NASA Buys Inflatable Room for Space Station
January 15, 2013

Remember taking off your shoes and jumping around in an inflatable room?

So does NASA. They're buying one for $17.8 million. No wonder we had to take off our shoes.

They are getting ripped off. Target has one for $399.99 with free shipping.

That's right NASA, free shipping, as in straight to the International Space Station. But if Target baulks, there is an alternative way to get it up there. Air technology could be used to launch the room into space. See the image below.

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Music Associations: The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe & David Bowie - Space Oddity




Seasonal Influenza
January 14, 2013

I didn't watch last night's Golden Globes. I've read that Jennifer Lawrence had the flu and that co-host Amy Poehler said, "Meryl Streep is not here tonight. She has the flu. I hear she's amazing in it."

Here's the key news about the flu this week:

The United States has the flu. The notable exceptions are Hawaii (sporadic), California and Mississippi (regional), and the District of Columbia (localized). This week's CDC map shows the rest of the country reporting widespread cases of the flu. But widespread geographically is not the same as a high percentage of the population. Currently an estimated 5.6% of health patients are reporting respiratory illnesses, an indicator of the flu.

The flu is earlier this season than most. Here's the current Weekly Flu Activity chart for Minnesota. Google has a Flu Trends chart. The chart doesn't identify flu outbreaks. It identifies the popularity of flu-related Google searches.

In the first week of 2013 in Minnesota, there have been 23 reported deaths from influenza.

Minnesota recorded 33 deaths and 552 hospitalizations in the 2011-2012 flu season, 70 deaths and 972 hospitalizations in the 2010-2011 flu season, and 67 flu-related deaths and 1,824 hospitalizations during the 2009-2010 flu season.

This year's vaccine has a close match to this season's influenza; it's said to be 62% effective.

Visit the Minnesota Health Department flu information page for more information and the Mayo Clinic self-assessment.

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Music Association: Adelitas Way - Sick
[Editor's Note: January 18th - Minnesota flu deaths up to 60.]











Business and Financial News
January 11, 2013

►  American Express is cutting 5,400 jobs, mostly in its travel business. American Express has a travel business?
►  Citigroup is cutting 11,000 jobs.
►  Morgan Stanley is cutting 1,600 jobs.
►  SuperValu is selling its Jewels (and its Oscos).
►  It might be time for Time Inc. to have about 600 layoffs.

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Music Association: The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love






What the World Needs Now
January 10, 2013

Panasonic acknowledges the dangers of cameramen run amuck (see previous post).

They Kare.

At this week's Consumer Electronics Show, they have introduced an alternative, the HX-A100, which will revolutionize the insurance liabilities of local news stations.

You've seen the earpiece microphone... well, the HX-A100 is the earpiece video camera. It blends the dizzying stability and absent production values of YouTube videos with the techno-fashion of the 1990s.



Your ear could hold the future of documentaries and cameramen.

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Music Association: Hal David and Burt Bacharach - What The World Needs Now







This Week in Restaurant Football
January 9, 2013



On Saturday morning, KARE 11's Lee Valsvik was tackled by her cameraman during a segment at the Union Restaurant in Minneapolis (before the Packers v. Vikings reciprocity rematch Saturday night).

Lee Valsvik reports she's fine. The Union Restaurant, at 731 Hennepin Av (formerly Snyders > Burger King > Shinders), opened last November with a retractable roof. The Vikings started backup QB Joe Webb, and the Vikings backed up their defense to give the Packers plenty of room to play.

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Music Association: Nick Lowe - Cruel To Be Kind  
"I pick myself up off the ground, just to have you, knock me back down, again and again."






Type AC Personalities
January 8, 2013

I was talking with my good friend Dr. Stan. (Was it last week? Yeah it was last week because I wished him a happy new year. He replied, "That's bad for business. A whole year of happiness? that would hurt.") We hadn't talked since before the holidays (his busy season). I asked about his January client-base and seasonal affective disorder. He kind of turned it around on me and asked if I was sick.

There's something odd to me about a psychiatrist who asks me if I'm sick.

I told him, yeah, I've got the sniffles.

He cracked up. "The sniffles?!? that's it?!?" He freaked out that I don't get sick (just not as much as the time he freaked out that I was smiling in the airport). He had been trying to make a comparison between me and his Christmas obsessed patients. I don't think I'm Christmas obsessed.

So I said, "Like type A plus Christmas. Would that be type A+C or type AC or type AX?"

He said, "Christmas intensive. January is their month to be physically ill." I asked why. He said, "For some, the epinephrine (adrenaline) that has fueled their immune system shuts down, leaving them suddenly vulnerable. For some, the stress of the holidays catches up to them once they have a chance to think about, to process, all that happened. Some people are sick from the flights and close contact with strangers and changes in food cycles and rest cycles, er... patterns."

I asked if we could settle on calling it Type AC.

Dr. Stan replied, "Christmas intensive."

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Music Association: Pilot - January









Brain Development Interruptus
January 7, 2013

Science Daily has two articles today on cognitive impairment: Modern Parenting May Hinder Brain Development and Even Brief Interruptions Spawn Errors. Reading the two articles simultaneously (In today's modern world, how could anyone devote all their attention to reading one article at a time?) gives a complex view on brain development.

The first article lists the ways modern (western) parenting -- infant formula, separate rooms, a lack of creative outlets, one caregiver households -- stifles the mental and moral development of children. The second article explains how even the shortest of interruptions can lead to errors in [cell phone rings] hang on I've got to... uh...

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Music Association: Drake - Doing It Wrong






Intelligent Transport System
January 4, 2013

It's the Intelligent Transport System (ITS).

And it's the equivalent of Autodrive on a Toyota's Lexus LS 600h advanced active safety research vehicle (AASRV), which will be shown at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show next week (Jan. 8-11) in Las Vegas.

ITS Features:

Not to be outdone, Audi will be showing their Q3 self-parking car at the 2013 CES. Here's a video.

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Music Associations: The Cars - Drive & The Beatles - Drive My Car
Novel Association: Hopes and Dreams - Stuck on Autodrive (Buy It)





storytellers
Preview Commentary
January 3, 2013

As a storyteller, my ideal is an entertaining, unique, and pure story. In this sense, pure means distraction-free. Pure means not obliterating the message with corporate committee nonsense. In my review of Skyfall, I commented on storytelling distractions, sort of "you told us the gun had a bio-safety feature, but now he's wearing gloves and the gun shows green lights" distractions.

When I watch movies on disk, I'll always watch the commentaries, to the point that I'd watch the commentary on the movie trailer.



Hi, this is Doug. I was the director of this movie preview. When I say that, people ask, "Wow, you directed that movie?!?" And I clarify -- "No, no, I just directed the trailer, the preview."  This is the green preview identifier telling audiences that they aren't seeing a whole other movie, just a commercial... a coming attraction. Here are some establishing shots from the movie, snippets really, taken out of sequence and filmed by the second unit director. That one, the one with the field, was actually third unit. The first voice over guy did great work, speaking with deep gravitas, but he was painfully slow. The whole ninety seconds was storyboarded to show where his words should land, what moments match with which words, but the guy could not keep up. We had to switch voice over guys. The first guy got paid, but that work will only be shown if someday in the distant future, disks include rejected trailers. And we are out of time. Thanks for listening.

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Music Association: Moody Blues - The Voice







movie review
Skyfall
January 2, 2013

There are two types of people: those who divide people into types and those who don't.

I'm the type of person that sees a movie but is also peeking behind the screen (so to speak) at how it's made. A big group of people and myself went to see (the ninth week running) James Bond movie Skyfall on New Year's Eve, just hours after I posted about a coming comet.

Are you still here? Good. Skyfall was a good, entertaining movie. It had nothing to do with Chicken Little or solving the world's problems outside of Bond's world.

The problem with Bond's world is that movie tricks are visible within it. Motorcycles drive on Turkish roofs paved with a narrow bike trail that looked all wrong (to me, peering behind the screen).  Bond steps out onto the arm of a Caterpillar excavator rigged with two grates welded to allow Bond to walk across it. And later in the film, he dives into an icy lake only to appear dry in the next scene. (It was dry ice.)

Still, the mistakes did not interfere with the movie's entertainment value (measured by the Bond market).

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Music Association: Boy Meets Girl - Waiting For A Sky To Fall








[10:45pm]
Say good-bye to the fiscal cliff. The U.S. House voted 257 to 167 to pass the Senate bill raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and cementing previous tax cuts for most Americans. The deadline had been the end of 2012, but the damage would begin on January 2nd when the financial markets and government offices open.

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Music Association: Julian Lennon - Too Late For Goodbyes

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