Archive for January 20th, 2008
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Here’s the next movie I want to see — it sounds amazing, based on the review I just Dugg in Wired, “U2 3D Brings Hyperreal Arena Rock to the Multiplex.” It knocked the socks off the reviewer, Eliot Van Buskirk:
The film I had just seen — the world’s first three-dimensional live-action concert film — was astounding…. the film still resonates as a stunning cinematic experience, and the best rock show I’ve never attended….With 3-D glasses trained on the Imax screen at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas, I felt I was experiencing more of the U2 concert from my theater chair than I would have in person. Chalk it up to the impossible camera angles, the breathtaking close-ups and panoramas, or the convincing nature of the latest 3-D technology, but I was really there: watching guitarist-keyboardist The Edge play a Fender Rhodes from a vantage point 4 feet above his head, seeing lead singer Bono’s hand reach out to the crowd, and flying through a massive stadium lit up by thousands of cellphones waving in unison like a school of glowing sea creatures. The capacity crowds filling these South American soccer stadiums go absolutely mad for the music of U2. Their hands wave to the beat just a few feet in front of you. Their enthusiasm is wildly infectious.
I hope it comes to an Imax theater near me soon.
Update 1/24/08:
Just caught the Consumer Reports blog entry about U2 3D. They said it really is a special experience. And it opens near me today!!!!
read more | digg story
Posted in Movies, Music | Tagged: Movies, Music, Technology | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Here’s a development I’m looking forward to seeing hit the mainstream, in terms of becoming common on digital cameras in the future: geo-tagging of photos. That means adding GPS coordinates to photos, particularly those that are posted online. This article in Wired, “GPS Adds Dimension to Online Photos,” explains the technology and suggests that such features will eventually be commonplace in digital camera devices.
Posted in Technology, Web 2.0 | Tagged: photography, Technology, Trends, user-generated, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
I continue to dissect the presidential election, and here’s another perspective in this Philadelphia Inquirer column by Dick Polman, “The American Debate: Bailing on Clinton.”
Bill and Hillary had probably assumed that the love for him could be seamlessly transferred to her, that African American fealty to the Clinton brand was a given in Democratic politics. But the steady ascendancy of Barack Obama – and the Clintons’ ham-handed, racially tinged attempts to stymie his rise – now threaten to sever those ties….If Hillary triumphs, it means that the Clintons will have thwarted the aspirations of the first major black presidential candidate – hardly the kind of legacy they’d wish for themselves.
And here’s a fact that I missed last week: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Politics | Tagged: opinion, Politics | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Gotta love Lisa Scottoline’s columns! She’s a popular author (but I’ve never read her books) and she writes a weekly column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. One of her recent ones, “Resolved: I Wish to Get What I Aim At,” is a riff on New Year’s resolutions:
I suggest we replace the word resolution with wish, and from now on, we can all make wishes for New Year’s. It’s dull to make a resolution, but it’s fun to make a wish. It makes you think of birthday cake….Wish doesn’t take itself as seriously as resolution, and neither should we. We’re just people, and often we fall short. To err is human, right? For homo sapiens, failure is a job requirement….
Aim is like a prenup. You want to keep your aim. You will try to keep your aim. In fact, you aim to keep your aim. But you’re realistic enough to know that you might not be able to keep your aim. Because you can get so sick of your aim, it’s not even funny. And if your aim tells that duck story one more time, you might commit murder.
But there was one back in December that really stood out, “Holiday Glut? Get help from the Guilt-O-Meter” [sic -- I think that's a typo in the title and it should be "Holiday Guilt" since "Glut" makes no sense for this column]. Take a look: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Human Interest, Humor | Tagged: Human Interest, Humor, opinion | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Barack Obama is well-known for his stirring and inspiring oratory, so it was interesting to me when I read this article, “What Would Obama Say?” about his chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, who is only 26 years old.
Mr. Favreau, or Favs, as everyone calls him, looks every bit his age, with a baby face and closely shorn stubble. And he leads a team of two other young speechwriters: 26-year-old Adam Frankel, who worked with John F. Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter Theodore C. Sorensen on his memoirs, and Ben Rhodes, who, at 30, calls himself the “elder statesman” of the group and who helped write the Iraq Study Group report as an assistant to Lee H. Hamilton.
I also liked the behind-the-scenes look at how the candidate’s message is crafted (I always liked that aspect of “The West Wing,” a TV show I miss). There’s more: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Politics | Tagged: Politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Although I confess to considerable fascination with words and language, I have always resisted the stereotypical “English teacher” mentality of correcting people who misuse words (I was especially careful about this when I actually was an English teacher, years ago in my first career). Over the years, I have read William Safire’s columns about language and frequently found I did not identify with the often pedantic points he chose to harp on.
However, today’s column, “Fired Up,” is not pedantic and is insightful. Here’s the concept: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ethics, Language, Politics | Tagged: Ethics, Language, opinion, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
The Law of Unintended Consequences is a concept that has fascinated me since I learned about it as a child. The irony of good intentions producing disastrous results opened my eyes and showed me that “it’s the thought that counts” was a rather foolish claim to make.
This NYT article, “Unintended Consequences,” by Freakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner, uses three widely different examples to illustrate this concept in a refreshing way.
But before charging ahead with such plans, the new president might do well to first ask him- or herself the following question: What do a deaf woman in Los Angeles, a first-century Jewish sandal maker and a red-cockaded woodpecker have in common?
Each turns out to be an example, of course, of unintended consequences. Here’s the conclusion: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Economics, Politics, Research | Tagged: Environment, Management, Politics, Research | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
In the NYT Travel section, there’s an “Adventure Guide to Mexico,” by Bonnie Tsui, which covers surfing, rock climbing, deep-sea fishing, mountain biking, snorkeling with whale sharks, bird watching and hiking. I can’t say Mexico jumps to my mind when I think of adventure travel. But two of the activities described appealed to me.
First, snorkeling with whale sharks would be amazing. I’ll never forget when I first learned of whale sharks in dramatic fashion as Thor Heyerdahl recounted his terrifying encounter with one on his lonely and vulnerable raft in Kon-Tiki. Boy, did that adventure story ever capture my imagination! And it imbued me with such a healthy respect for the sea that I have little desire to challenge it, but the idea of swimming up close to the gentle but largest giants of fish is appealing.
But the adventure in Mexico that most caught my attention is the hiking trip in the Sierra Norte. Not only does the terrain sound cool to hike, but staying in local indigenous villages would be the greatest attraction for me. Put it all together, and it sounds like a fantastic trip: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Outdoors, Travel | Tagged: hiking, Outdoors, Travel | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 20, 2008
Nicholas Kristoff makes an effective case in his NYT column, “Hillary, Barack, Experience,” that years of political experience, particularly in Washington, are not a good predictor of a successful president. He also points out that other kinds of experience may count as much or more:
The point is not that experience is pointless but that it needn’t be in politics to be useful. John McCain’s years as a P.O.W. gave him an understanding of torture and a moral authority to discuss it that no amount of Senate hearings ever could have conferred.In the same way, Mr. Obama’s years as an antipoverty organizer give him insights into one of our greatest challenges: how to end cycles of poverty. That front-line experience is one reason Mr. Obama not only favors government spending programs, like early-childhood education, but also cultural initiatives like promoting responsible fatherhood.
It continues to be an interesting political contest this presidential year. More drama yet to come, no doubt.
Posted in Politics | Tagged: opinion, Politics | Leave a Comment »
