Neuroposter Mask.

-  So Disney bought Star Wars.  If you don’t know.  Which is… meh.  I mean, I’m not like a huge Star Wars fanboy or anything so I don’t have to strong of feelings either way.  I do, like 80% of humans, love the old Star Wars movies; and I do, like 85% of humans, hate the new ones.  From what I’m reading from people who know a lot about this stuff, there are novels that act as the official “post-Original Trilogy” story.  Something to do with Han and Leia’s kids, Luke running a new Jedi order, and the resurgence of the Empire and the Sith.  This could be decent I suppose.  The problem with the new ones — and I’m sure this has been written about extensively — is the fear of treading new ground.  This notion that they had to fall back on the old ones to be good.  You can see that in everything from the bizarre and wacky coincidences written into the story, the way the ships are designed, even the way Palatine was scarred to look like a shitty Halloween costume of himself in Jedi.  As long as they don’t do any of that, and focus on a new story, new characters, new designs, they should be alright I hope.

[But hey, I'm one of like 3 million assholes writing my opinions on the Internet about this so what the fuck do I know?]

Brendon over at BleedingCool seems to think he’s courting Hamill and Fisher about being in them… this sounds risky.

-  William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer is being turned into a film as we speak.  Little is known about the project.  The IMDB page is empty, to say the least.  Liam Neeson’s name is on the cast, which may or may not be true, but sounds awesome.  If you don’t know about the novel it’s one of the best science fiction novels of all-time.  It started the genre we call “cyberpunk”.  It also featured characters “jacking into” the Internet which was obviously directly lifted for The Matrix movies.  Anyways, here’s a new poster (the first):

-  A Rioter’s Prayer: Pussy Riot’s Yekaterina Samutsevich on protest, art, and freedom.

I have the impression that this is the opinion the government wants to impose on people, their way of opposing the situation. I think that when a person goes somewhere, she reflects, she thinks about where she is going and why, because she is using her time and energy. It’s a conscious choice. I don’t go to a demonstration because it’s cool. It isn’t at all cool to go to demonstrations today. The forces of order are nearby. They can beat you up. The demonstration on May 6th proved that. Nowadays, many people find themselves behind bars solely because they went to a public demonstration.

-  Chuck Klosterman on why Fantasy Football is bad for the game (and your mental health) over at Grantland.

If I mentally transpose the words “entertaining” and “sport,” Dylan’s sentiment gets close to what I’m trying to express (and what I want to feel, but can’t). There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am. It makes me unconsciously think of them as extensions of myself. And I wonder if this is more problematic than I want to accept. Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone?

-  The Trouble With The Mask.  Great op-Ed on the inherent problems with the new Joker in Batman and featuring a brilliant Bukowski quote.

-Sonny

Kickflipping the Bat.

-  Anthony Kammer: After Me, The Flood.

“Economists have long recognized that individuals overvalue their present interests over future concerns. But it’s another matter entirely when we can no longer rely on our political institutions to pursue our longer-term and higher-order preferences. To borrow Robert Monks’ line about the corporate form, a state aimed at nothing beyond short-term private wealth generation is little more than an externalizing machine. Unfortunately, this is increasingly the trajectory of our politics. Wealth concentrates among a small financial elite and gets pumped back into government, not as tax dollars to facilitate collective decision-making, but as lobbying and campaign money intended to deflect regulation and further entrench the self-serving policies that helped generate these unprecedented levels of concentrated private wealth. There is a cancer-like logic to this feedback loop, where localized economic growth comes more and more at the expense of the larger body politic. “

-  CR Studio out of NYC:

-  Then there’s this:

-  Container Urbanism: Reclaimed Popup Structures.

“When urban populations outgrow the pace of new construction, and suitable homes and offices spaces are difficult to find, what are property hunters to do? Perhaps more of them will start coming up with novel temporary solutions like this: a temporary, movable office made from shipping containers by Daiken-Met Architects.  The architecture firm had a difficult time finding leasable space in the city of Gifu, Japan. So they designed this three-story structure, which is made from seven 20-foot shipping containers connected using a steel frame system. The frame made it easier to stack the containers, and also provides balcony space, which can be hard to come by in urban areas.”

-Sonny