Posts

Posted on

Two New Hobbit Movies

Guillermo del Toro has been hired to direct two movie adaptations of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

His previous directing credits include Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, and Blade II, none of which I’ve seen but Ebert’s review of Pan’s Labyrinth has me curious.

I’m one of the few fans Tolkien’s books that enjoy The Hobbit more than the Lord of the Rings, so news of the new movies has me fairly excited. I’m not sure how I feel about Peter Jackson sitting in as producer instead of director, but you can bet they will be filmed in a way that seamlessly completes the series.

(via)

Posted on

Airplane on a Conveyor Belt

So here’s the question of the day:

“A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyor). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyor moves in the opposite direction. This conveyor has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyor to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?”

Personally, my first thought was that the plane would not take off because it wouldn’t have enough lift without moving up to speed relative to the ground. But after thinking about what it is that actually causes a plane to lift off, the wind going around the wings, I wasn’t so sure.

The wheels in planes aren’t generally what cause the plane to move forward, it’s the suction of wind through the propeller or engines. Presumably the plane would pull the same amount of wind whether or not it was riding the conveyor belt, therefore, I think it would take off.

While you’re taking a moment to think about this problem, let me tell you that tonight the Mythbuster’s are putting this question to rest once and for all. Will a plane on a conveyor belt take-off? (We’ll see tonight, but I think yes).

Update: here is the clip:


[Mythbusters – Plane on a Conveyor Belt – YouTube]

The Mythbusters official channel has uploaded the full episode:

Posted on

Jesus Cat

Everybody loves the Jesus Cat. (371k .swf with sound)

Jason Scott explains:

I happened to show this to an IRC channel, and linked to a “stuff I have lying around” directory on one of my servers.

Two days later, 91,000 people visited.

And it was that specific URL too, and since I didn’t put it anywhere other than that channel, once, it meant someone gave it to someone else, or pasted it in another IRC channel, and then it just exploded outward. I see 3,000 matches for the original URL, and if you spend the time browsing them, you find lots of commentary. I’ll save you time and tell you the general responses:

  • Hilarious!
  • Stupid.
  • That cat’s not REALLY walking on water.
  • This reminds me of endless other cat stuff HERE’S SOME LINKS
  • I will now riff on the idea of a cat as a savior for the next paragraph.

91,000 throws it way past anything I’ve done, ever with regards to serving a popular file. Some of the others might have more longevity over the Jesus Cat (the Goatse article, for example, is still packing them in a year later) but for sheer popularity, Jesus Cat stands above them all.

God bless his wet, matted little fur.

Posted on

Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts for 2008

The Oscar nominations for the 80th annual Academy Awards were released yesterday. The nominations in the class of Best Animated Short Film are:

  • I Met The Walrus (Josh Raskin) View
  • Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) View
  • Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go To Heaven) (Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse) View
  • My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Alexander Petrov) Part one, part two, part three
  • Peter And The Wolf (Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman) View DIVX version.

(via)

Posted on

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, gives a wonderful and exuberant “last lecture”. He’s currently struggling with pancreatic cancer but hasn’t let it get him down at all.

Almost all of us have childhood dreams: for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don’t achieve theirs, and I think that’s a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I’ve actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (etc.cmu.edu), of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how *you* can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.

By the way, producer/director J.J. Abrams of Lost,and Mission Impossible III fame (among others) asked Randy if he’d like to be in the new Star Trek movie that he’s directing, sort of fulfilling another of Randy’s dreams to be Captain Kirk (he’s not going to be captain, but it’s still pretty cool).

Posted on

Amazing Ant Colony

This remarkable video from the documentary Ants! Nature’s Secret Power shows a glimpse into the fascinating world of the ant. The narrator describes the intricate ant nest as an accomplishment equivalent to the building of the great wall of China.

The structure covers 538 square feet and travels 26 feet into the earth. In it’s construction, the colony moved 40 tons of soil. Billions of ant loads of soil were brought to the surface. Each load weighed four times as much as the worker ant, and in human terms, was carried over 1/2 mile to the surface.

I also recommend the TED talk by Deborah Gordon: How do ants know what to do?