Michael Flynn's Blog, page 102

At the End of the Age

Does Functionality Follow Form?

What do you do when it is a slow news day, but you need to draw viewers to see the commercials in between the sound bites?  How doe the print media react when they try to imitate TV or web-pages in newsprint?  See: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" in The Atlantic.  www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

In what way does the format influence the content? 

Visual and electronic media, today’s dominant media, need a certain kind of content. They thrive on brevity, speed, c

Tinsel Town

Lights -> Action -> Camera

damedini wrote in the comm box on a prior post:

*grimace* I wish someone would turn your Firestar books into film/s. I did chew Joel Silver's ear off about books that ought to be movies at one point and yours were on the list. Here's hoping! 

What if they did?  Who would play the roles?  Lessee who I can remember....

Mariesa van Huyten
Harriet Gorley van Huyten
Ed Sykes [the butler:]
Prometheusxxxxxxxxxxxxx........[her accountant:]
John E. Redmond [her lawyer:]
Chris van Huyten [h

The Moon is Hell

Motive -> Action -> Purpose, some thoughts

Over on her blog, the esteemed Nancy Kress has this to say about the new movie, MOON.

They lost me before the action even started, with the prologue in the form of an advertisement for a company that has discovered and now solely controls a form of cheap energy involving cold fusion. But the only thing you can use for this fusion is 'He3," a molecule found only on -- get this -- the dark side of the moon. Because of course the sub-lunar composition is dif

Great philosophers

Mike is Aristotle

Over on FaceBook, I took the "Which Great Philosopher Are You" quiz, and I turned out to be Aristotle. 

Heh. 

Could do worse, sez I. 

www.facebook.com/profile.php

Sale On!

On Rickety Thistlewaite

Just heard from ANALOG that Stan is buying an excerpt from Up Jim RIver to run as a novelette, probably in the Jan/Feb issue.  Woo-hoo.  The harper and the scarred man visit Thistlewaite in their search for Bridget ban. 

An Oops Moment

Did She Just Say What?

The NY Times conducts an interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader:

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use o

The Home of the Brave

What Happens When a Disabled Boy Sings at Fenway Park?

This....

Now this is funny

There Are More Things In Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than Are Dreamed of by Your UK Ukulele Orchestras

Mark Shea points out the synergy that results from the cross-fertilization of cultures: 

Czar Light, Czar Bright

Of the Making of Many Czars, There is No End

What's with the current POTUS anyway.  Everything must have a czar.  Is this a way of concentrating all powers into the executive branch, or what?  As I recall, Russia did not have much luck with the czar thingie. 

Harvard Law prof, Cass Sunstein, picked by President Obama to be the “regulations czar” wants animals to be able to bring lawsuits in court. This is a very radical concept known as “animal standing.”  Senator Saxby Chambliss is holding up th

m_francis @ 2009-07-06T00:13:00

In response to an article from STATS.org on the hype over BPA, a dude in the comm box wrote:

For wise consumers I think it’s safe to assume NOTHING like BPA is safe to ingest. I am fine with being “duped” by marketers such as the SIGG bottle makers…I’ll gladly pay more for a re-usable container free of chemicals.
What is wrong with this picture?  

Of what does he suppose his container will be made? 

I once saw a sign announcing that a certain city in California was a nuclear-free zone.  I imagined