School project of Tiago Cabaco:

(Nod: FlowingData)

This is old but still worth posting because Morgan Freeman is awesome.   This chart is just missing Lucius Fox.

(Nod: Roger Ebert)

From the White House Flickr stream:

President Barack Obama admires a tapestry at Prague Castle in Prague, Czech Republic, April 8, 2010.

He went to view the tapestries! But he is neither a Scottish lord nor Mickey Mouse.

Just as long as he hasn’t gone and caught a sniffle.

On Saturday, ESPN Sports Saturday on ABC launched.   Included was a new show called Winners Bracket, created by the team behind the ESPN show SportsNation.   Winners Bracket is hosted by Michelle Beadle and Marcellus Wiley.

For both shows, I create the touchscreen games the anchors and guests play during the show.   On Saturday, I was on-hand for the launch and snapped some photos (I tweeted most of these on Saturday, but here are a few more).

Check out Winners Bracket on Saturdays at 5p ET on ABC!

The studio crew discussing their plan for the show:

Director Chris going over the shot list:

An hour before Winners Bracket launched, I was still making updates to the touchscreen game:

Director Chris doing his thing:

Michelle and Marcellus:

Playing the touchscreen game:

Marcellus fixing his earpiece:

Playing the touchscreen game with Jalen Rose:

Reaction shot with Alexi Lalas:

Jalen Rose watching the show:

The winner of the first-ever Winners Bracket was a Dwyane Wade dunk.   Marcellus and Mike Greenberg guessed correctly.   Michelle did not:

After the show, the entire crew gathered for some cake and celebration:

My souvenir from the launch:

Michelle wrote, “The Genius rules all. Michelle Beadle” Marcellus wrote, “The Genius BROTHER! M Wiley, Dat Dude 75.” My nickname amongst the SportsNation crew and others at ESPN is “Joey the Genius” or just “Genius” for short.

Being part of a team launching a new show is one of the best aspects of working in the television industry. Congrats to the entire Winners Bracket team for a successful launch and a great show!

When these powers combine… they’re gonna take pollution down to zero!

Well that’s the idea, at least, behind a recent study. From Wired:

A 1,550-mile-long network of offshore wind stations could provide power from Massachusetts to North Carolina with minimal threat of outages, according to a new study.

Scientists had considered offshore wind as a potentially limitless source of power. Compared to land, the ocean has stronger and more constant winds, though still not constant enough to be a primary energy supply. This study indicates that offshore wind deserves more serious consideration as an energy alternative.

“The technology’s there, the materials are there, we have the willpower to reduce carbon emissions, we have a reliable power supply that doesn’t lead to fuel shortage,” said Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University. “The next step is really to start implementing this on a large scale.”

There are currently no commercial offshore wind stations, though companies have started developing six wind farms along the east coast. Together, the developments could produce as much energy as a large coal or nuclear power plant.

These seems very promising.   Couple this with developing super-efficient solar panels, and, well, we might just make that green-haired captain proud.

Sporcle Alert!   Can you name the LOST characters from these limericks?   User rockgolf, who created the quiz, must have spent a good amount of time writing these.

On The Island, a man without doubts
He and Jack had their share of fall-outs
He had only one kidney
When he flew off to Sydney
But he couldn’t go on Walkabouts

A killing machine on two legs
Shoots Ben’s girl tho she kneels down & begs
But his resume’s greater
Than the rest on the freighter
‘Cuz he whips up a mean batch of eggs.

A terrific infographic from Chilean graphic designer Juan Pablo Bravo charts the heights of 100 Pixar characters.   Very well done.

(Nod: /Film)

From The White House:

Why do presidents use so many pens to sign legislation? White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown explains.

AND!!!   Brown confirms my speculation back in December that Obama’s pens are left-handed pens!

(Nod: Nagle)

The Institute for Justice produced this nice motion graphics piece on “the abuse of civil asset forfeiture.”   The content is interesting, too.   From their site:

Civil forfeiture laws represent one of the most serious assaults on private property rights in the nation today. With civil forfeiture, police and prosecutors can seize your property and use it to fund their budgets all without charging you with a crime. Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but with civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent and law enforcement has a huge incentive to police for profit, not justice.

(Nod: The Daily Dish)

Calculated Risk posted this job-losses chart on Friday (click for larger version):

Have we bottomed out?

(Nod: Chart Porn)

TUAW tells the story of the iPad home screen image:

Richard Misrach had submitted 10 photos for Apple to consider for “wallpaper” some time ago, but they had all been rejected, he told Art Info. There was no mention of the iPad at the time, but they eventually called back to say yes, they’d like to use his “Pyramid Lake (at Night)” photo.

He describes the image as “…a long night exposure where the moon is lighting up the mountains in the distance. I shot it on an 8×10 camera, so the quality is really beautiful and you can see star trails going through the sky.”

(Image: Apple.com)

Via The Daily Dish, here’s the “Internet” in 1969:

1969 technology, meet 2010 technology:

How do you like them Apples?

The last 50-ish years have been remarkable period of human achievement.   Look at the entire timeline of human existence and then look at the last 50 years or so.   At no time in human existence has technology not just electronic/computer technology advanced so rapidly and so robustly.   Truly remarkable.

The 160 Greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes: