Category: No Politics Friday

Kodak declared bankruptcy on Thursday, which is interesting to me inasmuch as I've spent the week sick, mostly at home, and obsessively looking through NASA's newly released, true color, hi-res scans of the photographs from the Gemini missions (pre-Apollo). Incredible is an understatement.

I'm not a photographer and I don't know much about the technical aspects of it, but I do know that nothing coming out of a digital camera looks quite like Kodakchrome (which they stopped making in 2009, incidentally) and other kinds of film.
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Yes, I understand why film has gone the way of the dodo. It makes perfect sense. From an aesthetic perspective, however, it's sad. There's something about the way things are captured on film that all the Photoshop filters in the world can't reproduce.

Besides, in fifty years I doubt we'll get the same kick out of looking through a flash drive full of cellphone camera pics as we do from flipping through an old box of pictures.
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Bonus: If space isn't interesting to you, take a look through one of my other favorites, the Prokudin-Gorsky color photographs taken in Russia between 1900 and 1910. Or learn more about the pioneer of color photography here. It's pretty difficult to convince your brain that this photo was taken in 1905, isn't it?

Popular music is one of the more common ways to depict generational divides for a good reason. Very little music is timeless; the vast majority has a shelf life of a few years at best and tends to be aimed at whoever happens to be in high school at any given point in time. So nothing is more familiar to the point of being cliched than the image of parents listening to their children's music with a sense of bewilderment about how one could listen to such crap. Indeed, being unable to understand or tolerate what The Kids are listening to these days is one of the first and most reliable indicators that you're getting old.

Currently an alarming number of the teens and tweens are listening to this type of thing:

OK.

I'm 33 years old. This music is not aimed at me or people in my demographic, so it goes without saying that I'm not going to like it. But Jesus Harold Christ the Third, this shit is just unlistenable. Does every generation of old people say that? Of course. Your parents told you that your (Elvis Presley / Chuck Berry / Beatles / Led Zeppelin / Sex Pistols / Devo / Black Flag / Public Enemy / Nirvana) was godawful racket, "just noise", and the definition of headache-inducing unlistenability. It would be ridiculous for people who are old now to say "Well our parents were wrong, but we're right: this crunk / autotune /screamo / electronic shit is not even music" without being both hypocritical and wrong.

Let's say it anyway. I think old people are finally right.

Half of this stuff isn't even music. Now that making music no longer requires being able to play an instrument (ProTools), sing (AutoTune), or even how to program (hundreds of idiotproof software packages for churning out mediocre electronic music), it shouldn't surprise us that the resulting product isn't music. And having grown up on Disney Pop, The Kids These Days^tm think that music has always sort of sounded like a Mountain Dew commercial.

See? I'm old now. This both puzzles and horrifies me. Do young people actually pay to see this live? Are high school boys making mixes full of this cacophony for high school girls they have crushes on? What are kids singing along to in the car? What about this music is there to connect with listeners on an emotional or personal level?
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Is "Brokencyde" going to announce a reunion tour in 20 years to joyous applause? Is this going to be on "Oldies" playlists in 2030? Sure, musical fads never age well but there is at least SOME level on which people can still enjoy Disco today (i.e., dancing and enjoying kitsch).

This stuff is popular and, I'm sorry, that's terrifying. I don't mean to go all Andy Rooney or full-on Grandpa here, but these "artists" blow on a level that our parents never had to try to comprehend. Of course not everyone in the current target demographic likes it, but the fact that anyone does is just another reason that I'm terrified for the future.
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Oh, and before you type out your scolding comment, listen to as much of this as you can:

Crunk indeed, folks. Crunk. Indeed.

During World War I, the British experimented with something called dazzle camouflage, a manner of painting ships so that they might be more difficult for German u-boats to torpedo or otherwise molest.

The theory behind it was quite simple: when the image of a ship set against a featureless background like the open ocean is broken up by random, jagged lines, it becomes difficult or impossible for the human eye to determine the ship's size, direction of travel, and orientation.

This example (HMS Argus, 1917) shows that the technique didn't exactly make a ship less visible, but imagine watching it through a periscope from a great distance and the effect becomes clear.

"Schiesse! Das crazyboot!"

While I've always found it interesting and with a strange kind of aesthetic appeal, dazzle paint disappeared with the development of things like radar and long range aircraft. But apparently there is a new application for this very old idea: dazzle makeup as a means of subverting that incredibly creepy facial recognition software that is quickly and quietly becoming omnipresent. Artist Adam Harvey's project, CV Dazzle, is more interested in making an artistic statement than a political one, but the practical application of this kind of personal fashion is obvious.

Do they look a tad silly? Of course. It is the concept that is compelling, though, not necessarily the fashion-forwardness of the results.

Facial recognition relies on concepts like symmetry and ratios among features, and without these even sophisticated technology is of limited effectiveness at identifying faces.

So, if we all break up our faces with bizarre hair and makeup tricks, that should buy us a couple more years until SkyNet's capabilities are updated to defeat our attempts to deceive it.

Prior to the Moon landing itself (Apollo 11), the most watched event in the history of television was the Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8 in 1968.
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That crew was the first to actually leave the gravitational pull of Earth and visit the Moon, orbiting it several times but obviously not landing.

The video shows a very low-resolution but clearly desolate image of the lunar surface out of a tiny window on the command module, which put the three astronauts – Lovell, Borman, and Anders – in a reflective state of mind.
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Lovell, later of Apollo 13 fame, said: "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.
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"

Borman: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you – all of you on the good Earth."

Couldn't have said it better, Frank.

I'm going to ask that contrary to the usual NPF-about-sports rules, you do NOT skip this one just because you hate sports.

So. TebowMania^tm has taken America by storm. Tebow, a highly successful college athlete, is now having a run of success with the Denver Broncos and the media are absolutely enamored with him. Among the general public he's a more polarizing figure though. Many people see him as too much of a goody-goody to root for.
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Imagine Ned Flanders playing quarterback, constantly reminding everyone about his celibacy and teetotaling and abiding love for Christ. There's something off-putting, at least to some portion of the population, about a guy who starts out every single interview he's ever done with "First I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." But at the same time this is decidedly NOT off-putting to a lot of people as well.
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They think he's the bee's knees: clean cut, patriotic, religious, and good at football. That's like the perfect person to a lot of Americans.
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Anyway, in the spirit of that wonderful "What if the Tea Party was black?" piece from a few months ago I was planning on doing a "What if Tebow was a Muslim?" thing. Of course Americans would still love him if he was celibate, clean cut, patriotic, good at football, and began every interview with "First I would like to thank Allah and his one true prophet, Mohammed.
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" Right? Yeah, of course they would. In any case, someone beat me to it (and did a great job with it).

But let's take it in another direction. Would we even be having this conversation if Tebow was black? Football fans out there, answer me a question: What becomes of college quarterbacks who arrive in the NFL wearing adjectives like "athletic" and "physical"? Who are known for their running skills and strong arm but lack sufficient accuracy to hit the broad side of a barn from 20 yards? Who have big physiques usually associated with positions like wide receiver or running back? I think you get my drift. If Tebow was Black Tebow, would the world have accommodated his demand to keep playing QB rather than change positions?

In my mind this is another tire to throw on the fire if you hate Tebow. If his overbearing Ned Flanders-ness and mediocre passing ability aren't enough, you can fixate on how he represents the racial double standards that permeate American sports. If only someone had moved Tebow to RB, so we could laud him as a "throwback" or "a real gamer" with "a lot of heart" and all the other stock plaudits for white skill position players. Maybe we could even compare him to Mike Alstott! That would be novel.

(I guess this was Sorta Politics Friday. But Tebow! Also Tebow.)

There was a time not too long ago when people – from small children to adults – could look at some celebrities and public figures as role models. Or they could simply be awed by the power, fame, wealth, and talents of various celebrities. Someone like Babe Ruth or The Beatles were, like, not even human. They were gods living on a separate plane of existence above mere mortals. Rock stars, Hollywood icons, powerful elected officials, titans of industry, professional athletes…all of these people formed an elite to which us common people implicitly understood we did not belong. They were special.

Then someone invented Twitter. And now we know exactly how banal, ordinary, and flat-out stupid most of these people are.

Twitter has eliminated the wall between the famous and the ordinary, allowing anyone with an internet connection to broadcast their unfiltered thoughts to anyone interested in reading them. The results are occasionally interesting but more often (and more predictably) a train wreck. Aside from the fact that most of them sound quite shallow and dumb, these social networking tools give us a glimpse of just how boring and unexciting the daily lives of the rich and famous are.
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Oh, look, LeBron James is tweeting about going shopping. Can you imagine Mickey Mantle going shopping? Mickey Mantle doesn't shop! He's Mickey Fucking Mantle! He hits home runs and does things no mortal can do! He probably fell to Earth during a meteor shower or something!

Of course the lives of Mr. Mantle and his fellow celebrities were every bit as dull then as they are today. The only difference is that fifty years ago you didn't hear, read about, or see Mickey Mantle going to a grocery store. You didn't get hourly updates from John Wayne as he waited around in airports. You didn't realize that Greta Garbo was a horrible person who bitched all day about how much her domestic servants suck. An individual could plausibly make these celebrities seem special, unique, and exciting. It allowed us to make role models or idols out of lousy people.

I doubt that's a good thing, but there is something lamentable about the fact that Twitter has ruined the idea of the aloof, glamorous celebrity. It was nice when people could choose to pretend, if so inclined, that their favorite athletes and movie stars were special people or role models. Now we are constantly smacked in the face, 140 characters at a time, with the undeniable realization that they're mostly dolts with remarkably mundane lives who write at approximately a 4th grade proficiency level.

Without making a positive value judgment on the concept of celebrity, I don't think this is a positive. Suffice it to say that many of you who were young in the 1960s would probably have felt differently about The Beatles if, like today's musicians, they posted 15 daily updates for public consumption about how they're chilling in the studio and playing some PS3.
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Maybe there is some minute value in preventing reality from intruding on everything.

(PS: this site has a running gallery of ridiculous things that famous people tweet and the delightfully smart-assed responses.)

As I have noted many times previously in this forum, I am not ashamed to admit that I don't really understand the internet or how it works. It has been explained to me many times, often with a sampling of metaphors intended to simplify the more complex parts, to no avail. I get it, but at the same time I don't get it. The internet isn't a physical thing, but at the same time it is (as evidenced by giant server farms).

Look, I'm OK with this. I can take a thing or two on faith in this life – I accept the internet as part of our shared reality without understanding quite how the words I type (which end up stored…somewhere, I guess) reach the end user. You are certainly free to take a crack at explaining it in the simplest terms, but that really isn't necessary. I've made my peace with it. Not knowing is OK sometimes.

All that said, last year I read an article (not available online, ironically enough) in The Baffler entitled "What Does the Internet Look Like?" That piece offered plenty in the way of interesting discussion and metaphors for the ol' World Wide Web, yet it too struggled with the fundamental question of how the internet can look like anything if it is intangible. Well, maybe partially intangible. There is some part of the internet that we can touch, right?

Devote 11 minutes to this excellent short documentary about the infrastructure of the internet – servers, routing stations, fiber optic cables, and more – hidden, sometimes in plain sight, all around us.

I still can't tell you how the whole process works. I am comforted to know that if The Internet ever becomes self aware and mankind needs to destroy it, there is something real and tangible out there that we can blow up, smash, or otherwise turn into rubble. Then again, since the information on the internet is distributed (or something, right?) even a full pitchforks-and-torches assault might fail to kill it.

So I guess the best analogy for the internet is the hydra…an enormous, stupid hydra full of porn.

Although I find very little interesting about the new rash of car-related TV shows on the air in the U.S. (hey, no one can afford one anymore so let's watch other people drive them!) I did love this clip of a 2010 Toyota Camry beating a 1980 Ferrari 308 in a drag race:

Oh, and a Toyota minivan beats a DeLorean down the track as well, but a kid on a bike could beat a DeLorean.

Sometimes it's amazing how quickly technology moves in such a (relatively) short period of time. What was world-class technology in 1980, unaffordable to all but the wealthiest few, is now the level of performance offered in a car that is the definition of bland, basic transportation.

And of course a new Toyota is far safer, more reliable, and easier on gas. The truth is that just about any car you buy today, even a cheap compact, will outdo even the most expensive, advanced cars of the 1970s and 1980s (or earlier) in nearly every way.

On the other hand, how far has the technology really progressed if we're barely beginning to move beyond oil-burning propulsion in cars? It would be as if computers today were still using vacuum tubes, but really advanced vacuum tubes. Of course in reality the field has done away with things like tubes and transistors altogether.

I'm sure some of the more tech-oriented readers will find a bone to pick here, but the point is that a computer in 2011 looks and works nothing like a computer from 1950. But even though a modern car is far better than an older one, the basic components are all essentially the same. Just improved.

Back when Intel released the Core 2 processor line, a friend told me that a laptop equipped with that processor would have, for all intents and practical purposes, the computing power of the world's most powerful supercomputer in 1992.

Not sure if that's accurate, but it's plausible given how fast that field moves.

We've all seen the quips about how the Apollo Guidance Computer, with its dizzying 1.

024 mHz clock speed and 2 kb memory, has only a tiny fraction of the capabilities of a cheap home PC today. It's pretty sad, given how quickly some other fields have progressed, that the technology of moving ourselves from point A to point B has accomplished so much but progressed so little in the last 100 years.

My brother-in-law graduated from Freeport High School in Freeport, Illinois, and my favorite part about this rather mundane fact is that the school's mascot is the Pretzel. The Freeport Pretzels. At sporting events the students liked to chant "You can eat us but you'll never beat us." Everything about that is awesome. It amuses me to no end.

On the other end of the state, in not-so-lovely Pekin, Illinois, the town high school was going for a different effect. Historically, the teams were known as the Pekin Chinks. The mascot was two students dressed up like, well, "chinamen" or whatever. Picture Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and that's probably a good approximation of the extent to which this was offensive. Fortunately the school changed the mascot to the still-vaguely-Asian-but-less-offensive "Dragons" in 1980.

As someone who works in higher education I feel more strongly than most that athletics should be a minor aspect of a school's focus. That my current university defines itself so completely by its football team is, well, evidence of some rather misguided priorities from the top all the way down to the student body. Nonetheless, every school's mascot becomes part of the identity of the students and the alumni. If you graduate from Purdue, you will be a Boilermaker for life. As a Wisconsin B.A., I am not at all ashamed to be a Badger. It's not a common mascot. It's unique. It is readily associated with Wisconsin, both the state and the school.

Is there anything less interesting than Lions, Tigers, Bears, Eagles, and other such obvious choices? Put a little effort into it, people. At the college level, look at Campbell's Fighting Camels (mascot: Gaylord the Camel…the jokes practically write themselves), the LaSalle Explorers (anything named after a specific person is automatically neat), the Manhattan Jaspers (named after a popular early priest-administrator), the Loyola Ramblers, the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils, the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns, or the WKU Hilltoppers. Those nicknames have some sort of local context and are unique to their school and region. And then, of course, we have the legion of joke mascots: the Fighting Artichokes, Banana Slugs, Anteaters, and the legendary Scrotie the Scrotum.

So, impress me with the awesomeness and obscurity of your high school or university mascots. Feel free to draw our attention to appropriately interesting or hilarious mascots from schools you have not attended as well. I'm sure there is some entertainment value to be had; bonus points if you are a Pretzel.