Our good friends Merritt Patterson and Charles Geilich, from People Newspapers, do a podcast every week called “Bursting the Bubble.” This week, I was their special guest. You can listen. But you can’t comment. Not here, anyway. (But I’ll open comments on their site for you.)
Mark Cuban’s 2929 Productions is bringing the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to screens in October. More than enough reason to post this kind of tense trailer.
Nerd fight!
Just got this missive from Margaret at SMU’s public affairs office. Don’t you think for a minute they’re going to let UTD have the last word on just how ridiculous Angels & Demons‘ take is on antimatter.
I enjoyed your post today on Frontburner about the accuracy of the science in the new Ron Howard movie Angels & Demons. We asked one of our physics professors, Fredrick Olness, to comment on the movie’s science, and here’s what he had to say:
* While it’s true that the particle physics laboratory CERN has created antimatter, it would take more than a billion years (with current technology) to make the quantity of antimatter described in the movie. If you collected all the antimatter that CERN has ever created, it would only power an electric light bulb for a few minutes.
* It’s true that when antimatter and matter meet, they annihilate into pure energy; however, antimatter is not a source of energy. The production of antimatter is very inefficient, so it takes much more energy to create the antimatter than you get back.
* It is also true that we are able to store antimatter, but scientists don’t actually keep antimatter on the lab shelf. Even small quantities of antimatter are difficult to store. Charged antimatter can be stored in a “magnetic bottle,” but the repulsive force of the antimatter charges greatly limits the quantity. Uncharged (neutral) antimatter cannot be contained by a “magnetic bottle.”
Sweet. Feel smart. But here’s a question: Can you mix matter and antimatter cold? Cue it at 38:35.
If you read the first entry and have been salivating for the second, well here it is.
Perhaps you’ve read Wick’s editorial in the May issue of the print product. Maybe it got you excited about D Art Slam. I hope so–because it’s almost here. Our first-ever D Art Slam, presented by D Magazine and f.i.g., begins May 29 and runs through May 31 at f.i.g. (1807 Ross Ave.). More than 150 local artists–Rees Bowen, Glenn Comtois, Frankie Garcia III, Michael Ledoux, Michael Longhofer, Shane Pennington, George Tobolowsky, and our award-winning staff photographer Elizabeth Lavin–exhibit and sell their works at this three-day juried show in the Dallas Arts District. At the VIP preview party on Thursday, March 28, from 7 to 9 pm, attendees can mix and mingle with the artists and be the first to purchase their favorite works. Tickets for the preview party are $100. To see a full list of participating artists, or to purchase tickets, visit the web site.
Mosey over to DallasDirt to see some snaps of the Bush home before it was the Bush home. For more inside scoop about 10141 Daria Place, visit People Newspapers. Oh, and speaking of the Bushes, have you seen this?
Well, hello there, boys. Whatcha doing? You know how you made me listen to Ranger talk at the Monk yesterday? I don’t like that show. So now I’ve invaded your man blog to talk about my show, The Bachelorette. Jump if you care to read my take on the first, painful, horrifying episode. Spoiler alert: Jillian apparently has even worse taste in men than I do.
Just got this e-mail from a reader regarding the Craig Watkins cover story I wrote for the March issue.
You know what GET OFF HIS [redacted]!!!!! You crackers have nothing else to do with your time but write this piece of [redacted] article. The man is only doing his job. I guess if he was to continue to incarcerate the wrongly accused then you would be happy. Get a life and get over it. The man is here and cleaning up the klu klux klan politics that have for so long plagued our city.
I’m not sure what to say. Maybe he thought Tim wrote the story?
Congrats are due writer John G. Browning, a contributing editor at D CEO magazine who’s also a practicing attorney. John’s been nominated by the Houston Press Club for two 2009 Lone Star Awards for writing about law he did for our humble publication. His regular Legalities feature is nominated for Best Magazine Column, while his story about “five lawyers you don’t want to meet in court” is a nominee in the Best Magazine Article category. (The Dallas Observer, the Fort Worth Weekly, KERA and Bloomberg Dallas are also represented on this finalist list. ) The Lone Stars will be handed out June 26. And if we don’t win, John, we can always sue ‘em.
A hospital-oriented FBvian comments, and throws in a special message for Wick:
You’d be surprised how many are using it — including ours. Twitter may be a fad, but the idea behind it will likely live on.
I know you can’t do it, but this post really, really, really needs comments to be on.
To date, most Twitter feeds sound something like this: “Eating Cheerios with beer from last night. Tastes awesome.” So, I guess it’s great that Children’s Medical Center Dallas made a PR splash twittering updates to thousands of people about a 3-year-old’s kidney transplant. But hey, whatever happened to the medical community’s vaunted HIPAA (read: privacy) concerns? Ever try to get a hospital to cough up just one detail about a patient you’re not related to? While these parents gave their consent, sure, Children’s Great Leap Forward still seems contradictory, and a little bizarre.
I’m struggling with our new directive to write more straightforward headlines. Is this one clear enough? Is it too simplified? Probably. But that’s okay, because folks like UT Dallas’ Joe Izen (physics prof) are using the movie’s plot (it’s about anti-matter and such) as reason to hold public lectures and counter the bad science in the film. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story about it featuring Izen (subscription only), who gave a lecture last week attended by about 150 people. These sessions are designed to, among other things, allay fears about black holes swallowing the Earth. Which is absurd. We all know, as proven at 1:43 of this video, that black holes are for time travel. (H/T: Meredith at UTD.)
If you are thinking, “Hey, the Rangers are in first place and that’s cool and all, but I haven’t followed them for years and I don’t want to dive back in the middle of a season without knowing what’s going on and I don’t want to have my heart broken again,” don’t worry. FrontBurner and InsideCorner are here for you. Well, we can’t do anything about the potential broken heart, but we can catch you up to date. All day long, we hope to be passing along little snippets on why the Rangers are worth watching this summer. And our loyal commenters (yes, they can comment over on IC), will hopefully help advance the conversation. The first installment is up and waiting for your perusal.
1. As Angela Hunt warned us last week, the proposed cuts in the city budget are severe, hitting everything from the zoo to the libraries to about 350 city employees. My solution: charge Dallas women to watch The Bachelorette. Trust me, they’ll pay.
2. Dallas twins had two dads? I smell a new reality show! The, ahem, money quote:
Washington later admitted she had had an affair and got pregnant by two different men at the same time.
3. A “team of Egyptians from the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo” flew into town to disassemble the King Tut exhibit at the DMA and transport it to its next stop in San Francisco. It will take 10 days to two weeks to do so. It requires “very educated hands” and is done in absolute secrecy. Why? Because I would imagine it looks something like this.