Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Scott Burns: Measuring Longevity, Another Way (AssetBuilder)
Only a century ago an early death- in childbirth, childhood and long before old age- was the common fate of most Americans. Today, the problem is longevity. We don't save enough to pay for our increasing years of life. We don't want take care of ourselves or pay the bills for healthcare later, either. And, as if that isn't troubling enough, we're just beginning to discover that longevity, like wealth or income, isn't evenly distributed. Some people live a lot longer than others.
Scott Burns: Should We Eat Dessert First? (AssetBuilder)
The basic idea is simple: "I'll be more capable of enjoying extra money today. I'm not so sure about tomorrow." I call it the Hedonic Argument. Our health and age have a lot to do with what we can enjoy.
Henry Rollins: Juice Cleanse Mania (LA Weekly)
I have lived in Los Angeles for many years and, for the last couple of decades, in Hollywood. For me, it's just where I live. Seemingly it is for some a state of mind, a "way of being." I occasionally get letters informing me that something has happened to me, that I was somehow "different before" living here.
Barbara Ellen: Too fat. Too thin. Don't the rest of us get a look-in? (Guardian)
Somehow, between all the noise and hoopla, the recriminations and counter-recriminations, of too skinny versus too fat, size normal becomes all but forgotten.
Kurt Loder: 'Veronica Mars' and 'Grand Piano': Kristen Bell Back on the Case and Elijah Wood Playing for His Life (Creators Syndicate)
Having napped through her three seasons on TV, I came to "Veronica Mars" the movie as something of a newbie. The picture is a serviceable extension of the original teen detective series, which ran from 2004 to 2007 (when The CW dumped it for insufficiently impressive ratings), and it has a sweet back story.
Charlyn Fargo: Healthy Eating on a Budget (Creators Syndicate)
Her No. 1 tip for saving money? "Cook from scratch."
Johannes Nyholm, "Baby trashes bar in Las Palmas" (Vimeo)
Trailer for the short movie "Las Palmas" by Johannes Nyholm. Music: "Låt i H-moll" by Björn Olsson, from the record "The Lobster" (2005), released by Gravitation.
Wolverine the Musical (YouTube)
"Hugh Jackman visited the Matt Edmondson Show on BBC Radio and sang about playing the part of Wolverine. The song is based on "Who Am I" from Les Miserables, with new superhero lyrics. Jackman was a good sport about it, and with a little more practice, could have pulled this off on stage in front of a crowd." - Neatorama
Epic Basketball + Car Beat (YouTube)
"It's 1 minute and 41 seconds of complex choreography done with basketballs and a car. Filmmaker Kurt Hugo Schneider made it as a commercial for Buick. At the age of 25, Schneider is already making waves in the advertising world for his Coca-Cola commercials. I'd say that he has a promising future." - Neatorama
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN360°
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
Living With a Cat!
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
So - to let you know what's going on, the guestbook on bartcop.com is
still open for those who want to write something in memory of Bart.
I did an interview on Netroots Radio about Bart's passing
( www.stitcher.com/s?eid=32893545 )
The most active open discussion is on Bart's Facebook page.
( www.facebook.com/bartcop )
You can listen to Bart's theme song here
or here.
( www.bartcop.com/blizing-saddles.mp3 )
( youtu.be/MySGAaB0A9k )
We have opened up the radio show archives which are now free. Listen to
all you want.
( bartcop.com/members )
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Thanks, Marc!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and breezy.
Unearths Lost Silents
National Film Preservation Board
The National Film Preservation Foundation has found a rich source of silent pics through a pact with the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.
The partnership between the San Francisco-based foundation and the Dutch museum calls for the restoration and preservation of dozens of silent pics that haven't been seen in decades. The worldwide hunt for collections of lost silent pics is part of the ongoing NFPF and Library of Congress effort to raise awareness of how many early films have been lost to history. By the Library of Congress' estimate, only about one-third of American silent films survive with complete prints.
Among the first 26 titles slated for preservation are are "Fifty Million Years Ago" (1925), an animated introduction to the theory of evolution; "Flaming Canyons" (1929), a tour of national parks in the Southwest; short comedies featuring Mickey Rooney, Oliver Hardy, and Chester Conklin; Happy Hooligan and Koko the Clown cartoons; the only known work from the Esperanto Film Manufacturing Company of Detroit; "The Reckless Age" (1924), a flapper feature starring Reginald Denny; and the crime melodrama "For the Defense" (1922) starring ZaSu Pitts.
The pics were discovered in the EYE collection thanks to NFPF research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The pics are on highly flammable nitrate stock that were distributed to Dutch theaters in the 1910s and '20s. Many of the prints are tinted. The pics selected for preservation through the NFPF initiative represent the best prints known to be available.
National Film Preservation Board
No. 1 Animated Film of All Time
'Frozen'
Disney's Oscar-winning Frozen has become the top-grossing animated film of all time, surpassing the $1.063 billion earned by fellow Disney/Pixar title Toy Story 3.
Frozen now occupies the No. 10 spot on the list of the biggest global blockbusters and is the first billion-dollar title from Disney Animation Studios, as well as the seventh from Disney. It has earned $398.4 million domestically and $674 million internationally for a total $1.072 billion.
The 3D animated tentpole passed up Toy Story 3 over the weekend, thanks to a strong run in Japan -- its final market -- and more than four months after it was released in theaters in the U.S. The film has grossed $50.5 million so far in Japan. It also passed up Disney's live-action Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.66 billion).
Internationally, Frozen is the biggest Disney or Pixar animated film of all time in 27 territories, including Russia, China and Brazil.
'Frozen'
Confront 'Big Data' Revolution
American Farmers
Farmers from across the nation gathered in Washington this month for what has become an annual trek to seek action on the most important matters in American agriculture, such as immigration reform and water regulations.
But this time, a new, more shadowy issue also emerged: growing unease about how the largest seed companies are gathering vast amount of data from sensors on tractors, combines and other farm equipment.
The increasingly common sensors measure soil conditions, seeding rates, crop yields and many other variables, allowing companies to provide farmers with customized guidance on how to get the most out of their fields.
The involvement of the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest and most prominent farming organization, illustrates how agriculture is cautiously entering a new era in which raw planting data holds both the promise of higher yields and the peril that the information could be hacked or exploited by corporations or government agencies.
American Farmers
London's Lost Graves
Black Death
Archaeologists in Britain said on Sunday they had solved a 660-year-old mystery, citing DNA tests which they said proved they had found a lost burial site for tens of thousands of people killed in medieval London by the "Black Death" plague.
The breakthrough follows the discovery last year of 13 skeletons wrapped in shrouds laid out in neat rows during excavations for London's new Crossrail rail line, Europe's biggest infrastructure project.
Archaeologists, who say the find sheds new light on medieval England and its inhabitants, later found 12 more skeletons taking the total to 25. They will further excavate the site in July to see if more bodies are buried nearby.
Last year, they said the remains probably belonged to victims of the plague, which killed about a third of England's population following its outbreak in 1348. Limited records suggest up to 50,000 victims were buried in the cemetery in London's Farringdon district, one of two emergency burial sites.
Black Death
Glaciers Speeding Up
West Antarctica
Six big glaciers in West Antarctica are flowing much faster than 40 years ago, a new study finds. The brisk clip may mean this part of Antarctica, which could raise global sea level by 4 feet (1.2 meters) if it completely melts, is nearing full-scale collapse.
"This region is out of balance," said Jeremie Mouginot, lead study author and a glaciologist at University of California, Irvine. "We're not seeing anything that could stop the retreat of the grounding line and the acceleration of these glaciers," he told Live Science. (A grounding line is the location where the glacier leaves bedrock and meets the ocean.)
From satellite observations such as Landsat images and radar interferometry, Mouginot and his co-authors tracked the speed of West Antarctica's six largest glaciers. The biggest of the half-dozen are Pine Island Glacier, known for cleaving massive icebergs, and its neighbor, Thwaites Glacier. The other four are Haynes, Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers.
Ice from the six glaciers accounts for almost 10 percent of the world's sea-level rise per year. Researchers worry the "collapse" of West Antarctica's glaciers would hasten sea-level rise. The collapse refers to an unstoppable, self-sustaining retreat that would drop millions of tons of ice into the sea.
The amount of ice draining from the six glaciers increased by 77 percent between 1973 to 2013, the study found. However, the race to the sea is happening at different rates. Recently, the fast-flowing Pine Island Glacier stabilized, slowing down starting in 2009. (The slowdown was only at the ice shelf, where the glacier meets the sea. Further inland, the glacier is still accelerating.)
West Antarctica
Hope In Sale
St. Paul's College
The St. Paul's College campus and the 35 buildings on its roller-coaster grounds are for sale in hopes it can continue to educate young black men and women in this rural community.
Located in Virginia's tobacco-growing belt, the private, liberal arts college closed in June 2013 under crushing debt and questions about its governance, and following an ill-advised foray into football years earlier.
Now the school's 11th president presides over the largely abandoned grounds and looks ahead to the April 9 sale of a campus that has everything you'd expect of a college, except for students.
The campus, which is assessed at more than $12.5 million, includes dormitories, a president's house and other residences, administration buildings, a gingerbread Victorian house that served as an arts center, and a student center that includes a four-lane bowling alley. Reflecting its blue collar origins, some of the brick buildings were constructed by students.
St. Paul's College
'Tennessee Whiskey' Rule
Jack Daniel's
For Jack Daniel's, Tennessee's world-famous corn-based whiskey should be made according to a strict recipe -- basically, its own.
But to rivals, some with their roots in ginning up moonshine in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, Jack Daniel's wants to lock them out of a booming business.
In a battle of two global giants of liquor distribution, Diageo versus Brown-Forman, Jack Daniel's wants legislators in the state capital Nashville to implement clear standards on what spirit can wear the "Tennessee Whiskey" label.
Diageo, whose George Dickel brand is the state's number two whiskey -- and is already made to the new official code -- said Brown-Forman engineered the change through "misleading and deceptive political moves" that gives it an advantage.
Jack Daniel's
Challenged By "Healthier" Brands
Kraft
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese has been a favorite meal for generations of American children, but smaller brands made with more natural ingredients are starting to nibble at its market share, part of a trend that is biting into growth at large U.S. food companies.
Sales of macaroni and cheese are growing as busy Americans look for convenient and inexpensive meal options and older consumers indulge in the comfort foods of their youth. Kraft Foods Group Inc still dominates the category, but the battle for the hearts and minds of American mac-and-cheese lovers may become a new front in a running war in the $360 billion U.S. packaged food industry.
On one side stand established food companies like Kraft, which seem more focused on slashing costs than taking big risks on emerging trends. The challengers are more nimble upstarts catering to rapidly evolving consumer tastes by offering products in the fast-growing "health and wellness" category.
Nestle SA's Gerber baby food division and General Mills Inc's Yoplait yogurt business may each offer a cautionary tale for Kraft. Both led their respective categories, but their market shares tumbled in recent years. In Gerber's case, it was the growing popularity of small organic baby-food brands. In Yoplait's, it was the arrival of Chobani Greek yogurt, which has more protein and a thick, creamy texture that struck a chord with consumers.
Kraft
National Soil Collection
Dirt
The government has been collecting dirt - lots of it.
Clumps came from the Texas Panhandle, a shady grove in West Virginia, a picked-over corn field in Kansas and thousands of other places in the lower 48 states.
A small army of researchers and university students lugging pick axes and shovels scattered across the country for three years to scoop samples into plastic bags from nearly 5,000 places. They marked the GPS coordinates, took photos and labeled each bag before mailing them back to the government's laboratory in Denver.
Though always underfoot and often overlooked, dirt actually has a lot to tell. Scientists say information gleaned from it could help farmers grow better vegetables and build a better understanding of climate change. A researcher of forensic science said mud caked on a murder suspect's boots could reveal if he had traipsed through a crime scene or had been at home innocently gardening.
David Smith, who launched the U.S. Geological Survey project in 2001, said data about the dirt will feed research for a century, and he's sharing it with anyone who wants it. "The more eyes and brains that look at it, the better," Smith said.
Dirt
Town Packs Up To Move 2 Miles East
Kiruna, Sweden
The residents of Sweden's northernmost town are a hardy lot. At 90 miles inside the Arctic Circle, the sun never rises for weeks in winter, when temperatures hover at minus 4 degrees F. For two months each summer, the sun never sets.
But now Kiruna has taken its ability to cope to new extremes.
This is a sparsely populated land dotted with pretty lakes and forest half the year, traversed by dogsled and snowmobile when snow and ice cover it. Kiruna also happens to sit above the largest contiguous body of iron ore in the world.
And as the state-owned mining company drills deeper, as prices for iron ore have soared with demand from China, the earth underneath the townspeople is giving way. But instead of halting extraction, the company is taking an unprecedented step: moving the town instead.
Moving the city center 2 miles east has largely been accepted, at least for now. Kiruna itself exists because of the mine. But it is raising interesting questions, chief among them about who gains when companies go to drastic lengths in their search for minerals. Facing a radical urban transformation, Kiruna is also a testing ground for how easily a community can recreate itself - for better or worse - more than 100 years after it was originally settled.
Kiruna, Sweden
Weekend Box Office
'Noah'
After weathering a sea of controversy, "Noah" arrived in first place at the weekend box office.
Paramount's biblical epic starring Russell Crowe in the titular role opened with $44 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Elsewhere at the box office, Lionsgate's teen science-fiction thriller "Divergent" starring Shailene Woodley came in second place and earned $26.5 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic total to $95.3 million.
"Muppets Most Wanted," the globe-trotting Muppet sequel from Disney featuring Tina Fey and Ricky Gervais, captured third place with $11.4 million in its second weekend. The latest Muppet caper's total domestic haul is now at $33.2 million.
The weekend's other major new release, "Sabotage," flopped in the seventh spot with $5.3 million. The Open Road action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is the latest failure for the former California governor, whose "The Last Stand" and "Escape Plan" were box-office duds last year.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Noah," $44 million ($33.6 million international).
2. "Divergent," $26.5 million.
3. "Muppets Most Wanted," $11.4 million.
4. "Mr. Peabody and Sherman," $9.5 million ($17.8 million international).
5. "God's Not Dead," $9 million.
6. "The Grand Budapest Hotel," $8.9 million.
7. "Sabotage," $5.3 million.
8. "Need for Speed," $4.3 million ($13.3 million international).
9. "300: Rise of an Empire," $4.3 million ($8.8 million international).
10. "Non-Stop," $4.1 million.
'Noah'
In Memory
Kate O'Mara
British actress Kate O'Mara, best known for her role in the 1980s soap opera "Dynasty," died Sunday at the age of 74, her agent said.
The actress, who began her television career in the 1960s, became a household name for playing Cassandra "Caress" Morrell, sister to Joan Collins' Alexis Colby, in "Dynasty."
In Britain she is often remembered for her role in "Triangle" - a soap opera set aboard a North Sea ferry that is often cited as the worst piece of British television.
She also appeared in the original run of British series "Doctor Who" and BBC drama "Howards' Way." In the 1990s she starred in the comedy show "Absolutely Fabulous" with Joanna Lumley.
More recently she appeared in a 2012 stage adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."
She is survived by her sister, actress Belinda Carroll.
Kate O'Mara
In Memory
Hobart "Hobie" Alter
Hobart "Hobie" Alter, who helped popularize surfing and sailing with the development of the foam surfboard and the "Hobie Cat" sailboat, has died. He was 80.
Alter died Saturday at his Palm Desert home, according to a statement on the Hobie sporting goods website. A cause of death was not disclosed. The Orange County Register said he had been battling cancer.
"He wanted to make a living without having to wear hard-soled shoes or work east of California's Pacific Coast Highway," the statement said. "By 'making people a toy and giving them a game to play with it' he was able to realize this dream. And in the process, he introduced the world to an outdoor lifestyle and collection of products that made things just a bit more fun for all of us."
The self-taught innovator and surfer had his start in the early 1950s carving wooden surfboards in the garage of his family's Laguna Beach home.
When the balsa wood used for the boards became scarce, he and his friend Gordon "Grubby" Clark created surfboards out of polyurethane foam. The boards were durable, but had better flexibility and were less expensive than wooden boards. The invention revolutionized surfing, and Hobie became a top surfboard brand.
Clark went on to launch Clark Foam, which had a virtual monopoly on the unshaped foam blocks that were used for custom-made boards.
In the late 60s, Alter turned his focus to sailing and designed a lightweight sailboat inspired by the twin-hulled Polynesian catamaran. The more affordable Hobie Cat, which could be launched from the beach, is credited with bringing high-performance sailing to the masses. For his contribution to the sport, Alter was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011.
He was survived by his wife, Susan, a daughter and two sons.
Hobart "Hobie" Alter
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