Video

• Thing: My Best Worst Friend from Free Darko. A regular Joey, so regular he runs a Blogspot blog, somehow stumbled into a years-long friendship with THE Michael Jordan (THE THE Michael Jordan). Post reconfirms Mike-iavelli’s endearing insanity and kind of makes me hope I never accidentally cross MJ’s path.
• Thing: How Not to Depict a War from the New York Times Lens blog. The Hurt Locker: a deserving Best Picture nom that’s well-directed, -written, and -performed. But true to life? Its reception has been a case of mistaking grittiness for authenticity; seriously, a bomb squad wanders onto some rifles and then downloads sniping mastery from the Matrix, or so it seems? It’s pretty much a literate Call of Duty, or Rambo in Apocalypse Now skins. And the idea that it’s an anti-war movie is MOOTED by the movie’s final scene. In the Times essay, American soliders in Iraq remotely detonate the movie’s bona fides. So to speak.
• Thing: The making of the new OK Go video from Make Magazine. In case you’ve been living under a rock made of no internet, here’s OK Go’s new music video:
  

  In case you’ve been living INSIDE a rock that’s under a rock, here’s OK Go’s old music vide OH WAIT their label made it unembeddable.

Maybe now that football’s over, the internet’s jock/nerd balance has swung the unsportsy way. For whatever reason, this week’s 3BT is by far the nerdiest yet. If I knew any Star Trek quotes, I’d drop one here; you couldn’t even stop me.

Your socially awkward links:

• How nerdy was the fifth week of the ’10s? Barbie’s a computer engineer now. Guess math’s just not as hard as it used to be! Either way, this dad approves. Smart Barbie has the green light to hang out with my daughter. (Barbie: biggest dark horse nerd since Vin Diesel? [X-Files quote].)
• Splitting up the U.S. into seven cliquey regions, based on data pulled from Facebook. Here’s the data source thing you can use to see which Facebook fan pages are most popular in your city and which other cities your neighbors are most connected to. Also, you’ll learn that Taraji P. Henson is apparently one of the most popular people in the world. Had no idea! [Lord of the Rings quote], know what I mean? Ha ha!
• A cool thing, I swear: interactive Scale of the Universe thing, spanning everything from stuff so small that it probably doesn’t, like, exist to the whole-entire universe itself. CLICK IT and PUSH PLAY and FIDDLE WITH THE BLUE THING — come on. It’s SUCH COOL STUFF, guys.

Also, marvel at Reddit’s ridiculous list of the most useful websites. [Lost quote]. No, I promise you’ll be amazed.

Nerd Creates Herd of Himself

This nerd conducting a live screencast clicks to watch himself conducting his live screencast, and hell follows after. At the :31-second mark, the Nerd Hall of Mirrors soars into the Nerd Hall of Fame, [Monty Python quote].

You’re going to a Super Bowl party Sunday night, but you have no idea which of these two teams Eli Manning plays for. Don’t worry; we’ve got your entire Super Bowl fan pack right here.

What snack should I bring?

Buffalo chicken dip, a dip made of buffalo chicken. Next question.

I’m not from Louisiana or Indiana. I’m from somewhere like Canada, Pakistan, or Nigeria. Who should I root for/against?

America is rooting for the Saints, but thinks the Colts will win. But you’d like a little more than that before you make a choice this critical.

You should root against the Colts because Peyton Manning is obnoxious. Also, the NFL says you can’t root for the Saints. Screw the NFL! You’re rooting for the Saints!

You should root against the Saints because head coach Sean Payton is obnoxious. Also, a Louisiana high school principal says you can’t root for the Colts. Screw that Louisiana high school principal! You’re rooting for the Colts!

Tough, tough call.

OK, blah blah blah. Which team is the fun team?

Saints celebrations look like this:

While Colts celebrations look like this:

I hear The Who is playing the halftime show.

Here are the four best Super Bowl halftime shows ever. All of them are much better than The Who will be:

4. Diana Ross, 1996: A medley of 534 #1 hits, plus exit stage helicopter, in ten minutes? Why not!
3. Michael Jackson, 1993: Remember — as MJ stood still for what felt like minutes, worldwide TV ratings were going up. And then the show started.
2. Prince, 2007: “Purple Rain,” performed in rain that is purple.
1. U2, 2002: Perfect. U2 fulfilled their obligations as a band with this show, but sadly decided to stick around anyway.

What about the commercials?

We agree; it’s sad that so many people care about Super Bowl commercials.

Who’s gonna win?

First, decide which you trust the most… Math, machines, or middle-aged men?

• Math: Football Outsiders, the nerdiest of all football stat sites, have crunched one million pounds of equations to determine… it’s a toss-up.
• Machines: Madden 2010 likes the Saints — and, believe it or not, Madden is almost always right when it comes to predicting Super Bowls.
• Middle-aged men: Almost all the self-declared experts are picking the Colts to win.

Also, predictions by Colts fans and Saints fans. (May not be objective.)

No really, what about the commercials?

Here’s a Google search for best super bowl commercials ever.

Wholehearted Super Bowl rap songs made by white fans?

Colts:

 Saints:

Give me some trivia to try out.

• Celebrity picks! Maya Angelou and Bill O’Reilly agree: Colts win. Hulk Hogan and Roseanne find common ground in the Saints.
• The 2009 All-Unwanted All-Pros: players who are really good despite nobody thinking they’d ever be any good.
• How Super Bowl gambling works
• Sports video games are changing sports: “It’s one thing to suggest that videogames may be making us smarter. It’s another thing altogether to say they might be making us better athletes.”
• The odds of a single cow’s leather being used for a Super Bowl football: 1-in-17,420,000.

And if you really want to impress, tear into the NFL’s gigantic new Hulu presence, featuring videos of like everything ever.

Will the announcers talk about anything besides the dumb game?

Oh good lord yes.

• As you may have heard, the Saints are from New Orleans. Also, Colts receiver Pierre Garcon is from Haiti.
• Colts quarterback Peyton Manning’s dad, Archie, played for the Saints, and the Manning family is from Louisiana.
• Saints running back Reggie Bush is dating famous celebrity Kim Kardashian.
• Is Peyton Manning the best quarterback ever?
• Some more about New Orleans.
• Some players are hurt, but will play anyway.

Give me something to complain about that nobody else will be complaining about.

When players list their alma maters during introductions, many of them haven’t actually graduated. GET OFF MY LAWN.

What happens after the game ends?

Regular-season basketball.

J. D. Salinger

In 1965, author J. D. Salinger retired with the world heavyweight book-writin’ title belt. By the early ’80s, his Catcher in the Rye was simultaneously the most-banned and second-most-taught book in American schools. He died this week at 91.

• Bunch of Phonies Mourn J. D. Salinger
• Six Stories: Salinger-Inspired Cinema
• Maybe Illmatic Is Hip-hop’s Catcher in the Rye?
• The Knighthood of J. D. Salinger
• My Long Friendship with J. D. Salinger

Holden Caulfield says: “Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

The iPad

To paraphrase Dee Dee Warwick and Mike Tyson, iPad’s gonna make you love iPad. Need one good reason to convince yourself that you’ll never fall for it? How about twelve?

There’s this: “If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple’s famous Super Bowl ad.” And this: The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today.” But the iPad isn’t meant for computer geniuses. It’s meant for their moms.

The iPad is crap futurism whose lack of Flash compatibility might give us a future without Flash. That would be fantastic. The future also promises nine tablet computers that might wind up being as good, better, or cheaper than the iPad. (As with MP3 players and smart phones, Apple wasn’t the first or necessarily the best; they were the loudest biggest and shiniest most magical.)

Holden Caulfield says: “It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.”

Also relevant:

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn, who also died this week, shoehorned all history into a single narrative and avoided citing his claims — which you can get away with if you’re writing a history text like this, but not if you’re writing one like this. He didn’t exactly become a historian’s historian. But he achieved a harder thing; he made young people see history for what it is: an evolving story with unreliable narrators, usually written by the winners.

(IS THERE A LINK-OF-THE-WEEK IN HERE SOMEWHERE?)

One of Zinn’s last interviews, with PBS in December 2009.

Holden Caulfield says: “People always think something’s all true.”

A word:

Has anyone checked on Matt Damon this week? Good Will Hunting was basically Catcher in the Rye: Math Version, and Damon’s character is a big Zinn fan. In fact, Damon was Zinn’s real-life neighbor growing up, and was one of the first people to read a draft of A People’s History.

Status update: ENGINE is sad for Matt Damon.

• You’ve heard of the uncanny valley. How about the completely useless valley? Realism in UI Design takes us there. More like Useless Interface, am I right?
• A lesson in late-night TV walk-on music, music publishing, and markets by Questlove of The Roots, known by many as the greatest-ever hip-hop band and by others as Jimmy Fallon’s house musicians. If you know them by the latter, then… well, then you and I are probably not friends already, but we can get past this! (The big question: How much would it cost to use “Walk On” as walk-on music?)
• To help Haiti’s earthquake victims, change U.S. immigration laws. Also: the photo of the year?

Because we love you

When it comes to Lost, I’m like a doorbuster sale… I have ZERO ZERO ZERO ZERO INTEREST!!! But this seems like a thing that took work to make and that you’d like.