Category Archives: Obsessions

Zuckerberg, Old Stuff

Posted on by

As I said, it’s fun diving down the rabbit hole looking for historical documents. Since Facebook isn’t that old, even by internet standards, there is a lot of great info one can find that was posted way back when. Why is it fascinating? Because Zuckerberg and co., thanks to Fincher and Sorkin, is now infamous.

I don’t really care to drag out the old Zuckerberg sweated during this video link because, really, who cares? He sweat a little because his hoodie was too hot.

I like this sort of thing — an interview with Mark Zuckerberg in Newsweek in 2004 which opens this way:

Winter 2004 — Current Magazine recently spoke with Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of thefacebook.com—now at almost 300 schools and attracting one million users. Zuckerberg, currently on leave from Harvard, talked about the popularity of thefacebook, his latest project and his favorite Greek hero.

Currently on leave from Harvard! Love this quote:

CM: So are you a beer guy or a mixed-drink kind of guy?
MZ: Beer. [Laughing] But I’m underage. I don’t drink. And my friends all make fun of me because I don’t have a fake ID. They’re like, “You can make websites but you can’t make a fake ID?”

Down the Rabbit Hole – Angela Wesselman-Pierce and Mark Zuckerberg

Posted on by

Two new movies about Facebook are coming out, or have come out, right about now. One is Catfish, and the other is The Social Network. The latter is, I think, probably going to be turn out to be 2010′s one true masterpiece to rule them all. Not sure. Inception is right up there too. And there are other great films 2010 has produced, like Blue Valentine, Another Year, Inside Job, etc.

But Social Network and Catfish involve real people. Catfish is a big pill to swallow that these filmmaker dudes actually had some faux online relationship with this woman pretending to be three different people. Well, the weird thing is that if you search for the woman’s name, Angela Wesselman-Pierce you will find a great many websites out there but most, if not all, have been removed. She has been scrubbed almost completely from the net. This is very bizarre. I don’t know how she managed to erase her paper trail but she did.

The even weirder thing is that her name will pop up as a cast member for the film Catfish. She supposedly was cooperating with them (money involved?) but has since pulled her name and is suing them. I don’t even have all of the facts. All I was trying to do was a little internet stalking.

I don’t really believe these dudes didn’t know what they were walking into. It all seems very staged to me.

And a Zuckerberg stalking DOES turn up interesting info. Like William Randolph Hearst, the Zuck in The Social Network is not the real dude. But it’s still fascinating to internet stalk him for buried info. WAY TOO FUN.

Angela Pierce or Wesselman-pierce has all sorts of weird blogs she started and they’re by invite only, like http://www.incrediblyordinary.com/

Here is her flickr photo stream –

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40483951@N02/

And her painterly website:

http://www.artbyapierce.com/

It says this on her painterly website:

About Me
I’m a Mom.
I like to paint, take photos and write.
I like Blue Cheese salad dressing.
I thank God for giving me the talents I have and for giving me the strength to overcome the challenges in my life.
I hope you enjoy viewing my work as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Obsessions: Anne Boleyn

Posted on by

I am going to blame the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast for my recent obsession with Queen Elizabeth and her randy poppa, Henry XIII. I think I was kind of fascinated with Queen Liz anyway, but something took hold of my imagination reading up on King Hank. It was just so weird and corrupt and tragic, all around – how Henry couldn’t have a son, but might have had a son with Mary Boleyn (this has been disputed but is the subject of The Other Boleyn Girl). Anne Boleyn herself is fascinating because once Henry executed her by chopping off her head, if you can imagine, it set a dangerous pattern. Henry, despite it all, wasn’t all that different from a royal serial killer, when you think about it. Of course, it was buried in God and duty and all of that. It’s strange that no woman could give him the son he so desperately wanted, but stranger still that the one daughter he did manage to bring into the world turned out to be none other than Queen Elizabeth, arguably England’s greatest ruler in history.

It is also strange and fascinating that she never married nor gave birth. Not so strange given what happened to her mother Anne, but strange in many ways nonetheless.

Anyway, so I’ve been reading this book:

By the way, Stuff You Missed in History Class is addictive. If you start listening to it you might never stop!

Phoebe the Hummingbird Gives Birth

Posted on by

This is the most amazing thing. A teeny tiny humming bird built her little nest – which is about the size of a golf ball, if you can imagine that. And inside, are two little humming birds. They have to be about as big as a fingertip. I recently learned much about the precarious lives of humming birds on this PBS Nature episode, Magic in the Air.

Sad little facts about hummingbirds:

They have to eat nectar constantly or they can’t even survive the night.
They can hover, mid-air.
They have to lower their heart rate and puff up at night to prevent their own death.
They are great nest builders and the males have some really really cute behaviors for attracting a mate.

So, I got tipped off to the Phoebe-cam where you can watch her sitting on her little hatchlings.¬†¬† She’s so cute. Such a good little mommy. She must fly off, eat some food, fly back. I haven’t seen her feeding her babies in real time yet. But I’m sure I will at some point.

Here are some screen caps of the little babies:

Down the Rabbit Hole with … Wait for it … Cannibalism

Posted on by

It all started when I found a book on homesteading. It just so happened that the book I picked up had some letters from members of the Donner party. And that was all it took. Down the rabbit hole I went in search of all available information on the Donner party – who were they, how did they get into such bad straights? Where exactly were they when most of them died frozen and starving in the snow? Did they really resort to eating human flesh as has been rumored? Were the recent stories about there being no proof of cannibalism to be believed (turns out, no, they’re not). The letters specifically said that many of them stayed alive by eating flesh. Those who didn’t felt proud of this fact.

I found many great sites on Donner info, like the Donner Party Library, but the best one is the Donner blog.

The Donner doc done by PBS’ The American Experience is on YouTube. You can watch the whole thing if you’ve a mind.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ceO0gtlJ4[/youtube]

I thought when that quieted in my mind it was all over with. But then I happened to catch the film Alive on cable recently. It all started over again. The plane crash in the Andes mountains in 1972. The movie isn’t bad – Ethan Hawke has never been better, really. Oh and if you think you’re afraid of flying…I hate planes. I am not emotionally mature enough to tolerate the intense fear. Anyway, so here’s a cheery clip of Alive. I think you can actually watch the whole film on YouTube as well:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyoh84rdOrk[/youtube]