys were used in large-scale expeditions to mining sites in the eastern desert and southern Sinai, researchers say.
The donkey found in Israel seems to have been symbolically important, too, though this particular animal likely was never made to do hard labor before its death, said a team headed by archaeologist Guy Bar-Oz, of Israel's University of Haifa.
Israel
To Be Renovated
Hotel Pennsylvania
New York's famed Hotel Pennsylvania is safe from the wrecking ball, rescued by the economy rather than preservationists.
Owner, Vornado Realty Trust, says plans to knock down the nearly century-old hotel and replace it with a 67-story office tower are "on the shelf." Vornado Chairman Steven Roth says a tower project is no longer possible and the company plans to aggressively invest and upgrade the hotel and try to make it profitable.
Jazz great Glenn Miller and his orchestra broadcast from Hotel Pennsylvania in the 1940s. It still has the "Pennsylvania 6-5000" phone number made famous by Miller's orchestra.
But the 1,700-room hotel is now a budget-priced destination with a less-than-luxurious reputation among tourists.
Hotel Pennsylvania
Weekend Box Office
"Oz the Great and the Powerful"
"Oz the Great and the Powerful" clicked with moviegoers. Disney's 3-D prequel to the classic L. Frank Baum tale "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" debuted in first place and earned $80.3 million at the weekend box office in the U.S. and Canada and $69.9 million overseas, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The updated take on "Oz," which was directed by original "Spider-Man" trilogy mastermind Sam Raimi, was a gamble that looks like it will pay off for the Walt Disney Co. The film reportedly cost $200 million and opened a week after "Jack the Giant Slayer," another big-budget 3-D extravaganza that reimagines a classic tale, flopped in its opening weekend, debuting with $28 million at the box office.
In its second weekend, "Jack" stomped out second place behind "Oz" with $10 million, dropping 62 percent since its opening weekend. It earned just $4.9 million overseas. "Jack," based on the Jack and the Beanstalk fable, was directed by Bryan Singer and stars Nicholas Hoult and Ewan McGregor.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday:
1. "Oz the Great and Powerful," $80.3 million. ($69.9 million international.)
2. "Jack the Giant Slayer," $10 million. ($4.9 million international.)
3. "Identity Thief," $6.3 million.
4. "Dead Man Down," $5.3 million.
5. "Snitch," $5.1 million. ($4.7 million international.)
6. "21 & Over," $5 million.
7. "Safe Haven," $3.8 million.
8. "Silver Linings Playbook," $3.7 million. ($6 million international.)
9. "Escape from Planet Earth," $3.2 million.
10. "The Last Exorcism Part II," $3.1 million.
"Oz the Great and the Powerful"
In Memory
Princess Lilian
The British-born Swedish princess whose secret 33-year romance with her royal husband became Sweden's best-known love story, died on Sunday at the age of 97, the court said.
Princess Lilian was the commoner wife of Prince Bertil, who died in 1997. They met and fell in love in London during World War Two, but had to keep their relationship secret for decades for the sake of the crown and to avoid a constitutional crisis.
The royal court said in a statement that the princess, born Lilian Davies in Swansea in August 1915, died peacefully in her sleep in the afternoon at her home in Stockholm.
She and Prince Bertil had to keep their love secret as Bertil's elder brother and heir to the throne, Prince Gustaf Adolf, had died in a plane crash in 1947 while the next brother, Sigvard, waived his right to the throne by marrying a commoner.
That left Bertil next in line until his infant nephew, Crown Prince Carl Gustaf came of age. If Prince Bertil had married a commoner he would have had to renounce his right to the throne, probably sparking a constitutional crisis.
It was not until after the crown prince became king in 1973, and married a few years later, that Prince Bertil and Lilian could finally get married themselves and appear in public.
Princess Lilian
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