Where is the Soviet Union when you need it?

This video shows how the Soviets plugged a natural gas leak using a nuclear detonation. Yes, that's right, a nuclear blast. Think we might have a few spare nuclear warheads sitting around? Maybe we could even have the chairman of BP set the bloody thing off manually. :-)

I'd love to see what the Sierra Club would have to say about it...

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The Empire Strikes Back...in 1950?

This is the coolest thing I have seen all day. From the YouTube page:

Let's turn back the clock, shall we? Back to a distant time in an alternate universe far, far away... The 50s! It was a simpler age of 3-D movies, and robots named Robby, Gort, and Tobor. A hidden gem of this period in cinema is a little film called "The Empire Strikes Back", the second chapter in a planned three-part epic science fiction trilogy. While the preceding and succeeding episodes were never actually produced due to budgetary constraints, "Empire" shines as an example of 1950s 3-D space opera. The re-release of this trailer coincides with the 60th anniversary of this amazing film.

But, seriously folks... ever since I started cutting these premakes, I have had constant requests for a retro version of Star Wars. This is a little thank you gift for everyone who has been watching my work.

Here is the recipe for the trailer:
Flash Gordon (Deadline at Noon, Conquers the Universe), The Phantom Planet, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Invasion of the Animal People, Man Beast, Lunar Walker, Golden Bat (Ogon Batto), The Mysterians, Captain Midnight, First Spaceship on Venus, The Flying Saucer, The Fighting Devil Dogs, The Outer Limits (Second Chance, Soldier, I Robot, The Sixth Finger), Things to Come, Space Patrol, Atragon, Terror in the Midnight Sun, Forbidden Planet, Rocketship X-M, Latitude Zero, Space Flight, Metropolis, The Jetsons, Devil Girl From Mars, Tobor the Great, The Alligator People, The Return of the Fly, Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, Starman (Attack from Space), Marvel Super Heroes (Iron Man), The Cyclops, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row, Mahler Symphony No. 6, Gustav Hoists The Planets (Mars), and The Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama

The following trailer is fake, independent, and not for profit. It is not endorsed or connected to Lucasfilm or 20th Century Fox. It was made as a purely technical exercise, and as a reflective deconstruction of elements in modern cinema.

(via Carlos Cuellar)

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A matter of perspective

I see this every morning, and it always cracks me up. The guy with the Maserati Quattroporte takes one space. The guy with the Hyundai Sonata has to use two.

This may be the first time in history that the Maserati owner is probably easier to live with.

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How to create custom books from Wikipedia

This falls under the category of "incredibly cool things I didn't know you could do."

(via Linda Lawrey)

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It's the end of the world as we know it

For those of you following the crisis in Greece, here's a little depressing morning reading for you. I wish I didn't think there was a chance, however small, that this guy is right:

Most analysts (at least the ones that are worth reading) contend that the sovereign default crisis (Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc.) in the EU is about the collapse of a system that created monetary union without a political union.  It isn't.  That's actually a narrow, parochial view.  Instead, the current sovereign debt crisis is about something much more interesting:  it's another battle in a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global economic system and traditional nation-states.  At issue is whether a nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the interests of a global economic system.

Who's winning?  The global economic system, of course.  The 2008 financial crisis, the first real battle of this war (as opposed to the early losses in skirmishes in Russia, Argentina, the Balkans, etc.), generated a very decisive outcome.  It was a resounding defeat for nation-states.*   The current crisis in the EU will almost certainly end with the same results.


When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and financial system will be the victor.  Once that occurs, the nation-states of the West will join those of the global south as hollow states: mere shells of states that serve only to enforce the interests of the global economic system.  These new states, more market-states than nation-states, will offer citizens a mere vestige of the public goods they offered historically.  Incomes will fall to developing world levels (made easy to due highly portable productivity), and wealth will stratify.  Regulatory protections will be weak.  Civil service pensions will be erased and corruption will reign.  The once dominant militaries of the West will be reduced to a small fraction of their current size, and their focus will be on the maintenance of internal control rather than on external threats.  The clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be:  

You are on your own.  You are in direct competition with everyone else in the world, and your success or failure is something you alone control.  

Read his conclusions here:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/05/the-decline-of-the-west.html)

(via Rod Dreher)

Contemporvant

The only thing wrong with this video is the part where the narrator says, "It's coming...to YOUR town." Chances are, it's already there.


"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

(Hat tip to the incomparable Steve Robinson)

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Or maybe not...

So far, Blackbird Pie is full of fail. http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/less than a minute ago via webLarry Anderson
larand

Trying out the Wave element

This is just a test to see if the Wave element will embed in a Blogger post. Apologies to my Buzz followers, who won't see this on Buzz even if it works.

It worked! I may try embedding one of these in most of my posts as an alternative comment forum. Looks like Wave just got more useful!

A few additions to the site

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I've added a few pages to the site. The first, Sidewiki, is a test of the newly released Sidewiki element, and theoretically allows anyone to see Sidewiki entries. Unfortunately, it appears to be malfunctioning at the moment, but I'm leaving it up on the off chance that Google will fix the code (or I find out what, if anything, I'm doing wrong).  Edit: I'm taking the page offline for now. I can't figure out why it's not working, and Google isn't helping. It'll go back up if it ever becomes functional.

The second, Wave, is an embedded Google Wave wave (I know it sounds redundant, but I didn't name these things). If you have a Google Wave account, feel free to join in and say something. If you'd like a Google Wave account, just submit your info at http://wave-invite.larryanderson.org/ and I'll send an invitation.

The third, Conversation, embeds the Google Conversation element and allows realtime conversation with translation available into a number of languages. It's probably the most useful of the three, at least in their current states, but does require you to be logged into your Google account. Feel free to leave a comment, raise an issue, or just say hello.

Needless to say, all three are basically experimental at this point, so they may disappear at any time, or they may be joined by other pages. Enjoy!