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The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine

thekarachikid — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:56:50 +0500

The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine:

Tom Johnson was one of those extraordinary characters that history throws up in times of crisis. Born in 1772 to Irish parents, he made the most of the opportunities that presented themselves and was earning his own living as a smuggler by the age of 12. At least twice, he made incredible escapes from prison. When the Napoleonic Wars broke out, his well-deserved reputation for extreme daring saw him hired to pilot a pair of covert British naval expeditions. But Johnson also has a stranger claim to fame, one that has gone unmentioned in all but the most obscure of histories. In 1820–or so he claimed–he was offered the sum of £40,000 [equivalent to $3 million now] to rescue the emperor Napoleon from bleak exile on the island of St. Helena.

The making of Pulp Fiction

thekarachikid — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:50:30 +0500

The making of Pulp Fiction:

The first independent film to gross more than $200 million, Pulp Fiction was a shot of adrenaline to Hollywood’s heart, reviving John Travolta’s career, making stars of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, and turning Bob and Harvey Weinstein into giants. How did Quentin Tarantino, a high-school dropout and former video-store clerk, change the face of modern cinema? Mark Seal takes the director, his producers, and his cast back in time, to 1993.

OPERATION DELIRIUM

thekarachikid — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:28:41 +0500

OPERATION DELIRIUM:

Decades after a risky Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets.

Cosmo, the Hacker ‘God’ Who Fell to Earth

thekarachikid — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:50:04 +0500

Cosmo, the Hacker ‘God’ Who Fell to Earth:

Cosmo is huge — 6 foot 7 and 220 pounds the last time he was weighed, at a detention facility in Long Beach, California on June 26. And yet he’s getting bigger, because Cosmo — also known as Cosmo the God, the social-engineering mastermind who weaseled his way past security systems at Amazon, Apple, AT&T, PayPal, AOL, Netflix, Network Solutions, and Microsoft — is just 15 years old.

'Fight, Fight, Fight'

thekarachikid — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:14:38 +0500

'Fight, Fight, Fight':

The creator of The Thick of It spoke in central London on Monday night, with the talk titled ‘Fight, Fight, Fight’ - Armando Iannucci spoke at the annual Bafta television lecture about the need for British creative talent to be more forceful.

How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big-Budget Flick

thekarachikid — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:43:59 +0500

How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big-Budget Flick:

One Wednesday last August, Erwin rose from his desk around noon. He walked to the company lunchroom, microwaved a pretzel-bread Hot Pocket, and carried it back to his desk on a paper towel. He took a bite of the Hot Pocket and logged in to Reddit.com. His life would never be the same ever again.

We Almost Got Total Recall 2 in the 90s

thekarachikid — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 20:06:12 +0500

We Almost Got Total Recall 2 in the 90s:

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall made a huge impression by combining action movies with insane mind games. Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, it kept audiences guessing until the very end. And it was one of the most successful movies of the early 1990s. So why didn’t we ever get a sequel?

Turns out, we came really close, several times. Tons of scripts were written, all of which tried to preserve the ambiguity and craziness of the original film in different ways — and some of them sound like they were downright bizarre. Discover the long, weird saga of Total Recall 2, in this excerpt from the book Tales from Development Hell by David Hughes.

Microsoft’s Lost Decade

thekarachikid — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 23:02:54 +0500

Microsoft’s Lost Decade:

Once upon a time, Microsoft dominated the tech industry; indeed, it was the wealthiest corporation in the world. But since 2000, as Apple, Google, and Facebook whizzed by, it has fallen flat in every arena it entered: e-books, music, search, social networking, etc., etc. Talking to former and current Microsoft executives, Kurt Eichenwald finds the fingers pointing at C.E.O. Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates’s successor, as the man who led them astray. By Kurt Eichenwald

The Han Solo Comedy Hour!

thekarachikid — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:58:41 +0500

The Han Solo Comedy Hour!:

Wookiees and Bea Arthur? Luke Skywalker and Harvey Korman? Singing and dancing and storm troopers? If George Lucas had his way, no one would remember, but yes, Virginia, there was a Star Wars Holiday Special. by Frank DiGiacomo

The Comedian's Comedian's Comedian

thekarachikid — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:57:27 +0500

The Comedian's Comedian's Comedian:

He’s a boxer, a Buddhist, a hoops junkie, and a kind of Yoda to every funny person born since 1965 (Sandler, Silverman, Apatow, Gervais, Baron Cohen…). Amy Wallace survives a rare sparring session with Garry Shandling, the reclusive master of American comedy

To be continued … the grand tradition of prequels and sequels

thekarachikid — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:52:22 +0500

To be continued … the grand tradition of prequels and sequels:

Elizabeth Bennet James Bond and Sherlock Holmes have had countless reincarnations. Now, Long John Silver is the latest in a long line of old favourites to make a comeback

McDonnell Douglas Phase B 12-Man Space Station (1970)

thekarachikid — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:24:12 +0500

McDonnell Douglas Phase B 12-Man Space Station (1970):

In the autumn of 1966, NASA asked President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Bureau of the Budget (BOB) for $100 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 1968 to begin Phase B contractor studies of Earth-orbital space stations. With the Apollo Program’s culmination drawing near, the U.S. civilian space agency was eager to establish post-Apollo goals, and topping its wish-list was a space station – an Earth-orbiting laboratory for testing the effects on men and machines of long-term exposure to space conditions and for performing scientific and technological experiments and Earth and space observations. By David S F Portree. @dsfportree

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/beyondapollo/

A Psychotronic Childhood

thekarachikid — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:43:16 +0500

A Psychotronic Childhood:

Colson Whitehead talks about learning from b-movies.

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet

thekarachikid — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:47:57 +0500

How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet:

This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.

Fast Company: The Women of Twitter

thekarachikid — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:53:10 +0500

Fast Company: The Women of Twitter:

Jacob Weisberg on Twitter’s New Censorship Policy

In late January, soon after this story went to press, Twitter announced a new censorship policy that establishes procedures for removing posts that violate national law in countries around the world. Opinion has been divided about whether the company was caving to commercial demands as it expands internationally, or in fact deploying a clever anticensorship policy in line with Twitter’s pro–free expression stance. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) and other civil liberties groups pointed to the policy’s fine print—which makes life difficult for governments trying to censor tweets, and easy for users trying to evade censorship. Twitter will remove non-spam posts only after receiving a valid legal notice, which it will publish on its website, along with a clear indication of what has been censored. Twitter also issued what amounted to instructions for accessing censored tweets by viewing them on offshore servers.

At a media conference in January, Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo said the company is simply trying to deal with the situation in “the most honest, transparent, and forward-looking way. You can’t reside in countries and not operate within the law.”

France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared

thekarachikid — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:38:30 +0500

France: Where Freemasons Are Still Feared:

In France, the story that keeps coming back is about Freemasons. It’s everywhere. Most big French magazines run at least one big Freemason cover a year. Books dissect the “state within a state,” to borrow from a recent title. Blogs abound.

The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth

thekarachikid — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:03:48 +0500

The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth:

Have you heard of Twilight? Are you acquainted with the undead? How about werewolves? Vampires? Angsty adolescent superheroes? This is our culture right now, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it all began with one man: Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and arguably the most inventive pop storyteller of his generation. So how come Whedon never became as famous as so much of the derivative trash he inspired? Better question: Now that his summer blockbuster, The Avengers, is about to arrive, isn’t this the part of the story where the overlooked hero rises to meet his big moment?

How We Nearly Lost Discovery

thekarachikid — Sat, 05 May 2012 12:57:13 +0500

How We Nearly Lost Discovery:

Now that Discovery is safely delivered to the Smithsonian, I think I can tell the story of how we nearly lost her in July of 2005, and how well-intentioned, highly motivated, hard-working, smart people can miss the most obvious.—Wayne Hale.

"You are in Islamabad because of our votes": Interviews with the Lyari PAC

thekarachikid — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:47:08 +0500

"You are in Islamabad because of our votes": Interviews with the Lyari PAC

Joss Whedon on Comic Books, Abusing Language and the Joys of Genre

thekarachikid — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:08:18 +0500

Joss Whedon on Comic Books, Abusing Language and the Joys of Genre