Month: January 2018
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Kasou Taishou
We spent this morning looking at YouTube videos of Kasou Taishou. These are short skits that re-create special effects using charmingly amateur stage effects. Think of it as a mashup between traditional Japanese kabuki stage-craft and a high school play. Add a twist of self-depreciating humor and you’ve got a winner.
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My Web 2.0 Laptop
When I worked at Yahoo it was at the height of a cultural trend called Web 2.0. The fashion was to put stickers of various startups all over the front of your laptop so people could see how hip you were. I was running into many interesting people so I took a different approach and […]
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The week that was
To keep jubilant Philadelphia Eagles fans from climbing lamp posts after the NFC Championship game, city workers lathered them down with Crisco grease. Despite their efforts, Eagles fans drove up the Rocky Steps with their dune buggy and animated traffic cones instead. Minnesota Viking fans, bitter at their loss to the Eagles in Philadelphia and having […]
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Humanity Star
Rocket Labs, a spaceflight startup based in Los Angeles, secretly stowed away a “disco ball” satellite that has no other purpose than, “to encourage everyone to look up and consider our place in the universe.” The satellite is a “geodesic sphere made from carbon fibre with 65 highly reflective panels. It spins rapidly, reflecting the […]
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Two Headlines
She Loves Me? “I would love to do that — I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” the president told reporters on Wednesday of the prospect of being interviewed by Mr. Mueller She Loves Me Not. Cobb told The New York Times that Trump was speaking hurriedly, and only meant that he is […]
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Alameda and the Tsunami
A large earthquake off the coast of Alaska last night set off tsunami warnings (that were later cancelled) up and down the West Coast of the United States. Residents on Alameda, the island in the San Francisco Bay where I live, were all curious why we never got any warning waking us out of our […]
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The week that was
A “drunk gentleman in Russia” stole an armored personnel carrier and rammed it into a liquor shop to steal a bottle of wine. A White House conference call with 60+ reporters devolved into chaos while the operator tried to figure out how to put everyone into listen-only mode. “I think if everyone had half a […]
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The week that was
The world’s longest glass-bottom bridge opened in Hongyagu, China. Following up on the 911 story from Florida last week we have another Florida incident where a drunk man called 911 to report a drunk driver – himself. Auto burglaries are up dramatically in San Francisco. This week, Marissa Castelli, a figure skater headed to next […]
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The week that was
In San Francisco, people are paying $36.99 for something called “raw water” Philip Morris announced that it’s getting out of the cigarette business. A Delta flight out of Detroit was forced to turn around after a bird tried to hitch a ride to Atlanta and refused to leave the cockpit. An Alaska Airlines flight out of Oakland […]
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News Quiz
Testing out something – feel free to try your luck!