Sometimes I write for other sites:
> All of this is to say that the privacy landscape is changing. For consumers, these are changes for the better. Proper regulation of the collection and protection of private information is probably long overdue. For marketers, we have a new challenge — how do we comply with these regulations and remain effective, without risking legal repercussions?
I tackle privacy and more in a post for my day job.
NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity Concludes a 15-Year Mission – The New York Times:
Opportunity, the longest-lived roving robot ever sent to another planet, explored the red plains of Mars for more than 14 years, snapping photos and revealing astonishing glimpses into its distant past. But on Wednesday, NASA announced that the rover is dead.
“It is therefore that I am standing here with a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude that I declare the Opportunity mission as complete,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said at a news conference.
I wasn’t around for the moon landings, but space exploration has captivated me my entire life. I follow every mission, every discovery, every grainy photo from distant probes. The Mars rover missions have easily been my favorites. Not just flybys of distant objects, these were actual up-close exploration. Crisp, beautiful shots of an alien landscape. The rovers represent some of the best of what NASA can do.
Your Saddest Desperation Cocktails, Ranked: As usual, Matt Ufford made me laugh.
I Went to a Flat Earth Convention to Meet Flat Earthers Like My Mom
RIP Margo Kidder: She will always be associated with that one big role and truthfully, that’s the only one I really know her from. She deserves as much credit for the success of Superman as Christopher Reeve. Kidder will always be the definitive Lois Lane.
In Siberia in 1908, a huge explosion came out of nowhere: The Tunguska incident has always fascinated me. It leveled everything for miles, but we know almost nothing definitive about how it happened.
The Hutch closes in on a cancer cure: Some groundbreaking work being done at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
How Dangerous Are The Northwest’s Volcanoes?
What is the most sophisticated piece of software/code ever written? I was familiar with the Stuxnet worm, but this piece did a good job of explaining just how sophisticated it really was. A lot here I didn’t know.
Via BoingBoing:
Botin Restaurant in Madrid has been in operation for 293 years, a world record. The owners claim the oven hasn’t once gone out. The house specialty is roast suckling pig, which is 25 euros.
Great song, but maybe the rare case where the video is even better:
Gregory Porter is so good.
This was fascinating to watch.
A little overdue, but here is the requisite “my favorite television shows” post (a music post is also in the works.) I didn’t watch a ton of television last year (moving to a new state and settling into a new house and having a busy year at work will affect your viewing habits) but I did find some great things to watch. Some are new, some are returning favorites.
The Expanse (SyFy): Based the series of novels by James S. A. Corey, The Expanse is the best science fiction I’ve seen on television in years. A great cast, solid writing, and pacing that never lets up. I’ve always thought that the best science fiction shows are the ones where you can pull the characters and plots out of their futuristic setting and plop them into the present and still have everything mostly work. Battlestar Galactica nailed that formula, and The Expanse has all of the humanity and politics that made that show so great.
Bosch (Amazon): This series debuted a few years ago, but I didn’t watch the first season until a few months ago. It’s by no means groundbreaking (a fairly standard story of a Los Angeles police detective solving murders) but it’s well done. Titus Welliver as the title character, Harry Bosch, owns every scene.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX): What can I really say about Sunny that nobody else has said? It’s consistently funny, outrageous, and cringeworthy. I tell my wife that it’s like Friends except funny. The only way that comedies stay funny is if their characters never grow, never develop. We are eleven seasons into Sunny and it’s pretty safe to say that no members of The Gang have experienced any personal growth, and it’s still pretty damn funny.
Better Call Saul (AMC): Season 2 of this Breaking Bad spinoff was at least as good as the first season, maybe even better. The writing and cinematography continue to be the best on television. No one is better at this TV stuff than Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould.
The Americans (FX): The master of the “slow burn”, this Cold War spy thriller/family drama is still at the top of its game. The Americans does not move fast, but every single movement matters. There are no wasted scenes here, and the tension is always high. You should be watching this show. Thankfully it just got renewed for two final seasons!
Rectify (Sundance): This is the poster child for “best television shows which nobody is watching.” Can you even find the SundanceTV channel on your television? You almost certainly have a subscription to it, but good luck! Still, Rectify is worth the effort. It’s best described as a “southern gothic” series, but it’s incredibly respectful of the south and their culture. It stars Aden Young as Daniel Holden, after he is released from death row after an appeal vacates his conviction. It’s pretty rare for television to draw a tear from me, but Rectify is that powerful. This series wrapped up in December, but it’s on Netflix for your enjoyment.
Goliath (Amazon): I wasn’t quite sure whether to put this one on the list or not, but I really did enjoy it, despite some weird flaws in the writing. It’s yet another David E. Kelly legal drama, with many of his usual tropes (brilliant but flawed attorneys, rousing courtroom monologues) but it’s hard to ignore a show starring Billy Bob Thornton and William Hurt.
