February 2008 Archives

Snail Mail

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As some of you know, I'm going to be on the road again next week. And, as has become traditional, when I'm on the road, I send you, gentle reader, a post card.

And what, I hear you ask, must I do to receive such a thing? Well, all you have to do is tell me where you want me to send it (also known as your address).

Live-Blogging the Post-Strike 2008 Oscars

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OK, and away we go!

Jon Stewart's monologue is, I think, very well pitched. The strike jokes walk a nice line... they seem obviously pro-writer but not overly so. The Yom Kippur joke was funny, but then again I went to Cardozo....

"Don't Let The Audience Win!" Oh, how true is that.

Judging from Jennifer Garner's speech (nice dress, btw), looks like the Oscar writers are just as bad as they are when they don't have a strike to deal with.

Jeez, I hope that this is the only time-filling self-indulgent montage. Odds are against that, though.

Best Animated Feature.... goes to the movie about the rat. Occasionally the Academy gets it right.


They're being a bit aggressive with the move-along music, aren't they?

Anyway, as Amy Adams has to do the entire song on the stage all by her self (perhaps one beneficial side-effect of the strike is no big production numbers?), it strikes me that Enchanted was one of the best-reviewed movies of the year... but managed to avoid most critics' top-ten lists.

So far... yawn.

Bardem wins for No Country for Old Men. Wilkinson might have been his only competition, but still, no great surprise. Nice speech, though.

Is this Owen Wilson's first public appearance after his suicide attempt? If so, he picked an interesting platform....

More people should watch shorts--it's a interesting form, particularly animated shorts.

Well, I guess that Tilda Swinton wasn't expecting to win best supporting actress. That means that Cate Blanchett just moved into the pole position for best actress. And I loved her speech, particularly the thanks to George....

Jessica Alba should get a scientific and technical award, just for being Jessica Alba.

Oh god, kill me now.

The montages before the acting awards is nice. And the best actress for 2008 is.... Marion Cotillard! That's quite the upset. I wonder if there was some vote-splitting going on?

I'd been hoping that "Roderick Jaynes" (aka the Coen Brothers) would win for best film editing.... it would have been interesting to see who would have come up to pick up the little gold man.

Best song... not a huge surprise, since none of the songs from Enchanted were going to win (vote splitting and all that). Nice speech, though the best part of that bit was probably the John Travolta 707 gag.

Wow... Marketa came out and got to do her half of the acceptance speech... after the commercial! Has that ever happened before?

In a year that had Bermgan and Antononi die, Heath Ledger was the last name on the in memorium reel.

Diablo Cody wins for best original screenplay. Not a great surprise--it's a great story. Almost broke down during her speech, though...

Daniel Day-Lewis wins best actor. About the only real surprise is best actress. Quite frankly, it's been boring so far. I'm going to bed.

Lessig '08 - Change Congress.

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I think that worked!

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If you're reading this, and there's no reason that you shouldn't be, I've actually managed to pull off the upgrade to MT 4.1. More work needs to be done on the fine points, but so far, it all looks ok.....

(and, let's face it, there are some I'm just never going to get around to fixing)

Draft Lessig!

I find it interesting that John Palfrey is leading the Draft Lessig charge, since it’s my opinion that Palfrey himself would make an excellent congresscritter…..

links for 2008-02-07

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Why Is Today Unlike Any Other Tuesday?

It’s an interesting confluence of politics (Super Tuesday) and religion (Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras).

Fat Tuesday and St. Valentine’s Day occasionally fall on the same day, too, though given the wandering nature of the Easter calendar, I would suspect that it’s an infrequent occurance.

Are you giving anything up for Lent?

links for 2008-02-05

links for 2008-02-03

Naked Brains Floating In Space!

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I’ve been meaning to post about the Boltzmann’s Brain problem for a while now, but this is as good a time as any. The basic issue is that under some cosmological models, it’s far more likely that we’re just disembodied brains floating in the vacuum of interstellar space than not.

Trippy, huh? And of course, the question is, how do we know that we’re not?