Happy Birthday Mark Twain!

It took 176 years for you to get your Google Doodle.

First Solar, Tempe

Each morning on my ride to work from downton Phoenix to Scottsdale AZ I pass by the First Solar headquaters in Tempe AZ and am greeted by a different message "written" in the adjustable panels in the buildings. The design of the building, and the playfulness and creativity of using the building is pretty cool. I'd love to see more compaines do things like this. A creative alternative energy company is the type of copmany that might someday lure me out of academia. 

Below are a few pics I captued during my morning commutes:

Wired.com goes Creative Commons

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com, From Giant Midwest Mecca of Nerditude in Oklahoma

In a rather heroic move wired.com has released all of their photography under a Creative Commons license. Now anyone is free to reuse Wired's images with a few simple restrictions:

• Photos must be properly attributed to the photographer and Wired.com, and, if used online, we ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared.
• We welcome editorial use by bloggers or any other publisher, but we are not authorizing commercial use, like using one of our photos in an advertisement.
• Remixes and mashups are allowed.

Check out wired.com's blog post about the move. You can also find their newly public photostream on Flickr.

My Problems with 3D

I saw Hugo tonight in 3D, and it was pretty good. And by pretty good I mean the story, not the 3D. The 3D was abused in this film as it is in most 3D films. Damn near every scene was 3D which limited the effect quite a bit. In fact, you start to stop noticing the 3D after a while. My problem with 3D runs a little deeper though. For one thing the image is less clear, and 3D doesn't handle motion too well without a sort of fluttering. Frankly, I see it as nothing more than a gimmick that doesn't add anything to a film (except nausea for some). 

This 3D business has also resulted in a money grab for studios who're now rereleasing every past movie they think will make them money. During the previews tonight there were previews for Beauty and the Beast 3D, Star Wars Episode 1 3D, and Titanic 3D along with a few other new movies. This seems really lazy, probably because it is. 

The last problem I (currently) have with 3D films is this: Like books, movies tell a story. They're supposed to draw you into their world but 3D pushes the setting and characters out of their world and into ours. This leaves me self-conscious, and keeps me from becoming fully engaged in the film.

3D doesn't take storytelling anywhere nor does it take filmmaking to the next level.

The weight of the internet?!

via the Centered Librarian