Living

Aug 11, 2012 9:00 PM   Yes. I'm going there. While considered to be one of the worst movies ever, I maintain that watching Battlefield Earth can be a fun, education experience so long as you pair it with two things: friends and alcohol. Obviously I'm coming at this from the "so bad, it's good; let's all laugh at someone else's horrifying inadequacy while tacitly patting ourselves on the back for not having failed so miserably in such a public way" angle, but that's not the only way to come at it. If you're interested in the mechanics of how good fiction works, how the seams are sewn, and how the pieces fit together, there's only so much to learn from good examples. Yeah, good movies are actually enjoyable on a level other than the ironic, but the gears are hidden. Battlefield Earth lets you see how the mechanisms of story-telling work by showing you how bad they can fail. Really bad. Battlefield Earth is streaming on Netflix now, so if yo...

Jul 29, 2012 10:20 AM   Inside an unmanned craft now headed towards the International Space Station sit several smallish, cube-shaped satellites. Soon, one of them will be writing Morse code messages across the sky. While most of the cargo on the craft is supplies for the space station, one of these little satellites, known as "cubesats", serves another purpose entirely. Using a neodymium magnet to keep it facing towards Earth and an array of LED lights, this special 3-pound cubesat named FITSAT-1 is going to blast a series of 200-watt dots and dashes at the Earth from orbit. The purpose of the whole project is to conduct some high-speed and optical communication experiments while FITSAT-1 conducts its 3 minute fly-by. FITSAT-1 is going to be under careful watch by telescopes, but according to the project's leader Takushi Tanaka, the light codes should be visible to the naked eye, or those with binoculars. FITSAT-1 is due to be deployed from the ISS on September 6, and...

Jul 26, 2012 9:00 PM   The guys behind South Park might laugh a lot during the process, but the making of the weekly animated show is a brutal endeavor. This documentary, released last fall, joins creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after the debut of their Broadway show "The Book of Mormon," just as the pair have returned to LA to work on the TV show's 15th season premiere. You have to admire the intense work ethic driving the show's breakneck production cycle. "It looks like it's going to be...not a 5 am night," Parker says at one point. "But more like a 9 am or 10 am night." The day before the episode ships, he's explaining, the crew will be up all night, working past dawn the next day, to get the scenes written, the voices recorded, the animation finalized and the content transferred to the East Coast. In spite of all the supporting illustrators, writers, and technicians, it really is mostly Parker and Stone running the show. The stor...

Jul 24, 2012 8:30 PM   The year? 1981. The place? Camp Firewood, where everyone's trying to get laid before the summer is over. Wet Hot American Summer is the classic teen movie scenario: everyone's trying to get a little action before the end of [insert memorable adolescent event] but they're all striking out. Naturally, hilarity ensues. The off-beat 2001 flick is a satire of all those familiar big screen situations, like unrequited love and awkward sexual encounters. Dorky guy likes hot girl but she's dating the popular, albeit unfaithful, jock—we all know how that story goes. Except it's at summer camp, that magical place where there are no parents and kids are for some reason entrusted into the unreliable care of college-aged folks who aren't much older—or much more responsible. The comedy, written by Michael Showalter, doesn't take itself too seriously, and though it wasn't a box office moneymaker, it has since gained something of a cult followi...

Jul 22, 2012 1:47 PM   I've seen plenty of time lapse videos from the International Space Station. None of them were even near the amazing beauty of this one. Play it at full screen and high definition—just the opening Star Wars-like shot will leave you in awe. It was created by Knate Myers using photographs taken from the International Space Station. He removed the noise, processed some of the shots in Photoshop and compiled the whole thing in Sony Vegas. [Twitter] View the original article here This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.