Researchers in Texas have discovered that certain people love Apple and their products so much that they display the same behaviors as religious followers. Like that is news to anyone.
But it seems we have a new milestone, as far as I remember. Yes, we have a winner who has won this award two weeks in a row. As you know, it takes a lot to up the ante and win this prize more than once in a short succession, let alone win it twice in a row. But that is what has happened. Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness has done just that.
Last Saturday, Kal posted a video which has been making the rounds this week: Ron Livingston covering Keyboard Cat. It is just surreal, and it was nigh unbeatable this week.
And because this entry has to do with cats, well, Homer and Snowball seemed the be the best representation of the winner.
Congrats Kal on doing the near impossible.
The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.
This is not a meme. This is an award that I give out, and thus, I am not "tagging" you.
Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.
3PM: cool, cloudy air all mixed out and some convection over the mountains.
Today was an interesting day, really dense fog and low clouds over much of the west, with some drizzle in some locations (like on me as I biked in today). (see images above)
Believe it or not, when you see such low visibility it is generally a good sign--an indication of a very shallow saturated layer. Anyway, the murk rapidly evaporated away during the late morning and temperatures rose very rapidly as the thin cool layer mixed out and was replaced by warmer air aloft.
Now this weekend will have its issues, not the least is a considerable potential for rain and thunderstorms on Saturday. The initiator: a sharp upper level trough that will move through during the day (see graphic) and which will cause enough upward motion to get some instability going. By the way, those in western Washington could have looked eastward and seen some instability clouds (cumulus) over the Cascades later in the afternoon today.
Look at the forecast precipitation maps for tomorrow--take your umbrella if you head into eastern Washington and keep a look out if you are planning a hike in the high country. A particular threat in the N. Cascades.
Onshore flow is increasing tonight and with that pesky trough in the neighborhood, tomorrow will be a big step down for western WA. Low clouds will reform tonight and they will not give way easily tomorrow...particularly in the central and southern Sound. Yes, perhaps cloudy all day.
So what do you do? Stay in the murk in the west? Head to eastern WA and get wet? My recommendation--head for the western slopes of the Cascades. Should be dry, high enough to get out of the low clouds. A good choice...something like Tiger Mountain where you could hike above the low clouds...always fun.
Please help researchers evaluate how to communicate weather forecast information. The survey will take you only 20 minutes to complete. Survey data will be used to improve weather forecast products designed for boaters. If you own a boat and would like to participate, please click on the link below. Thank you.
Well, this week we had the announcement that one Paul Verhoeven film was temporarily safe from being remade... and news that another film on his C.V. is being remade.
Yes, the long anticipated, Kurt Wimmer-penned remake of Total Recall may be starting production, as Len Wiseman is in discussions to direct that film.
Now, if they are making a movie based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and just titling it Total Recall, than I am completely cool with that, because it is an awesome short story. It isn't an action spectacular, but rather a more cerebral experience, and that is what I would hope the remake would be. (I also think of John Carpenter's The Thing as a more faithful reimagining Campbell's "Who Goes There?")
I remember reading stories about how initially, the original Total Recall was going to be directed by David Cronenberg, and he was going to go in a completely different direction with it, but then Carolco bought the rights to the picture and Schwartzenegger came in, and that was the reason he quit.
But thinking about the movies both Wimmer and Wiseman have made, it doesn't seem likely that the new Total Recall is going to be a brilliant thought experiment. I could be wrong. I mean, if it was Christopher Nolan making it, I think it would be awesome because this seems like something that was totally up his alley.
Thunderstorms and heavy rain have hit the eastern slopes of the Cascades and portions of eastern Washington and Oregon, with a little spill-over over the upper slopes of western WA. Take a look at the radar imagery tonight around 7:15 PM from the Spokane and Portland radars (see below). Lots of echos east of the crest with very heavy rainfall over the eastern slopes near Wenatchee and Leavenworth.
The showers were so intense near Wenatchee that there was localized flooding and mudslides. Here are a few pictures courtesy of the Wenatchee World newspaper:
According to the Washington State DO, US 97 A, milepost 220 to 222, is closed over night due to heavy rain fall, mud and debris over the roadway.
Why the thunderstorms? The air east of the Cascades has been relatively unstable and a weak upper level trough (see below) has been moving through the east side, providing enough lift to release the instability (producing thunderstorms). The lightning detection network indicates hundreds of lightning strikes. This is not a good thing since they have the potential to initiate wildfires. In fact, one such lightning-produced fire was reported near Yakima.
More thunderstorms are expected east of the Cascade crest the next few days...so if you want rain you know where to go!
With the financial problems facing MGM putting the James Bond franchise on ice, it seems that their woes have had a detriment to filmgoers everywhere. However, it does seem there is something positive coming out of this mess as well.
It seems that the Robocop remake has also gone down for the count because of MGM's money problems.
My long personal nightmare has for the moment ended and for that I am grateful.
But now I have to worry about the next time someone tries to resurrect Robocop. Because we all know it is going to come sooner rather than later because people just can't leave well enough alone.
So, how long do you think it is going to be until we are hearing rumors about the next Robocop reboot? I am betting it is going to be 18 months.
We’re very proud to tell you that we’ve just launched a new feature for the Google font directory. The new Google font previewer lets you test drive all the fonts in the directory so you can decide which web font in the Google Font API works best for your requirements.
Now, whenever you visit the font family page of any of the fonts, you will see a link saying “Preview this font” that will load your font selection into the font previewer.
Here you can edit the text, change its size and line height, and add decorations and spacing among other things. You can even apply text shadow to your text.
The previewer will generate the corresponding code for you so all you have to do to start using the font on your own website is to copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages. In the example above this would be:
That’s really all you need to use the Google Font API.
If you want to see the font sample without any distractions from the font previewer controls, you can do that as well simply by clicking “Toggle controls” in the upper right corner. This will show you a nice clean example of what the font would look like in your design.
We think the previewer is a great way to try out web fonts and showcase what can be done with them. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think about the new font previewer.
Since we launched the new orkut, we’ve been working hard to launch new features and introduce the new design to other pages that are still using the older UI. Today, we’re excited to announce the redesign of the app pages on orkut. Because we want developers to try it out first, these changes are first being rolled out to the sandbox, and you’ll have some time to give us your feedback before these go live for all users at orkut.com. We believe usability and speed improved considerably.
Let’s check out what’s new:
New canvas page Options are more descriptive and appear at the top of the page. They open up as dialogs so users can configure or access the app information without leaving the canvas page.
New apps directory page The apps directory is easier to navigate. We removed the descriptions and arranged the apps in two columns, and you can search for apps within categories, so it all looks much cleaner. We also created a section called "my applications" from where users can open or remove their apps.
When a user clicks on an app listed in the directory, the screenshot as well as the app’s description and popularity will now pop up in a new window. This window replaces the old app page and allows users to quickly add apps without loading another page.
New profile view for apps We’re changing the way apps are displayed on a user’s profile. Showing several apps in tabs on the profile page was confusing. We made things simpler having users select a single app to appear on their profile page and other apps (as well as the "about me" section) are accessible by a drop-down menu.
A new apps box We’re adding a “my applications” box, just below the “my communities” one on the right. This box will list the thumbnails of all apps the user has installed. We hope this will drive more traffic to the app’s canvas page.
We hope you’ll like these changes. Please share your feedback with us at the forum.
We are now in a stretch of magnificent summer weather, with day after day warming above normal (see graphic above). In fact, way above normal (roughly 10F!). This week we will continue the sun, but with some cooling and more clouds, so we will head to more normal territory.
This time of the year a key aspect of the forecast problem is deciding how much onshore flow we will have. A lot and we are cool and cloudy all day. Modest onshore flow and we get morning clouds with highs in the mid 70s. Little flow or offshore flow, 80s and 90s.
A key parameter that meteorologists watch is the onshore pressure gradient or difference. Two big favorites here in western WA: Hoquiam minus Seattle and North Bend,Oregon minus Seattle pressure differences. If you read the National Weather Service forecast discussion they talk about them all the time!
This afternoon and this evening the Hoquiam minus Seattle pressure difference has risen to roughly 2.4 millibars (or hectopascals). Such a difference typically brings a weak onshore flow. Get to 3.5 or 4 and we get a major push. This change is associated with the passage of a weak trough aloft. So expect tomorrow to be 5 degrees cooler or so and the clouds on the coast pushing at least into SW WA.
Talking about the clouds, take a look at tonight's visible satellite picture. Plenty of low clouds offshore and these will make some progress inland overnight. In fact, the latest fog imagery (satellite pictures enhanced to show fog at night) indicates the movement of the coastal stratus inland. Hoquiam is in fog and cool SW flow has hit Shelton, which is 10F cooler tonight than yesterday at the same time.
If you look in the southern portion of the image you will see debris from some thunderstorms over Oregon.
Did anyone who cared actually think she had retired? Honestly.
Like I said... if you are going to retire, you just retire. You don't make a production about it... you just stop taking work. It is as simple as that.
Personally, I think it was just a ploy for attention or work (because you make people want to get you to come out of retirement with the right role).
I mean, she did Maxim a few months back and then she mysteriously decides she is going to retire. Who does that?
The only explanation that I think is plausible is that she was having a nervous breakdown, which happens, and if that was revealed at some point, I would totally buy that.
They're back! And they aren't happy to be home. Both the 11 year old and 9 year old in their last days of their first two week overnight camps lobbied to stay an extra two weeks. Of course, their modes of communication to us are telling in terms of the camp experience they had.
Child No.1 attended a very traditional, outdoors type camp in New Hampshire. Her communication with us consisted of traditional, snail mail. I should emphasise the 'snail' part. The two letters we received prior to her coming home consisted mainly of demands, subtle and not so subtle, for stuff which we duly express posted to her. But her letters took a week to reach us just one state over. Thus, on the day we brought her home, we received her letter asking, well pleading, to stay longer. That said, we already heard much of that during the car ride home and, indeed, during the pick up where we pretty much had to physically drag her from her cabin. Suffice it to say, she had the time of her life and didn't see why that should end. From our point of view, in principle, she had exactly the experience in camp we were looking for. In retrospect, I think a bit of hardship that might have made her more willing to return home might have been nice. Apparently, the bugs, the relatively poor food, the crappy showers, etc, weren't enough to outweigh two weeks of swimming, kayaking, dances, photography, archery, horseriding, waterskiing and fifty new best friends. Go figure.
In contrast, Child No.2 told us about his desire never to return home via FaceTime. FaceTime is an iPhone 4 feature that allows you to talk face to face. And, yes, our son has an iPhone 4. He was going to computer camp for goodness sake. I figured he should have the best. So sue me! But the big benefit of that was being able to communicate face to face every night; sometimes absurdly late at 10:30pm! Indeed, I think our experience would make a good iPhone ad. I never expected that feature to be more of a gimmick but in actuality, he got about as much of home as he needed and saw no reason to come home. Of course, we can add to that the comic creation, the puzzle game making, and the web page design in html! Apparently, he had good food and hot water. Also, given the computer camp experience, one of his roommates brought a Nintendo Wii and of course a flat screen TV to use it on. Suffice it to say, that made his room the hub of a huge amount of social activity. Near as I can tell, they pretty quickly turned it into an exclusive club with rules of behaviour and apparent entry fee in form of canteen food.
We had two kids go for very different experiences and, in neither case, are they at all pleased to return to us. Their younger sister was pleased to see them as will we, of course, once the period of sulking ends.
A bear in Colorado snuck into an empty car, honked the horn and then knocked it into neutral, taking a 125 foot joyride. I wonder if Dante and Randall were in the backseat anime style yelling. It also did something else which changes what the question "Does a bear crap in the woods?" means.
Kal recently posted a picture which leaves me with a lot of questions. It isn't totally surreal... it is just weird.
I mean, really, who ties a calf to a bike rack? I would love to hear the story of how that happened. I mean, did someone ride the calf to that location? Is it a prank? And notice how the calf is in that rack too. It is all just so very strange.
And because this week's winning entry has to do with a cow, well, of course, Homer Simpson battling with a cow would seem to be the most appropriate expression of this win.
Congrats Kal. Here is your badge.
The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.
This is not a meme. This is an award that I give out, and thus, I am not "tagging" you.
Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.
I totally remember when I wrote this. I had just seen previews for a show that was coming for the fall of 2006 called Betty the Ugly and I was absolutely outraged.
We all know what happened that fall after I watched that very same program. Yeah, I ate a lot of crow about that one.
But this was short and sweet, and for the most part, it still applies today. (And I think this may have been the only time Celeste in the City has ever been publicly mentioned)
-- You know there is something wrong in Hollywood when this is "ugly".
This was an entry that was a long time in coming, but what was the last straw was the previews for Betty the Ugly I've been seeing lately. I know that the point of the show, much like The Devil Wears Prada(I know that picture is from the Princess Diaries) and Celeste in the City is about women who are overcoming the rigors of a publishing world that is aligned against them, but I still saddens me that a certain look has been deemed by Hollywood as their conception of ugly, especially since the characters they play are all genuinely kind and lovable people. I mean those are qualities we generally want in people we want to be around.
There is just something that rubs me the wrong way about this whole beauty standard. I mean, the actress playing the title role in Betty the Ugly also starred in the critically acclaimed film Real Women have Curves. I am trying to think of young women in the movies who were referred to as "ugly" that were in fact ugly, and I am having a hard time doing it. I even think independent movies get in on this act too.
But it seems that satirically minded people have picked up on this trend too. For example, I remember an episode of the Simpsons where Moe Sylak was auditioning for for a soap opera and he is rejected because the director wanted someone who was Hollywood ugly, not "ugly ugly".
I am just wondering if there will ever be a day in Hollywood where more normal looking people are part of the mix once again. Of course, that day will be right after allreality shows pick totally normal looking casts as well, because we all know that the people they select for those are totally representative of the population at large. *rolleyes*
Since last night I have gotten nearly a dozen emails from people in Seattle who reported seeing "weird", "strange", and even "scary" clouds. Above and below are nice examples of the view that many Seattle residents had Thursday evening in the hours around sunset.
Picture courtesy of Andy Bokanev.
Some thought the clouds looked like question marks, but in my mind they resemble breaking waves on a beach, and as we will see they have a lot in common with the seashore phenomenon.
I can tell you exactly what you are seeing--Kelvin Helmholtz instability clouds. Now that will impress your friends!
These clouds form when there is a large change in wind with height...we call this wind shear in the business. When the wind shear builds up sufficiently an instability forms in which wavelike disturbances are created that can amplify like a breaking wave on the beach. And like the breaking wave there is often a lot of turbulent motion.
Yesterday this was a large change in wind direction centered around 1300 meters (roughly 4300 feet). At low levels there was southerly flow and above northerly flow.
Want to see it? Here is the output from vertical wind profiler at Sand Point in Seattle. Height in meters is on the y axis and time on the x axis. The symbols are the typical meteorological wind barbs. The time is in Greenwich Mean Time, so look at around 23/03 GMT...that is around 8 PM. You see the big shift in wind direction between 1000 and 1500 meters? Another way to see the big change of wind direction with height is from the time lapse video taken from my department yesterday. You can find it at
Wait until near sunset and you can see low level clouds going one direction and higher level clouds in another...lots of shear! And if you look carefully in the lower left you will see the Kelvin Helmholtz clouds form!
Or perhaps you would like to view a computer simulation of the phenomenon:
As noted earlier, these clouds are often associated with substantial turbulence--if you fly into one you can really have a rough ride. I remember a few years ago I saw such clouds ahead of me on a flight. I tightened my seat belt and told the person next to me that they she should be prepared for turbulence. She laughed. Well, people often laugh at weathermen. We are used to it. Then we hit it. Drinks went flying. The seat belt sign went on. She wasn't laughing anymore!
Do you remember that horrific Eddie Murphy movie The Haunted Mansion?
OK, you probably don't because either you didn't see it or if you did, your brain has spared you having to remember it to prevent you from going insane, which I have now reminded you of, for which I apologize, but there is a good reason.
You see, there is going to be a Haunted Mansion remake. In 3D. The horror... the horror.
But it is going to be directed by Guillermo Del Toro and he doesn't want Eddie Murphy. Woot?
Can it be good now? I don't know. However, I am rooting for a huge Ron Perlman part... because that guy is awesome.
I mean, when they needed someone to replace Bruce Campbell as Elvis, you just can't get anyone. So they got the awesomeness of Ron Perlman. So maybe he will end up in The Haunted Mansion after all.
There have been a number of complaints in the media and among some locals about our "year without a summer", "Junuary", "Julember" and other griping about our current weather.
OK, we have generally been somewhat cooler than normal, with persistent low clouds in the morning. But one aspect of this summer has been BETTER THAN NORMAL: we have been unusually dry. Your barbecues might have required a sweater but few have been rained on.
Don't believe me? Here are plots of normal (blue line) and actual (red line) for the past four weeks at Seattle, Stampede Pass, Yakima, and Spokane. Each location has had far less precipitation than normal and virtually nothing the past ten days.
Or take a look at the official National Weather Service precipitation plots for the last 30 days. The whole West Coast has been far drier than normal (25-50%).
My garden is wilting fast, my grass is turning yellow, and my soil is like dust.
So lets stop complaining about the cool weather. And besides, on most of the cloudy mornings west of the Cascade crest you could easily escape it by hiking in the mountains or exploring eastern Washington.
Talking of dry weather, keep in mind that the climatologically driest period is still ahead: the last week of July and first week of August. The driest day in the west? Well in Seattle it is July 29th, my favorite day for a "dry sky barbecue."
Still want you heat? NO PROBLEM. We will have a little cool down tomorrow, with persistent low clouds, but on Friday we move into a warming trend, with the weekend and much of next week warm and sunny...certainly above normal.
So hopefully all the complaining will fade away during the next few weeks---it should be spectacular if you like dry conditions and sun. If you don't, just wait a few months.
It is refreshing to hear this in its acapella version. I didn't know this version existed in video form. Every time you look up this song on Youtube, the version with DNA is the only one that pops up along with some concert versions.
The fact that Quick Change comes up on two non-consecutive occasions in the interview, and to me, that is one of his most underrated movies (and one of my favorite all time films).
And like a lot of his other media appearances, he really dishes some dirt. It is refreshing to see someone just come out and say things and not apologize for it. More people should do that, because sometimes the nasty thing has to be said.
Bill Murray is still a curmudgeon, but he is my kind of curmudgeon.
Awesome stuff as always. But would you expect anything less from the legend?
I've quoted from Emily Bazelon many times in this blog. Usually, it is about a parenting issue inspired by her own parenting. For that reason, it is good fodder for me.
Her contribution in today's Slate is something different: a full blown journalistic investigation into the events surrounding the suicide of Phoebe Prince. Fuelled by criminal charges against 6 students, the media has portrayed the suicide as being a symptom of bullying out of hand -- including the use of new technology. Bazelon looks deeper and tries -- in the face of considerable difficulty in obtaining direct information -- to understand the story behind the hysterics. It is more complicated than portrayed in the media and what is clear that the attention and also the legal system has likely done far more harm than good. I recommend this article in its entirely to anyone.
I want to comment on just two aspects of the whole story. First, there is an issue with the role of technology in all of this -- specifically, Facebook and other social websites that allow rumours and insults to travel far and with the speed of light rather than over the speed of the playground as they did in the past. The reaction is often to ban those technologies where bullying arises. The problem is that, like all of these situations, teenagers are trying to find their social ground. If you cut of a tool that will be available later on you only push forward that learning into the future where it can potentially be even more damaging. We should all recount how many years it took for the norms of email use to be established. Those norms need to develop for these technologies too. The sad part is that while they remain out of official school business, we have those norms evolve without adult supervision. I think it is a mistake. Schools should be more proactive about adopting these things rather than having as their first instinct to push them away from the classroom.
Second, Phoebe had moved recently to the US (New England in fact) from Ireland. One thing that I have observed about my own children in moving schools cross-nationally is that, initially, their differences are a novelty but after a while there were some struggles. Each of my two eldest have recounted how they find engaging in humour more difficult than they had in Australia. That what they thought of as a joke or joking wasn't seen as such. This has led to awkwardness but eventually I am sure they will learn what the right things to say and do are. My point is that we should not underestimate those issues as playing a role here. For my pre-teen kids, it is joking, for teenagers it is all of the relationship stuff. Talk about a hard transition to make. This is something that the Slate piece does not bring out but I do think it will deserve some understanding into trying to make sense of all this.
Stephen Schneider and Me in 1974 at NCAR, Boulder ,CO
This is going to be a more personal blog than normal and a sad one for me. Yesterday, Stephen H. Schneider, a very prominent climatologist and someone who had a major impact on my career passed away. Steve was one of the key individuals in bringing the issue of global warming to the world's attention. There are few scientists who are technically at the top of their field, accomplished communicators of science to the public, and conversant with public policy: Steve was one of the them. He was a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, a winner of the MacArthur "Genius" award, a leading participant of the IPCC deliberations on the science and implications of global warming, and a co-winner of a Nobel Prize. Author of a half-dozen major books and hundreds of research papers.
But as important as his accomplishments were that is not what I want to stress here. Rather, I will discuss my personal account of interactions with him and the major impact he had on my career.
After my senior year as an undergraduate at Cornell I was accepted in a summer internship in scientific computing at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). A major part of the summer was working with an NCAR scientist and I was assigned at random to Steve--an amazingly lucky break for me-- not that I knew it at the time. He was fairly new at NCAR, having recently graduated from Columbia in plasma physics, and had moved into atmospheric sciences and particularly climate.
Steve gave me a desk in his office and took me under his wing (see picture above). My project was to reprogram a global climate model he had developed and I dedicated myself to that task, staying up many nights until 2 or 3 AM in the morning. And I loved it. Steve made me feel like an equal and we spent hours talking that summer, both in the office and at social stops at his home. One major topic--the essential role of the public scientist and of communicating science to the public. Even then he was becoming the "go-to-guy" for the national press on climate matters, and the media was constantly calling. Listening to him deal with them taught me so much on being an effective communicator.
The results of that summer work led to a paper on the influence of sunspots, volcanic eruptions and CO2 on climate (published in Science Magazine)--still my number one cited publication. We kept in touch after that program and he invited me to come out to work with for a second productive summer, with the work leading to our second paper, mainly on volcanic eruptions and climate.
His influence on a young impressionable future scientist was powerful--I become intrigued by subject of climate and importantly became convinced that scientists must put considerable energy into communicating their subject to the public for a whole collection of reasons.
After I received my Ph.D. from the UW, I did a few climate papers (particularly on the weather and climatic impacts of Mt. St. Helens) but moved into other directions (weather prediction, NW weather, weather systems) and occasionally saw Steve at meetings. But I still had the climate bug he implanted and during the past few years have return to climate in the areas of regional climate modeling and snowpack trends. And his influence played a major role in my intense dealings with the media (e.g., KUOW), my NW weather book, and my blog.
A few months ago I gave a talk at Stanford (where Steve was a faculty member) on regional climate modeling and had a chance to catch up with him. His fight against cancer had clearly weakened him, but he was as feisty as ever, complaining loudly about the shenanigans of Oklahoma's Senator Inhoufe, who had placed Steve and a few other climate activists on a watch list of some kind.
Steve had a huge impact on both science and society, and was not a little controversial at times. But his intelligence, energy, and passion were unstoppable and productive, and the kindness and inspiration he provided to a young scientist will not be forgotten.
Last week, the crew at the Midnight Movie Club watched Major League, and during the conversation, they mentioned something which started to tickle the back of my brain.
They noted the similarities between Sam Elliott and the man who played the coach in Major League, the late James Gammon, and my mind started to put together an alternate casting of a classic movie.
I am talking about The Big Lebowski.
Now I should note, this is a thought experiment and nothing more. I am completely satisfied with the casting as it stands now, and this is merely some idle speculation.
The only limitations I put on this was the actors in question had to be in a position to take that role when the movie was in production. That means that they had to be active in Hollywood to be chosen. And some of the choices do have some experience with the Coens too, which doesn't hurt.
And I know that some of the choices that came up when I was putting this together are going to rub some people the wrong way (I have a feeling my Dude is going to really have some people scratching their heads as well).
But in the end, this was a fun little experiment, one which I may do in the future (in addition to a few more "If I wrote/cast (blank)" posts).
The Stranger: Originally played by Sam Elliott. Alternate, the aforementioned late James Gammon.
Jeffery Lebowski: originally played by David Huddleston. In this version, M. Emmet Walsh.
Brandt: originally played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Alternate: Brendan Fraser.
Bunny Lebowski: Originally played by Tara Reid. Alternate, Marley Shelton.
Jesus Quintana: originally played by John Turturro. Alternate casting: John Leguizamo.
Donny Kerabatsos: played by Steve Buscemi. Alternate: William H. Macy.
Walter Sobchak: played by John Goodman. In this version, Samuel L. Jackson.
The Dude: originally completely inhabited by Jeff Bridges, recast as Christopher Walken.
I think in this experiment, The Big Lebowski becomes a little angrier and a little twitchier, which could work. But I still love it the way it is now.
Since we introduced the Google Buzz API at Google I/O, we’ve been working hard to make it better, broader, and more useful. Today we're introducing several new features that are the direct result of your feedback.
We're launching the Google Buzz firehose — our top developer feature request. With the firehose, all public activities are available as they are published with a single subscription, thanks to syndication via PubSubHubbub.
We’ve had some fun coming up with cool things to do with the firehose. For example, Bob Aman coded up Buzz Mood, an App Engine app inspired by Twistori. By scanning for posts that contain certain keywords, Bob’s able to give us a sense for the mood across all of Google Buzz in real time. Definitely take a look at the the source to get ideas for your own apps!
We’re making these new API features available starting today:
Comments by the user - This feed consists of the activities the user has commented on.
Likes by the user - The activities the user has liked are in this feed.
Shared counts - This will return the number of times a specified URL has been shared across Google Buzz.
All of these features are documented in much more detail on the Google Buzz API documentation site and can be discussed on the Developer Forum. We will continue to innovate and iterate the Buzz API and encourage you to check out the new features and let us know what you think.
Following up from her first letter from camp -- without any coaching from me -- comes this gem today addressed only to "Mummy."
Besides, the other girls in my cabin have never heard of Tim Tams and I really want to show and share with them -- can you please send some?
OK that looks like a naked demand but she follows right up.
I miss having food at home. They never cook veggies here -- and when they do, it's drowned in yucky stuff.
Perfect. She expresses missing exactly what her mother values most and uniquely supplies. Just brilliant. Tim Tams -- if we can find them -- are on their way.
What could be more depressing than a well-meaning corporation and a closely associated foundation, concerned about the quality of math education in our nation, applying a large amount of resources that are not only wasted, but generally have exactly the opposite effects that they want?
That is the sad tale of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
To quote Brad Smith, a senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft:
"We're very concerned about the possibility that our kids are falling behind in areas like math and science," he said. "We urgently need to tackle this as a region, as well as a state and as a country ... but it's not a problem that's impossible to solve."
The Gates Foundation web site is full of similar sentiments.
These folks have good intentions.But they are making major errors and working against their own and the nation’s interests.
For example.Microsoft has teamed up with the University of Washington College of Education and eight school districts in the Puget Sound region in the Microsoft Math Partnership (MMP). As part of the partnership, Microsoft is donating $6 million over three years.It is well known that the UW College of Education promotes demonstrably failing reform or discovery math approaches (http://education.washington.edu/research/rtm_07/index.html) and it is clear from the MMP website that this initiative follows that failed direction (http://www.microsoftmathpartnership.org/).Read the summary of the first two years’ efforts (http://www.microsoftmathpartnership.org/partnereval.php).One of the main aspects of their work is hiring math "coaches" who “are more confident in the expectations for their work with teachers on instructional practice and are starting to create collaborative teacher teams around common goals.”
Math coaches are big part of the reform/discovery math approach.Since reform math ideas generally don’t work, they have concluded that teachers need the help of “coaches.”In my mind this is kind of insulting to professional teachers.
The MMP website says virtually nothing about the key deficiencies in math education: poor curricula and standards. There is a lot of talk about the importance of 8th grade algebra as a “gatekeeper,” but what exactly should students know BEFORE and AFTER they take this class?You won't find the answer at the MMP website. Amazingly, the latest MMP annual evaluation shows district math WASL scores in the years before and after this program, somehow implying their program had a positive influence.How can they claim that this program had ANY positive influence on student scores ?No randomized studies are performed. But this is classic educational research, which is really no research at all.Interestingly, most of the districts in the Microsoft initiative have been using weak Discovery Math approaches (where students are not provided direct instruction, but are expected to discover math principles on their own with heavy use of calculators). Why don't the Microsoft folks see that with a weak curriculum all the coaches in the world won't help?
Now, what about the Gates Foundation?They have loads of money but are highly dependent on advisers and staff taken from the failing educational bureaucracy…and are making and remaking serious mistakes.Some of you may have heard of their initiative to improve high schools by breaking large ones into smaller academies.After spending hundreds of millions dollars on this initiative (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38282806/ns/business-bloomberg_businessweek/), it has proven to be a failure.Even Bill Gates says so.
Now perhaps national math standards could be a good thing if they were strong, comparable to nations that lead the world in the math competency of their students. But the current version of the U.S. Dept of Education’s Common Core math standards is not strong.In fact, they are far weaker than the new WashingtonState math standards that we have worked so hard for.And weaker than those of California, Indiana, and other states with world-class standards.
Academic standards should clearly and coherently define the course-by-coursecontent students should know after taking that course. Instead, the common core high school math standards only provide a general summary of which subjects a high school student should master.
A careful examination of the Common Core standards reveals huge gaps in key topics.Although the Common Core standards include the use of standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, they are one year too late, and do not require division until the 6th grade. There are huge gaps in important topics such as the mastery of fractions. Common denominator is mentioned only once in the standards and students are never explicitly required to find one I could give you a dozen more examples, but you get the message.
Because the Common Core lacks specificity and structurethey are essentially useless for developing a reliable and valid assessment. States are lining up to join the Common Core bandwagon for only one reason—the huge purse the Dept of Education will divide among Common Core participants.
When you check out the Gates foundation site there is little discussion of the importance of good curricula and books.No objective comparison of U.S. standards with those of leading nations, no support of randomized studies of the effectiveness of various math instruction approaches.Just a lot eduspeak.As a scientist accustomed to rigorous research with solid statistics, it is maddening.
The key to turning the current math education debacle around is to adopt good, coherent standards modeled on the top performing nations in mathematics; adopt good curricula, based on the standards, using research-backed teaching methods; and adopt assessments, also based on the standards, that will allow us to ensure our students are progressing as planned. Next in importance are well-trained teachers, who know their subject. Instead of paying for math coaches, we should be paying for ongoing education for teachers to increase their knowledge in the subjects they are teaching. And we need a change in the educational bureaucracy in which REAL research, guided by sound statistical design, helps guide the discipline.Perhaps one day, Microsoft and the Gates Foundation will not be guided by the latest unfounded trends in the failing educational bureaucracy fostered by the weak education schools of our nation.The problem CAN be turned around, but a rigorous, rational course is required.
Good intentions are important, but effective actions are what really count.
