The online edition of the German paper, Die Zeit, has broken a story of the discovery of lost reels of the original cinematic release of Metropolis, in the Fritz Lang director’s cut.

Upon it’s release in Berlin in 1927, the dystopian science fiction of the silent film era was the most expensive German film ever produced. In spite of this, in its day, the movie was not a great success. The film was subsequently acquired by Paramount who edited it down to a significantly shorter version for US distribution. Though it received accolades for it’s artistic execution and special effects, critically it was panned on both sides of the Atlantic for having a poorly structured plot, and it’s attempts to address serious contemporary political issues were generally considered naïve. H.G. Wells wrote a scathing review of Metropolis for the New York Times. As a result of Paramount’s edit, all copies of the original version were thought to have been spliced up and destroyed. The missing footage, not viewed in over three-quarters of a century, was believed to have been lost forever.

However, a full version of the original edit was just recently discovered in South America, and has now been authenticated by three German experts. After changing hands among both private collectors and public museums, the reels eventually landed in the possession of the Museo del Cine, in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the hands of museum curator, Paula Félix-Didier.

Tomorrow, Die Zeit’s Thursday morning print addition will carry a more in depth article.

Like most futurist visions, Metropolis says more about its own time than it does about the future that was to come. The morality tale concerns itself with the clash between communism and capitalism, wrapped inside a love triangle, complicated by the mischief of a robot temptress.

The movie’s vision for the future was not farsighted. Fritz only imagined more of the same grandiose enlargement already taking place in his day. Large building would get larger, factories would get bigger; and our steam filled mechanically driven future would be populated by oversized gears and levers.

The execution of this vision was however, gorgeous. The look of Metropolis was largely inspired by a 1920’s trip Fritz took to New York City, the Art Deco modernism of his times, and was heavily influenced by the architectural charcoal drawings of Hugh Ferriss. The film special effects creator, Eugen Schüfftan, invented many camera techniques and special effects that would become standards of the industry for decades to come.

Long a science fiction cult classic, Metropolis was re-released in the mid 80s, with a new soundtrack performed by contemporary pop artists, soundtrack produced by Giorgio Moroder. I have personally found that it makes for a better video/music mash-up with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, than the much ballyhooed, Wizard of Oz (but I digress).

In 2006 Carnegie Mellon inducted Metropolis’ Walter Schultze-Mittendorf designed robot, False Maria / Maschinenmensch, played by Brigitte Helm, into the Robot Hall of Fame.

A thank you goes out to Frank for pointing out the article at Zeit Online.

My friends over at Southern Growth Studio turned me on to Wordle this morning, via an image posted on their Facebook page.

Wordle creates a stylized word cloud based on the tags used in your del.icio.us links. The image above was created from mine. Much like the relational graph visualizer, Web Graph (only completely different), Wordle is a one-trick-pony, but every bit worth the ride.

Wordle was created by Jonathan Feinberg, of IBM Research, and he graciously thanks his employer for letting him use code that he developed at work to run the Java Applet. He also provides many acknowledgments. I really respect that, so check out the credits page while you’re there.

What? A quick search says it’s never been mentioned on BoingBoing. Hmm… must notify Mark with a quick link submission.

IBM has done it again. Congratulations are in order for Terry Wallace, Andy White, Manuel Vigil, Ken Koch, Adolfy Hoisie, Gary Grider, John Turner, Steve Turpin, Cheryl Wampler and all those involved at Los Alamos National Laboratories; Egan Ford and his team at IBM, and their partners at AMD.

Under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy, in collaboration with Los Alamos, big blue has broken its own previous record for the world’s most powerful Supercomputer.

At a cost of over $133M, using a hybrid architecture combining over 16,000 commercial grade AMD Opteron chips, with over 16,000 Cell B.E. chips, the new machine named Roadrunner (after New Mexico’s state bird), has successfully performed calculations in excess of one Petaflop. The previous record was held by the IBM’s BlueGene/L System, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA.

The Cell B.E. used in Roadrunner is the next generation of a video game chip designed by IBM in collaboration with Sony, specifically to be used in Sony PlayStation home video game consoles.

Supercomputing, an industry heavily dominated by the U.S., was stunned in 2002 when the Japanese briefly stole the crown with the The Earth Simulator at the Marine Science and Technology Center in Kanagawa, clocked a peak performance of up to 35.61 Teraflops. This achievement reinvigorated the U.S. industry which has seen a succession of achievements in the six years since.

As computer processing speeds accelerate at an exponential rate, the definition of what constitutes a Supercomputer has had some trouble keeping up. When Apple first released the G4 desktop machine, it was held-up from export because it was the first consumer grade computer capable of performing one Gigaflop. This was, at the time, the U.S. government’s benchmark for classification as a “Supercomputer”. Turning a distribution roadblock into a marketing coup, Apple capitalized on this domestically with an advertising campaign (view the spot here), produced by Chiat Day.

Some give their right arm for a piece of Mr. Conte’s work.

Artist Christopher Conte has a joint show titled Cyberdine at the Last Rites Gallery, located at 511, West 33rd Street (btw. 10th & 11th Avenues, on the 3rd floor) in New York City. His work is being shown together with the work of Fred Harper.

By day, Mr. Conte makes artificial limbs for amputees. He also considers himself a “hobbyist” in robotic engineering. The Last Rites gallery bills itself as a venue for artists who “explore the darker side of their imagination”. Appropriately, they are a New York exhibitor for the work of world renowned Swiss artist, H.R. Giger (also known for the creature, Alien). Giger and Conte are both represented by Les Barany.

This exhibit of Christopher Conte’s work came to my attention reading the current print edition of WIRED Magazine, issue 16.06. Chris’ work has also been featured in Dark Matter, Boing Boing, beinArt (The Surreal Art Collective), Everyone Forever and Layer Upon Layers.

The current show runs through June 29th

The Last Rites Gallery is open:
Tuesday-Friday: 2:00pm to 9:00pm
Saturday: 1:00pm to 9:00pm
Sunday: 2:00pm to 6:00pm
Monday: Closed

Have I mentioned, WIRED somehow still manages to be the most consistently great magazine published? When I pick it up, I can barely put it down. Issue 16.06 is particularly great.

If art is a reflection of life, it’s getting ugly out there. When Obama was galvanizing supporters around a message of “Hope”, famed Obey Giant artist, Shepard Fairey made a brilliant move with the release of his Obama, “HOPE” poster (and smaller “PROGRESS” edition). A couple of months ago the election demeanor was different – “hope” was the message of the day.

Since that time things have changed. With the kind of genius that, once done seems so obvious one must ask, “Why did no one yet think of this?” this weekend, artist VonDada updates the message to more accurately reflect the shift in the national mood, with the release of “BITCH”. The number of the production run has not been released, but will likely be less than 500. I advise readers to grab one now. These will sell out fast. Search for Hillary in the GigPosters classifieds. Or keep an eye out for them next week on Ebay.

NOTE:

I personally have nothing against Hillary (nor anything for Hillary either, for that matter). I happen to think the timing of VonDada’s release is impeccable. It is indeed the message of the moment.

A few weeks ago Bill Gates joined Linked[in]. It is often the network’s practice when a high profile member joins, to invite them to post a “featured question” on the site’s Q&A page. Mr. Gates did so by asking:

How can we do more to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and technology?

Before the question was closed, it received 3567 answers. Unfortunately, Bill did not mark a best answer (or even a list of good answers). My reply, which appears here (the 18th answer on page 90), emphasized that meeting our job market demand for scientist and engineers could not be met with education alone, but only by also opening up citizenship to foreign born students receiving college degrees in American Universities. My reply began:

With only 5% of the world’s population, all our talent cannot be homegrown. We desperately need to open our doors to more (I’d say “unlimited”) H-1B visas. With a shortage of engineering and scientific degrees going to American students, our Universities give more technical degrees to foreign students than domestic… yet when their student visas expire we effectively throw them out of our country. A great many of them want to stay here, and yet after giving them our most precious intellectual property, we basically give them the boot. We should be passing out citizenship at graduation ceremonies. Foreign students who earn a degree at a U.S. University in a field where America has a shortage of talent should be granted immediate and automatic citizenship. Anything less is both foolish and shameful. —bold emphasis added.

On March 12th, Bill Gates gave an address before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, on the topic of Competitiveness and Innovation. This address marked the committee’s 50th Anniversary.

Bill Gates’ address to Congress:

Most of the committee members were respectful and receptive to Mr. Gates’ message. Representative Ralph Hall of Texas, district 4 gave a particularly warm introductory speech. There was one quite noteworthy exception. Dana Rohrabacher, California representative, district 46, who went on a protectionist/isolationist rant, felt that if Microsoft couldn’t hire the “A students” from abroad, they should just hire “B and C students” that were American born. He felt it was Microsoft’s responsibility to create jobs for these workers too. He even made the argument that, by giving H-1B visas to foreign engineers, that we would unfairly damage the labor needs of the recipient’s home country (you can’t make this stuff up!). After this bone-head (can I say that? …yes, of course I can. It’s my blog.) went beyond his alloted time, the chair of the committee asked him to wrap it up. Incensed by the perceived insult, Mr. Rohrabacher blathered, “You know, I’ve got a, uh, I’m working at, uh, I’m one of the guys who helped Kosovo become independent, I’m on the Foreign Relations Committee…” before he was eventually shut up. California, is this guy really the best you can find to represent you?

There is a very foolish and shortsighted sentiment that H-1B visas drive down wages and/or cause US citizens to loose jobs to foreign workers. With a shortage of scientific and engineering candidates, without more (many more) H-1B visa recipients, these jobs do not then go to natural born American citizens, but rather simply go unfilled. And that highly sought candidate will instead be employed by a foreign competitor.

Bill’s address was succinct but not thin, and his follow-up answers were well informed. He covered everything from the role of philanthropy in improving education, new educational opportunities offered by the internet, US competitiveness as compared to Europe and Asia, US investment in research and development, his strong support for the America Competes Act, teaching programs that have been successful both inside and outside the US, and what effect this has had on American competitiveness and businesses ability to meet their hiring needs. It was however, the issue of H-1B visas that captured the media. Below I have pulled all of Bill’s quotes related to the subject from the more than 2 hours of footage, sans any media spin (only 9 minutes of which was his actual Congressional address).

At time marker 5:25, citing research (PDF) Mr. Gates makes the case that H-1B visas actually create more jobs here in the United States:

Today our university computer science and engineering programs include large numbers of foreign students. In fact, the Science and Engineering Indicators Report showed that 59 percent of doctoral degrees and 43 percent of all higher-ed degrees in engineering and computer science are awarded to temporary residence. But our current immigration policies make it increasingly difficult for these students to remain in the United States. At the time when talent is the key to economic success, it makes no sense to educate people in our Universities, often subsidized by US tax payers and then insist that they return home. US innovation has always been based in part on the contributions of foreign born scientist and researchers. For example, a recent survey, uh, conducted by several universities, showed that between 1999 and 2005, firms with at least one foreign born founder created 450,000 new US jobs. Moreover, as a recent study shows– for every H-1B holder that technology companies hire, five additional jobs are created around that person. But as you know our immigration system makes it very difficult for US firms to hire highly skilled foreign workers.

At time marker 7:51 he added:

I want to emphasize that, to address the shortage of scientist and engineers, we must do both– reform our education system and our immigration policies.

While the video above only contains Bill Gates’ address, and not the follow-up questions by members of the house which, as I point out, lasted much longer than the address itself, I have included a couple of noteworthy highlights. The majority of the committee’s members were sympathetic to Mr. Gates position, Mr. Rohrabacher bizarre comments above being the only exception.

Later, in response to a question by Mr. Rothman, representative for New Jersey, district 9, at time marker 10:47, Mr. Gates further made the point:

I’d also suggest that, if someone’s educated in a US University that, because of the research funding that comes out of the government, you know, you’ve basically subsidized that education, I think there should be a direct path to permanent residency.

In another exchange with the committee regarding the stature of American Universities, Mr. Gates has this to add (11:04):

The very top engineers, the US Universities still have a strong position, but as I’ve said, the majority of the students in the computer science department are foreign born. And so we educate them. We provide the world’s very best education, and the… the research funding and various things are, a… a major factor there. And then those are the students who, uh, are not allowed to stay and, and work in the country because of the limits we have.

I would like to commend Bill Gates for speaking sense in the face of all the ill-founded isolationism being advocated by some false populist shills for the labor union special interests. The tech sector is the future of the American economy, and of the world. If America is to continue to prosper, we must increase our number of scientist, engineers and mathematicians. Even if all American college graduates became engineers, we would still have a shortage. This has more to do with birthrates than anything else. The only way to close this gap is through immigration, and the low hanging fruit are those foreigners who have already been educated in our system. They are already here, they want to stay here, and when we force them to leave, they will not leave the labor market, they will simply goto work in a foreign competitor economy, taking American intellectual capital with them as we throw them out.

I started off writing a technology story, and here I am, stuck in politics again.

RELATED LINKS:

Bill Gates’ Address in the C-Span Archives
Bill Gates’ full hearing before the Committee on Science and Technology, including pre-address comments by committee members, as well as a post address question and answer with Bill Gates, can be viewed in full at C-Span’s online archives. Available formats include both a Flash Movie and a Windows Media file (total run time is just over two hours). It can also be ordered on DVD.

Committee on Science and Technology, 50th Anniversary Address
Additionally, the address can be viewed in full from the United States House of Representatives’ website as a Real Media file.

Bill Gates unabridged written testimony as PDF
Due to time constraints, Mr. Gates agreed to give an abridged version of his address. His full testimony was entered into the record in writing, and can be downloaded in PDF form.

Microsoft website— Bill Gates, transcript from committee address
The full transcript of Bill Gates address before the Congressional committee, including all follow-up questions.

Bill Gates’ Speeches— Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Transcripts of other speeches by Bill Gates, in the archives of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

While the robot loving geek in me would like to commend the Dutch for this achievement, I have to say, there is something wrong with this on so many levels. For starters, I cannot help but think that the engineers behind this would have better used their time working on alternatives to gasoline consumption, rather than automating it, but I’ll pass on the political correctness. The coolness factor is undeniable.

The development of the TankPitStop was a collaboration between Rotec Engineering, and Tank Van Staveren, the Netherlands’ Shell franchise.

I will begin this post with the disclaimer that I never intended my blog to be a platform for my political views. However, it is an election year, I am an American, and we live in interesting times.

My recent neglect of this blog has been in large part due to another web based side-project, Run Mike Run— My involvement, perhaps in vain, to help draft