NorthGeek

Tsunami Strikes Parking Lot in American Samoa

Footage of the September 29, 2009 tsunami striking (1:48) the parking lot of the building housing the FBI office in American Samoa. More at: http://honolulu.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/hn100909.htm

How to choose a movie

It is the age old question. How can you find a movie to rent, in a world of polarizing opinions on movies, a plethora of terrible movies, and movies that are rarely less than a time-consuming 90 minutes? A terrible movie, and you will complain that you’ll never get those two hours back! But a great movie, and you will be captivated into a different world and wholly entertained for those two.

We’ve all tried to show up to Blockbuster or the local indie shop without a plan but a hope, and 45 minutes later, you’ve maybe finally got a movie, and you’re not even sure if you’re gonna like it. The video store has become a black hole for video selection. Perhaps the employee can decisively recommend a movie, or the employee picks beckon. But these are still risky and biased.

Here are some ideas for saving the frustration and watching only great movies, ordered with the best means towards the end:

1. Classics: You gotta see the classics. Check out the American Film Institute’s AFI 100, every Oscar winner for best picture, and the highest grossing films of all time. This is cool, but imperfect lists and ultimately not so helpful.
2. Friend recommendations: Reach out to your friends and/or social networks — yes, sometimes not the same eh — for some good ones. Ask your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers, and see what you get. You’ll get their opinion. But who do you trust more?
3. Famous critics: Manohla Dargis and her crew at the New York Times put together reputable reviews of movies. The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane is worth reading even if you don’t watch movies. Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek is great for the mainstream flicks. ReelView’s James Berardinelli knows his movies. And of course there’s also Ebert. (And a bunch more here or check out Quentin Tarantino’s top 20 movies since 1992.) However, critics are great at enriching your movie experience, but to find a movie to watch, you’re still left wading…
4. Ratings & aggregated sites: Metacritic (top) and Rotten Tomatoes do a great job at aggregating ratings, from both professional and amateur critics. IMDB‘s got lots of user votes.
5. Online contextual recommendations and semantic labeling (THIS IS YOUR WINNER): Netflix just spent $1 million as a prize to a team that could improve the accuracy of predications about how much someone is going to enjoy a movie based on their movie preferences. Unfortunately, you can’t use that engine without a subscription! Another great resource is Nanocrowd, which defines movies by moods and memes, much like Pandora’s Music Genome Project to assign to songs fundamental attributes which give them their true essence. Nanocrowd looks like a great site in that realm.

And lastly, start building your list of movies to see, stick it on your mobile phone, and don’t roam the video store halls of abyss!

Best ski movies of the year

If you’re an avid skier, you probably can’t help but get stoked for the upcoming season as by watching the new crop of ski flicks. You’ve definitely heard of Warren Miller, and perhaps also Teton Gravity Research and Matchstick Productions.

These guys spend lots of money to make their movies and ski in areas you will never afford. So maybe what resonates more are the soulful movies of the guys and gals who do it themselves. Here are the best alternative ski movies of the year (at least the teasers):

Earn your turns! Check out these breathtaking powder telemark lines and remote controlled helicopter camera shots. Ooh! Powderwhore’s “Flakes” great trailer:

Live in the East? Don’t think skiing isn’t as adventurous or extreme out there? Proof to go out and explore your own backyard: Meathead Films flick “Wild Stallions”

How gorgeous is the skiing in Japan? “The Japanese compare January to the womb,” says filmmaker Nick Waggoner. “When the snow flows over your head, you can’t tell up from down, and it just becomes you.” Colorado’s Sweet Grass Productions’ “Signatures”:

If you’re still here, sure, check out the big budget flicks too:

Matchstick Productions’ In Deep teaser:

TGR’s Re:Session:

Warren Miller trailer is on their site.

Could cross country snowboarding be the next Olympic sport?

The founders of cross country snowboarding demonstrate their sport and prepare the world for a sport revolution. Can we expect to see some competition at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics? IOC, are you listening? We at NorthGeek will just have to cross our fingers.

Travel the world on a $20 million lottery win

What would you do if you won the lottery?

You hear stories about lottery winners squandering all their winnings, never feeling comfortable in new social circles, becoming depressed from the paranoia and misunderstanding of the amount of money, etc.

This guy won $20M and traveled the world. He is trying visit every single country. He seems to have taken the right steps to ensure his sanity and have a good time. He helped out family and friends, entertained many company investment opportunities, and bought some quirky decorations of course. He also set up multiple teams to manage his money (you don’t trust anyone with that kind of cash).

Some interesting bits from the Reddit conversation:

Relationships: “No, we were just not right for each other. Winning does make me paranoid when I meet someone interesting. It translates into nervousness, something I wasn’t with women before.”

Dating: “Yes, I mostly date trust fund babies now.”

Arriving in a new country: “Hostel for first night, look into renting a place for a month if it is interesting to me. Once bored, start looking into neighboring countries to repeat.”

Craziest travel stories: “Craziest travel story: I was hiking through Nepal and suffering from oxygen deprivation (I didn’t realize it at the time). By the middle of the week I was hallucinating and thought I saw a yeti, Jesus, and Elvis. Reading through my travel diary for that month scares me. I was shot at in Somalia by a child carrying a pistol that should have been too big for him to carry. The bullet passed through our windshield and missed us by a few inches.”

Words of advice for other people aspiring to win the lottery: “It is dumb luck. I was buying ramen at 4 AM at a gas station and didn’t want change back, so I asked for a lottery ticket since it was a buck. I didn’t even check the numbers until a week had passed and was cleaning out my pockets to do laundry.”

Happiness: “An unfortunate consequence of living in a hardcore capitalist/consumer society is that most problems end up becoming money related. “I have to pay off this student loan, I have to pay for medical bills, etc.” It freed me from that stress in life and has given me the opportunity to travel without much restrictions, so in that sense I am happier.”

How to ensure you don’t squander it: “I moved most of the money into a trust that doesn’t allow me to withdraw over a certain amount every year ($95k). Even if I don’t make any interest on the investment that withdrawal amount is enough to keep me happy and won’t run out in my lifetime.”

What things did you buy: “Comics, action figures, video games, and Porsches.”

Supporting tech: “I’m a Linux user so I support open source. I contacted a few developers on sourceforge who created programs I couldn’t live without and offered them money for their hard work. Most declined.”

Satisfying donation: “I gave money to a school near one of my properties in Brazil, it felt good to see them using books that were more updated than the ones I used in grade school.”

Porsches: “I have a collection of Porsches: 550, 944, GT2, GT3, 964, and a Cayman. All but the 550 are regularly driven.”

N.B. NorthGeek does not endorse playing the lottery. Of course we all know it’s just a tax on the mathematically challenged.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sings The Beatles with Yo-Yo Ma

This actually happened. Yes, he’s still Stephen Harper, but nice to see the human side. He does get a hearty audience laugh for the line “I need somebody to love.”

The limits of skiing with Sage and Seth

Here’s a palm-sweating, reality-checking short clip of what the best skiers in the world are doing right now. Have you hear about Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and Seth Morrison? These are without a doubt two of the best big mountain skiers of all time, and here they are above some extremely technical spines in Haines, Alaska, called Hotel Room. It is literally at the edge of the world.

Check out the “how’d he do that” POV video and how even the top skiers still get pretty scared standing above their lines.

Link to Teton Gravity Research video here.