Research Agenda

From last week's episode of Futurama, "Reincarnation:"

PROFESSOR FARNSWORTH: Why are the laws of physics what thay are, instead of some other laws? To find out, we'd have to re-create the conditions before the Big Bang-- it would take decades of work by thousands of scientists, and a particle accelerator powered by dump trucks of flaming grant money-- of course, there'd be no guarantee of success, and in any case, I'd never live to see it!

LEELA: I'm surprised you lived through that sentence!

The episode consisted of three stories, each animated in a style radically different from Futurama's usual style.

I particularly liked the first, a black-and-white outing resembling 1930s cartoons, particularly those of the Fleischer Studios (home of Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, and Popeye). Pie-cut pupils, check. Everybody bouncing up and down on spindly arms and legs, check. White four-fingered gloves, check. (But Bender, a robot with only three fingers on the ends of his arms, wore three-fingered gloves.) All these might be expected.

What wowed me was a very brief shot where Fry is hopping across the surface of a comet. The background and foreground of the landscape revolve past (with the help of computer-generated imagery, I'm sure) just as though they were three-dimensional objects... and exactly as though they had been created with the "stereo-optical" process Max Fleischer invented to combine animation cels with 3-D miniature sets. (See U. S. Patent 2,054,414 here.) This process was seen in such films as Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves and Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor.

The folks at Futurama know their animation history.

Aspiring to Rise Higher in the World of Books: One More Borders Thought

Among the fixtures now being sold at the local Borders bookstores are rolling bookshelf ladders, the kind that run along an iron rail near the top of the bookcase. I think every bibliophile has daydreamed about owning these.

A ladder I examined had a price tag of $600. Fixtures are now 75% off... so one could snag this ladder for $150. But the rail it rides on is extra. And it's the wrong color for my house. And I don't really have a space so tall it requires a rolling ladder. But still....

For comparison, here's a custom rolling-ladder cost calculator. Because long after Borders is gone, you may find yourself with enough money to build your dream library. Then you'll need this URL.

Borders Death Watch: Overstocked

At the Rice Lake Square Borders in Wheaton yesterday, there were just one or two left of most titles, but one could see hundreds of forlorn copies of Governor Sarah Palin's book America by Heart.


This is not the only display of Palin's book, just one bookcase of them.

This is not the only book of hers that Borders had. There were also many, many copies of Going Rogue.

They may be fine books-- I wouldn't know-- but they are not doing well in the free marketplace.

Even though they were marked down to just one dollar, nobody was buying them.

I didn't buy one, either.

I probably wouldn't have taken one even if they were free.

(The less said about Governor Tim Pawlenty's book, the better.)