Fascinating Facts and Trivia.

A Poem from Uncle Walt Whitman

To A Stranger

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,    
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)    
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,    
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,    
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,            

I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,    
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,    
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,    
I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again,    
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

/by

Congressional Piracy?

While Congress has made repeated efforts to crack down on Americans who illegally download media, they’ve had less success controlling downloads taking place in thePirate-Sil-01 offices of Congress, as Joe Mullin reports in Ars Technica:

A post today in US News & World Report’s tech blog published new information from anti-piracy forensics company ScanEye, a company that offers BitTorrent monitoring services in the name of fighting piracy. The ScanEye report [PDF] shows apparently pirated movie files being downloaded via IP addresses associated with the US House of Representatives.

Congressional employees downloaded episodes of Glee, CSI, Dexter, and Home and Away in October and early November. There are more TV episodes downloaded than movies, but the report also shows downloads of films, such as Iron Sky, which was downloaded by a Congress-owned computer on Oct. 4; Life of Pi, downloaded on Oct. 27; and the Dark Knight Rises, downloaded on Oct. 25. Another download listed is Bad Santa 2, a movie which has not been released yet.

/by

Pedestrian Safety in America?

K6

Kaid Benfield argues in the Atlantic that one of the most dangerous things you can do in the United States is to walk:

The nonprofit advocacy coalition Transportation for America (NRDC is a member) has found that, from 2000 through 2009, more than 47,700 pedestrians were killed in the United States. This is the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of passengers crashing roughly every month. On top of that, more than 688,000 pedestrians were injured over the decade, a number equivalent to a pedestrian being struck by a car or truck every 7 minutes.

/by

China’s Influence on American Films

Noir silhouette

In what is a powerful sign of the rise of Chinese influence and economic power, the New York Times is reporting that major Hollywood studios are given the Chinese government access during the production of films to ensure that none of the content lead to rejection by Chinese censors:

Hollywood as a whole is shifting toward China-friendly fantasies that will fit comfortably within a revised quota system, which allows more international films to be distributed in China, where 3-D and large-format Imax pictures are particularly favored.

At the same time, it is avoiding subject matter and situations that are likely to cause conflict with the roughly three dozen members of a censorship board run by China’s powerful State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or S.A.R.F.T.

In addition, some studios are quietly asking Chinese officials for assurance that planned films, even when they do not have a Chinese theme, will have no major censorship problems.

Both The Life of Pi and The Karate Kid, for example, had to be altered for Chinese censors’ approval:

For example, 20th Century Fox managed to get “Life of Pi” through with only the modification of the “religion is darkness” line, despite the movie’s spiritual themes — which tread close to a prohibition against the preaching of cult beliefs and superstitions — and the earlier trouble over “Lust, Caution.”

For Americans, the hard part is knowing what might suddenly cause trouble — initial approvals notwithstanding. In 2009, Sony Pictures and its partner, the China Film Group, submitted their script for “The Karate Kid” to China’s censors, and dutifully changed parts of the story to suit them. But the finished film was rejected, according to people who were briefed on the process, essentially because film bureaucrats were unhappy that its villain was Chinese.

After negotiation, 12 minutes of the film were cut, and it was released in China, though later than intended.

/by

It’s Not Paranoia if They’re Out to Get You

If you happen to be the kind of person who worries that other people are talking about you, you could well be right, because you worry about them talking about you. Slate summarizes a study by Jennifer Mason Carr:

Another study about how your private insecurities are to blame for troubled work relationships and probably everything else that’s going wrong in your life. Researchers from the London Business School have determined that self-conscious, paranoid people are more likely to be gossiped about behind their backs, because they’re so insanely self-conscious and paranoid.

/by