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"I once sat next to a kid in grade school who collected his boogers on a piece of paper. At the end of each week he would take it out and draw a circle around the significant ones.
I don't think I ever learned what their significance was."
This is not just a random story shared by Kenyatta but in response to the post below.
Stanford is the secret sauce of Silicon Valley, our colleague Mike Langberg explains in this piece (free registration). Nothing too surprising, perhaps. But he doesn't talk much about what Stanford means for venture capitalists. And why Foundation Capital -- a well-known venture firm here in Silicon Valley -- will announce today that Stanford University has joined as an investor in Foundation's latest $525 million venture fund. Remember, it was John Doerr, of Kleiner Perkins, who walked the halls at Stanford and invested in Sun Microsystems, and angle investor Ram Shriram who stumbled upon the Google co-founders when he was visiting a Stanford professor....
Many people have sent this article to me and thanks so much. I love Barack Obama. It has been a long time since I have said so. Let me remind y'all again.
I love how this article begins:
MOST politicians spend their careers working to overcome flaws. Then there are politicians like Barack Obama.at his greatest challenge has been trying to play down expectations during his first Senate term, Mr. Obama's enviable plight was neatly underlined at a black-tie dinner here last weekend, as President Bush facetiously tried to roast him.
"Senator Obama, I want to do a joke on you," the president told the audience at the annual Gridiron dinner, an event where politicians and the press mingle to make fun of one another. "But doing a joke on you is like doing a joke on the pope. Give me something to work with. Mispronounce something."
Keep in mind that President Bush had no idea who Obama was before his famous Democratic Convention speech in 2004. I remember a journalist asking him a question about Obama and Bush looking almost pale thinking the journalist said Osama. Barack must get that a lot.
What I find interesting about this article is what is not being said. It seems strange that the writer did not address race. In some ways, I can understand why she did not. Barack is a beloved by everyone and that has nothing to do with race really. He is intelligent. He has integrity. He is straightforward. I for one really miss the days of having politicians we can be proud of. As a person who has just travelled abroad, I can say that people in other countries hate Bush. Hate him. And I sick of people telling me so.
I do think the fact that Obama is black is something to mention though. Many people are looking for a voice that is not a 50-70 year old white male in office. It is why so many people have so much hope in Obama. Obama as "The Great Black Hope" is something that might later be his downfall. Addressing that fact would have made this article a bit more complex.
I have to ask a question. Something I have been wondering about for most of my life.
It is cold here in New York. Yes, it is warmer than it has been (or so I've heard) but it is still cold. Cold I say. I know the sun is shining and this might be misleading but make no mistake. It is cold. And being New York, it will not be warm until late April, early May. Maybe. (As we all know, global warming changes everything.)
So, why, oh why, white people are you wearing sandals? Why are you wearing shorts?
Don't get me wrong. I like white people. Some of my best friends are white. But I just do not understand you. And I am not alone. I can speak for a large portion of the African-American community ( and probably most people of color but I will not speak for them) when I say that at times like these, we are laughing at you. Laughing at you.
White people, I am going to let you in on a secret. You know how sometimes a black person looks at you and then shakes their head. Or when you see two black people look at you and then look at each other trying not to laugh. Well, that has to do with your crazy choice to wear no jacket in 30 degree weather or open toed sandles or shorts! Black folks do not even have to exchange words about this. All we do is look at each other and shake our heads. This is code for: "White people. Who understands them."
Don't you feel cold? Don't you get sick? Can't you just wait until it is legitimately warm until you pull out the summer clothing? Or better yet, just go somewhere warm for a weekend or so and get all of this out of your system. Help me understand. Help us understand.
Thank you. I am done.
This is from indieWIRE:
Actor Randy Quaid has filed a lawsuit against Focus Features, claiming that he was misled about Brokeback Mountain being a small movie in what his lawyers are calling a "movie laundering scheme".pdf and look at this! I think this lawsuit is really going to make an impact on independent film.In court documents filed yesterday in Los Angeles (and published by AOL's TMZ.com), Quaid's lawsuit (seeking $10 millon in damages) reads:
Producers James Schamus and David Linde, by and through Focus Features, LLC, and Del Mar Productions, succeeded in obtaining Randy Quaid's performance in 'Brokeback Mountain' by falsely representing it as a low-budget, art-house film, with no prospect of making any money. Yet, from day one, defendents fully intended that the film would not be made on a low budget, would be given a worldwide release, and would be supported as the studio picture it always was secretly intended to be.Additionally, the filing also contends that Quaid is "an instantly recognizable household name and much-admired actor on the world's stage". His legal representatives claim that he is responsible for a worldwide box office of "nearly $2 billion." The film was made for $14.9 million and has grossed more than $80 million in the U.S.
At first, I dismissed this lawsuit mainly because Randy Quaid was in this film for a hot minute. Plus, the document acts as if Randy Quaid is the kind of star that people go to movies specifically to see. However he does have a leg to stand on with this suit.
Producers were calling this film low-budget but it did cost 14.9 million dollars which is low but that low. What the film has made (which is 80 million dollars so far) is not really the issue because he did not ask for a back end deal so he is not supposed to see any portion of the profits. I do think it can be proven the Producers had a deal with Universal before the film was made. If this is the case, the film was then worth much more than 14.9 million dollars. The reason for this is that marketing is not included in that number and they spent a ton on this film.
Still the big question this suit brings up is: What is a low budget film? What is the cap on a film being seen as low budget? This question has been defined lately by big Hollywood stars who take pay "cuts" to be in these teeny movies that really are not teeny at all. But what I want are cold hard facts. What is the industry standard for a low budget narrative film. What is the cap on it? Where is this information? The lawsuit states that the cap is 7 million dollars but where did the lawyers get this information? SAGIndie, the Screen Actors Guild's indie film wing, creates low budget contract for actors. They work with projects with budgets of $0 to 2 million dollars. That seems a little low.
I am going to wait to read what some other news outlets have to say but as someone in this industry, I think this lawsuit could bring about a lot of dialogue.
The Guardian has an interesting article by Banksy on the future of Melbourne's street art scene due to the Commonwealth games. London, he warns, could be next.
In this exclusive vidcast, Josh over at Cool Hunting has a conversation with Richard Linklater about his highly anticipated new film A Scanner Darkly. The acclaimed director of films such as Waking Life, The School of Rock, Before Sunset and Slacker discusses the challenges of transforming a live action film into an animated full length feature.
Finger breakdancing. Awesome.
edgrawes posted a photo:
This is cool.
Check out Mihai Parparita’s Google Reader Tidbits, about how he used Google Reader hacks to do a bunch of clever feed splicing. The article is interesting, and I think Atom is going to enable a bunch of feed-mashup creativity that I’m not smart enough to invent. But I wanted to do a deep-dive on the actual Atom feed he generated, which is probably of interest only to obsessive Atom 1.0 fetishists...
DaimlerChrysler expects its ailing Smart small-car brand to break even next year, according to the car maker's finance chief.
Smart has not made a profit since the brand made its debut in October 1998 with the quirky two-seat model that remains its best seller. But it has slashed staff, costs and its planned model line-up in a drive to end the losses by next year. (CNN)
