Videos and Essays, Mostly Thought-Provoking

[l33tminion]

• I've been reading a lot of essays by bradhicks lately. A while ago, I posted an essay of his about brining back the WPA, but since then I've been directed his-journal-wards several times and decided I should pay closer attention to what this brilliant essayist has to say:
  • Here's his classic Christains in the Hands of an Angry God which answers a very interesting question: Why are American fundamentalist Christians so in bed with the Republican party when the economic values of the Republican party are antithetical to those expressed by Jesus of Nazareth, and when the biblical justifications for Republican positions regarding homosexuality, abortion, etc. are so very based on cherry picking and outright mistranslation?
  • He also gives one of the most intelligent looks at the Israel / Hamas conflict in When Will There Be Peace in Gaza: As soon as Hamas makes one crucial realization that they very much don't want to make.
  • He also has an interesting and very pessimistic take on the current economic situation, a catastrophe that could perhaps be mitigated if the FDIC decided to actually do their job... but their decision to not enforce the law was years ago.
  • His take on the church shooting committed by David Atkisson late last year is very interesting (and disturbing) in the context of current right-wing talk-media rhetoric.
• Matt Taibi talks about the contortions of current right-wing political protest, which must oppose Obama administration bailouts and progressive anti-bailout protesters.
• Linux Journal has a post about a recent investigation in Boston over a completely trivial matter that has yet again put this city at the forefront of "The War on the Unexpected". Specifically, police are suggesting (in the justification for the search warrant in question) that using a command-line interface is suspicious behavior.
• Here's an essay on how one of Disney's most famous movies ripped of an earlier Japanese work wholesale. Evidently was a "just claim we never heard of it" response to not being able to get the remake rights. Speaking of Disney, there's also an amusing take on Disney's favorite target for plagiarism, themselves.
• There's been a lot of talk on the gaming internet about OnLive, a new service business that applies the cloud computing model to gaming. The idea is to put the controller on your end and the processing all on the server, with streaming video in between. The tech community reaction has been skeptical, even if you solve all the streaming video problems, it seems like there would be some issues with latency. But maybe that's not a problem.
• A few videos:
  • A Wolf Loves Pork (a clever stop-motion-stop-motion short feature)
  • JavaScript: The Good Parts (only worthwhile if you use the language, but very worthwhile in that case)
  • The Neurobiology of Primate Sexuality

Comments

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

Wow, the bradhicks essays are awesome!

Reusing animations that work is not "plagiarizing yourself"...it's smart. Imagine how much longer it would take to draw one of those movies if every time they started a new project they had to draw every single frame from scratch. Do you reinstall your OS every time you start up your computer? Do you start your resume from scratch every time you apply for a new job? Did you write a separate essay for every college application you submitted?

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

The way those films are made, some of the animations are fairly typical of disney in my opinion. I mean to say. They would be in any disney film because they fit the formula to how Disney formulates their movies.

The Kimba the White Lion bit, it's been a complaint for years. I don't really care anymore. I don't vest much faith and interest in Disney these days as anything more than a marketer of wholesale reality.