• This is old, but I love it. Free speech is not a pony.
• My friend Spine got one of these and we wants it, precious.
• Some thoughtful thoughts by Casey Re: the onerous Stop Online Piracy Act.
• Alan Moore reacts to Frank Miller’s BS.
• It’s true. William Shatner and Carrie Fisher are fighting over whether Star Trek or Star Wars would win in a space battle, via YouTube.

It’s worth mentioning that this blog was the runner-up in the 2010 Seven Days “Daysie” reader’s choice awards again this year. The sisters LeMay took the top prize for the second time in a row. I was shocked to have made the runner-up spot despite the utter lack of any serious blogging around these parts lately. Thanks, if you voted for Candleblog!

I’m a filmmaking fool these days, having just completed the Baruth campaign film (see it in the previous post), and now I’m deep into a short web video for an environmental start-up. Also, the Pants projects are rearing their heads and gaining some slight momentum. I hope to have something good to report on that front soon.

You must now go and vote for my SXSW panel proposal! You have to register to vote and comment, but I swear it’s really quick and easy. My thirst for hanging out with alpha nerds and rock stars must be slaked.

And if you’re not already following Emily’s Tumblr blog, you should go there now and subscribe. It’s a continuous linkdump of cute awesomeness.

And look at this crazy shit!

• Justin Bieber slowed down 800% sounds ethereal and awesome. They should have used this in Inception.
• Wil Wheaton has quit W00tstock in a fabulous way.
• This short film teaches you How to be Alone.

• Here’s the initial story from the WaPo, covering the basic details of the court’s decision.
• Here’s the first really clear-headed reaction piece I read, dissecting (and debunking) the various implications and suggesting some possible fixes.
• The Economist similarly weighs in.
• This piece at publicknowledge.org comes right out and says the court ruling is actually a good thing because it will force the FCC to reclassify broadband under title II regulations.
• Barbershop Punk is a new documentary about net neutrality that features Robb Topolski, the guy who caught Comcast “in the act” of throttling peer to peer connections and started the whole Comcast v. FCC thing.
• Candleblog pal Casey Rae-Hunter put some of his thoughts on the subject up at The Contrarian.
• Congress, for its part, is being… well, congress.

I’m selling my Roland JC-120 stereo chorus amp and replacing it with with a little digital emulation amp.

$1,625 “distressed” t-shirt. Rome is burning.

Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots

Filmmaker Kyle Gilman espouses the efficacy of DSLR double-system filmmaking (and both inspires and depresses my film students).

Salon takes a three-day road trip with the late David Foster Wallace.

• Clay Shirky has your must-read future-of-media essay for the week: The Collapse of Complex Business Models.
• Speaking of Shirky, he’s one of the respondents to this Pew Research Center survey about the Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future.
• Cory Doctorow says he won’t buy an iPad and says why you shouldn’t either.
• Stephen Fry’s take on the device is somewhat less critical.
• American Indy film pioneer Hal Hartley has remastered his 1991 American Playhouse film, Surviving Desire, and is offering it as an mp4 download and as a DVD along with his two excellent early shorts, Ambition and Theory of Achievement. The shorts would be better served living on vimeo or in some other embeddable, linkable format rather than being tacked onto a for-pay download (at an extra charge, no less). As it is, only existing HH fans are going to see them and there’s a potential for a whole new generation of fans out there. You listening, Hal? This is a missed opportunity. (UPDATE: Kyle Gilman from Possible Films commented that “existing licenses with Hal’s sales agent forbid us from distributing Ambition & Theory of Achievement outside of North America. Putting them up on Vimeo or even on our own website would be a violation of that agreement.”)

• 13 Ways of Looking at Liz Lemon
• Alien vs. Pooh
• A to Z of Awesomeness
• I feel certain I’ve seen this before, but everyone on the interwebz is linking to it like it’s fresh — the nerd/geek/dork/dweeb venn diagram.
• Photographic evidence of our president’s nerdiness here and here. Can Spock ears be far behind?
• The Sci-Fi Superfan Reference Manual
• Metacritic considers the best and worst time travel movies.
• The Scott Pilgrim trailer is out and it’s teh awesome.

• Who deserves credit for passage of the H/C bill? Some say it wouldn’t have happened without the efforts of one Steve Benen. Others give much-deserved credit to Hugh of Borg.
• Sam Harris says some really smart stuff about science and morality.
• Sam Harris also debates Deepak Chopra on ABC’s Nightline about whether God has a future. Michael Shermer and Jean Houston also appear, but are both less interesting.
• SXSW apparently let all (or many) of this year’s podcasts slip out onto the Internet accidentally. Google cache still has the links. (via Jim Brayton)
• OMG cat

• This “Academy Award-Winning Trailer” borrows a bit from Soderbergh’s Schitzopolis, but in a good way.
• What you should “realistically” do if you find yourself the last person on Earth.
• Best. Cuckoo. Clock. Ever.
• An exhaustive hand-written list of Types of Bitches.
• Flameape recently reminded me of the genius that was Shooby Taylor.
• Scientist buzz-kill shatters your sci-fi dreams of FTL travel.
• I’ve only seen the trailer for the obvious masterpiece that is The Room, but this soundboard makes me want to see it even more.

Along with missing work and some teaching, I didn’t touch the Internet much, other than email. Here is a smattering of things I did see that I found interesting. Maybe you will too…

• The 101 Muppets of Sesame Street
• Rock genres flow chart
• Best. Superbowl. Photo. Ever.
• How to levitate by standing next to a wet spot on the sidewalk
• Unlink your feeds: a manifesto.
• Dollhouse: a Postmortem.
• Wes Anderson directs Spider-man.
• I kicked in some funds for the VFX work on this cool little short. You should too.
• The many ways that Roland Emmerich (2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day) will fuck up Asimov’s Foundation trilogy (hint: 3D mo-cap epic).

And finally, Sunday will be Poli-Sci-Fi Radio’s 100th episode. We’re celebrating with some extra special phone-in guests. Listen live from 4-6PM Sunday by going here, or be a chump and wait for the podcast.

• Selleck Waterfall Sandwich. God bless the Internet.
• Sexting, and what it means to be a girl
• How to report the news
• Augmented Hyper-Reality (a view of the future?)
• UK SF writer Damien G. Walter is teaching a class on science fiction and politics. The Recees Peanutbutter Cup of modern culture.
• Dear Comcast…
• Jean Luc Picard doesn’t tweet. (From Frontlie’s DigitalNation, airing tonight on PBS. See Salon’s preview article here.)