Science and Technology

As many of you know, we had a “perfect storm” meltdown yesterday which put us offline for about 5 hours in the late-morning and early-afternon: hard drive failure, then complete computer failure. The odds against these things happening successively are staggeringly high, but it shows you that if it CAN …

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored this year’s Oscar contenders at its annual Nominees Luncheon Feb.7 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. 115 nominees from 24 categories gathered at noon for the traditional pre-Academy Awards fete. The big news was the announcement that the awards show itself will …

Hey, I’m at the tail end of the baby boom and you’ve been hearing all about how we refuse to grow old gracefully or cast aside our youthful ways, outlook, thought patterns. Generally this holds true for me: I’m as deeply entrenched in popular culture as ever, and I can …

Sadly, this solicitation no longer holds: “The worlds largest and most successful commercial recording facility.” “The completion of the Hit Factory in ’93, set a new bench mark against which many recording facilities will be judged well into the new millenium. The studios offer traditional recording techniques supported by innovative …

First off, allow me to preface the rather notable news that Volvo is announcing a contest to give away a seat on the Virgin Galactic spaceship during their Super Bowl commercial Sunday, by noting that Richard Branson is a dickleak. I have nothing in particular against the guy and his …

I will no longer tell my children to stop fidgeting: The most detailed study ever conducted of mundane bodily movements found that obese people tend to be much less fidgety than lean people and spend at least two hours more each day just sitting still. The extra motion by lean …

It is so easy to be carried along in the slipstream of writing, editing, commenting, etc., here that it’s takes special effort to just top and smell the bird of paradise already lodged in your nose. As of about NOW, Blogcritics is an official functioning Google News source, which is …

On December 10, 2004 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the entertainment industry’s case against two file-sharing services, Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc (Morpheus), through which millions of people swap music and movies online, a decision that could decide the future of digital copyright rules and related technology for …

One of the most important and insightful jazz writers alive, Gary Giddins, whose most recent book is Weather Bird – Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Century, a collection of his Weather Bird columns from the Village Voice, will be chatting live with all comers tomorrow, Wednesday January 26 …

I am sad to report the end of Cynthia Webb’s excellent tech and Internet column, Filter, for Washington Post.com. She said farewell on Friday: The tech sector has come along way since this column began two-and-a-half years ago. In 2002, pink slips were more common than initial public offerings, venture …