Dreaming of electric sheep?
by Macauley on June 27th, 2009
Pretty hard to categorize this video, other than to say, fairly awesome. How they managed to so carefully choreograph the sheep is beyond me. Weird and amazing.
Archive for the 'Kudos' Category
Daily Show media critique
by Macauley on June 9th, 2009
Two instant classics from Jon Stewart & co. As usual his media critique is spot on and hilarious at once.
Morning Joe’s Sarcastic Starbucks Sponsorship (03:47)
Not one of Jon’s 90 writers picked up on Joe Scarborough’s sarcastic Starbucks sponsorship.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Morning Joe’s Sarcastic Starbucks Sponsorship | ||||
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“i” on News (05:37)
Fox News insinuates, MSNBC hates Rush Limbaugh, and CNN wants to hang out with us at a slumber party.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| “i” on News | ||||
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National Debt Clock
by Macauley on September 29th, 2008
There used to be a big one on 6th avenue near 42nd Street, in New York. Now you can have one on your own web site or blog:
| U.S.A. Gross National Debt |
Just cut and paste the code, courtesy of www.zfacts.com.
Anybody want to buy a dollar?
UPDATE – January 10, 2009 – The debt clock is still in New York, but now near 6th Ave. a few blocks south of 42nd!
Where the hell is Matt?
by Macauley on June 23rd, 2008
I’m in the mid-west U.S.A. for a week, but had to share this bit of awesomeness. Matt is back, dancing the world away. It will invariably leave you grinning!
Matt could learn one thing, however, from ZeFrank, though: How to Dance Properly.
Much higher quality version at YouTube.
EICC wrap-up
by Macauley on May 8th, 2008
Last week I interviewed Sergey Tiviakov of the Netherlands, who was the surprise winner of the 2008 European Championship. Ukraine’s Kateryna Lahno won the women’s tournament, and Marie Sebag — the only woman playing in the Men’s group — scored her third GM norm.
Lawrence Lessig is 4Barack
by Macauley on February 13th, 2008
From Lessig.org (short biography):
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society…Professor Lessig is the author of Free Culture (2004), The Future of Ideas (2001) and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999). He chairs the Creative Commons project, and serves on the board of the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Public Library of Science, and Public Knowledge. He is also a columnist for Wired.
“20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack”
Lessig clearly articulates a strong basis for Democrats to make a choice. Speaking of which, check out a piece in The Nation that’s also worth a read by a high school classmate, Chris Hayes: “The Choice.” (Jan 31)
And from Robin Morgan co-founder of the Women’s Media Center, Goodbye To All That, a pro-Hillary “argument.”
Morgan uses an impressive rhetorical device: She laments the ingrained sexism in American society, while sprinkling in anti-Obama riffs in a way that make it seem like a vote for Obama will propagate or prolong that sexism.
Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones—adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.
Now most people of good conscience recognize that viewing a candidate solely in light of race, gender, or any other superficial or incidental characteristic is idiotic, as is the double-standard to which Hillary may be subjected — forced to, then criticized for trying to “pass as male.” But this is a problem with the culture and mass media coverage, not an argument for who should be President.
Similarly, when Morgan decries the fact that “when a sexist idiot screamed ‘Iron my shirt!’ at HRC, it was considered amusing,” while noting that, “if a racist idiot shouted ‘Shine my shoes!’ at BO, it would‚Äôve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor,” she’s right, but again, it’s not an argument, unless she thinks that electing Obama will cause more sexist idiots, or that not electing Clinton will prevent the reduction of the same.
Maybe electing a female president will reduce sexism — a worthy goal — and maybe it won’t, and if that is your sole or primary voting issue, then perhaps that should guide your vote. But there are a lot of other issues, and here’s where Morgan is a bit disingenuous.
Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
…Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they‚Äôre not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten thestatus quo), who can‚Äôt identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her.
That sounds pretty patronizing, but moreover the generational divide isn’t (by and large) being misrepresented. It’s quite real.
And goodbye to the ageism . . .
How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse U.S. youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation—the majority of which is female?
It’s not ageism simply to favor a younger candidate. I’m not supporting Obama because he’s 46, and I don’t know anyone who is. Calling his, “a feel-good campaign,” is a cheap shot that ignores the real differences between the candidates. Is Obama dividing people he claims to unify? That’s a particularly bizarre perspective. And of course the “majority” of many demographics is female. Is the fact that women live longer than men relevant to the election?
Encouraging an underrepresented voting class, with large interests in the future of the U.S., to make their voices heard is unquestionably good. It’s hard for me, a Gen Xer, to be sympathetic to a Baby Boomer feeling left out of the political discussion! Boomers, I would argue, have wielded too much political influence, despite being the largest demographic.
They haven’t (so far) gotten their collective acts together to fix Social Security, and theirs will likely be the last generation to have it. In my lifetime there have been more than twice as many years with right-wing, economically regressive, militaristic Republican presidents, as there have been with a Democratic one. (Not that Ms. Morgan was voting for Reagan, but somebody from her generation was — and Reagan won the women’s vote as well.) For the “generation of radicals,” to downplay, or even demonize a youth movement is ironic at best.
Morgan (left) goes on to offer inspirational quotes from Hillary from 1995 and 1969 (not a typo), presumably because we ought to be able to trust what she said before she was directly involved in politics. That’s fine, but it doesn’t make up for her clear shifting with the political winds in subsequent decades.
“I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election,” writes Morgan. That Hillary would withstand a massive right-wing assault is a supposition, but proven progressive politics? That’s just false. Relative to what? Kucinich was the most progressive of the initial Dems, while Clinton was, is, and would be as president, among the least.
It’s true that, policy-wise, Obama and Clinton are quite close together, which is why I take Lessig’s points about judgment, leadership, and foreign policy so seriously.
-MP
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[As an aside, while I'm not particularly fond of Southpark, Robin Morgan clearly hasn't watched more than a few minutes of the show.
If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?
As anyone who has seen an episode or two knows, Southpark is viciously and mercilessly offensive to any and all groups, including animals. That's basically been the concept since its inception. So in this case the righteous indignation is amusingly misplaced.]
In support of Sen. Dodd on F.I.S.A.
by Macauley on December 18th, 2007
(Sent via e-mail, Tuesday, December 18, 2007)
Dear Senator Schumer,
I’m very disappointed that you decided to vote YEA on cloture of the FISA Amendments Act yesterday:
(Congressional Roll Call on the Cloture Motion for S.2248.)
It is bewildering to me that a lawyer, and a person of normally good judgment would vote to pass a measure that grants immunity to law breaking telecom companies.
You should have supported Senators Dodd and Finegold in their efforts to bring forward the FISA bill without retroactive immunity.
It seems clear that this is nothing more than another presidential power grab. There is no logic to it otherwise.
Have you actually viewed Dodd’s speach or read the transcript? I suggest you do so:
I hope you will reconsider and support Senator Dodd when this matter comes up in the new year.
Kind regards,
Macauley Peterson
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“Is this about our security or is it about [Bush's] power?” [5 minute video]
Top Ten Chess Games Ever
by Macauley on December 1st, 2007
ChessGames.com has been improving steadily. I recently became a Premium Member and this just showed up in their nifty weekly quasi-random newsletter:     РMP
The Chessgames.com Top Ten List
After years of Chessgames.com members filing games away in their game collections, we’ve compiled detailed statistics on which games are considered the most important.
Here are the ten most important chess games of all time, according to our members.
- D Byrne vs Fischer,¬†1956 – “The Game of the Century”
- Kasparov vs Topalov,¬†1999 – “Kasparov’s Immortal”
- Anderssen vs Kieseritzky,¬†1851 – “The Immortal Game”
- Morphy vs Karl/Isouard,¬†1858 – “The Opera House Game”
- Rotlewi vs Rubinstein,¬†1907 – “Rubinstein’s Immortal”
- Anderssen vs Dufresne,¬†1852 – “The Evergreen Game”
- Karpov vs Kasparov,¬†1985 – “The Brisbane Bombshell”
- R Byrne vs Fischer,¬†1963 – “The Brillancy Prize”
- Spassky vs Bronstein,¬†1960 – “King’s Gambit”
- Bogoljubov vs Alekhine,¬†1922 – “Three Queen Sacrifices”
More interesting lists like this can be found on the Chessgames Statistics Page.
The best of “ICC in Mexico”
by Macauley on October 17th, 2007
My work in Mexico City for ICC and Chess Life Online was far more hectic than I expected. After the first few days I never left the press room before 3:00 or 4:00 AM and often later, starting again at around 1:00 PM, an hour before the next round. During the day, you try to follow the chess a little, but spend most of your time shooting or capturing video, keeping tabs on people and events, recording and editing audio, and figuring out what the “story” of the day will be. I was also reporting LIVE on Chess.FM at least once per round!
Each day I wanted to do something interesting and different, topical, yet in some way cinematic. I didn’t care much for ICC’s term “video diary,” but it certainly wasn’t straight news reporting. “Short films,” or the currently in vogue, “webisodes,” seems more apt.
The important thing was that, with few exceptions, each video was about the events of that day, which is the main reason for the long hours. My work only really started after the games had finished at 7:00 or 8:00 PM. By 10:00 or 11:00 I’d have all my clips captured and selected and could start editing.
A good rule of thumb for editing is that, if the project is not too complex, you need 1 hour per minute of finished video. That was about right in Mexico with a few exceptions. E.g.: The first 2 minutes of Day 3 – Anand Vs. Kramnik took forever, because I decided to try cutting on flashbulbs — something which is almost totally lost in the crappy Flash (the compression format of most web video) version. (Download the Quicktime to get closer to the original.) Probably a dumb idea in retrospect. Game After Game (below) required going through all of Gelfand’s press conferences to find the few relevant seconds.
That 1 hour per minute doesn’t include compression, uploading, and Flash transcoding, which tended to add an extra hour. So even when you’re “done,” you’re not.
All 18 pieces are available on Macauley.blip.tv and at ICC’s Chess.FM archive.
Here are my four favorites, which are also available on SCREEN:
Day 15 – Morozevich
Alexander Morozevich is a crowd favorite with his eccentric personality and wild style. (Running time: 3:38)
Day 14 – Game After Game
On the rest day, we take a look back at Boris Gelfand’s mantra. (Running time: 1:03)
Day 8 – Anand +3
“Vishy” Anand takes the lead in the World Chess Championship with a win over Alexander Grischuk, adding to his full points taken from Svidler and Aronian. (Running time: 1:30)
Day 18 – World Champion Anand
Anand is the new World Champion. Let the celebration begin. It may be short lived, however: Kramnik awaits their 2008 match to decide who is really on top. (Running time: 5:16)
Bush Vs. Zombies
by Macauley on August 8th, 2007
Came across this clever faux press conference satire today, and had to share. This is the kind of humor that at first seems vaguely inane, but in fact makes some subtle points and tends to get funnier on repeat viewings. I don’t know much about the author except that it seems to be produced by the creators of a new site MyEverything, which I glanced at and wasn’t terribly interested by. Still, kudos for this series:
Bush Vs. Zombies [3:03]
Bush Hears Voices [2:08]
Gonzales The Cannibal [3:37]