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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Friday Night Open Thread

Friday Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  March 30, 20128:42 pm| 37 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links

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This is awesome- the students at Minnesota’s Carleton College decided they would dress up their observatory as…:

R2-D2. Love it.

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Reader Interactions

37Comments

  1. 1.

    Comrade Mary

    March 30, 2012 at 8:45 pm

    Does it whistle? Please tell me that it whistles.

  2. 2.

    chrome agnomen

    March 30, 2012 at 8:46 pm

    help me obi-wan kenobi.

  3. 3.

    merrinc

    March 30, 2012 at 8:49 pm

    @Comrade Mary:

    Yes, and it moves.

  4. 4.

    PurpleGirl

    March 30, 2012 at 8:49 pm

    Heh… cute. I’m watching Star Wars (IV) right now. Very appropriate. Geeks are great.

  5. 5.

    phil

    March 30, 2012 at 8:50 pm

    To my fellow unemployed 20-somethings, take a look:

    http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412

    The juicy bits:

    The federal government spends $480 billion on Medicare and $68 billion on education. Prescription drugs: $62 billion. Head Start: $8 billion. Across the board, the money flows not to helping the young grow up, but helping the old die comfortably.

    The youth vote still supports Obama, but in a chastened, conditional way. In hindsight, Obama’s 2008 campaign looks like an indulgent fantasy in which the major conflicts in life simply don’t exist. There may be no white America and no black America, no blue-state America and no red-state America, but one thing is clear: There is a young America and there is an old America, and they don’t form a community of interest. One takes from the other.

  6. 6.

    bemused

    March 30, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    @Comrade Mary:

    Yes, they did. This happened in 2010 but I think there is a youtube out there.

  7. 7.

    khead

    March 30, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Today’s kitteh pics.

  8. 8.

    merrinc

    March 30, 2012 at 8:53 pm

    @phil:

    A link have you?

  9. 9.

    David Koch

    March 30, 2012 at 8:53 pm

    MSNBC issued a poll today showing Black Jimmy Carter leading Mittens by 17 pts in the crucial swing state of Wisconsin.

    Impressive. No one has won Wisconsin by 17 pt since 1964, when LBJ won it by 24.

    Yet, Tweety, Halperin, and a “reporter” from WaPo immediately said polls aren’t important, that even though Obama is winning by a margin not seen in 48 years, the race will end up being close because Mittens is such a good campaigner (I shit you, not – tweety actually said Romney is good campaigner).

    This is hilarious. If polls aren’t important then why did they bother to pay for one.

    But you and I know, if a Democratic challenger was losing a swing state by historic margins to a Republican incumbent, the corporate media wouldn’t be saying the race will end up being close. No, they’d be all over the Democrat screaming “it’s over, look for a blow out in the fall”

    But when it comes to the corporate media, it’s always sunny for the Republicans

  10. 10.

    phil

    March 30, 2012 at 8:54 pm

    @merrinc: link added.. seriously you’d think I’d have learned to internet by now..

  11. 11.

    Comrade Mary

    March 30, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    BTW, you nerds who are just lounging about on a Friday night might want to watch a good movie.

    Star Wars Uncut: a crowdsourced tribute Fans from all over the world contributed 15 second re-enactments from the original movie using surprisingly good CGI, surprisingly good models, terribly cheesy models, surprisingly good animation, terribly cheesy animation, costumed pets, costumed babies, toys, and anything else they can throw at the screen in a myriad of languages.

    It’s smart, earnest, sardonic, funny as hell and unexpectedly touching.

    Here’s the Cantina scene as a teaser.

    And George Lucas hasn’t made them take it down, so good for him.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    March 30, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    For a moment I thought it was a Dalek.

    I would have preferred a Dalek…

  13. 13.

    Comrade Mary

    March 30, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    @merrinc: @bemused: MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!

  14. 14.

    Ken

    March 30, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    @David Koch: The governor of Wisconsin is doing everything he can to help the Democrats. Ohio and Indiana may follow.

  15. 15.

    PurpleGirl

    March 30, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    Per the article calling it the greatest prank, it’s up there in greatness with the MIT Elevish writing on the Library (IIRC) dome for the Lord of the Rings.

    Geeks are great.

  16. 16.

    Hill Dweller

    March 30, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    @David Koch: When that horseshit CBS poll came out a couple of weeks ago, with Obama’s approval rating at 41%, they covered it like their lives depended on it.

  17. 17.

    PurpleGirl

    March 30, 2012 at 8:59 pm

    @Ken: Have you seen the crocheted Daleks?

  18. 18.

    robertdsc-PowerBook

    March 30, 2012 at 9:02 pm

    Great stuff. Thank you.

  19. 19.

    PurpleGirl

    March 30, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    Crocheted dalek

    http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/dalek

  20. 20.

    Bubblegum Tate

    March 30, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    My best friend from high school went to Carleton. He told me about a game they play there called Rotblatt that sounded pretty fucking crazy. As he noted, there ain’t much to do there but drink, drink, and drink some more.

  21. 21.

    MattR

    March 30, 2012 at 9:08 pm

    Just tried out the slow mo video feature on my cell phone for the first time

  22. 22.

    jl

    March 30, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    @phil:

    You linked to a seriously over the top, hyper (or should it be hypo?) emo youth despair article that Esquire is publishing.

    Hilariously and harmfull and misleadingly inaccurate.

    Example:

    ” The biggest boondoggle of all is Social Security. The management of entitlement programs, already weighted heavily in favor of the older population, has a very specific terminal point that coincides neatly with the Boomers’ deaths. The 2011 report by the Social Security trustees estimates that, under its current administration, the fund will run out in 2036, so there’s just enough to get the oldest Boomers to age ninety. ”

    Social security does not ‘run out’ in 24 years, and is not a boondoggle.

    There is no causal connection between the relative levels of current spending on Medicare and education.

    Then there is this crap:

    ” If you follow the money rather than the blather, it’s clear that the American system is a bipartisan fusion of economic models broken down along generational lines: unaffordable Greek-style socialism for the old, virulently purified capitalism for the young. ”

    There is no effing ‘Greek style’ socialism for the vast majority of older people in the U.S. And the young, like the old are suffering from fixed crony capitalism, not any kind of real capitalism, pure or otherwise.

    I have to go, so sorry cannot hang around very long to debate this. But anyone who believes this crud needs to got to Mark Thoma’s Economist View page and start reading Kthug, DeLong, Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser.

    Krugman has collected some background links on macroeconomics, you could start reading those.

    Yeesh. Some on put a cranky pants curse on Balloon Juice today.

    So, I might as well get my purer than thou desparist self righteousness in today: So, What did R2D2 ever do to shut down the robot death house and rape room in Star Wars? Nothing that is what, not one thing. I cannot believe you sheeples care about that sell out ‘bot.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 30, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    @PurpleGirl: Knitters are weird. No offense intended.

  24. 24.

    Comrade Mary

    March 30, 2012 at 9:19 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    OMG! Crocheting is NOT knitting!

    Run! RUN!

  25. 25.

    David Koch

    March 30, 2012 at 9:20 pm

    @Hill Dweller: Yes. Exactly. Thanks for reminding me, I forgot about that. It was 72 hrs of gloom and doom, which was only lifted when three other polls posted contradictory findings.

  26. 26.

    phil

    March 30, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    @jl: i very regularly read Thoma and kthug, i understand and partially agree with your critique of the article (yes it is over the top, yes SS is valuable and should be protected), but the article actually dovetails nicely with Thoma style demand-side economics.. the critical failure of contemporary american governance is under-investment. period. we are under-investing the people who are going to drive the economy of the future. when long term earning potential is down 24% (as it is for the classes of ’09 ’10 and ’11) that has very serious implications for a service-sector demand-driven economy like ours.. of course all of that is a very abstract way of saying what I have the pleasure of experiencing firsthand – I am 25 and poor, and everyone I know, all of my friends, they are all dirt poor.. we are all degree holders working unpaid internships or (if we’re lucky) making $250 a week and paying $700/mo rent.. we are dirt fucking poor with absolutely zero prospects for better jobs and better salaries

  27. 27.

    Phylllis

    March 30, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Spring break began officially at 3:00 pm for me today. I am +4 on Sam Adams Alpine Spring. Which has me buzzed but not quite tipsy. A perfect way to spend the next week, methinks.

    And the R2D2 thingy is f*cking cool.

  28. 28.

    Eastriver

    March 30, 2012 at 9:32 pm

    That’s funny. By chance, I’m working on a Star Wars project at this very moment. And hearing lots of R2.

  29. 29.

    PurpleGirl

    March 30, 2012 at 10:09 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    @Comrade Mary:

    No offense taken… and yes, knitters and crocheters can be weird. After all we believe in and create yarn-bombing. I took part in crocheting a water tower cozy, which was on the water tower for only 1 day. But it’s an excellent kind of weird. And fun.

  30. 30.

    jl

    March 30, 2012 at 10:12 pm

    @phil: I understand your frustration. the situation is immoral and unfair to young people, and self destructive for all of society from the unborn to the very oldest person.

    But framing the problem as some kind of competition for fixed resources, an economic war, between young and old is the wrong way to think about it: saps energies and makes enemies out of groups who should be allies.

    Many of the problems discussed in that article could be on their way to fixing within two years, except for bad, and bad faith, macroeconomic nonsense emitted by the GOP and corporate Democrats. The article did not have much to say about that angle, which is a shame.

  31. 31.

    Neil

    March 30, 2012 at 10:16 pm

    MIT did it first, over a decade ago. For a fun time, go look up the history of MIT hacks. some really fun and cool stuff has been done in the name of awesomeness.

  32. 32.

    lgerard

    March 30, 2012 at 10:31 pm

    @Neil:

    This one was the greatest of all time:

    The MIT banner that shot out of the sod and draped around a goalpost as Yale prepared to kick a field goal during the 1990 game at Harvard.

  33. 33.

    LGRooney

    March 30, 2012 at 11:28 pm

    If it flapped its wings and flew, I’d be truly impressed.

  34. 34.

    giltay

    March 31, 2012 at 12:31 am

    @Neil: University of Toronto engineers have painted the (former) observatory on campus every year for many decades.

  35. 35.

    dollared

    March 31, 2012 at 3:56 am

    Makes me very happy to see this. Especially like how obvious it is that those are all dorm issue twin bedsheets. I probably slept on several of those sheets 25 years ago.

  36. 36.

    Daphne Mccrackin

    March 31, 2012 at 11:58 am

    Ive read up until about halfway through the fourth book in the series.I thought Ned Stark dying was pretty big, but it is nothing compared to what happens, a Song of Ice and Fire is a very dark, but very very good series.

  37. 37.

    Batocchio

    April 1, 2012 at 5:10 am

    One of my alma maters! The gag is from 2010, but still great.

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