The Big Klosowski

All I can say about the following clip, is WTF?!?

Anybody know what movie this is from?

Not sure if these are real, or Photoshop magic, but they are certainly entertaining.

Think campaign ads are negative now, check this one out from LBJ in 1964.

Perhaps the most infamous Presidential campaign ad ever made, even though it aired only once, it created a great deal of controversy and was, arguably, an influential part of LBJ’s landslide victory in 1964.

I attended the free Rage Against the Machine concert at the Denver Coliseum today for the Democratic National Convention. After the concert was a march through Denver to the DNC.

Here’s a pictorial history of what went on today as I saw it. If nudity offends anybody, you might want to skip it, as you do see me without a shirt on. Otherwise, enjoy!

Here’s a video of the police presence at the event (sorry it’s a bit fast).

Check out the protesters doing their thing on the street.

Good times! I did bail before the march reached the DNC, as my eyes are a bit sensitive to teargas (though it turned out peaceful enough).

Big thanks goes out as well to Tent State University in Denver for putting this together. Go check them out!

Now I just have to work through the night to make up the missed work from the day. Benefits of working at home on internet based businesses I guess.

Here’s a true story from one of our long time submitters at Rootclip.com, Jay Taylor. He was arrested and faces a court date for making Citrus with Attitude in Chapter 3 of Chance Encounter. We are all humbled by the determination of Jay, who got arrested, but still finished the shoot. Now that’s dedication!

Read the full story on the arrest at Rootclip.com.

And do me a favor, check out the site and see what kind of films are being submitted for the Chapter 4 contest.

From the blog, mental_floss, comes an interesting and in-depth article about the history of the drinking age in the United States.

The concept that a person becomes a full adult at age 21 dates back centuries in English common law; 21 was the age at which a person could, among other things, vote and become a knight. Since a person was an official adult at age 21, it seemed to make sense that they could drink then, too.

Considering that the drinking age was once lowered to 18, the age at whichthe courts consider you a legal adult, why did it revert back to the age of 21?

Organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving began agitating for a uniform national drinking age of 21 to help eliminate these blood borders and keep alcohol out of the hands of supposedly less-mature 18-year-olds. As a result, President Reagan signed the aforementioned National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. MADD’s “Why 21?” website touts a National Traffic Highway Administration finding that the raised drinking age policy saves around 900 lives a year. Traffic reports show a 62% decrease in alcohol fatalities among teen drivers since 1982. Raw numbers show that drunk driving fatalities have definitely dropped since the early 1980s; despite an 88% increase in the number of miles driven, 2007 saw over 8,000 fewer total alcohol-related traffic fatalities than 1982.

Why analyze this now? Currently the Amethyst Initiative is pushing a proposal to reconsider the national drinking age of 21. Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States. These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the 21 year-old drinking age is not working, and, specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses. I couldn’t agree more.

By the way, when researching a picture for this post, I typed “drunk teen” into Google Images, thinking I’d get something clever. Let’s just say that didn’t go as planned, hence the prohibition image.

We are pulling away from the gate, and the captain’s put on the fasten seatbelt sign. Time to put away that cellphone. But have you ever wondered why, exactly, that you need to turn it off? If you leave your iPhone on during takeoff, can it cause the plane to crash?

Wired was kind enough to do the research, and they have the answers.

Sure, your mobile can interfere with avionics — in theory. But in practice, it’s far from likely. Cockpits and communications systems have been protected against electromagnetic meddling through safeguards like shielded wiring and support structures since the 1960s.

So why the resistance? Part of it, naturally, comes from the call carriers. When phones ping for signals at 35,000 feet, they can hit hundreds of towers at once, necessitating complicated parsing of roaming agreements. Providers don’t want the hassle if they’re not being properly compensated, so the government has left the plane ban in place.

Personally, I don’t think technology should really be the factor, but privacy and right to your own space. Do we all want to listen to the person next to us talk on their phone during the entire flight? I think not!

I’m not entirely convinced. The folks over at Wired did a user survey relating to the iPhone 3G reception problems, and it appears to be more service related than hardware related.

3G performance is slow almost all over, especially in cities where the 3G service is getting overloaded. If you want to have fast speeds, hang out in Germany and the Netherlands — those folks had the fastest speeds (and it’s no coincidence that the 3G network there has three extra development years on its American counterpart). The worst reception is apparently in Australia, as Optus and Virgin users had their iPhones chugging along at just 759 Kbps.

So, I guess I will be calling AT&T to complain tomorrow. Hopefully a service credit is pending. Strange how I never had a problem with my previous 3G phones, including my Samsung Blackjack.

Is anybody else excited about Terminator Salvation? I’ve been a huge Terminator fan since Arnold declared “I’ll be back” in 1984. Salvation is the movie we’ve all been waiting for. It’s the post-apocalyptic battles of humans vs. machines, lead by John Connor (Christian Bale). It’s coming on May 22nd, 2009, and I’m excited!

Salvation will be far more bleak, unsettling and savage than the third film in the series, directed by Jonathan Mostow. My biggest concern is that it is being directed by a relative novice, McG, not James Cameron. If he screws this up, there will be hell to pay.

Engadget is reporting that some enterprising Swedes with science degrees have put the iPhone 3G up against the Nokia N73 and Sony Ericcson P1, and the results are surprising. They say that the reception on the iPhone 3G is “just fine“.

To quote the article:

…some industrious Swedes decided to apply a little scientific method to the argument and found something interesting: the iPhone 3G performed just as well (or just as poorly, depending upon your mood) as a Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson P1 when compared head-to-head in a mobile communications test chamber. The test was conducted by real-life antenna engineers just like those camera-fumbling souls contracted by the FCC.

My take on this is simple. Either they have gotten a good test version that doesn’t suffer from the Infineon chip problems, or the 3G network in Sweden has better coverage than ours here in the US.

I can tell you that my iPhone 3G reception problems have only gotten worse since the 2.0.2 firmware. I’m ready to return my iPhone through the window of the closest AT&T store.