Author: smartpeopleiknow

Prince: Genius

There was lots of derogatory comments awhile back about Prince, when his name was a symbol. Nevermind that in a stadium of popular musicians, he would be one of if not the smartest. (Not to mention the best guitar player.)

Proof of how smart he is can be found in this NYtimes.com article:

The Once and Future Prince – New York Times

He and Steve Jobs should hook up: they could decide the near future of music in the 21st Century.

Wonders of the world: a triple sunrise

The site oddee has a great collection of oddities and wonders. I’ll post more later. This one is of an….

event that occurs twice a year. What we see here is a set of ice halos, recorded on a cold winter morning near Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Produced by sunlight shining through common atmospheric ice crystals with hexagonal cross-sections, such halos can actually be seen more often than rainbows. The remarkable sunrise picture captures a beautiful assortment of the types most frequently seen, including a sun pillar (center) just above the rising Sun surrounded by a 22 degree halo arc. Completing a triple sunrise illusion, sundogs appear at the far left and far right edges of the 22 degree arc. An upper tangent arc is also just visible at the very top of the view.

Go see the rest at 10 Most Amazing Illusions

Feminism and Aliens

I remember when I first watched Aliens, I was taken by how the movie flew by, even at 2+ hours. It was thrilling.
I thought about it later and how well it was made. We had already seen the Alien in the first movie, which was a great cross of the genres of science-fiction and horror films. James Cameron made a different movie by crossing the genres of war film and horror film with Aliens. This was interesting in itself. But he also did another interresting thing: he explored the notions of feminism within the film, or at least, the bonds between mother and daughter. (Just like he explored the notion of Father and Son in Terminator 2.) Cameron is not Renoir or Bergman, but Arnold might not have been joking when during the “Titantic” Oscar he joked about starring in Cameron’s “art films”.

The other interesting thing is the juxaposition between maternalism and the action film genre. The contrast gives the films punch. I am sure Camille Paglia would approve. 🙂 See:

As Andrew Sullivan said, one of the best movie lines ever.

Where Karl Lagerfeld Lives

When I first saw this article in the New Yorker, I thought it was going to be about his apartment in Paris! And in a way, it was. But the subtitle, “In the Now”, describes where Lagerfeld really lives.

I used to have a poor opinion of KL, but after reading the article, I was impressed by his energy, drive and imagination.

See the article here: Profiles: In the Now: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

FTP: not just for techies anymore.

The globeandmail.com has this article: U.S. Military documents found unprotected on FTP servers

I think it is a sign of the adoption of technology that the Globe could mention “FTP servers” in a headline: they must assume that people will know what that means.

Of course, there is a good article in there on the lack of security when it comes to such matters, but that is another story. 🙂

How to save a life…with Web 2.0

The New York Times has an article on J. N. Jayashree, who “did not want her husband to die the death of an Indian whistle-blower” and adopted a unique way of protecting him. How did she do it? By blogging.

“We’re creating a fortress around him — a fortress of people,” she said
in a telephone interview. “I wanted to inform the people that this is
happening, that my husband is a whistle-blower, so that it becomes the
responsibility of every citizen to protect him.”

For more, see the nytimes.com article: In India, Protecting a Whistle-Blower.


On the need for Post Mortem P.R. flacks

If this Telegraph obituary is any indication, in the future, rich people should put aside some money in their will to deal with scathing obits such as this one! I have a quote here, but you really have to read the whole obituary! I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that after the funeral, the author went and stole the flowers from the grave site!

Count Gottfried von Bismarck | Obituaries | News | Telegraph

Count Gottfried von Bismarck, who was found dead on Monday aged 44, was a louche German aristocrat with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany’s Iron Chancellor and architect of the modern German state, the young von Bismarck showed early promise as a brilliant scholar, but led an exotic life of gilded aimlessness that attracted the attention of the gossip columns from the moment he arrived in Oxford in 1983 and hosted a dinner at which the severed heads of two pigs were placed at either end of the table.


Sex and the News

It is interesting that on Reuters web site, there is this article

Risque EU defends Internet orgasm clip

with a link to the YouTube video from the EU (it is not explicit, but it is NSFW).

The same article more or less on CNN.com:

Orgasm clip spices up EU meeting

has an image of the video but not a URL link to it.

I guess the software that CNN uses to make their web pages wasn’t working properly. 🙂

Here it is:

judge for yourself.

Be smart: eat chocolate

This study says eating dark chocolate lowers blood pressure. The participants in the German study ate just a small amount of Ritter chocolate. (Ritter is good and easily available in Toronto). The article goes on to say:

Every day for 18 weeks, the volunteers were instructed to eat
one-square portions of a 16-square Ritter Sport bar, or a similar
portion of white chocolate. White chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa.

Systolic blood pressure,
the top number, fell an average of nearly three points and diastolic
dropped almost two points in the dark chocolate group, compared with no
change in blood pressure readings in the white chocolate group.

Tests suggested that steady exposure to dark chocolate prompted
chemical changes that helped dilate blood vessels and regulate blood
pressure, the researchers said.

So there you go: take two blocks of chocolate every day, have a glass of red wine, and don’t forget the apples, and you should live to be 100!

For more details, see Chocolate reduces blood pressure – Yahoo! News

Anyways…that’s just the way we roll…and other infuriating thing-a-ma-bobs

Years ago, the Globe and Mail seem to take on a large number of columnists, likely to compete with The National Post. Over time, many of those columnists dropped off the paper. One who did not was Leah McLaren.

I have a love/hate relationship with her column. I read it every week, even when it is annoying. Perhaps it is her (professional?) self-obsession. Whatever.

Speaking of that, her latest column in globeandmail.com: At the end of the day, you are what you say. Totally
is one I found very funny. A nice, condensed summary of the banal cliches we use during the week and on the weekend.

Hmmm….banal….cliches….it makes sense now.

FlickVision is the new Life

There is a new interface to Flickrvision: flickrvision (beta)

It is a 3D map of the world that spins around and shows photos people are posting on Flickr. You really have to see it. I find it profound to see all these images, from the sublime to the goofy, being posted. I even saw one of a trail around my neighborhood.

It reminded me of Life magazine, except it continual, and the photographs come from everyone.

I also had a thought watching this, imagine flying around the world, dropping down from time to time, and watching what everyone is doing. It is an approximation of omniscience. 🙂

The Buddha Project

If you have this Buddha on your mantle or your bookshelf that you think is special, why not share it with the rest of the world? Just snap a photo of it and hop on over to the buddha project.

As they say:

Images of Buddha can remind us to take a breath, to look around, to
feel calm and compassionate, to be here now. You can notice Buddha almost
anywhere — laundromats, store windows, barbershops, farmers’ markets,
souvenir stands, tucked away on someone’s night table.

It makes me hope this is success for alot of reasons.

Such Great Heights or The Genius of the Postal Service

I have been impressed by this song and the video that goes with it (there is a yearning in the woman’s eyes, and a symbolic Victorian suppressed sexuality to it, I think): YouTube – the postal service – such great height

How great is the video? Well, Apple, who has known to make pretty good commercials, thought it was good enough to steal. The proof is here:

YouTube – Apple – Intel vs. Postal Service

While the video is great, the song is superb too. Here are too very different versions, showing the potential of the song:

Iron and Wine’s Version

Ben Fold’s Version