Rants at a picnic…

Mike’s Blender – Food For Thought – Cake Lighter Than Air.

The Good Stuff — Episode 1: Take THAT, plastic bags! « The Story of Stuff Project.

When I was little, we always had huge stacks of paper grocery bags around the house. They never got thrown away. I never even thought of it. When you took your groceries out, they just about folded themselves back up. All you had to do was put them in the stack. We used them for everything. You could ripen bananas in them. You could store potatoes in them. But they weren’t just limited to food! We covered all of our school books with brown paper from cut up grocery bags. The uses were limitless, and there were always bags at home when you wanted one. (more…)

This is Magibon. She stares at you with her great big eyes. Sometimes she says “I’m Magibon” in Japanese. Sometimes she says “byebye” at the end. Usually she doesn’t. She just stares at you. That’s her thing. And it’s not just the one video. She has bunches of videos of her staring at you with those HUGE eyes. And this ‘talent’ of hers made made her a star. That’s right!
Millions of people watched her watching them on youtube and now she get interviewed on radio programs and Japanese magazines. In fact, all of Japan seems smitten with her. She’s not Japanese. She doesn’t speak Japanese. She barely speaks at all, but her youtube fame has now landed her voice acting jobs! Tell me how that works?
I have nothing against the kid. I hope she doesn’t read this and think I dislike her in any way. I can’t possibly do that since I don’t know her at all. I’d actually like to meet her. She isn’t the same person as she seems to be in her videos. All I’m really talking about here is fame.
Fame is so random. People like to believe they can be a great actor or singer or whatever, and get ‘discovered’ and move to Nashville or Hollywood and then you’re in. But look at how it really happens. How many of those famous people were already from Hollywood? MOST of them! It’s not about who is the best. It’s about who was around the studio when the casting call went out.
I’ve heard people complain about the winners of shows, such as American Idol, like those aren’t ‘real’ stars. Just some TV fluff that would have never been know if this reality show hadn’t come by with these nationwide auditions. It’s just contestants on a game show. WRONG! Do you have any idea how many auditions you have to go through to get to the top of those programs? Sure, they let some of the horrible stuff through for entertainment value, but the real winners WORKED to get where they are. And they had the talent in the first place. Those nation wide talent searches comb through a much greater section of the population, so I think they stand a much better chance of finding talent than just to rely on whomever just happened to be already living in Hollywood.

I guess the point I’m making is that talent and fame are not related in any way.

Basically, she gets told she needs this tiny computer (It’s a pacemaker!) installed in her body, and she immediately wants to know what its running! And why not? How can you trust the creator of the software to create a perfect device? Is it reliable? Is it stable? Are there security issues? None of these questions can be answered without access to the source code. Well done, Karen Sandler! You’ve asked the right questions.

Running time: 42 minutes, 45 seconds

Cyborg lawyer demands software source – Software – News – ZDNet Australia.

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