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Champagne OK

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This is a random clip taken from “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” (1976). Whether it’s the botched editing job between “oooo-owwww”, the palpable sense of self-satisfaction Robert Reed exhibits after he’s contained the chaos of bubbly eruption, or the final announcement that the disaster has been averted, this tiny element of film makes me feel ok…Champagne OK! After all, having had your child banished to the purgatory of a giant bubble, wouldn’t you-yourself feel that same sense of ‘victory’ having single-handedly contained an outright onslaught of smaller bubbles?

When I was a very young kid, I remember sitting on the couch next to my mom and loving this movie, yet probably not understanding it at all. I just added this to my netflix queue and can’t wait to see it again for the first time.

Comparing Types Of Time Travel In Fiction

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MinutePhysics (which, if haven’t checked out already would be worth spending a little of your time on) and a fun whiteboard explainer on the different types of time-travel in various films and books. Specifically, the video synopses how time travel causally affects the perspective of characters’ timelines (Who has free will? Can you change things by going back to the past?).



I appreciate time travel stories that have a nice logic to them. I have to agree with Henry Reich when he says that, “Logical consistency is a thing that you may have noticed I think lays the foundation for good time travel stories.” Which explains why I didn’t like Star Trek: First Contact or the Original Superman.

Inside The Stern Pinball Factory, Again

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About six months after the Popular Mechanics article about the last great pinball factory, Stearns gets the video treatment from the Onion’s A.V. Club. Stearn is the “oldest and largest designer and manufacturer of arcade-quality pinball games [remaining] on the planet”



I was surprised to learn that about fifty percent of all pinball machines produced by Stern are exported out of the country. Additionally, most of the parts are manufactured in Chicago and the machines are hand assembled. I think if Trump truly wants to throw some money at American manufacturing the pinball machine industry would be a great place to start.

Rare Video Of Bruce Lee Fighting In Competition

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This is rare video footage of Bruce Lee fighting in 1967 Long Beach International Karate Championships. In the video, we get a unique look at Lee using his Jeet Kune Do fighting style in actual competition.

Bruce Lee first fights Ted Wong, one of his top students. He then fights Taky Kimura. It will come as no surprise that Bruce easily wins each match. You won’t be able to readily identify either fighter from their likeness because California State regulations prevented fighting without protective gear. However, is easy to discern Lee from his controlled movement and composed demeanor. Lee’s legendary speed and precision are on full display. He remains calm and cool as his opponents nervously jump around, keeping them at bay by repeatedly countering their attacks with a series of lightning-quick blows.

Eighty Years Of NYC: 1930s to Today

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As evidenced on my Instagram account, I have recently returned from a trip to New York City. This fact might have something to do with why I liked this recent video from The New Yorker so much. It features a side-by-side comparison of the same streets using film from the 1930s and today. A few things I noted while watching the video:

  • Today’s skyline (as shown in the above video) hasn’t changed as dramatically as I would have thought since the 1930s.
  • Mondern day NYC is constantly under construction with scaffolding everywhere. This is especially prominent when compared to the NYC of the 1930s.
  • In the 1930’s Central Park was not pedestrian or bike friendly AT ALL.
  • New York City is much more lush and green than it was in the 1930s.
  • Driving in modern day NYC is insane. Driving in 1930’s NYC is insane.

Every Episode Of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

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It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Twitch is running a Mister Roger’s Neighborhood marathon that will be showing all 886 episodes of the exceptional children’s program. The marathon is a fundraising effort to celebrate the positive influences of PBS. Feel free to use the donation panel on the linked page to donate to your local PBS station.

The Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Marathon features the most comprehensive collection of episodes available, including many that only aired once and are unavailable elsewhere online. We will be playing the episodes back to back starting at 12PM Pacific on May 15th.

The marathon is expected to take about 17 days to run all the way through. PBS has more information on the Twitch-PBS partnership here.

The Murmuration Is The Flock Itself, The Susurrus Is The Sound It Produces

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Videos of starling murmurations are numerous yet always enchanting. However, but this clip from Jan van IJken’s documentary short film The Art of Flying is exceptional because of the sound. From the video’s youtube page:

We know a lot of factual information about the starling—its size and voice, where it lives, how it breeds and migrates—but what remains a mystery is how it flies in murmurations, or flocks, without colliding. This short film by Jan van IJken was shot in the Netherlands, and it captures the birds gathering at dusk, just about to start their “performance.” Listen well and you’ll be able to hear how this beautiful phenomenon got its name.

Voting Paradox

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Around this time of the election cycle, we hear a lot about the importance of voting and how every vote counts. However, very little is said about the paradoxes that can make individual votes meaningless – especially with the introduction of a third party. The Exploratorium (A museum that I can’t wait to take my kids to) put together this excellent video that explores the paradox’s involved in voting.


It goes over ideas such as The Spoiler Effect (think Ralph Nader), Ranked Voting, Cyclic Preferences, Elimination Voting and Failure Of Moniticity.

The end of the video touches on Kenneth Arrow mathematically proving that no decision mechanism can eliminate all of these types of paradoxes. Basically, there is no method for constructing social preferences from arbitrary individual preferences without suffering from a known paradox. We can tamp down some paradoxes but only at the cost of creating others (or eliminating democracy altogether).

Wikipedia has an excellent table showing the voting system criteria used in each of the single-winner systems.

That all being said: Remember to go out and vote!

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