Two of my all time favorite science fiction movies will see new life in the coming years – both by the same director.

Joseph Kosinski got his start by making television commercials for Nike, Apple, and Nintendo before moving to Hollywood to starting his directing career.  His first movie will be a remake of “Logan’s Run.”  Many have never seen this forgotten classic (unless I’ve forced them to watch it) about a society where at the age of 30, you are eliminated.

The second classic was announced by Disney, and is a sequel to the nerdcore classic “Tron.”  For anyone that is unfamiliar with this story, Wikipedia provides a great synopsis.  While the new Tron will not be out until 2010, geeks around the world will keep their fingers crossed, hoping Kosinski’s version is as good (or better) then the original.

NY Times technology guru David Pogue has an article on Apple’s entry into the customized ringtone market. As a person that either creates my own ringtones or used the ones that come on my phone (a blasphemy I know), the thought of buying a ringtone is a foreign concept. However, I am apparently one of the very few, as it is a $5 billion a year industry.

Apple apparently has it right compared to other companies. Pogue points out in his aricle:

Pop song ringtones from T-Mobile and Sprint cost $2.50 apiece; from Verizon, $3. You don’t get to customize them, choose the start and end points, adjust the looping and so on. Incredibly, after 90 days, every Sprint ringtone dies, and you have to pay another $2.50 if you want to keep it. Verizon’s last only a year.

I think we found another reason for record companies to stop their whining. Read the full article.

September 19th be “Talk Like a Pirate Day” worldwide. The most obvious question may be “WHY?!?!” According to the official “Talk Like a Pirate Day” website FAQ:

Why not?

Talking like a pirate is fun. It’s really that simple. It adds a zest, a swagger, to your every day conversation. Do you need another reason?

Try it out. Let go, have a beer, burp in public. Say “Aarrr!!” Feels good, doesn’t it?

Among other things, the site offers pirate pickup lines for male and female pirates. So celebrate, enjoy and have fun. Arrr.

If you wanted to read an editorial piece by Thomas Friedman published by the NY Times on the Internet, you had to subscribe to their service. That all changes today.

The Times dumped their “TimesSelect” service, which would charge users $7.95 per month for the opportunity to read editorial pieces. This move was rumored for a while, and the change is welcomed by the Internet community. In a letter sent to subscribers, Vivian Schiller, Senior Vice President & General Manager of NYTimes.com states:

Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion – as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.

I subscribe to the print version of the times, and there is often commentary worth blogging about. However, if I can’t link to an article so that readers can view it, I am not going to discuss it. This s a smart move by the Times. I believe the ad revenue over time will make them significantly more then if they kept it a pay service, plus the exposure by bloggers will hep their view rate thrive.

Visit TimesSelect for free starting today. Thanks to James for the update.

Today marks the 25th birthday of quite possibly the most despised and overused symbols of the computer generation. According to CNN:

Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal “smiley face” in a computer message. … “It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all around the world,” Fahlman was quoted as saying in a university statement. “I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to view a smiley, in the 25 years since this all started.”

While hated by many true geeks, the emoticon helps portray emotions such as sarcasm that may be misinterpreted in emails and online dialogue. The simple symbol gives emotion to the dry black text on a white background that inhabit our inboxes on a daily basis. Three cheers for Mr. Fahlman.

Read the CNN Article.

Simple.  Basic.  That is how life and art look to spectators when perfected.  The complexities are there for those that look closely, but the average person should easily determine what an artist is trying to say.  Jane Hammond’s mastery of this skill is one reason why her “Six Sets” piece currently showing at the Chazen Museum of Art can attract even the casual observer.

Simple.  Six identical televisions hang on the wall, each on a different “channel,” each channel a human trait.  Color and depth make the carved wood sets pop from the paper, while the television concept evokes simplicity.  The sets are an old design of a bygone era when televisions had separate dials for UHF and VHF; a time before the flick of a remote could provide access to hundreds of channels.

Hammond’s uses a collection of 276 found images in all her work from this period.  The images that reside on the televisions are visible throughout her collection.  The six traits used by Hammond are easily grasped, even without the note cards that list their names; Faith, Insight, Kinship, Patience, Perception, and Fairness.
Read more…

Since I started back to school, I’ve noticed I have started to become a bit of a procrastinator. After reading this article from Psychology Today, I have decided my procrastination needs to stop here and now. One of the highlights:

There are big costs to procrastination. Health is one. Just over the course of a single academic term, procrastinating college students had such evidence of compromised immune systems as more colds and flu, more gastrointestinal problems. And they had insomnia. In addition, procrastination has a high cost to others as well as oneself; it shifts the burden of responsibilities onto others, who become resentful. Procrastination destroys teamwork in the workplace and private relationships.

Read the article.