Links of the Whatever

One of these days I will figure out what direction I want this blog to go in but for now it remains focused on whatever thing that grabs my interest on any particular day. I seem to give good rants on forums, maybe just copy and paste those here :D.

RIP Nate Nielson, Lego Builder Extraordinaire
If you like Legos, especially ships, then the link above is worth checking out. It is the Flickr stream of "nnenn" who sadly died a few weeks ago in a car accident. Over the years he created hundreds of Lego crafts that are so good; it makes you wish that Lego might contact his family to create a line from his creative efforts. (via Gizmodo)

GM's Phony Loan Repayment
You know that commercial from GM where they brag that they paid off their government loans, with interest, five years ahead of schedule? Turns out they are lying. In reality they paid back $6.7 billion of the $52 billion they were loaned. What they claimed to pay back was one of several loans and to do that they used money from one loan to pay off another. Basically what they are doing is the equivalent of you bragging that you are debt free because you used one credit card to pay off another credit card. I guess this is Detroit math at work.

Supreme Court Stuck in 1960s Tech Wise
Considering the new frontier of the law will be based on technology and the internet, it’s particularly disturbing that the US Supreme Court has no meaningful knowledge of current technology. "Chief Justice John Roberts asked what the difference was “between email and a pager?"" I wish I was kidding. Yet these are the people that will decide what is legal or not with digital information. Giant corporations probably did back flips when they heard this.

4 Chords...36 Songs
Amusing bit from Australian comedy team Axis of Awesome as they point out that 4 chords are the fundamental underlying sound of 36 pop songs, many of them familiar hits.



Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
As the recent South Park episode proved, despite two wars and constant threats of killing Muslims, Americans' are still very afraid of them. This extends for showing a "respect" for their messiah that isn't shown for any other religion in the world. One interpretation of Islam law (of which there are thousands) is that Mohammad should never be seen, be it on TV, movies, or in a drawing. South Park theoretically violated this when the story supposedly put Mohammed into a bear costume (yeah apparently proxy use also violates their "law"). This lead to a radical Islamic group to threaten the lives of South Park creators. This caused Comedy Central to bleep the word Mohammed. The outrage over that led to the suggestion of Draw Mohammed Day. As the drawing shows, thanks to the radical Islamics rather wide interpretation drawing anything under the sun and calling it "Mohammed" violates their law, might as well have fun with it. It seems like a good idea to me as there is quite simply nothing anyone, even non-radical Islamics, can do that will satisfy the radicals (except all die of course) then there is no point in playing their game. If doomed to fail and get attacked anyway, might as say screw it and treat them with the same respect (or lack of) that is shown to other religions.

Warner Bros. Signs 20-Film IMAX Deal
I hope you are not tired of IMAX films especially the ones that are really just bigger versions of their regular film counterparts as WB has agreed to release such upcoming titles as Harry Potter 7 Part 1 and 2, The Hobbit Part 1 and 2, Happy Feet, Batman 3, Superman, and more for the screens. I want to be excited but I doubt that most filmmakers will take advantage of the format due to the cost and the reality that it doesn't really convert in any meaningful way to home movie release so hard to convince the studio to foot the bill for the expensive 70mm cameras.