Trump Bought Targeted Facebook Ads to Woo More People to His Inauguration. Sad.

The Verge reports Trump is using targeted Facebook ads to woo more people to his inauguration party. "The Tonight Show’s Marina Cockenberg posted about the inauguration ads on Twitter, which explain that Trump is attempting to lure New Yorkers ages 27 or older to his party."

The Array of Conflicts of Interest Facing the Trump Presidency

About a month ago the New York Times wrote The Array of Conflicts of Interest Facing the Trump Presidency with several nice little graphics showing it all clearly. Still no resolution from the Trump transition team.

You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama’s Presidency

The New York Times had a really neat interactive graphic, You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama’s Presidency. They show seven stats, showing the graph for the Bush years with space for the Obama years for you to fill in and then compare with history. I was pretty good on three of them. Right on average on two and grossly wrong on two. Give it a try.

How to Prevent Gun Deaths? Where Experts and the Public Agree

The NYT’s Upshot charted How to Prevent Gun Deaths? Where Experts and the Public Agree. “We conducted a survey on 29 gun control ideas, looking for the intersection of effectiveness and popularity.”

Our expert survey asked dozens of social scientists, lawyers and public health officials how effective each of 29 policies would be in reducing firearm homicide deaths, regardless of their political feasibility or cost. Policies deemed both effective and popular appear in the upper-right corner of the matrix. Less popular, less effective measures fall lower down and to the left.

The two policies ranked most effective were those requiring all sellers to run background checks on anyone who buys a gun, and barring gun sales to people convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic assaults. The experts were more skeptical of other much-debated proposals, including a national gun registry and an assault weapons ban. The idea of requiring states to honor out-of-state concealed weapon permits was ranked low.

The academics in our panel — many of the country’s best empirical researchers on gun policy — were far more likely than the general public to support gun control. But nearly all of the policies that experts think could work have widespread support from the general public.

The article goes much deeper, showing the graph highlighting: - What Does Trump Support? - What About Mass Shootings? - Measures Supported by Academics Opposed to Gun Control - Things Law Enforcement Likes

This is really an issue where the public wants more done and the GOP is entirely captured by the NRA which is captured by the gun industry and not the gun consumers.

(Via Kottke)

Here's What Really Caused The Housing Crisis

Since Lawrence Kudlow and Stephen Moore are now advisors to Trump, Mark Thoma explains yet again Here's what really caused the housing crisis.

“A lot of the narrative of the financial crisis has been that this [loan] origination process was broken, and therefore a lot of marginal and unsustainable borrowers got access to funding. In our opinion, the facts don’t line up with this narrative. … Calling this crisis a subprime crisis is a misnomer. In fact, it was a prime crisis.”

There are other reasons to doubt that subprime borrowers were responsible for the financial crisis. For one, a large number of subprime mortgages originated in non-CRA banks, and “none of the 300+ mortgage originators that imploded were depository banks covered by the CRA.”

As noted in a study by McClatchy from 2008, “Federal Reserve Board data show that more than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions;” “private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year;” and “only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.”

A second question to ask is why, if the CRA and subprime borrowing were the problem, did a very similar housing bubble and financial crisis occur in scores of other countries that didn’t have legislation like this?

A third argument, the one Kudlow and Moore cite, is that declining lending standards by Fannie and Freddie brought about by the requirements of the CRA helped fuel subprime loans. But once again, this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

As Barry Ritholtz pointed out in 2011, “The relative market share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from a high of 57 percent of all new mortgage originations in 2003, down to 37 percent as the bubble was developing in 2005–06.”

The reason Fannie and Freddie were losing market share is that loan standards on mortgages issued by private lenders were falling. Fannie and Freddie eventually adjusted some of their conditions for obtaining a loan in an attempt to prevent a further loss in market share, but it’s very clear that they were followers, not leaders, in the erosion of lending standards.

Update: More here: Why these economists say the usual explanation for the financial crisis is wrong

The Elements of Life Mapped Across the Milky Way

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey have mapped the elements of life across the Milky Way

‘For the first time, we can now study the distribution of elements across our Galaxy,’ says Sten Hasselquist of New Mexico State University. ‘The elements we measure include the atoms that make up 97% of the mass of the human body.’

The new results come from a catalog of more than 150,000 stars; for each star, it includes the amount of each of almost two dozen chemical elements. The new catalog includes all of the so-called ‘CHNOPS elements’ – carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur – known to be the building blocks of all life on Earth. This is the first time that measurements of all of the CHNOPS elements have been made for such a large number of stars.

While humans are 65% oxygen by mass, oxygen makes up less than 1% of the mass of all of elements in space. Stars are mostly hydrogen, but small amounts of heavier elements such as oxygen can be detected in the spectra of stars. With these new results, APOGEE has found more of these heavier elements in the inner Galaxy. Stars in the inner galaxy are also older, so this means more of the elements of life were synthesized earlier in the inner parts of the Galaxy than in the outer parts.

While it’s fun speculate what impact the inner Galaxy’s composition might have on where life pops up, we are much better at understanding the formation of stars in our Galaxy. Because the processes producing each element occur in specific types of stars and proceed at different rates, they leave specific signatures in the chemical abundance patterns measured by SDSS/APOGEE. This means that SDSS/APOGEE’s new elemental abundance catalog provides data to compare with the predictions made by models of galaxy formation.

Also they’ve updated Origin of the Elements in the Solar System.

A Woman Was Killed By a Superbug Resistant to All 26 American Antibiotics

The Atlantic reports A Woman Was Killed By a Superbug Resistant to All 26 American Antibiotics

Funny—by which we all mean scary—because yesterday afternoon, the CDC also released a report about a Nevada woman who died after an infection resistant to 26 antibiotics, which is to say all available antibiotics in the U.S. The woman, who was in her 70s, had been previously hospitalized in India after fracturing her leg, which led to an infection of the bone. There was nothing to treat her infection—not colistin, not other last-line antibiotics. Scientists later tested the bacteria that killed her, and found it was somewhat susceptible to fosfomycin, but that antibiotic is not approved in the U.S. to treat her type of infection.

The most worrisome kind of colistin resistance is caused by a single gene called mcr–1. The bacteria that killed this woman did not have mcr–1; it’s still unclear how they became resistant. Other cases of colistin resistance have emerged before though. What makes mcr–1 special is that sits on a loop of free-floating DNA called a plasmid, which bacteria of different species can pass back and forth. And there are many plasmids out there with genes that confer resistance to this or that class of antibiotics.

Why patients blame the weather for aching joints

Turns out, the weather doesn’t make your joint ache any more or less. Why patients blame the weather for aching joints

In the new study on knee osteoarthritis, the researchers asked 345 patients to log onto a website every time their pain flared up for eight hours or more — and then the team linked those episodes to the temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and precipitation recorded in that patient’s neighborhood around that time by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The researchers also looked at the weather on days when the patients had no flare-ups. They found no significant relationship between pain and any kind of weather change. The same was true for the study on back pain.

Last Night's Political Comedies

I watched a fair amount of the Jeff Sessions hearings yesterday. Samantha Bee is the only one I’ve seen report on the scariest thing I heard him say. When Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked if secular federal attorney’s had anything to worry about he flustered.

Whitehouse: And secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious Sessions: Well I’m not so sure.

That’s really not out of context.

Trevor Noah had Johnathan Chait on to talk about his new book, which sounds very good.

And Jimmy Fallon had a cute segment with Michelle Obama

Movie Review: Hidden Figures

I’ve seen a number of bio-pics from the 30s and 40s about people like Madame Curie, Lou Gehrig, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison and famous presidents and patriots and I wonder why they don’t make movies like this anymore? Yes they covered up character flaws and weren’t always the most historically accurate, but they were dramatizations and could make you feel good and want to research the people more. Isn’t that valuable? Didn’t Shakespear do that?

Well this year they made one like that again. Hidden Figures is the little known story of NASA’s “colored computers”, African-American women who did a lot of the number crunching for the space program. Yes there were white wome who did that too but as you might imagine, the black women faced even more difficulties. Hidden Figures Movie vs the True Story of Katherine Johnson, NASA explains some of the liberties the movie took. Nevertheless, these women were exceptional individuals and this movie is an exceptionally well told story.

10 Years Ago: iPhone Intro

Ten years ago Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world and changed what the term “smart phone” meant. It was probably his greatest demo. If you have a an hour and a half watch it here. Warning, once I started I couldn’t stop.

I had forgotten some of the innovations:

• Visual Voicemail
• Separate ongoing sms conversations
• a widescreen touch based iPod with coverflow
• the accelerometer that could switch between portrait and landscape
• multitouch - listen to the cheers at scrolling and pinch-to-zoom
• I forgot about WAP, good riddance
• I have no memory of Apple making an old-style one ear bluetooth headset
• It was at this event that they changed their name from Apple Computer to Apple

Some things are now quaint:

• The “giant” 3.5" 160ppi screen
• Sync’ing everything with iTunes was a feature
• How slowly web pages loaded, but how fast it seemed
• Yahoo Mail was the biggest mail provider and it was a big deal that push iMAP was free
• 4GB and 8GB models

Here’s my post about the keynote and shortly thereafter on some notable limitations.

Snow Prediction

I’m no meteorologist but I’ll hazard a snow prediction (it’s more like a hope). I noticed that this century we’re in a 5 year pattern of low snowfall. So I’m going to guess Boston will get less than 20" of snow this winter. Of course I’m saying that having gotten 5.9 inches in Dec, an inch today and about 3 more expected tomorrow. Still, fingers crossed.

Movies Seen in 2016

Previous Years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

In 2016 I saw 259 feature length movies and 49 short films (those under 40 mins). That’s the most I’ve seen in a year other than 2011 where I went crazy and saw 366 features and 30 short films.

80% first run features is basically average for me.

I rate on the Netflix 5 point scale where 1 is hated, 2 is didn’t like, 3 is I liked it, 4 is really liked and 5 is loved.

I had a pretty average curve for me.

I saw 83 features in the theater and most of the rest on cable. I only watched 3 films on Netlix this year, none on DVD or Blu-ray and only 1 online.

I’ve got a few theaters I go to regularly, though the Somerville gets so much because of IFFBoston. The shorts I see in the theater are the Oscar nominees, this year I saw them at the Kendall, the others at the Somerville are some shorts packages at IFFBoston. Assembly Row opened in 2015, it’s nice but I only made it 4 times.

My monthly viewing was a little odd with big months in January, July and December. Maybe I just binged in weather that was too cold or too hot. This year IFFBoston was split over the end of April and beginning of May so neither month peaked too high. But I caught 40 of the 2016 films, 18 features, and 22 shorts.

Yet again, my viewing was really skewed towards recent films this year. I saw 79 features from 2016 and 67 from 2015. All the shorts I saw were from 2014 or later.

Last year April was the only barren month for Oscar nominated films, this year it’s just February which seems odd, I guess I caught all the nominees in Jan or during the year. These are films from any year that got a nomination or won, not just from last year’s Oscars. They also (obviously) don’t include any films that came out this year that will get nominated later this month.

Yet again I feel like I need to see more foreign films:

I break down films into five genres that I’m pretty happy with. I then use some sub-genres and I still have a hard time putting every film in one. There are lots of Dramas and Comedies that have no sub-genre. But here’s how it looks for this year:

Below are all the films I saw in 2016:

Seen	Title	Year	Length	Country	Rating
Jan 3	Top Five	2014	Feature	US	4
Jan 3	Shadow of the Thin Man	1941	Feature	US	3
Jan 3	The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 3	The Billion Dollar Brain	1967	Feature	Britain	2
Jan 3	What We Do In the Shadows	2014	Feature	New Zealand	2
Jan 5	The Hateful Eight	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 9	Mad Max: Fury Road	2015	Feature	Australia	5
Jan 9	The Hundred-Foot Journey	2014	Feature	US	3
Jan 9	Dear Albania	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 10	Joy	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 14	Cinderella	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 16	Dead End	1937	Feature	US	4
Jan 16	St. Vincent	2014	Feature	US	4
Jan 16	Jackie Brown	1997	Feature	US	3
Jan 16	Listen to Me Marlon	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 16	52 Pick-Up	1986	Feature	US	2
Jan 17	What Happened Miss Simone?	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 17	The Revenant	2015	Feature	US	3
Jan 18	The Blue Bird	1918	Feature	US	2
Jan 19	The Danish Girl	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 21	The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 22	Carol	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 23	Avengers: Age of Ultron	2015	Feature	US	4
Jan 24	45 Years	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jan 24	Entourage	2015	Feature	US	2
Jan 25	The Best Years of Our Lives	1946	Feature	US	4
Jan 25	The Helen Morgan Story	1957	Feature	US	2
Jan 27	The Imitation Game	2014	Feature	Britain	4
Jan 28	Winter on Fire	2015	Feature	Ukraine	4
Jan 30	Sounder	1972	Feature	US	4
Jan 30	Superbad	2007	Feature	US	4
Jan 31	Bear Story	2015	Short	Chile	4
Jan 31	Sanjay's Super Team	2015	Short	US	4
Jan 31	We Can't Live Without Cosmos	2015	Short	Russia	4
Jan 31	Prologue	2015	Short	Britain	4
Jan 31	Catch It	2015	Short	France	4
Jan 31	World of Tomorrow	2015	Short	US	3
Jan 31	If I Were God	2015	Short	Canada	3
Jan 31	The Loneliest Spotlight	2015	Short	US	3
Jan 31	The Short Story of a Fox and a Mouse	2015	Short	France	3
Feb 6	Tomorrowland	2015	Feature	US	2
Feb 7	Hail, Caesar!	2016	Feature	US	2
Feb 13	Kingsman: The Secret Service	2015	Feature	Britain	4
Feb 13	The Leisure Class	2015	Feature	US	1
Feb 14	Day One	2015	Short	US	5
Feb 14	Shok	2015	Short	Britain	4
Feb 14	Stutterer	2015	Short	Britain	4
Feb 14	Ave Maria	2015	Short	France	3
Feb 14	Everything Will Be Okay	2015	Short	Germany	3
Feb 21	Magic Mike XXL	2015	Feature	US	3
Feb 21	Deadpool	2016	Feature	US	3
Feb 28	Rejected	2000	Short	US	2
Feb 29	San Andreas	2015	Feature	US	1
Mar 1	Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens	2015	Feature	US	4
Mar 2	Knight of Cups	2016	Feature	US	1
Mar 6	The Witch	2016	Feature	US	2
Mar 10	Spy	2015	Feature	US	3
Mar 10	Eye in the Sky	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Mar 12	Love & Mercy	2015	Feature	US	3
Mar 13	10 Cloverfield Lane	2016	Feature	US	4
Mar 16	Body Team 12	2015	Short	Liberia	4
Mar 19	Avengers: Age of Ultron	2015	Feature	US	4
Mar 19	Still Alice	2014	Feature	US	4
Mar 19	Big Eyes	2014	Feature	US	3
Mar 20	Tangerines	2014	Feature	Estonia	4
Mar 20	Hello, My Name is Doris	2016	Feature	US	3
Mar 30	The Dark Horse	2016	Feature	New Zealand	3
Apr 3	Midnight Special	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 5	Ori & Addison	2014	Short	US	4
Apr 5	Hunter's Moon	2015	Short	US	3
Apr 5	Knockturnal	2016	Short	US	2
Apr 13	Ant-Man	2015	Feature	US	4
Apr 16	Ricki and the Flash	2015	Feature	US	2
Apr 17	We the People: The Market Basket Effect	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 17	Chappie	2015	Feature	US	2
Apr 18	Everything is Copy	2015	Feature	US	4
Apr 18	Shattered	2007	Feature	Britain	3
Apr 20	Never Weaken	1921	Short	US	4
Apr 20	From Hand to Mouth	1919	Short	US	3
Apr 21	The Cardinal	1963	Feature	US	4
Apr 22	Vertigo	1958	Feature	US	3
Apr 24	Sound of Redemption	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 24	Miles Ahead	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 27	The Hollars	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 28	Five Nights in Maine	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 28	Embers	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 29	Presenting Princess Shaw	2016	Feature	US	4
Apr 29	Always Shine	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 30	Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World	2016	Feature	US	5
Apr 30	Transpecos	2016	Feature	US	5
Apr 30	Class of '27	2016	Short	US	4
Apr 30	Neige	2016	Short	US	4
Apr 30	A Living Wage	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	Lockdown	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	The Champion	2016	Short	US	3
Apr 30	The Dwarvenaut	2016	Feature	US	3
Apr 30	Bluespace	2016	Feature	US	2
May 1	Balcony Scene	2016	Short	US	5
May 1	Hunt for the Wilderpeople	2016	Feature	New Zealand	5
May 1	Disorder	2016	Feature	France	4
May 1	Ori & Addison	2016	Short	US	4
May 1	Bonding	2016	Short	US	4
May 1	Twinsburg	2016	Short	US	3
May 1	My Dark Side and My Light Side Meet in a Bar to Discuss the New Star Wars Movie	2016	Short	US	3
May 1	Teenage Cocktail	2016	Feature	US	3
May 1	Forever, Your Fireplace	2016	Short	US	2
May 1	Blast Beat	2016	Short	US	2
May 2	Weiner	2016	Feature	US	4
May 2	The Lost Arcade	2016	Feature	US	3
May 3	Don't Think Twice	2016	Feature	US	4
May 3	Little Men	2016	Feature	US	3
May 4	The Intervention	2016	Feature	US	3
May 5	Going the Distance	2016	Short	US	4
May 5	Killer	2016	Short	US	4
May 5	Pickle	2015	Short	US	3
May 5	Affections	2015	Short	US	2
May 6	My Brother is a Zombie	2015	Short	US	4
May 6	Tilly	2015	Short	US	3
May 6	The Itching	2016	Short	US	2
May 7	Captain America: The Winter Soldier	2014	Feature	US	5
May 7	Fantastic Four	2015	Feature	US	2
May 8	Captain America: Civil War	2016	Feature	US	4
May 15	Money Monster	2016	Feature	US	3
May 17	Wet Hot American Summer	2001	Feature	US	3
May 19	Z for Zacharia	2015	Feature	US	3
May 19	Mr. Holmes	2015	Feature	US	3
May 21	All the Way	2016	Feature	US	5
May 22	The Nice Guys	2016	Feature	US	3
May 23	Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation	2015	Feature	US	4
May 27	Love & Friendship	2016	Feature	Ireland	3
May 28	The Intern	2015	Feature	US	3
May 29	Under the Gun	2016	Feature	US	4
May 29	The Lobster	2016	Feature	Greece	2
Jun 2	The Scarecrow	1920	Short	US	3
Jun 2	The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean	1972	Feature	US	2
Jun 3	Tale of Tales	2016	Feature	Italy	3
Jun 5	Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping	2016	Feature	US	2
Jun 7	The Martian	2015	Feature	US	5
Jun 8	Good Kill	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 9	Room 237	2012	Feature	US	2
Jun 11	Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight	2013	Feature	US	4
Jun 11	Pal Joey	1957	Feature	US	3
Jun 11	Meet the Hitlers	2016	Feature	US	3
Jun 12	The Fallen Idol	1948	Feature	Britain	4
Jun 12	The Searchers	1956	Feature	US	3
Jun 12	Alexander Hamilton	1931	Feature	US	3
Jun 13	Lawrence of Arabia	1962	Feature	Britain	5
Jun 18	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1	2012	Feature	US	4
Jun 18	Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2	2012	Feature	US	4
Jun 18	The Alamo	1960	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	Everest	2015	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	De Palma	2016	Feature	US	4
Jun 19	The Walk	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 22	Tickled	2016	Feature	US	4
Jun 24	Batman: Under the Red Hood	2010	Feature	US	3
Jun 24	The Good Dinosaur	2015	Feature	US	3
Jun 24	Shutter	2008	Feature	US	2
Jun 26	The Man Who Knew Infinity	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Jun 28	Swiss Army Man	2016	Feature	US	5
Jul 2	Go West	1925	Feature	US	4
Jul 2	Shaun the Sheep Movie	2015	Feature	Britain	4
Jul 2	Captive	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 2	O.C. and Stiggs	1985	Feature	US	2
Jul 2	Laurel Canyon	2002	Feature	US	2
Jul 3	Path to War	2002	Feature	US	4
Jul 3	Gangster Squad	2013	Feature	US	3
Jul 3	Ted 2	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 3	Batman: Year One	2011	Feature	US	3
Jul 4	Misery	1990	Feature	US	4
Jul 4	Get Shorty	1995	Feature	US	4
Jul 4	MI-5	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Jul 5	Heist	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 6	Heartburn	1986	Feature	US	2
Jul 7	A Walk Among the Tombstones	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 7	Project Almanac	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 8	The Normal Heart	2014	Feature	US	4
Jul 9	Black Sunday	1977	Feature	US	3
Jul 10	Broken Blossoms	1919	Feature	US	4
Jul 10	Swiss Army Man	2016	Feature	US	5
Jul 11	Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars	1973	Feature	Britain	2
Jul 11	The Game	1997	Feature	US	3
Jul 17	Stonewall	2015	Feature	US	2
Jul 17	Concussion	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 17	Straight Outta Compton	2015	Feature	US	4
Jul 17	Ghostbusters	2016	Feature	US	2
Jul 24	Star Trek Beyond	2016	Feature	US	2
Jul 29	Thunder Road	2016	Short	US	3
Jul 30	That Cold Day in the Park	1969	Feature	US	2
Jul 30	Cesar Chavez	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 30	High Anxiety	1977	Feature	US	4
Jul 30	Atari: Game Over	2014	Feature	US	3
Jul 31	Spectre	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Jul 31	The 33	2015	Feature	US	3
Jul 31	Jason Bourne	2016	Feature	US	3
Aug 2	Munich	2005	Feature	US	4
Aug 4	Deception	2008	Feature	US	2
Aug 4	The Rocketeer	1991	Feature	US	4
Aug 5	My Left Foot	1989	Feature	Ireland	4
Aug 6	Boyz n the Hood	1991	Feature	US	5
Aug 7	Shalll We Dance	2004	Feature	US	3
Aug 7	Captain Fantastic	2016	Feature	US	4
Aug 14	Grandma	2015	Feature	US	4
Aug 14	Black Girl	1966	Feature	France	3
Aug 16	Complete Unknown	2016	Feature	US	2
Aug 19	Things to Come	1936	Feature	Britain	3
Aug 20	Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country	1991	Feature	US	4
Aug 20	There Will Be Blood	2007	Feature	US	4
Aug 21	Office Space	1999	Feature	US	4
Aug 28	Movie Crazy	1932	Feature	US	3
Aug 28	Hell or High Water	2016	Feature	US	4
Aug 29	Truth	2015	Feature	US	3
Aug 29	The Lady in the Van	2015	Feature	Britain	3
Sep 3	The Silencers	1966	Feature	US	3
Sep 3	In the Heart of the Sea	2015	Feature	US	2
Sep 3	Pride	2014	Feature	Britain	4
Sep 4	Jane Wants a Boyfriend	2016	Feature	US	3
Sep 4	It Follows	2015	Feature	US	3
Sep 4	The Stanford Prison Experiment	2015	Feature	US	2
Sep 4	Sicario	2015	Feature	US	4
Sep 5	The Rat Race	1960	Feature	US	3
Sep 5	Hysteria	2011	Feature	Britain	3
Sep 5	The Quiet American	2002	Feature	Britain	4
Sep 5	Carrie	1976	Feature	US	3
Sep 6	Black Sea	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Sep 6	The Jerk	1979	Feature	US	4
Sep 6	Leon: The Professional	1994	Feature	US	4
Sep 7	Very Semi-Serious	2015	Feature	US	3
Sep 7	Coney Island	1917	Short	US	3
Sep 11	Star Trek III: The Search For Spock	1984	Feature	US	3
Sep 11	Sully	2016	Feature	US	3
Sep 18	Tron	1982	Feature	US	2
Sep 19	Star Trek V: The Final Frontier	1989	Feature	US	1
Sep 22	Shakes the Clown	1991	Feature	US	3
Sep 24	Spartacus	1960	Feature	US	5
Sep 25	Ben-Hur	1959	Feature	US	3
Oct 1	Whiskey Tango Foxtrot	2016	Feature	US	2
Oct 2	Command and Control	2016	Feature	US	3
Oct 8	13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi	2016	Feature	US	3
Oct 9	The Birth of a Nation	2016	Feature	US	4
Oct 16	Denial	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Oct 17	Borrowed Time	2016	Short	US	3
Oct 19	Never Happened	2016	Short	US	4
Oct 22	Blazing Saddles	1974	Feature	US	5
Oct 23	Moonlight	2016	Feature	US	4
Oct 25	The Handmaiden	2016	Feature	Korea	5
Oct 26	I Am Not Your Negro	2017	Feature	US	5
Oct 27	After the Storm	2016	Feature	Japan	3
Oct 27	The Autopsy of Jane Doe	2016	Feature	Britain	4
Oct 28	Loving	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 2	Manchester by the Sea	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 3	Piper	2016	Short	US	4
Nov 6	Doctor Strange	2016	Feature	US	3
Nov 13	Arrival	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 15	Noctural Animals	2016	Feature	US	3
Nov 19	By the Sea	2015	Feature	US	1
Nov 20	The Edge of Seventeen	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 22	The Martian	2015	Feature	US	5
Nov 24	Funeral in Berlin	1966	Feature	US	4
Nov 24	Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House	1948	Feature	US	5
Nov 25	Jobs	2013	Feature	US	3
Nov 26	Nanook of the North	1922	Feature	US	4
Nov 26	Zero Days	2016	Feature	US	4
Nov 26	Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice	2016	Feature	US	1
Nov 27	Harlan County U.S.A.	1976	Feature	US	4
Nov 27	The Peanuts Movie	2015	Feature	US	3
Nov 30	Ace Ventura: Pet Detective	1994	Feature	US	2
Nov 30	2 Guns	2013	Feature	US	3
Dec 3	Race	2016	Feature	US	3
Dec 3	Keanu	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 4	Evolution	2016	Feature	France	1
Dec 5	Altman	2014	Feature	US	3
Dec 6	Countdown	1968	Feature	US	2
Dec 6	Much Ado About Nothing	2013	Feature	US	3
Dec 8	Casino Royale	1967	Feature	US	2
Dec 8	Mad Hot Ballroom	2005	Feature	US	3
Dec 9	My Blueberry Nights	2007	Feature	Hong Kong	3
Dec 10	Paris Blues	1961	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	Harper	1966	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	The Drowning Pool	1975	Feature	US	3
Dec 10	The Brothers Grimsby	2016	Feature	Britain	2
Dec 11	Misconduct	2016	Feature	US	1
Dec 11	Jackie	2016	Feature	US	3
Dec 15	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 16	Star Wars IV: A New Hope	1977	Feature	US	5
Dec 17	Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 17	Eddie the Eagle	2016	Feature	Britain	3
Dec 17	War	2007	Feature	US	2
Dec 18	La La Land	2016	Feature	US	2
Dec 21	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	Feature	US	4
Dec 22	Forsaken	2015	Feature	Canada	3
Dec 24	Legend	2015	Feature	Britain	2
Dec 24	The Invisible Man	1933	Feature	US	2
Dec 24	Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens	2015	Feature	US	4
Dec 25	Keeper of the Flame	1942	Feature	US	3
Dec 25	Argo	2012	Feature	US	4
Dec 26	Bubba Ho-Tep	2002	Feature	US	2
Dec 26	City by the Sea	2002	Feature	US	3
Dec 27	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington	1939	Feature	US	4
Dec 27	The Life of an American Fireman	1903	Short	US	2
Dec 27	The Musketeers of Pig Alley	1912	Short	US	3
Dec 27	The Beau Brummels	1928	Short	US	3
Dec 27	Ball of Fire	1941	Feature	US	3
Dec 27	Punch-Drunk Love	2002	Feature	US	4
Dec 28	Ratatouille	2007	Feature	US	4
Dec 29	Meet John Doe	1941	Feature	US	4
Dec 29	Jeff, Who Lives at Home	2012	Feature	US	3
Dec 30	Sushi Girl	2012	Feature	US	3
Dec 31	Spotlight	2015	Feature	US	5

As glaciers literally crumble around him, a pianist plays an elegy for the Arctic

Vox wrote As glaciers literally crumble around him, a pianist plays an elegy for the Arctic

They claim it’s not CGI, as if pianos float…

“Back in June, as part of an advocacy campaign aimed at protecting the Arctic Ocean from oil and gas extraction, Greenpeace sent its ship Arctic Sunrise northward with some unusual cargo. The ship carried renowned pianist Ludovico Einaudi, a grand piano, and a floating wooden platform made up to look like a glacier. They put the platform in the water next to the Wahlenbergbreen glacier in Svalbard, Norway. They put the piano on the platform. And there, Einaudi played a short original composition: ‘Elegy for the Arctic.’”

2016 National Film Registry Inductees

The National Film Registry announced their 2016 inductee, With “20,000 Leagues,” the National Film Registry Reaches 700

Films Selected for the 2016 National Film Registry:

• Atomic Cafe (1982)
• Ball of Fire (1941)
• The Beau Brummels (1928)
• The Birds (1963)
• Blackboard Jungle (1955)
• The Breakfast Club (1985)
• The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
• East of Eden (1955)
• Funny Girl (1968)
• Life of an American Fireman (1903)
• The Lion King (1994)
• Lost Horizon (1937)
• The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)
• Paris Is Burning (1990)
• Point Blank (1967)
• The Princess Bride (1987)
• Putney Swope (1969)
• Rushmore (1998)
• Solomon Sir Jones films (1924–28)
• Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
• Suzanne, Suzanne (1982)
• Thelma & Louise (1991)
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
• A Walk in the Sun (1945)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

I’ve seen the bold ones, links are to the films on YouTube.. I’m thrilled to see The Princess Bride and The Breakfast Club included and it’s always nice to see Hitchcock even if The Birds isn’t my favorite. Film descriptions here.

A Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote. A New Referendum Could Change That.

A Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote. A New Referendum Could Change That.

For more than a century, the state of Florida has presided over one of American history’s single most effective and enduring efforts to disenfranchise voters. By far the most populous of the three states that strip lifelong voting rights from people with felony convictions, Florida is home to some 1.5 million residents who can never again cast a ballot unless pardoned by the state’s governor, according to a calculation by The Sentencing Project.

Yet in recent weeks, even without any significant organizational backing, a coalition composed largely of disenfranchised Floridians quietly reached a new landmark in a long and laborious fight to overturn the state’s law. On Monday, after organizers had spent years gathering the requisite 68,314 petition signatures, Florida’s high court announced it had set a March date to consider the proposal to allow a referendum on the 2018 ballot asking voters to roll back the state’s felony voting restriction.

UI design for Rogue One

Blind did the UI design for Rogue One. It seemed inscrutable to me but did match the Star Wars universe well. I wonder why it took so long to upload the Death Star plans because they’re all just 8-bit graphics.

(via Kottke)

100 Photographs | The Most Influential Images of All Time

A few weeks ago Time Magazine listed 100 Photographs | The Most Influential Images of All Time. I know many of them, many of them I don’t.

Human Population Through Time

“It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion. But growth has begun slowing, as women have fewer babies on average. When will our global population peak? And how can we minimize our impact on Earth’s resources, even as we approach 11 billion?”

The 12 key science moments of 2016

The Guardian lists The 12 key science moments of 2016.

1. World Health Organisation declares a public emergency of international concern over Zika
2. SpaceX demonstrates a big step towards fully reusable space craft
3. Portugal is entirely powered by renewable energy for four days
4. New reserves of helium discovered
5. Confirmation of the discovery of a nearby habitable planet
6. Our last universal common ancestor gets a makeover
7. The legacy of a celebrated neuroscientist is contested
8. Greenland sharks live for a very long time
9. CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere passes 400 parts per million
10. A bad marriage can lead to an early death
11. Arctic and Antarctic sea ice volumes both fall to an all-time low
12. Scientists modify photosynthesis to boost crop yield

Then again, Michael Mann wrote in the Washington Post, I’m a scientist who has gotten death threats. I fear what may happen under Trump.

Also, The Arctic could end a year of record-breaking temperatures with a heat wave. “In a year of record-high temperatures and record-low sea ice, the Arctic appears poised to witness another frightening scenario: temperatures at the North Pole so high that they might even swing above freezing, something not typically seen until May.”

Cassini: Mission to Saturn: Saturn's Hexagon in Motion

Cassini: Mission to Saturn: Saturn’s Hexagon in Motion

The differences in this version of the movie, in which different wavelengths of light from ultraviolet to visible to infrared have been assigned colors, show a distinct contrast between the types of atmospheric particles inside and outside the hexagon. Inside the hexagon there are fewer large haze particles and a concentration of small haze particles, while outside the hexagon, the opposite is true. The jet stream that makes up the hexagon seems to act like a barrier, which results in something like the ‘ozone hole’ in the Antarctic.

This movie shows a view from directly over the north pole, keeping up with the rotation of the planet so that all the motion seen on the screen is the motion of the hexagonal jet stream or the storms inside of it, without any added motion from the spinning of the planet itself. The original images were re-projected to show this polar view.

The eight frames of the movie were captured over 10 hours on Dec.10, 2012. Each of the eight frames consists of 16 map-projected images (four per color filter, and four filters per frame) so the movie combines data from 128 images total."

Movie Review: Rogue One

It’s very good. It’s like a Star Wars version of the Guns of Navarone. I went into it knowing virtually nothing about it, having seen only one trailer a few months ago. I left very happy. It’s not without flaws, but I enjoyed it and the third act worked very well. I can quibble about some things, but that makes for fun post movie discussion.

I saw it in IMAX 3D in the second row. I even saw it in the only laser 4K projector theater in New England but I still want to see it again in 2D. I don’t think it will make much of a difference. I didn’t like wearing the glasses, I felt like I was watching through a porthole. Also lots of shots were composed for 3D, so when people are standing around talking, there’s someone’s back in the foreground covering half the frame and it’s very blurry and then there’s someone facing the camera in focus and then there’s background out of focus. The depth of field in a lot of shots seemed unnecessarily shallow. It got much better in the climax. If there’s a 2D IMAX version (I’m not sure there is) I’d go for that.

I left with a question that I can state here without spoilers. The Star Wars universe has some interesting future tech and seems short changed in some other ways. They don't seem to have decent encryption for secret transmissions, so they have to messenger things around. There's a bit of computer tech in Rogue One that just had me scratching my head of why someone would invent something like that. So here's the question. How long until Star Wars becomes the old Flash Gordon serials, where the tech is no longer futuristic?

Update: This is Film Critics Hulk’s take, Film Crit Hulk SMASH: The Slippery, Sloping Story of ROGUE ONE and I have to say I agree with all of it.

10 Best Opening Title Sequences of All Time

Top 25 News Photos of 2016

Some really stunning photos in The Atlantic’s Top 25 News Photos of 2016 “The past twelve months have been an eventful time for news stories, from the unpredictable and tumultuous U.S. presidential election, to continued war and terror in the Middle East and refugees fleeing to Europe, to a historic World Series win for the Chicago Cubs, ongoing protests demanding racial justice in the U.S., the Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, and so much more. Today, we present the Top 25 News Photos of 2016—and starting tomorrow will be presenting part one of a more comprehensive three-part series, 2016: The Year in Photos. Warning, some of the photos may contain graphic or objectionable content.”

Your Periodic Table Is Officially Out of Date

Gizmodo reports Your Periodic Table Is Officially Out of Date

Scientists with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) have officially approved the names of four new elements, completing the seventh row of the periodic table.

The four elements, discovered between 2002 and 2010, aren’t new per se, but the names are. IUPAC officially recognized the discovery of the super-heavy, highly reactive elements in December of 2015, and announced the suggested names back in June of this year. After a five-month chill-out period for the world to digest the new monikers, the bureau made the names official this week.

• Nihonium and symbol Nh, for the element 113
• Moscovium and symbol Mc, for the element 115
• Tennessine and symbol Ts, for the element 117
• Oganesson and symbol Og, for the element 118

Japanese researchers proposed Nihonium, which means Japan, and a team of scientists from Russia and the US named Moscovium for Moscow and Tennessine for Tennessee. Oganesson was named in honor of Yuri Oganessian, a Russian chemist. The additions replace the current seventh row placeholders, ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium, ununoctium (and good riddance)."