Lance Menthe

Rewatched the first two Tron movies and now saw the third. Do I have nits to pick and suggestions? Sure. But I appreciate the Tron movies very much, and to my surprise, I think “Tron: Ares” is the most successful of the three.

In preparation to watch Tron: Ares, we rewatched the original 1982 movie. Wendy Carlos’s score is uneven, but has many moments of sublime beauty, such as when the light sail ship passes over the simulation sea. A fun rewatch.

lolololol

yes, I can add.

When your party has a 2+ vote majority, you can grandstand on an individual issue, safe in the knowledge that your vote won’t matter. Both parties do it.

So it would not have passed regardless of Fetterman’s vote.

RIP Jane Goodall. For some reason, I just assumed you would live forever, which isn’t untrue.

it’s been replaced by “per my previous email…”

In other democracies, they sometimes fail to form a government and it takes weeks or more to build a workable governing coalition… maybe the U.S. government occasionally stalemating into budgetary shutdown is something of the same gear-grinding process in a different guise

Marquee of New Beverly Cinema showing “Always on Film: David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. in 33MM”

I’ve watched Mulholland Drive many times, but last night was my first time seeing it on the big screen. What a film! The New Beverly theater also has stunning sound.

Sausage

always 🤣😂

NY Times always disses the science words 😠

My preferred version of the quadratic formula, which is equally general, is:

x^2 - 2px + q = 0

x = p +/- sqrt(p^2 - q)

Oh man, I just saw the House of Dynamite trailer with the Carl Sagan voice over and I broke down and wept. He inspired my desire to be a scientist. So clear and kind. We need people like him again.

you are a kind person, to let them keep their innocence

Hard day. A wonderful woman I knew for over 20 years, a friend and mentor, has passed away today. I happened to see her office yesterday, and her door, which was almost always open, both literally and figuratively, was closed.

Took me a minute—very nice.

G-rated but not without its innuendo. “Under a king” 😉

It sounds like… Maybe we should be writing books about MC Hammer and posh ramekins? 😂

Alien Earth has been exceptional so far. They’ve sure got a lot of balls in the air right now, but man, if they pay off… wow. I’m not a huge fan of horror, but this is exactly the kind of smart, atmospheric stuff I love.

As in, Captain & …? 🤣

Why Is It So Expensive to Build Apartments in California? Building multifamily housing in California costs more than twice what it costs in Texas. What's driving this? And how might California address its housing crisis?

RAND research finds that building multifamily housing in California costs more than twice what it costs in Texas.

Find out why in a new episode of Policy Minded. ⤵
www.rand.org/pubs/podcast...

Once again, I’m begging reporters not to ask known liars to “explain” their lies. Doing so will only elicit more lies. Such quotes are easy to get but have no journalistic value. Please just investigate the story, provide all the evidence, tell the truth as best you can, and then call out the liars.

These wargames explored drone attacks on US military bases Many of the details of these wargames are classified, but one key finding is that protecting domestic U.S. bases can’t be just the military’s job.

How can authorities defend military bases in the United States from drone attacks?

RAND's Christopher Pernin discusses lessons from a recent series of wargames: www.defensenews.com/unmanned/202...

Today’s Wordle was not enjoyable.

Because of how large language models work, and how they are trained on the vast oceans of existing text, AI effectively holds a mirror up to humanity and says “this is what you sound like” and it’s not very flattering.

So saddened by the Texas floods. Every day the news gets worse… Hoping that the weather breaks soon and no more are lost.

Me and Gordon celebrating

Celebrating the 4th of July last night with friends. Fireworks all around Los Angeles were a continuous rumble for hours. (And they started in the early afternoon, for some reason?) 😊 Tonight, off to see the big drone show and other Independence Day festivities in downtown Culver City!

Graph showing the years that 3 major climate change treaties took effect overlaid on the Keeling curve. (It shows that the treaties did little or nothing.)

The reason I support a shift to geoengineering and market-based approaches to address climate change can be seen in the Keeling Curve (Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego) overlaid with the dates of major climate change treaties. The current approach is noble but just isn't working.