history

Chris Knight's avatar

NBC, September 11, 2001, from 8:31 am to 9:12 a.m. EST:

That’s what I happened to have been watching that morning, after I turned on my TV following one of the most unforgettable phone calls I ever got from Mom.

I switched to the ABC affiliate in Asheville not long after. The moment that has most haunted me from that day begins at around 33 minutes in this clip.

“Oh my God…”

— Peter Jennings, ABC News,
after the collapse of the second tower of the World Trade Center

The September 11 Television Archive – hosted by the terrific Internet Archive – has documented practically every moment of major network broadcast television from that horrific morning seven years ago today, stretching into the afternoon and evening of 9/11. If you want to study the events as they happened while they were being covered by NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

It was ten years ago today, on September 7th, 1998, that Sergey Brin and Larry Page took some investment capital and a database algorithm and from it spawned Google: the search engine that more than anything else transformed the Internet from a technological novelty into an indispensable application.

I used Google on the first day it was announced, in one of the computer labs at Elon. Even then I thought this was the most superior search engine of the lot that I’d been using up ’til then. In a few months Google supplanted those. And there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by whenever I’ve had to use the Internet (which is most) that I haven’t employed Google.

Back then it ran on four computers. Today Google has a vast campus in California and data centers all over the place. The company has developed its own operating system, is ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I watched some of Barack Obama’s speech last night. I’m not voting for him. But I could see where a lot of people would vote for him based on charisma and presence.

(Parse that as you will…)

I’m not voting for John McCain either. And so far I haven’t found anyone jazzed about him enough to cast their ballot in his favor. Any man who by all accounts left his wife just so he could have a younger woman, is not a man that I can trust to be President of the United States under any circumstance.

In a sane world, Sarah Palin would be running for President, and I would vote for her regardless of what party she’s coming from. That’s still not enough to entice me to ever vote for McCain though, now that she’s set to be his running mate. But I’ve been following her for awhile ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Something I came up with after the idea hit me on the drive back from Atlanta last week.

It could also be argued that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without really firing a single shot, or inflicting any fatalities. He defeated the Soviet Union in the only way that it could be beaten: by forcing it to bankrupt itself to death.

Not even twenty years later, his legacy is becoming undone before our very eyes. And millions of people who have never had to know such things may soon be hearing quite a bit about bomb shelters and air raid sirens....

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Thirty years ago today LEGO introduced the minifig: the micro-sized citizenry that populate almost every facet of the LEGO universe. To celebrate the anniversary, Gizmodo has a report on how the minifigs are put together from start to finish (turns out that they’re the most expensive part of any LEGO set). And Gizmodo is also sponsoring a contest that’s inviting people to submit videos featuring the minifigs. The grand prizes: the vintage Yellow Castle and Galaxy Explorer sets! Just last month I posted here about how much I’ve always lusted for a Galaxy Explorer. Looks like now might be my biggest chance ever to snag one and bring my life’s work one step closer to completion 🙂

I used to have fun customizing LEGO minifigs. Most of them didn’t turn out so well (especially the lineup of Cenobites from the Hellraiser movies that I attempted). I still ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

I’m not going to embed this. In fact, I don’t know if it’ll work as an embed. This particular video has age verification enabled, so you’ve got to be a registered YouTube user and click through the agreement that yes, you’re old enough and you do want to watch.

No, it’s not pornography. But it’s not for the squeamish, either. And it is legit. I first heard about this clip two years ago, and if a friend hadn’t passed it along I never would have known that it was available for public viewing.

You’ve probably seen enactments of this in movies and television. But this – a very rare and early film shot in a prison in Hanoi, Vietnam – depicts the real thing.

What is it?

The executions of two prisoners by guillotine… with the camera showing the heads falling into the basket.

Two things that strike me ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

This blog is drawing lots of attention lately from local cult leader Johnny Robertson and members of his so-called “Church of Christ”. Why? Beats me.

But since I have their attention, I’m gonna have some fun with them.

It has to do with something that I’ve thought about for the past several weeks…

Robertson, along with James Oldfield and Norm Fields – who all broadcast for four hours each week on the only television station in the area desperate enough to sell them the airtime – teaches that if a person is not a member of their “Church of Christ” (which isn’t the Church of Christ that most people know and respect, remember that), and especially if that person is not baptized, then that person is going to Hell when he or she dies.

Which brings us to the subject of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, one of the ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Until now, I haven’t felt anything particularly bad about Barack Obama, the candidate who’s pretty much locked-up the Democrat nomination for President of the United States. I disagree with him on pretty much everything, and I sure as heck won’t be voting for him. But I’m a guy who knows how to draw a line between not seeing eye to eye with someone, and being able to like him or her as a person. I’m blessed to have friends from many different ideologies and philosophies and even what some would consider “other lifestyles”. Doesn’t mean that I approve of those things, but I’m not gonna stop that from considering someone to be a person that needs to be loved by me just as God loves them. Just one of the ways I’ve realized over the years is how I’m supposed to be a witness for Christ to others, I ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo recently traveled to Denmark, home of LEGO. He visited the company headquarters and got to see something that is rarely shown to outsiders: a vault containing EVERY single LEGO set EVER produced! All of them are here: from the very first sets made of wooden bricks, to the new Indiana Jones and Batman lines. It’s an absolutely amazing report, chock full of beautiful pictures. Including this one…

It’s the now-legendary Galaxy Explorer from the 1979 LEGO Space collection!

I sooooooo lusted for one of those babies when I was a way wee lad!

Even if you can’t easily get to Denmark and the inner sanctum of LEGO, you can visit this site which contains building instructions for every LEGO set that’s hit the market. Like the X-1 Patrol Craft (right), which was the very first LEGO model that I ever received! That was back ...

Read more

Chris Knight's avatar

In 1927, Austrian-German filmmaker Fritz Lang released Metropolis, considered by many to be the zenith of the silent movie era. Unfortunately the various versions of Metropolis that we have had for most of the 81 years since have been around 118 minutes long: drastically shortened from the film’s original running time of 210 minutes (did those guys think big back then, or what?). For all this time finding a complete, uncut copy of Metropolis has been one of the most prized goals of die-hard movie buffs, and most had given up hope that Lang’s original vision might never be seen again.

Tonight, Ain’t It Cool News is broadcasting the word far and wide that a complete print of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has been located in Buenos Ares, Argentina!

I’ve only seen Metropolis once, years ago in college. I’ll admit: some of the dialogue is… odd… and maybe even ...

Read more