- Would you have spotted the fraud? I’m not convinced I would have. A good reason to avoid any unattended debit or credit card reader. [via]
- Mark Evanier further defends Jay Leno:
What I don’t get is why some people think Leno had a moral obligation to retire and disappear. They didn’t like that he did that 10 PM show. They didn’t like that he was willing to do the half-hour show at 11:35 when that was proposed. They don’t like that he’s going to take back a show that he and his crew didn’t want to give up in the first place. I know some of you don’t think the guy’s ever funny but you oughta try what I do. If I don’t like a performer, I don’t watch him. It’s just as effective as if he did disappear and it saves a lot of time.
- Speaking of Leno, he’ll apparently be hosting this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner. I guess it’s better than Rich Little, but not by much.
Then again, Leno’s hosted the event before (in 2004), and, Stephen Colbert’s 2006 appearance notwithstanding, they haven’t really been known for making memorable choices for host. Anybody remember Yakov Smirnoff’s routine from 1988 or Elayne Boosler’s from 1993? Me neither.
- Last week on Twitter, I joked that in the new movie Extraordinary Measures, Harrison Ford is entirely computer-generated. By law, Brendan Fraser’s co-stars must be at least 35% CGI. Turns out I maybe wasn’t so far from the truth: Ford’s character didn’t exist in real life. I guess they figured he’d be more convincing as a Nebraskan than as a Taiwanese.
- And finally, speaking of Twitter, the first live tweet from space! [via]
various
Thursday various
- A whites-only basketball league? That’s actually sort of laughably repugnant, to the point where you just assume it has to be a hoax. “We don’t hate black people. We just wish there wasn’t so many of ’em, and they weren’t such gosh darn awful people.” [via]
- Bloomsbury seems to have a problem with black people, too, at least on their book covers. You’d think they’d have learned, after all the controversy over Justine Larbalestier’s YA novel Liar last year, but apparently not.
As Small Beer Press suggests, “Your task this week: buy a book with a person of color on the cover.”
- Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper Rescues Injured Boy from Haiti Earthquake Riot.
- Push is being made into a TV series? Actually, you know, I think this could maybe actually work. As I noted back when I first saw it, Push had an intriguing world that it didn’t do a whole lot with. (Besides filming it in scenic Hong Kong and giving Dakota Fanning an opportunity to film the least convincing drunk scene ever.) There’s room to do something more interesting here. [via]
- And finally, if you’re not reading Letters of Note, you’re missing out on great finds like this.
Wednesday various
- I wish my company had letterhead this cool. [via]
- An in-depth interview with Netflix’s Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos about their recent deal with Warner Bros. I think this goes a long way to explaining the deal and why it’s ultimately a boon to Netflix subscribers. (As such, the interview is maybe only of interest to subscribers.) There’s been a lot of anger over the planned 28-day window between when DVDs go on sale and when they’ll be available for rent at Netflix. But I really don’t have a problem with it — not if it means more, and better streaming content and a greater likelihood that when a new release is available, there will actually be enough stock for me to get a copy.
- An interest Catch-22 of science fiction translations revealed:
Because it takes so long for English-language science fiction to get translated, people in non-English speaking countries are often reading books that are several years behind the current fashion in English speaking countries. They then write books in response to what they have read, but when those books are offered for translation into English the big publishers reject them as “old fashionedâ€. [via]
- For most authors, breaking 1,000 words wouldn’t seem like much. For Bruce Holland Rogers (who contributed to Kaleidotrope #3, by the way), it’s practically a novel!
- And finally, some truly beautiful papercraft [via]
Tuesday various
- Mother Jones on the death of literary magazines. To which my short answer is: same as it ever was, same as it ever was. I think there’s an argument to made that readership is down, but I don’t think that’s reflected in the number of different venues for writers. Some literary magazines will die off, or will be forced to adopt new business models — pay even less, change what they publish — but it seems like not a day goes by when another new magazine or journal doesn’t open up. [via]
- How to make a Michael Cera movie [via]
- Are there oceans of liquid diamond on Uranus and Neptune? [via]
- I’m amused that somebody thinks “man listens to loud music and neighbors complain” is somehow more newsworthy because the loud music was John Denver.
- And finally, I like this mashup of 2009’s top songs a whole lot more than the individual songs it’s made up of.
Monday various
- Did James Cameron plagiarize a series of Russian novels for Avatar? Well, just throw it on the pile with Pocahonatas and FernGully. I mean, Cameron does sort of have a track record with this sort of thing… [via]
- Will Kiefer Sutherland still be doing 24 when he’s sixty? Well, he’d like to think so.
- Meanwhile, from someone who maybe knows when it’s time to retire, David Tennant’s foreword to the Doctor Who specials. [via]
- Happy families are all alike. Presumably because they’re built that way in the robot factory. Android Karenina.
I still haven’t read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and I am sort of waiting for this trend to die out, but at least Quirk handles their own entries with some degree of humor and style. [via]
- And finally, a long post from Mark Evanier on the whole Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien situation.
I think he makes a lot of valid points, including about why Leno probably isn’t the big villain he’s being portrayed as in some circles. I still think Peter David is right, that Leno “can’t be the deposed king returning to power and court jester at the same time.” And I’m still a little saddened that NBC is pinning its hopes and future of late-night on the man who’s greatest contribution to comedy in decades has been the Dancing Itos.
But at least Evanier does a decent job of explaining how and why this all happened.