Commodore USA returns with new C-64

Your favorite first computer is baaack!

Another "rediscovered" Warner Brothers wartime cartoon

Another Warner Brothers military film rediscovered: The Cartoon Brew site discusses this film: cartoonbrew.com/classic/grampaw-pettibone-by-warner-bros-cartoons.

Much lesser-known than the Pvt. Snafu, cartoons for the Army, the Grampaw Pettigrew character was thought to have been created by the UPA studio for Navy training films, but Brew researchers found the first of these was definitely Warner Brothers, probably Frank Tashlin directed, definitely Carl Stallings music.

Start of the cartoon has some rather limited animation, though it carries the precautionary tale well: a bomber pilot so focused on his bombsight while diving toward his target, that he forgets to check his altimeter, and blam! To we who are many years removed from the war, the sequence evokes the Rebel X-Wing pilots trying to sight that thermal exhaust port on the Death Star. If only that pilot had trusted The Force.

The other half of the film is said Grandpa (an aircraft mechanic?) lecturing the audience about carelessness. One gets the impression that someone higher-up might have thought Pvt. Snafu getting killed in humorous ways from his own ineptitude was taking the vital message they wanted to convey too lightly.

Side note: "Grampaw Pettigrew" was created by Robert Osborn, who illustrated thousands of posters and other educational materials for the Navy. There's an appreciation of him here: www.cartoonbrew.com/comics/the-largest-on-line-stash-of-robert-osborns-dilbert
He main educational creation was a screw-up Navy pilot named "Dilbert," which soon became the slang term for screw-up throughout the Navy, and which Scott Adams has said was where he got the name for his comic strip from. Another trivia trifecta for today!

Visit the image or link below to view the footage:
 

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675027971_Navy-training-film_animated

 

Three topics you should never bring up in polite discussion

Religion, politics, and Superman vs. Flash.

DC Universe: The Source » Blog Archive » Who’s the Fastest?

Probably should add to that:
Hulk vs. Thing
Thor's hammer (unstoppable force) vs. Juggernaut (Immovable object)

Iconoscope No.1: Star Wars Episode IV | DozBlogThing

When I'm at work and find these things, I can't post to Facebook, so here you go: Star Wars retold using icons.
Iconoscope No.1: Star Wars Episode IV | DozBlogThing

Comics Code Authority is dead - Boing Boing

Comics Code Authority is dead - Boing Boing
It's not yet confirmed that the Comics Code Authority will still continue in some form; presumably not, as its membership was representatives from the very publishers that submitted to its authority.

While some will look at the practice of the CCA as "censorship," the dividing lines are not as clear: publishers had to right not to submit their comics for Code approval, in fact Dell/Western proclaimed their standards were more stringent than the Code, thus why sully their reputations buy putting the seal on their covers.
But when the Code was first adopted in the 1950s, other publishers that tried going without it quickly found that distributors would not rack their comics if they weren't Code approved. Those that couldn't adapt went out of business. Bill Gaines canceled all his comics, made MAD into a magazine, and thrived.
So that's an example of censorship by the free market. One can argue that's even more egregious than censorship by self-appointed committee. Most movie chains still won't book a film that doesn't carry an MPAA rating, and we've seen how the movie rating board thinks a movie full of gory violence can be PG-13, but if that same movie shows a sex scene, or uses a common word for sex, it's an R. Or consider that Nat King Cole had a variety show on NBC for over a year; that finally closed down because no national sponsor could be signed, and TV staions in the South refused to clear it.
That's your free market at work.

Best analysis of a failed "Star Trek" movie by its writer

http://www.metafilter.com/99091…

It's easier to follow the links in this article than to track to the original articles it cites. Basically, Michael Pillar, "Star Trek: TNG's" show runner, detailed what went wrong with "Star Trek: Insurrection."

While I might complain that I just now realized the final plot of the movie was swiped by "Avatar," is it better than the original idea of swiping from "Heart of Darkness?" or rather "Apocalypse Now?"

Commenters in the article point out the main problem with Roddenberry's Star Trek universe: The Federation has infinite resources and its people can get pretty much anything they want. Starship crews are all perfected human beings without the possibility for character-based conflict. The only source for conflict is people on new planets who haven't been converted to The Way; or the Borg, the Ferengi (as originally conceived) and other races who invade the Federation because they Want Our Stuff. After Roddenberry died, the staff were allowed to create some conflict among characters. Deep Space 9 threw together more than one source of conflict with the local war's detente and its intrigues, then the Founders on the other side of the wormhole, while the beloved Ferengi Quark made his nut by meeting even Federation members' appetite for avarice. And don't forget "Gold-pressed Latinum," introduced as the new hard (well, liquid) currency because it was the only substance which couldn't be duplicated by transporters.

Then again, this is the production crew that did two movies with a Villain who wanted to Blow Up the Earth simply because they had a bad day. At least Marvin the martian wanted a better view of Venus!

The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine

What ca we learn by sorting every word ever printed? Can we achieve a concordance to the known universe? Not yet, but here's a good start.
The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine

Interesting that "The Great War" was discarded in favor of "The World War" and then "World war I" in 1938, when it must have been obvious we were headed into World War II.

"The Novel" or What's wrong with Marvel?

I'm not sure of the background of this writer, but he hits plenty of nails on his head with his claim that the innovation of the Marvel Age of Comics ended in 1991. I read the phone-book compendium "Essential Fantastic Four" a while back, collecting #1-#20 of the magazine, and was impressed at how, even in the early days, the Lee/Kirby issues showed the characters actually growing and developing, especially with the Thing and Johnny Storm only squabbling for a few issues before they realized how much they respect each other.
(Although by contrast, "Essential Avengers" could show just how turgid Stan's writing could be. Five or six throwaway plots in every book–the group recovered Captain America from that iceberg while searching for the Sub-Mariner AND helping an alien fix his spaceship on the ocean floor; rather shallow characterization of minor characters–if I was Ant-Man, seeing the Wasp flirt with every Norse God in the vicinity, I'd slap her around, too.)
But once Stan stopped writing and Kirby left, characters experienced arrested development. Johnny and Ben were the equivalent of Monk and Ham, arguing in the last "Doc Savage" story the same way they did in their first. But, partly because the Fantastic Four never had as many spinoff books as Spider-Man and the X-Men, their story could follow a progression, as when Reed and Sue moved out for the sake of their child, and Ben Grimm proved to have developed enough to take over its leadership. But starting around 1991, every significant change in a character's life gets retconned away by the next writer. Why have Johnny's wife Alicia turn out to be a Skrull impostor so the real Alicia can pine over Ben Grimm again? Why not let the story of their marriage progress to it likely dissolution? because that would be another CHANGE. Anyway, that's partly why I dropped Marvel a few years before I quit comics cold turkey. That and the excess of spin off titles.

The author is basically designing a line of computer games based on classic novels, and I'd never heard of him before. But he makes a lot of good points.

‘Plaster Caster’ Mounts Mayoral Campaign « CBS Chicago – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic, and the Best of Chicago

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/10/27/plaster-caster-mounts-mayoral-campaign/#

Finally, someone who's proven she's not afraid to get her hands dirty!
I actually met her once, when the Chicago Psychotronic Film Society was going on in the 80s. Don't remember if she was part of the program, or just showed up because she knew the hosts. One of those showings did run the film "Groupies" with her making a cast, but I think she appeared at a different one.
Noticing that she was not much older than I was, I started thinking about how hard it must have been to date her, knowing that at some point she'd be telling you, "You;re no Mick Jagger."

Helvetica In Space

One day, this be done, just for the hell of it. With lasers, solar sails, I don't know.

Thanks to kottke.org

One for my homiez!

This past week, my parents were out to visit us. Largely because my dad, well retired, still looks for projects to work on, and we settled on replacing the very wobbly wood handrailing on our concrete deck. The deck over the attached garage, so one side has a ten-foot plunge onto asphalt if the railing gives way.

The result was a great deck reinforced with lots of steel bolts and set screws. The old railing were attached to their wobbly posts by some thin wood screws driven in diagonally. The posts are now fastened with some extra brackets driven into the concrete.

But there was a wild animal attack while I was off at work Monday. Apparently, as my dad was working, a baby squirrel must have thought his leg was a tree, and it scurried up to Dad and ran up his leg. In the ensuing confusion, my father managed to get the squirrel off, but accidentally stepped on it. Dead squirrel.

Vanya sees this and immediately makes up a story about how that squirrel was his friend: "His name was Bob... we was the only squirrel friend I had." But he seems to have left it alone by the next day. The carcass has hidden in the woods behind our yard in hopes the local fox will remove it.
But then, that night, after I hear the story at home, I went out the front door and found a chestnut left on our front stoop. It had a hole gnawed into it and the nut inside eaten out.

Apparently, the squirrel's friends had followed the urban ritual of pouring out a bit of a 40 onto the sidewalk in honor of their dead homie.

Fear of a Whigger Planet!

Rapping order at American Fork McDonald's not a crime, judge rules | Deseret News