As an olde-time Jeopardy champ, I have a few choice thoughts on next week’s big contest pitting IBM’s computer Watson against two humans, former champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.I am also ready to predict the winner.Let’s get to the thoughts.
Wow: It’s been 30 years since the death of Bill Haley, Mr. Rock-Around-the-Clock himself. Haley was only 55 when he died of a brain tumor (or a heart attack, depending on who’s talking) in 1981.
Today is the birthday of composer John Williams of movie soundtrack fame. He turns 79.
Millions of people — maybe billions of people — have heard the music of John Williams, whose first movie score was for 1960s Because They’re Young.
During the 1970s, we learned to love Williams for the music in big disaster movies such as The Towering Inferno, Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure.
“If I were mayor of Detroit, my top priority would be a RoboCop statue.”So says one angry commenter, reacting to Mayor Dave Bing’s announcement that there will be no Robocop statue in Detroit. It’s probably a good thing that said commenter is not mayor of Detroit
Here’s Warren Beatty with his nominee wife, Annette Bening, at the Oscar lunch yesterday — she in a lovely black dress, he in a simple beige suit.
Jordan’s King Hussein died on this day in 1999, after being in power for 47 years.
King Hussein was proclaimed King of Jordan in 1952, and only 18 when he took the throne in 1953. He died of cancer at the age of 63.
King Hussein was an amateur radio enthusiast. As a ham radio operator, King Hussein was known as JY-1.
A resiliant Aron Ralston gets a laugh out of his missing right arm at the Australian premier of the movie 127 Hours on Monday night. The film stars James Franco …..
“In the Sixties, everybody theoretically had skin in the [war] game — anybody,
theoretically, could be drafted. Now we’ve emotionally outsourced the
war.”Gary Trudeau talks to Chip Kidd about Doonesbury, cartooning, and his strips about Gulf War veterans.
The Guardian tees off on The King’s Speech, George VI, Edward VIII… and Winston Churchill into the bargain:
Rosa Parks was born on this day in 1913.