Invisibility Cloak

2nd\SE Quadrant: The Approval Matrix



Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley said Monday they were a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible to the human eye.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

"We are excited because this is a building block for the future," said researcher Guy Bartal. However, he added that developing an invisibility cloak is "a very big challenge" and "will take a lot of energy and time."

Speaking at a news conference at Etcheverry Hall on campus, Bartal and other researchers said the development of an invisibility cloak, a popular subject in science fiction and Harry Potter novels, is probably still years away.

But the new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.
-- CBS5

"I'm Being Filmed by a Web Documentarian"

1st\NW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix

Random House Pulls Novel About Muhammed's [PBUH] Wife [AS]

1st\NW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix


By Edith Honan\Reuters

Publisher Random House has pulled a novel about the Prophet Mohammed's [PBUH] child bride [AS], fearing it could "incite acts of violence."

"The Jewel of Medina," a debut novel by journalist Sherry Jones, 46, was due to be published on August 12 by Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG, and an eight-city publicity tour had been scheduled, Jones told Reuters on Thursday.

The novel traces the life of A'isha [AS] from her engagement to Mohammed [PBUH], when she was six, until the prophet's death. Jones said that she was shocked to learn in May, that publication would be postponed indefinitely.

Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry said in a statement the company received "cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

7-Year-Old Fired for Being Ugly

1st\NW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix

(GETTY/AFP composite image, with still grab from Chinese TV / August 12, 2008)

One little girl had the looks. The other had the voice.

So in a last-minute move demanded by one of China's highest officials, the two were put together for the Olympic Opening Ceremony, with one lip-synching "Ode to the Motherland" over the other's singing.

The real singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, with her chubby face and crooked baby teeth, wasn't good looking enough for the ceremony, its chief music director told state-owned Beijing Radio.

So the pigtailed Lin Miaoke, a veteran of television ads, mouthed the words with a pixie smile for a stadium of 91,000 and a worldwide TV audience. "I felt so beautiful in my red dress," the tiny 9-year-old told the China Daily newspaper.

Peiyi later told China Central Television that just having her voice used was an honor.
-- ESPN

Paul McCarthy's Dog Crap Sculpture Blows Away

1st\NW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix

By Richard Chang\OC Register

A giant, inflatable dog poop created by Los Angeles artist Paul McCarthy got carried away in the wind, brought down a power line and smashed a window of a children’s home in Berne, Switzerland.

The dog turd was part of an exhibition titled “East of Eden: A Garden Show” at the Paul Klee Centre (also known as the Zentrum Paul Klee). McCarthy’s piece was called “Complex Sh*t,” and is the size of a house. It reportedly had a safety system that was supposed to deflate the turd in bad weather, but the system didn’t work when a sudden gust carred it from its moorings and deposited it, after it wreaked some serious havoc, 200 meters away on the grounds of the children’s home.

McCarthy is a well-known performance and conceptual artist. He has taught art at UCLA since 1982. He’s known for debunking the myth of the heroic artist and for conducting some weird performance pieces with ketchup, blood and feces.

Michel Houellebecq's "The Possibility of an Island" Adaptation

1st\NW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix

By Gwladys Fouché\The Guardian

It was the hottest question in French cinema: how would the enfant terrible of Gallic letters fare at adapting his own novel for the big screen? The answer: not at all well.

Michel Houellebecq was determined to film his novel The Possibility of an Island [La Possibilité d’une île ], the parallel story of a stand-up comedian joining a cult and his clone several generations in the future.

He is said to have switched publishers because the move would offer better guarantees he could direct the adaptation himself.

The Possibility of an Island was slaughtered when it premiered at the Locarno film festival in Switzerland at the weekend, with the author apparently playing hide-and-seek with reporters to avoid further embarrassment.

The premiere "turned into a farce," chuckled French daily Le Figaro, describing how critics sneered and laughed before voting with their feet and leaving the cinema. Outside, they hailed the movie "catastrophic", "ridiculous", and damned it as indulging into "bargain-bin philosophising"

Swiss newspaper Le Temps retitled the movie The Possibility of a Shipwreck. Early previews held in Paris were similarly harsh, spreading the word that The Possibility of an Island was the "dud of the season".

The Approval Matrix: Week of August 25, 2008

Charlie Sheen Paid $825,000 Per Episode

4th\SW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix

Charlie Sheen, who plays a wealthy, womanizing bachelor on the top-rated sitcom "Two and a Half Men," made more than any other TV actor this year with earnings of $825,000 per episode, including money from his ownership rights in the show.

At the rate of 23 episodes per year, the typical number of shows broadcast each season for a comedy like "Two and a Half Men," Sheen would be pocketing just under $20 million a year for a role that also earned him three Emmy nominations.

Trailing Sheen in the No. 2 spot on TV Guide's list is fellow CBS star William Petersen, who takes home $600,000 an episode for portraying investigator Gil Grissom on the hit police drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." -- Reuters

Christopher Hitchens and Coney Island Waterboarding Stunts

The Persecution of Mary-Kate

4th\SW Quadrant: The Approval Matrix