clipped from scifiwire.com

MacGyver pulling a movie together out of household items

New Line is developing a movie based on the hit TV series MacGyver, which turned Richard Dean Anderson into a star, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

MacGyver was a science-oriented adventure series that ran from 1985-'92 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of Stargate SG-1, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.

Two telefilms starring Anderson aired in the years after the show's cancelation. The character eventually achieved enough cultural penetration to become a reference for anyone attempting to jury-rig a solution out of household items. Anderson himself reprised the character in a MasterCard TV commercial in 2006 and again in a series of Saturday Night Live "MacGruber" sketches and Pepsi commercials.

clipped from io9.com

The Men Who Make Battlestar Galactica Feminist

A recent article in Slate calls Battlestar Galactica a safe haven for "chauvinist pigs." But all you have to do is look at representations of men in this show to see its feminist side.

clipped from www.npr.org

Vidders Talk Back To Their Pop-Culture Muses

All Things Considered, February 25, 2009 · For decades, Americans sat in front of their televisions and watched ┠just watched ┠their favorite shows.

Those days of passivity are over. Now when we turn on the TV, we also fire up the Internet to vote for contestants on Dancing with the Stars, check out extra interviews with the cast of Survivor and read the Grey's Anatomy writers' blog â” all while chatting with other fans on message boards, of course.

But one group of fans has interacted with their favorite television shows for more than three decades. Vidders, as they're called, make unauthorized underground videos using clips from the shows. Each vid compiles dozens of clips from various episodes, all set to a song.

Coppa says their vids analyze aspects of beloved shows, often from a feminist perspective. They create character studies (like this one inspired by Law & Order: SVU), building different stories from the ones they've been given.

clipped from www.kniittiing.com

          

       

  KNiiTTiiNG is a project by Rachel Beth Egenhoefer & Kyle E. Jennings. It has no affiliation with Nintendo Wii. All Material Copyright 2008.

clipped from yro.slashdot.org

Universities Patenting More Student Ideas

"Working as a NASA intern, grad student Erez Lieberman had a eureka moment, resulting in an algorithm that detects whether a person is standing correctly or is off balance. Unfortunately, MIT liked it so much they decided to patent it. Seeking permission to use his own idea for his iShoe startup, which develops products like insoles to address the problems of seniors, Lieberman was told no problem â” as long as he promised a hefty royalty and forked over a $75,000 upfront payment. Whether or not students are aware of it, the NYTimes reports that most universities own inventions created by students that were developed using a 'significant' amount of schools resources.

Now they acquire about 3,000 a year, and in 2006 licensing fees and equity in spinoff companies totaled at least $45B â” research powerhouses like Stanford and NYU pocketed $61M and $157M, respectively."