"The movie more or less manages to skip over explaining either the Landsraad or CHOAM without much of a narrative problem, but I think they’re both important to understanding the complicated political forces at play."
Yeah! Some friendly nerd nitpicking here that catches a lot of my thoughts about what the movie missed, but much funnier!
Some art from 1923 is finally entering the US public domain after a 20-year extension passed by congress in 1998. In addition to a partial list of works here, check out the What Could Have Been section to feel the impact of that 1998 decision. They also have a good page about Why the Public Domain Matters.
Kanopy is a streaming service like Netflix that has a bunch of movies and documentaries that you've probably been meaning to see. It has classic films like L'Avventura and The 400 Blows. But also more recent A24 Films like Moonlight and Lady Bird. And also documentaries like Helvetica and Manufactured Landscapes. Additionally further besides entire runs of Great Courses videos. Also conjointly furthermore some classic PBS and BBC TV series. I was shocked at the depth looking through their catalog. The best part is that you can likely get free access through your library.
This is Andy Baio's annual round-up of online movie piracy. This year: HD video makes leaked screeners irrelevant. "Already, with a month to go before the ceremony, 89% of this year’s nominated films have already leaked in high quality online, more than last year."
This article includes an interesting use of social media for identity obfuscation. "...we create bogus individuals around client names. One person could be a photographer, one person could be a chauffeur, or whatever. We develop about 15 to 20 web sites and create all these social media sites around you. Now if you are traveling somewhere and someone puts your name in, they are going to locate those 20 other people before they get to you, depending on how much information is known about you."
This is a great industrial film by Jam Handy for Hamilton Watch Company in 1949. It explains the mechanics of a wind-up watch. If they were making it today they might call it F*cking Watches, How Do They Work? [via Hodinkee]
I had this reaction to Avatar too, glad to see io9 spend some time explaining this problem. Hadn't made the Dune connection, that's spot on. [via mathowie]
This is a sharp bike. It's 8-speed, has a carbon drive belt instead of an oily chain, and includes fenders for Oregon weather. Officially on my wish list. [via mathowie]
"What are some books that people are particularly likely to be assholes about?" Another fun thread gathering books that people are, umm, passionate about.
"...you can use LineIn to play sound coming in through a microphone or any other device plugged in to your Sound In port..." Used this today to pipe my iPhone through the computer speakers.