Renewable energy cheaper than coal? Google says it's possible

According to Reuters, Google may be close to making renewable energy that is cheaper than coal power.

Google Inc is closing in on its goal of producing renewable energy at a price cheaper than coal, the company's so-called green energy czar, the engineer in charge of the project, said on Tuesday.
[...]
Green Energy Czar Bill Weihl said the odds of success had gone up in the last year or so from a long shot to a real possibility of demonstrating working technology in a few years.

"It is even odds, more or less, I would say," he said in an interview with Reuters. "In, you know, three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there."

Don't start betting on it yet, though. Wiehl says that the odds for failure are still pretty high. But isn't it cool to see a company actually go out and try to do something about this?

Futurama is coming back!

The animated TV show Futurama which was canceled by Fox years ago (stop me if you've heard this one before...) is coming back, the Los Angeles Times reports.
For my money, Futurama is a better show than Matt Groening's more famous creation, The Simpsons. But I'm just happy it's coming back for 26 episodes -- and hopefully much, much more.

Comedy Central has struck a deal with Twentieth Century Fox Television to air 26 new episodes of "Futurama," the animated comedy from "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening that was canceled by the Fox network in 2003 after a four-season run.

It will be back in mid-2010, so in about a year.

Oh, and it might not be on Comedy Central:

Comedy Central may not be the only home for the second life of "Futurama." Twentieth's deal with the cable network gives it the rights to sell the newly produced episodes to a broadcast network as well -- given the series' history and the networks' corporate ties to the studio, Fox would be the most likely candidate.

The entertainment industry is so weird.

Tim Burton retrospective to be held at Museum of Modern Art

If any readers happen to be in New York City between November 22 and April 16, they can catch a Museum of Modern Art retrospective of Tim Burton.

I always thought that Burton was a bit overrated (Big Fish and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in particular, both weren't very good). But he still has an interesting style that is all his own, so the retrospective should be interesting.

In addition to his movies, the New York Times reports, the retrospective will look at some of his lesser-known stuff:

The exhibition will contain more than 700 drawings, paintings, puppets, costumes and other artifacts from Mr. Burton’s film career, as well as displays of his early nonprofessional and student films, artwork from his Web animation series “The World of Stainboy,” book projects like “Tim Burton’s Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys” and severed-head props from “Mars Attacks!” A film series is planned to accompany the exhibition.

I know that my friend Matt would love to see the severed-head props from Mars Attacks!

Everything you need to know about Karl Malone

Here is everything you need to know about Karl Malone from December 2004:

[Karl] Malone's agent, Dwight Manley, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday that Malone was asked by Vanessa Bryant, "Hey, cowboy, what are you hunting?" in reference to Malone wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

"She said it twice," Manley said, "and Karl answered, 'I'm hunting for little Mexican girls.' "

Manley said Malone told him he had never made a pass at [Kobe] Bryant's wife, that he was surprised by the accusation, and that he then apologized to both Bryant and his wife for any remarks she might have considered inappropriate.

Bryant's wife is half-Irish and half-Mexican.

(Via Bill Simmons' Twitter.

The Onion: New Terminator Movie Brings J.D. Salinger Out Of Hiding

Another reason I love The Onion:

In an interview granted to The Paris Review, The New York Review Of Books, Time, Newsweek, and Us Weekly, Salinger called Christian Bale "the most badass version of John Connor yet" and described the film's postapocalyptic war with the machines setting as "totally mind-blowing."

...and...

Although the sole film made from Salinger's work, My Foolish Heart, based on his short story "Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut," was considered by Salinger to be such a bastardization of his prose that he never agreed to another adaptation, he now states that "if McG wants to do any of my stuff—'A Perfect Day For Bananafish'; Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters; hell, all of Nine Stories—he has my complete permission. Anything. Anything he wants."

Why I want to see The Hangover

If there was nothing else that I'd heard about this movie, if I didn't know that the hilarious Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms were in the movie along with the underratedly funny Bradley Cooper, this one sentence from an interview Galifianakis gave to Newsweek would convince me to go see the movie:

I think the filmmakers needed a bridge while we were waiting for the roofies to kick in with the tiger.

Sold. Where do I buy my tickets?

Vanity URL landrush coming to Facebook

Facebook is launching their "vanity urls" on Friday at 12:01 ET, the Facebook blog announced.

I'm surprised that it took this long before it happened.

Right now, my Facebook profile is something like "http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=##########" with the # symbols being actual numbers. Not exactly something that is easy to put on a business card next to my Twitter account, my e-mail and my cell phone number.

But soon, Facebook urls will look like this: "http://www.facebook.com/USERNAME."

So when is this available? Well, I said above. But here is the lowdown from the Facebook blog:

Starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you'll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/. You'll also see a notice on your home page with instructions for obtaining your username at that time.

iPhone owners angry at upgrade rates

I have to say, this is one of the dumbest things I've heard. Current iPhone owners are doing "Twititions" to AT&T in the U.S. and O2 in the UK to lower the upgrade rates on the iPhone 3G S -- the new generation of iPhone.

Sorry, but early adapters pay a price.

You pay a price not only in getting a smartphone that doesn't have all the features one would want (capability to send video, etc.) but also you pay a price in that newer, better versions of that product will come out -- and probably cheaper.

Apple is notoriously bad at this (I remember similar sentiments from iPod users when a new iPod would come out). So to those people who are now complaining about not getting a reduced rate just because they currently own an iPhone?

I say tough luck. And it's just going to happen again when 4G arrives, so you better get used to it.

Using Twitter as your sole means of communication

The web series "Mayne Street" from ESPN is back. And ESPN employee and occasional SportsCenter host Kenny Mayne is jumping on the Twitter bandwagon... with some comedically predictable results.