- Credit to someone in Hollywood for coming up with an original idea……sort of. While the idea for Tim Burton’s new film Frankenweenie isn’t a blatant ripoff of another movie that has already been made, the full-length feature will be based on Burton’s short film of the same name from 1984. But this might be as new and original as we’re going to get, so maybe the best any of us can hope for is to enjoy the story of young Victor, who attempts to bring his dog Sparky back to life through scientific experimentation. The movie will be unique in that it will be shot in black and white then rendered in 3D. Those details come directly from Disney, which is attempting to create early buzz for the project by releasing select details. Disney officials said in a statement: "This will elevate the classic style to a whole new experience." Hmm…..cryptic, mysterious and yet telling us nothing at all. Sounds like typical Hollywood BS to me, but something tells me that fans of Burton’s unique cinematic and storytelling style will go see this movie, which will feature the vocal talents of Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short and Martin Landau. As for the plot, Victor succeeds in reviving his dog, but when he reveals the resuscitated beast to the world, the results are disastrous. Already, more than 200 puppets and sets have been crafted for the stop-motion film. Now, if you’re the sort of movie fan who has to have big explosions, crazy CGI effects and lots of big-budget effects, this might not be your sort of movie. Because it’s at least quasi-original and approaches things from a different angle, I’m willing to give it a shot……for now………
- Take a big hit now, but reap the long-term benefits. No, that’s not a reference to Willie Nelson taking a giant bong rip now so he can get a good buzz later on. That’s the best advice anyone can give to state and local government in Rhode Island as a bit of panic sets in over news that Deepwater Wind's initial project to set up wind turbines around the state to provide a source of renewable energy. According to documents released in relation to the deal, the project will raise state and local governments' electric bills by a combined $1.5 million in its first year. Municipal electric bills will increase by a total of $1 million while state government's bill will rise by $476,630. Those estimates come from a report by National Grid from Energy Security Analysis Inc. They project that the cost would then rise by 3.5 percent every year for the next two decades. The decision on whether to approve a controversial 20-year contract between Deepwater and Grid was weighed by the Public Utilities Commission and ultimately approved. While panicking over these numbers would be easy to do, it’s vital to note that the government cost estimates reflect the smaller of Deepwater's two projects, a demonstration wind farm off Block Island that will have up to eight turbines and is expected to be up and running by 2013. In other words, this is just the tip of the iceberg. For anyone looking to assess blame, look no further than Gov. Don Carcieri, who personally selected Deepwater Wind in 2008 to develop wind power off Rhode Island's coast. Emboldened by the governor’s faith in them (or the wads of cash flowing their way), Deepwater Wind is also proposing a much larger, utility-scale development of up to 200 turbines that won't be in place until at least 2015. The cost of these projects is staggering in some sense, as the increased annual electricity costs for communities would range from a high of $190,799 in Providence to only $1,098 in Foster. In other words, the bigger the city, the higher the increase. Mayors and city officials around the state have begun decrying the deal because they believe their cities and towns cannot afford the increased financial burden. Yes, but you have the chance to be a part of something huge here and you could well blow it if you fight progress. The quest for alternative energy sources is on and if we don’t find better, more efficient and renewable ways to power our world, then disaster is incumbent upon us all. Just sayin’…………
- Finally……the one technological innovation we’ve all been asking for and in desperate need of is on the way. That’s right, all, the anti-laser is that much closer to reality. Sure, it sounds like a Star Trek concept gone wrong, but the anti-laser could actually have all sorts of delightful possibilities, including serving as a key component in the next generation of supercomputers or helping doctors treat cancer. Oh, and if someone attempts to kill you with a laser, it could help there too. Where could a brilliant invention like this come from? The wicked smaht people at Yale, of course. Scientists at the Ivy League school have successfully constructed the world’s first “anti-laser” — so named because it cancels out beams of light generated by a laser rather than emitting them. A traditional laser amplifies light with the use of a “gain medium” and mirrors, then emits a beam of light that shines entirely in one direction. Conversely, the anti-laser counters a laser beam with a different beam that is its exact opposite by feeding the two beams through silicon, a “loss medium,” which causes a loss of coherence in the beam, rather than an increase. In smart Yale-speak, the device is officially known as the Coherent Perfect Absorber. It is the creation of Yale physicists Hui Cao and A. Douglas Stone, who took a collection of ideas about a possible anti-laser and turned them into an actual functioning device. You can read about their project in the journal Science, assuming that you, like most Americans (unlikely) subscribe to this fine publication. Right now, the anti-laser is not quite a finished product. It can absorb 99.4 percent of all light fed into it, but the research team working on the project believes it can increase that number to a near-perfect 99.999 percent. That’s a lot to ask for an item that measures one centimeter wide but can be shrunk to a mere six microns. Once the Yale brainiacs finish work on the CPA, it could potentially be used to create a new line of supercomputers by using the technology in optical computer boards, which use light rather than electricity to operate. Researchers also believe that the anti-laser could be used by the medical industry to treat cancer in a way that is currently not possible. Most importantly, the research team believes their working device should be easy to duplicate. “For about four months it just wasn’t working,” Stone recalled. “Part of the problem is that all experiments just have certain imperfections that the theory doesn’t have. But we kept at it, because no one had really done anything like this before. And now that it works, it should be very easy to recreate.” Good to know that the folks at Yale are still smarter than the rest of us…………
- The enviro-kooks have won. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is basically the militant version of Green Peace, has bullied Japan enough that the land of the rising sun will cut short this year’s annual whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean. That announcement came after obstruction by the environmental group largely prevented Japan’s ships from killing whales, the government said Friday. The Agriculture Ministry, which runs Japan’s research whaling program, delivered the bad news. In a statement, a spokesman for the group detailed harassment by the group, leading to a catch far below its annual target of whales. According to official figures released Friday, 170 minke whales and two fin whales had been caught this season, far below the annual targets of 850 minke and 50 fin. For the enviro-kooks, this is a huge victory. It marks the first time that environmentalists have succeeded in cutting short the annual whale hunts, which Japan maintains are necessary for scientific research. Groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society insist that the hunts are an end-around to evade a global moratorium on commercial whaling. Predictably, Japan’s announcement was hailed by Sea Shepherd, which is based in Washington State. In a statement on its Web site, the group warned three of its ships would remain in the Southern Ocean to “escort” the Japanese fleet northward. How big of you, Sea Shepherd. It’s not as if we expected anything else from you, but this year’s effort was clearly a notch above anything you’ve done before. Sure, you’ve sent ships to the Antarctic to block Japan’s whaling fleet each of the past few years and turned the whale hunts into a giant international spectacle as you try to block the Japanese by tangling the ships’ propellers with ropes or placing your own vessels in between the whalers and their targets. This time around, the enviro-kooks also harassed the Japanese ships by shining laser beams to temporarily blind crew members and throwing flares onto the whaling vessels. That made the recall of the whaling ships necessary for safety reasons, but that doesn’t mean the decision should sit well with the rest of the world. In the past, Japanese ships had been able to outrun Sea Shepherd’s vessels, but the enviro-kooks had upgraded their hardware this time around. The real question to be addressed now is where the excess whale meat from the hunt commonly given to schoolchildren for school lunches will come from. I’m going to go out on a limb hero, Sea Shepherd whack jobs, and say you don’t have a good answer for that particular query…………
- This probably would not be good for New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. He may have led the Jets to two straight AFC championship game appearances, but that might not buy him enough goodwill for his reputation to survive un-dinged if rumors are true that he partied with and slept with rich, 17-year-old socialite Eliza Kruger on New Year’s Eve. Kruger, who seems like your typical blond, rich, wealthy child of privilege, except she bragged on Facebook about “MARK F–ING SANCHEZ” texting her after they flirted at a Manhattan club on New Year’s Eve and then took pictures of a slept-in, messed-up bed, allegedly in his bedroom, the morning after as “proof” of their hook-up. She has since hit the gossip Web site circuit and unleashed the following gem: “We went back to his place in Jersey after dinner. He lives on a golf course. There was a big storm.” She was then asked if she “hooked up” with Sanchez after they dined together at Nobu, a trendy Manhattan hotspot, the Greenwich high-school senior said, “Yeah,” although she reportedly did so reluctantly. Doesn’t sound like a slam-dunk case and she wouldn’t be the first girl or woman to falsely claim to have gotten with an athlete or celebrity to get attention or make herself look cool……but something sounds odd about this story. It’s important to note that in New York, the age of consent laws make a 17-year-old legal. However, sleeping with one, especially for the quarterback of the New York Jets, is a terrible move for any number of reasons. You look like a cradle-robbing scumbag or some pathetic guy who can’t score with women in his age bracket, so he’s trolling for high school seniors. That’s not a tag you want attached to your name, so Sanchez is probably fairly happy that Kruger’s attorney is attempting to make the story go away. That seems unusual given that Kruger is the one who contacted Deadspin in the first place, but maybe that’s just her being pissed that she and her friends being at a nightclub on New Year’s Eve and being underage is part of the story. In the end, it’s best for all involved that this story proves to be bogus or greatly exaggerated, but ultimately none of us truly knows any athlete or celebrity and we should never be surprised to learn what they are capable of doing…………
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