Complete with live links

MY NEW LIFE ….:
[Via Amygdala]

MY NEW LIFE.

Okay, it just feels a little like that. But it feels good so far.

Neat actual story, though.

Maker Faire is a celebration of the community of people who like to pull stuff apart and put stuff together, but it’s also a draw for those who like to teach. So it was not surprising to find a team from the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Dark Room pavilion, a set-up where you could find a harp whose “strings” were laser beams, bicycle wheels fitted with programmable light-emitting diodes that drew shapes as the wheels spun, and people wrapped in glowing fiber-optic lines. The folks from Santa Cruz (university mascot: the banana slug) had brought their giant Tesla coil.

Maker Faire looks pretty cool. And John Schwartz is my kind of guy.

[...] The crowd applauded like mad. Professor Schalk stuck a microphone in my face and asked, “Do you have anything to say?”

“Klaatu Barada Nikto,” I said.

I’d never insert links in something I was quoting, of course, so I also note that it’s neat that the NY Times has taken to inserting appropriate links in some stories just like any other blogger.
[More]

I mentioned a few days ago about live links in news articles. The NYT does it as evidenced in this article. Not only does it save the author from the need to explain his phrase, it helps provide greater information to a large group of people in ways that would not be strictly appropriate for a newspaper.

This is a nice example of how the medium of the Internet changes the news media. It provides a personal insight into some interesting experiments. And, instead of portraying the enthusiasts as some really weird kind of microbe.

No, this was someone who had bought stuff from the Edmund Scientific Catalog when he was young, something many incipient scientists did when we were young. In fact, I clicked on his link just to be amazed that Edmund was still around. (They have a Trebuchet Kit on the front page. Cool!) This writer is not afraid of writing about his inner geek.

And his last line struck a chord, since I use those words all the time for geeky things. They are the words used to prevent Gort from destroying Earth after the death of the envoy Klaatu. I would have linked to another article than the IMDB page but no real matter.

The movie, an allegory of Christ mashed up with a science fiction plot, was much deeper and interesting than any other movies of its time. It still holds up pretty well, over 50 years later. I still appreciate the last speech that the alien Klaatu makes:

I am leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more… profitable enterprises. Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you.

Now I’m not sure I would create some super-powerful robots to act as policemen but it seemed to work for them. And it was a message that was clearly different from many other movies that utilized giant ants to create drama.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of my favorite SF movies. I was thunderstruck then to see that they are are doing a remake due out for Christmas. Starring Keanu Reeves! I am not hopeful. Michael Rennie has an aura about him that was unworldly, in a detached sort of way you could get the Christ allegory without too much prodding (calling him Mr. Carpenter was about a strong a hint as needed). I do not expect Keanu to maintain the same sort of dignity and fully expect that if they keep the allegory it will be made much more explicit.

Well, maybe I’ll be surprised. I certainly was with one of my favorite comic book characters, Iron Man, and the movie they made for him. Now if they could just to the same for Doc. Strange.

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