The Magic of Movie Editing

A BBC documentary about the unappreciated art of film editing. Interviews with Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Jodie Foster, and many more. Will it change the way you watch movies?

The Iditarod is Underway

The 2007 Iditarod began Saturday (3/3)

Iditarod.com : A race over 1150 miles of the roughest, most beautiful terrain Mother Nature has to offer. She throws jagged mountain ranges, frozen river, dense forest, desolate tundra and miles of windswept coast at the mushers and their dog teams. Add to that temperatures far below zero, winds that can cause a complete loss of visibility, the hazards of overflow, long hours of darkness and treacherous climbs and side hills, and you have the Iditarod. From Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast, each team of 12 to 16 dogs and their musher cover over 1150 miles in 10 to 17 days.

The Iditarod Trail, now a National Historic Trail, had its beginnings as a mail and supply route from the coastal towns of Seward and Knik to the interior mining camps at Flat, Ophir, Ruby and beyond to the west coast communities of Unalakleet, Elim, Golovin, White Mountain and Nome. Mail and supplies went in. Gold came out. All via dog sled. Heroes were made, legends were born. In 1925, part of the Iditarod Trail became a life saving highway for epidemic-stricken Nome. Diphtheria threatened and serum had to be brought in; again by intrepid dog mushers and their faithful hard-driving dogs. The Iditarod is a commemoration of those yesterdays, a not-so-distant past that Alaskans honor and are proud of.

Every musher has a different tactic. Each one has a special menu for feeding and snacking the dogs. Each one has a different strategy — some run in the daylight, some run at night. Each one has a different training schedule and his own ideas on dog care, dog stamina and his own personal ability. The rules of the race lay out certain regulations which each musher must abide by. There are certain pieces of equipment each team must have — an arctic parka, a heavy sleeping bag, an ax, snowshoes, musher food, dog food and boots for each dog’s feet to protect against cutting ice and hard packed snow injuries. more…

OpenCongress.org

“Bringing together official government information with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind what’s happening in Congress.” View current bills, read about committees, issues…explore.

The Best of Technology Writing ‘06

“When the Sous-Chef Is an Inkjet”

“The Rise of the Plagiosphere”

“Throwing Google at the Book”

“Sex, Fame, and PC Baangs”

“Cultural Sensitivity in Technology”

“Ups and Downs of Jetpacks”

and more…

Digital Book Index

From digitalbookindex.org

“Over the last decade, a quiet revolution has been going on in the development of a large library of “digital” or “electronic” books. While there are still large gaps, a very substantial body of “Western” thought is available in the form of downloadable or on-line books. Most major writers, from Plato to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Proust, or John Le Carré, are accessible on the Internet. Subjects range from the highly scholarly to the contemporary and popular — especially as more commercial publishers discover the virtues of “on-line” distribution. This index is intended as a “Meta-index” for most major eBook sites, along with thousands of smaller specialized sites. In some subject categories, the resources you find here are more comprehensive than those of all but the largest of research libraries, due to the budget & space constraints of smaller institutions. Digital Book Index provides links to more than 130,000 title records from more than 1800 and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. About 90,000 of these books, texts, and documents are available free, while many others are available at very modest cost.”

JazzTube

JazzTube powered by YouTube, hundreds of great jazz performances in one place.

Sampled by Daft Punk

A collection of samples used by Daft Punk (primarily in their Discovery album).

Breakwater – “Release The Beast” used in “Robot Rock”
Edwin Birdsong -”Cola Bottle Baby” used in “Harder Better Faster Stronger”
The Imperials – “Can You Imagine” used in “Crescendolls”
Eddie Johns – “More Spell On You” used in “One More Time”
George Duke – “I Love You More” used in “Digital Love”
Oliver Cheatham – “Get Down Saturday Night” used in “Voyager”
Tata Vega – “Get It Up For Love” used in “Da Funk”
Jerry Goldsmith – “The Rec Room” used in “Around The World”
Karen Young – “Hot Shot” used in “Indo Silver Club”
Barry Manilow – “Who’s Been Sleeping In My Bed” used in “Superheroes”
Sister Sledge – “Il Macquillage Lady” used in “Aerodynamic”
ELO – “Evil Woman” used in “Face to Face”
Cerrone – “Supernature” used in “Verdis Quo”

From http://palmsout.blogspot.com

Know Your Cuts of Meat

8 Primal Cuts of Beef (+ Shank)

• Chuck — common source for hamburger
• Rib — short ribs, rib eye steak.
• Short Loin — porterhouse steaks, filet mignon, the most tender cuts
• Sirloin — less tender than short loin, but more flavorful
• Round – lean cut, and is moderately tough
• Brisket — think barbeque beef brisket.
• Plate – flavorful, but tough, think fajitas
• Flank – think London Broil
• Shank — used primarily for stews and soups, toughest of the cuts

Mono Lake

Props to Wooten for informing me of the existence of this amazing lake in California. The pH is so high that only small shrimp and algae can live in it and the surrounding trees and brush are bleached an amazing alkaline white. The lake turns seasonally from an radiant blue to a “pea soup” green.

Wikipedia – Mono Lake is likely the oldest lake in the US formed at least 760,000 years ago dating back to the Long Valley eruption. Sediments located below the ash layer hint that Mono Lake could be a remnant of a larger and older lake that once covered a large part of Nevada and Utah, making it among the oldest lakes in North America.

Mono lake is a terminal lake in a watershed fed from melting runoff with no outlet. Dissolved salts in the runoff thus remain in the lake and raise the pH and the salt concentration. The hypersalinity and high alkalinity of the lake, means that no fish are native to the lake. An attempt by the California Department of Fish and Game to stock the lake failed. The lake is famous for the Mono Lake brine shrimp, a tiny species of brine shrimp, no bigger than a thumbnail, that are found nowhere else on earth. During the warmer summer months, an estimated 4-6 trillion brine shrimp inhabit the lake. The brine shrimp feed on microscopic planktonic algae which reproduce rapidly during winter and early spring after winter runoff brings nutrients to the surface layer of water. By March the lake is “as green as pea soup” with photosynthesizing algae. Brine shrimp has no food value for humans, but is a staple for birds of the region. Also an important food source, alkali flies live along the shores of the lake and walk underwater encased in small air bubbles to graze and to lay eggs. The whole food chain of the lake is based on the high population of single-celled algae present in the warm shallow waters.

The early people of Mono Lake were called the Kutzadika’a who were the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes. Mono Lake Paiutes cultivated alkali fly larvae called kutsavi in their language. Mono Lake was also referred to as Teniega Bah. The origin of the term “Mono Lake” is unknown. Apparently, “Mono” is a Yokut term for “fly eater”.

How Lenses are Made

 

Take a tour of the Canon lense factory to see how camera lenses are manufactured. I’ve never really looked through the Canon site, but it’s pretty neato that they have all this great information posted.