Recently, I was summoned for jury duty. Should I try this?

Josh Ritter - Temptation of Adam (official video)

Hilarious: the most elaborate game of telephone, ever.

In Other News

-- As part of his upcoming show for the Discovery Channel, famous super-nerd Steven Hawking will caution against humans attempting to contact alien life forms. One possibility: in another galaxy, there could be a roving band of Nomadic Space Invaders who are hell-bent on killing us, and then plundering our planets resources. Which movie did he fall asleep watching? But seriously, turn-off the fucking beckon SETI, I refuse to become a part of the 'collective', even if it would mean cool cyborg appendages.

Digital Cinema Could Transform Indy-film Distribution Models

In traditional movie distribution, the chief constraint was the costs and logistical problems associated with the physical movie prints: each print-- the reel(s) fed into the projector-- costs more than a thousand dollars,  and it can take weeks to send them from theater to theater. With digital projectors, theaters download movies in the form of data packets, beamed down from satellites orbiting the earth.

This could be good news for independent films, because it means that it's easier for a chain theater to add new films to the screening line-up, while also cheaper for distributors, when you consider the cost of prints. The issue: these new systems are extremely expensive, often costing a cool 100k.

Major chains like AMC have taken the bait, and between the Christie Digital System, and the Sony Digi-cinema System, there are now ~10,000 installed digital projectors worldwide. A business idea I'm toying with would allow Indy-film fans to purchase tickets for smaller films, shown at the local multiplex; if not enough tickets are purchased, their money would be refunded, and the Hollywood shlock would play. This assurance contract is important because it reduce the risks for all parties; the site Groupon.com has further refined this idea, in a way I hope to do, by geographically localizing it.
--Readers: I'll keep you informed of the latest trends.

What factors affect music preference?

I'm interested in the process by which natural and social factors-- e.g. personality, intelligence, or family SES-- work together to define consumption preferences, especially in music.

--The Cognitive Daily blog discussed the possible relationship between music preference, and certain personality traits; based on a study published in the journal Psychology of Music, they offer that stereotypes about fans of certain music genres, may have some basis in actuality. If you guessed that classical music fans are the largest wine consumers, while rock fans are the most likely to be found in a  trippy school-bus, you win the prize.

-- Before I came to Cornell I had few friends who listened to Heavy Metal. Now, some of the people I'm closest to love the thrashing of the latest Scandinavian Guitar-gods. Research links intelligence to music preferences; specifically, the claim is that metal fans have a lot of it. And, I've found an article that claims this, and similar personality make-up, causes metal fans to resemble classical-music fans. This jives with my experience of the goth, metal kid almost always claiming his original favorite musician was Bach.

I hope to explore what factors might determine whose a classical fan, versus whose a fan of death metal. Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus' could offer some insight into this division: the split is mediated by one's level of SES.
Readers: Stay-tuned as I find other articles, and then try to synthesize a broader series of conclusions.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money - Trailer HD 2010