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The Macintosh Story

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh when it went on sale on this date in 1984. Here is an old "Making Of" documentary by Apple from that year. Look for the Bill Gates cameo in part two of the video Part 1.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PheGcPe6JDo&eurl&fmt=18]

Part 2.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Ik-qkdG_o&NR=1&fmt=18]

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Short Film: A Thousand Words

This is a simple yet compelling short directed by Ted Chung. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/2884813]

To explore later: The very recent introduction of the digital camera as a plot device.

[Via]

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Interview with Wall-E Director Andrew Stanton

Newsweek's Sarah Ball briefly talks to Andrew Stanton, the director of Wall-E about the conflation between animated and non-animated films as well as why Eve has a freakin' gun.  He also mentions a sequel. I really hope they don't go there.

Eve has gotten some blog buzz as the one of the best-written female characters of the year. Since she goes around blowing things up, what feminizes her?

I'm probably going to offend you, but I was just trying to sort of emotionally and temperamentally capture what I've always seen a male-female relationship to be. At least out of my experience -- and I'm a nerd. I've always been shocked and waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop that a girl would ever talk to me, let alone want to marry me. They always seem to hold the power to me, and from my mother to my wife to my daughter, every time I try to really figure them out, and think I've got them pegged, I pay for it. There's a mercurial nature, but more of a mysterious nature to women that I think is what makes them so attractive. And I think that that's what I love: Guys never seem to know when they've come too close and crossed the line, and then the temper comes.

AKA, then Eve guns something down.

Exactly. That's really what the gun was all about, was Wall-E having no clue where the boundaries were with a woman. Because men don't either. Men just stumble into it and find out through experience. And they either survive it, or they don't. And that's really all it was, was a metaphor for that. The fact that she was high-technology and she had a subcutaneous technology that you couldn't really see, I felt, one, made her just technologically more beautiful and stuff, because wanted her to be pretty in a way that another robot would possibly see another machine being pretty, not pretty in the way that humans see somebody. But [her façade] also just kept her a mystery. There's something about her -- the fact that she floats. That fact that he touches the ground and he's all dirty, and she can stay clean. Some of these are kind of conventional thinking for the gender, but they just worked -- they worked on a primal level.

Read rest of interview here.

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"Chocolate" Trailer

This trailer for a martial arts movie (Chocolate) starts off slowly but quickly gains speed and frankly, it looks AWESOME. Nicharee "Jeeja" Vismistananda stars as an autistic girl who learns all of her fighting skills from classic martial arts movies on her TV and from watching the lessons at the muay thai school next door. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axf_EXzF_qM&fmt=18]

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Last Night's Party

I'm headed back to New York City today. Thanks to Pooja (you can see all her photos on the Sundance website) for putting up with me. I'll have a full recap later, but in the meantime here's a video of one of Tze's friends going at the karaoke hard at a party. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/2924432]

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Falling Buildings

Models of a building project in Tirana, Albania by MVRDV intended to create a "liberating space for a park, recreational facilities, new public spaces and ecologic interventions," where "the stacked and twisted volumes create spectacular public spaces and provide dramatic vistas."

[Via]

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Top 10 Neighborhoods

According to this website's top 10 list of the dreamiest neighborhoods in America my neighborhood ranks number 7. That said, based on the competition (Scottsdale? Ew.) on this list I'm not sure I'm happy about this.

#7. Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. This neighborhood's historic charm, top-notch restaurants and shopping, and proximity to Prospect Park make it an attractive alternative to Manhattan for families and professionals. Seventh and Fifth avenues are Park Slope's main commercial areas, while other streets are occupied by renovated brownstones, which can sell for millions of dollars.

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Asian Guy Sitting with Obamas at Inauguration

During the inauguration coverage, you may have noticed an Asian guy sitting with the Obama family and thus frequently displayed. Who is he? He is the First Brother-in-Law! Konrad Ng is married to Barack Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. Check out the diversity of Obama's immediate and extended family in this New York Times graphic.

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Obama's New Top Secret Blackberry?

For obvious security reasons modern era presidents avoid e-mails. Clinton sent just two e-mails as president while Dubya didn't use e-mail at all during his time at the White House. However, President Obama has been vocal about his addiction to his Blackberry and apparently he will get to continue using a Blackberry after all. Of course, it will have super uber duper security encryption.

There is some precedent: the National Security Agency (our country's electronic spooks) has certified a PDA made by General Dynamics for top secret voice, e-mail, and web-browsing communications.

Through three separate interchangeable modules, it works with Wi-Fi, GSM, or CDMA networks, and is dust-proof, waterproof, and rugged enough to survive repeated 4-foot drops onto concrete. Physically, it's a chunkier second cousin to the Palm Treo 750, though with an additional LCD display below the keyboard.

The price is $3,350 with a two-year warranty...

Read further about the security and legal implications of electronic messaging and the presidency here.

[Via]

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