The Week In Weak

Marketplace Minute with Bill Radke, 5/28 from Marketplace on Vimeo.


Asia: home of great wisdom... Plus 2 year old chainsmokers.





Video embeds: Break.com, Marketplace, MSNBC

Wondering Aloud

Are the books you "read" read by someone else?

The Audio Publishers Association says one in four Americans listened to an audio book in 2008. Biographies, suspense novels, romance and children’s books to educational texts all need a narrator... Someone like Walter Dixon, who talks about what it takes to get into the business, tricks of the trade and the art of doing multiple voices, on stage in the theater of the mind.

Audio Embed: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now 5/20/10, Host: Robin Young.

Video Embed: MSNBC

In the late 90's, John Pellegrini (then head of production at WLS/Chicago) wrote extensively (in Radio And Production Magazine) about the need to embrace radio as an intimate medium, not an immediate one. It can take some time to open up the imagination... But it's worth it.

Embedded audio: John Hockenberry The Infinite Mind NPR (9/10/08) and Dick Summer I Love Being Invisible Goodnight Podcast (5/16/10)

Hail, Hail Rock 'n' Roll

Video Embed: MSNBC

Kaki King

Unlikely Guitar Hero Goes Electric/Eclectic

Audio Embed: PRI's Echoes, an ambient music program on public radio with an extensive archive of audio for download via subscription. Photo: Bruce Moore.

Make Waves

"Wake" by Phil Jones on Threadless

Total Recall: The Musical

The movie had Arnold Schwarzenegger & a mutant with three boobs...

What more could you want in a musical?


Video embed from YouTube, created by Jon & Al Kaplan.

Expertise

Those who have investigated BP in the past see a familiar pattern, with the company convicted of three environmental crimes in 10 years, as Armen Keteyian reports.


Video embeds: CBS, CNN

Simon Says

Goodbye



Somewhere in the Season 9 finale they announced an actual winner.

Video embeds: ABC TV

Blood Diamonds

Resources are a mixed blessing for Africa.

Diamonds were discovered in Zimbabwe in 2006, the same year the movie came out. And with the potential for great wealth came more misery... And disturbing evidence that the gems are destroying the lives of many in a country that’s already seen a lot of hardship.

Audio Embeds: WGBH's The World 5/25+26/10, Reporter: Laura Lynch, Photo Set.

Blood Diamond movie trailer at YouTube.
National Geographic Special: Diamonds of War at Hulu.

Questions + Answers

Why are there so few girl engineers?

What do you want to be?

Cartoons from The Next Web.

Can't Afford A Great View?

How About For $3,000

The Winscape system from Rational Craft gives you the view of your dreams out of your window just like in real life. Which means perspective changes as you move through the room and when you get closer to the ‘windows’ you’ll see more detail.



And how it’s put together:


Video embeds: YouTube

Concert or Karaoke?

Which are you seeing?

John Diliberto says: In plug ‘n’ play concerts, there’s music that’s played in the moment on top of other music that’s been packaged and frozen... The live performance consists of defrosting the material while a lone musician solos... Fresh as a TV dinner.

Audio Embed: PRI's Echoes, an ambient music program on public radio with an extensive archive of audio for download via subscription.

Top Kill

The collision at the intersection of Politics & Under-Sea Engineering continues to unfold at Sam Peckinpah pace... Ultra-detailed slo mo.

Caution: This story could mutate rapidly.





Deja Voodoo

If the litany of failure sounds familiar, there's a reason.



Nat Geo presents a documentary on The Gulf Oil spill 5/27 @ 10p.

Video Embeds: MSNBC

Borderline Insanity

Odds are economic refugee immigrants are part of your family's recent past, whether or not you still identify with them varies.

In Arizona, empathy has been replaced with fear & suspicion.

President Obama has authorized sending up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Audio Embed: NPR's All Things Considered 5/25/10, Melissa Block & Ted Robbins .

Video embed: The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Docu-Drama 4/26/10
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Americans Are Economic Refugees, Too

Sue Popkin wrote the new book, "Moving to Opportnity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty." She speaks along with Lydia Grayson, who took advantage of the "Moving to Opportunity" program to get out of New York City in an effort to find a safer environment for her children.

Audio Embed: PRI & WNYC's program The Takeaway 5/26/10, Hosts: Celeste Headlee & John Hockenberry.

Coded Controversy

The UK charity, Marie Stopes International, aims to "empower women to reach confident, informed decisions about their sexual health." Abortion is legal throughout the UK (except Northern Ireland), and among the options they offer... And advertise as of Monday 5/24/10.



Pro-lifers are demanding that the spot be banned until further notice. Their chief accusation is that Marie Stopes is using "loopholes" in British advertising law to "shill abortions" on public television, and they charge that will "ride roughshod over the widely held and deeply felt objections of a very large section of the British public."

The ad couldn't be less shocking in terms of actual content.



Read more at The Guardian. Video embeds: YouTube.

Make Mine A Double

His Glass Is Hef Full, Companions' Cups Very Full

Adfreak examines Stoli's "seeing double" print campaign.

Lingering Questions

You know you have some... Did Jimmy Kimmel, or the live studio audience, pry an answer to yours out of the cast after signing off Sunday's "Aloha To Lost" special?







Video embeds: ABC/Jimmy Kimmel Live 5/23/10

How Porn Affects Yor Life

The Graphic Truth from College Humor.

Basically Preventable

Much as ABC's Nightline began by counting the length of captivity for US hostages in Iran (1979-1981), MSNBC's Countdown had been ending its broadcast with a tally of days since the former President prematurely declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq. This week a new count took over... Days since the Deepwater Horizon blowout.





Greased is the word.

An investigative report suggests that British Petroleum and a regulatory monitoring agency called the Mineral Management Service maintained inappropriately close ties. Sharyl Attkisson reports.



Not an accident... It was homicide.



see post for embedded videos

De-Friending Facebook

Art by Yuji Yoshimoto

Facebook has nearly 500 million active users, who are posting
1 billion photos and 25 billion pieces of information a month...
About 1 in 4 of all people who browse the Internet.

At this time of unprecedented growth, Facebook is also facing a user revolt over privacy issues. Thousands of users are threatening to delete their Facebook accounts on Monday, May 31st.

Dan Fletcher wrote about privacy concerns with Facebook in Time Magazine, and says despite the uproar, Facebook is here to stay.

Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now 5/25/10. Host: Robin Young.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in an op-ed published in Monday’s Washington Post, said changes were on the way that would simplify Facebook users’ privacy controls. The PR effort isn't surprising given trouble with privacy bugs, FCC complaints, and grumbling Senators .

So will Zuckerberg’s promises matter in the long run?

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of fifteen groups who complained to the FCC about Facebook’s privacy practices, and Susan Herring of Indiana University offer a rather bleak outlook for Facebook.

Audio: APM's Future Tense 5/25/10, Host: John Moe. see post for embedded audio

Star Wars in Lego

The original trilogy in 2:12



An Entire Geek Alphabet

An Entire Week of Geek

May 24 - 28, 2010 on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.
see post for embedded video

Michael Hedges

Music... Plus Words By & About

Hedges was to acoustic guitar what Eddie Van Halen is to electric.

Audio: PRI's Echoes, an ambient music program on public radio with an extensive archive of audio for download via subscription.see post for embedded audio

Celebrity Beauty Secret

Created by Italian visual artist "Giopet."

iPad + Velcro

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

iWear Wardrobe

Shirts by iStyle Originals.
see post for embedded video

Really

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
On Topic: In the News - The Real America 5/24/10
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Musical Improvisation

At TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC, panelist Chris Sacca went beyond his duties as a startup judge in order to test out a new music creation startup called uJam which can turn any tune in your head into a song with accompaniment.

Chris Sacca singing into uJam at TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC from Chad Cat on Vimeo.

Folding A Pair

First it was ABC's "Lost," and Dr. Jack Shephard, pulling the plug after six years. And the following night, after eight seasons, the hit Fox TV show, “24,” came to an end.

We'll leave the numerology of end dates to someone else, but the two Jacks lived out very different fantasies with real world implications.

Steven Keslowitz, wrote about the tortured relationship of "24" and the law while executive editor of his university's law review, and authored the book, “The Tao of Jack Bauer.”

Audio: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now 5/24/10, Host: Robin Young.

Light Show

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

Physically there's a room with blocks in it... The rest of it is video mapping and projection and/or magic.

Meanwhile, at Geekologie they call this one "Seizure's Palace"
You're just as likely to find it oppressive as impressive.



Smack Nightclub in the UK's Leamington Spa... All done with LED's.
Music: Hold On (Sub Focus Remix) by Rusko.

Use The Fork, Luke

Star Wars Pancake Molds

$20 from Williams Sonoma.

Star Wars '50's Style



Geekologie details the recipe for what went into the mashup.

Sky Heart

Heart by iriskamn on Photobucket.

Phil Collins Tomorrow Never Knows Face Value (1981) Sting Be Still My Beating Heart Nothing Like the Sun (1987) Roxy Music While My Heart Is Still Beating Avalon (1982) Pink Floyd Good Bye Blue Sky The Wall (1979)

Flight of Fancy

More Porsche than Cessna, the Icon Aircraft A5 is a plane like no other. Icon founder Kirk Hawkins says that the sport aircraft is designed to put the fun back in flying. Bill Whitaker reports.

BP as in Broken Promises

Spin vs. Science

Oceanography professor Ian MacDonald was among a group of scientists that found the amount of oil escaping from the spill in the Gulf is much higher than BP and the government estimated. MacDonald explains why the numbers were so different and the importance of taking accurate measurements.

Audio: NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday 5/23/10, Host: Liane Hansen.

Robots!

Hitched

By the nicad power pack installed in me,
I now somewhat mechanically pronounce you man and wife...
In Japanese.

Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File 5/17/10.

Uninvited Guest

Anyone who’s seen a science fiction movie knows that robots can be dangerous, especially the robots who appear the most human. While that’s a handy literary device, it kind of gets to the heart of a major philosophical issue in technology: can we control that which we create? We thought about the other day when we came across this video of some experiments conducted by German scientists who were trying to see if a knife-wielding robot could be made to stop it’s stabbing or slashing or slicing before the knife cut into human flesh. An especially gripping part of the video is where research Sami Haddadin offers up his own arm to a knife-wielding robot, confident that the robot won’t cut him. Sami talks about the experiment and how his team is trying to make robots more human so they’ll be less likely to stab actual humans.

Audio: APM's Future Tense 5/17/10, Host: John Moe.

Walk This Way

Long Lost

The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever Magical Mystery Tour (1967) Seal Lost My Faith Human Being (1998) The Doors You're Lost Little Girl Strange Days (1967) The Hollies Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) Distant Light (1971)

Five

How Safe Are Cell Phones?

A long-awaited, 10-year study on cellphones and brain cancer was published last week. The conclusion? That depends on which headlines you read. One of the study's authors, a founder of an environmental health advocacy group and a science reporter try to explain how one study can produce so many conflicting reports.

Audio: WNYC's On The Media 5/22/10, Host: Brooke Gladstone.

Lost!

Censored



Spoilers



Aloha

Studio 360's Scott Blaszak isn't happy about it ending. He wrote a song to help express his pain.

The Last Hero

Henry Aaron was one of the best hitters ever to play baseball, gifted with incredibly quick wrists, a natural grace that camouflaged his efforts with ease and enough versatility that he could literally choose which of baseball's records he would challenge.

But in his book, The Last Hero, Howard Bryant describes Aaron as a man who not only excelled on the diamond but overcame immense challenges off of it. Hammerin' Hank Aaron's greatest struggle is to be remembered for something more than just who broke Babe Ruth’s record with his own 755 home runs.

Audio: WBUR & NPR's Only A Game 5/22/10, Host: Bill Littlefield.

A Nation of Immigrants

Miss USA, Born In Lebanon

The Odd Couple

The Insider bet against the Outsider and lost huge!

Audio: NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday 5/22/10, Reporter: David Welna.

It's Alive!

This week scientists announced they'd created the world's first synthetic cell; an important step in understanding how to take synthesized DNA and turn it into a living organism.

Audio: CBS Radio's Osgood File 5/21/10.