About Jason Jude Chan

JasonJudeChan

Location:

Brooklyn (USA)

Joined on:

01/27/07

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  Science

  

  Smoke And Miracles

  Even tobacco is doing good now. Wired reports a discovery that is the very definition of irony: the nicotine-rich tobacco plant could potentially treat cancer, viruses, and genetic disorders. Holy vaccine!
  
  William Bentley, the University of Maryland professor leading the charge, reveals that the plant’s tubular “mosaic virus is literally a nano-sized syringe,” one that can be hollowed out and stuffed with “small interfering RNA” (or siRNA) molecules. Once injected, these siRNA molecules can program cells to destroy disease-causing proteins. A few scientists even opine that siRNA is the most significant development in medicine since the discovery of vaccines. There are still a few stumbling blocks before this can all be done in practice, of course, but we wish these pioneers luck.

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  Posted on September 5, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Art & Design

  

  PICA's Time-Based Art Festival 2008

  This Thursday, our chums over at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art kick off their sixth annual Time-Based Art Festival (or TBA:08 for the abbreviation-minded). For a week and a half (September 4-14), moderation gets the heave-ho as the festival surveys what’s happening in contemporary art’s multifarious forms—performance, dance, music, new media, visual arts projects. In fact, it's the only North American festival to examine and exalt today’s art with such breadth. The inspired programming includes 250+ artists with new, next-big-thing work, like Justin Gorman and his outsized, site-specific text displays, and 150+ performances, from the otherworldly melodies of Antony and the Johnsons to the deconstructive confrontations of artist collective Superamas.
  
  Each day is stuffed to the second with workshops, salons, performances, and, for the night owls, music and drinks at THE WORKS, the museum’s late-night spot. If you happen to reside in Portland, check out the list of events/exhibits. There are some discounted travel packages and accommodations available for out-of-towners.

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  Posted on September 2, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  

  Jackson 5-0

  With a long-awaited long weekend just a few hours away, we’re sure a few of you will hear some Michael Jackson smash hits at a BBQ soon. Today also happens be his 50th birthday. Though the King of Pop’s career is near kaput (we said it), his brush with a different five-oh still warrants our undivided attention. It's been 40 successful and scandalous years since the afroed wunderkind and his brothers signed with Motown. Today, the BBC charts his moonwalk into pop culture superstardom, and subsequent collapse. The folks over at Gawker commemorate his birth with a link to a hypothetical, plastic surgery-free Michael Jackson — though we think this other-Jacksons composite is irresistible as well.
  
  Regardless of what the future holds for Jacko, we’ll always remember him as a smooth-moving zombie.
  
  Photo via General Rubbish.

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  Posted on August 29, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Living

  response to  alexandra_m's post Three Years After Katrina

  Art-iculation of Anger

  Political as ever, Banksy stenciled his feelings on the beleaguered Big Easy in his trademark fashion. The pictorial summaries are pretty pointed as well as captivating. See it here.

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  Commented on August 29, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  

  Agitprop And The Flip Side Of Anger

  As North Korea threatens to recommence nuclear activity, we thought this photo essay of their state-sponsored propaganda posters was a valuable window in the country's (or at least the country's government's) psyche. It’s fascinating to see our ideological differences from the other side, inked into lapidary, us-versus-U.S. slogans and stout, self-sufficient patriots.
  
  Photo: The Korean text above translates to a finger-pointing reversal—“The US is truly an Axis of Evil.”

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  Posted on August 29, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Art & Design

  

  The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

  There’s nothing like some wondrous photography to sate your anticipation between DNC bulletins. PSFK points us to the absolutely awesome work of Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke. For their Lightmark series, the two gallivant across the globe to shoot some sublime photographs, enhanced by their expert use of light drawing. Drawing with light requires a long exposure and a focused, luminous light to cut an ethereal shape through air. With dark, artificial-looking skies as backdrops, the impossibly gorgeous lights appear to be captured seconds before they vanish into the eerie environs.

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  Posted on August 28, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• 1 vote

  Politics

  

  Flattening The World

  Mother Jones spent a year gathering, grouping, and evaluating our military activity around the globe for their massive (and ongoing) dossier, "Mission Creep." The project is full of knowledgeable, take-no-prisoner articles, but it’s their interactive map of America's global military presence over the years that really caught our attention. The fascinating map distills how many soldiers we had in which countries since the Eisenhower administration with a camo-inspired color scale. If you move the year scrubber really quickly, you can see our peacekeeping missions, proxy wars, and other (mis)adventures in fast-forward. For additional intelligence, the 2007 map also provides a military profile of each country.

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  Posted on August 26, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  

  Slanguage 101

  Apparently it's linguistic Friday. The folks over at Boing Boing have exhumed Slim Gaillard’s Vout-O-Reenee Dictionary to help us all shed (learning) some retro me-lee-see (lingo). The promotional pamphlet is a lexicon of the jazzman's awesome and humorous patois. It’s a perfect, hyphen-filled index for instant '30s street cred and affected incomprehensibility.

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  Posted on August 22, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Education

  

  Don't Mess With Texas (Teachers)

  We just posted GOOD 12: The Education Issue for your perusal. Here are a few outside stories to keep you in the scholastic mindset:
  
  - In case you missed our previous mention: this fall, a Texas school district will allow teachers the right to bear arms. The district’s superintendent justifies his life-and-death decision as such: "We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, 'What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?" he said. "It's just common sense.
  
  - The Wall Street Journal offers a provocative argument for why college is a waste of time and a CPA > BA.
  
  - It turns out we’re not the only ones who think playgrounds aren’t what they used to be. Here is our scoop and here is The Wall Street Journal seconding our notion, PTA-style.
  
  - Finally if you happen to be a teacher, or just love to learn, here are the 100 best YouTube videos to expand the mind.

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  Posted on August 18, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• 2 votes

  Politics

  

  Rating Running Mates

  While we wait for Obama’s game-changing text, CNN educates us with a list of the best and worst vice president picks since Harry Truman’s right hand man, Alben Barkley. Traditionally, the ticket add-ons contribute more than just a pretty face, whether it’s supplementing the campaign with a state’s support (California came with Nixon during Eisenhower’s run) or adding more of that dubious "experience" qualification.
  
  That said, LBJ came out at the top of the veep heap while Thomas Eagleton (George McGovern’s ill-fated choice) was at the bottom, just edging Dan “Potatoe” Quayle. Dick Cheney, meanwhile, appeared on the list as both a good choice (2000) and a bad choice (2004).
  
  Thanks Aileen!

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  Posted on August 14, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• 2 votes

  Culture

  Lords of the Rings

  A look at some of the events of the XXIX Summer Olympiad and the countries that love them. An original GOOD Video.

  more...

  Comments (4)

  Contributors: Dorian Orange, Morgan Currie, Lindsay Utz, MacKenzie Fegan, Michael Schaubach, Rus Garofalo, Danielle Flug, Jason Jude Chan, and Merka
  012: New School - August 9, 2008

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  Culture

  

  Crazy 8/8

  Pythagoras was right. The Greek polymath once said that everything is numbers. Today—and presumably on 9/9/09 and so on—we thank him for his foresight.

  In that spirit, we scoured our internets for anything with the right angle for a Friday afternoon, or just anything eight-related. Here’s what our brief dragnet turned up:

  -In the New York Times, illustrator Ben Schott breaks down the eight’s place in history.

  -The Chinese discuss why today is a lucky day for the world to be watching them.

  -88BoaDrum causes drum-induced deafness in Los Angeles and New York.

  -The Submarine Channel, a nonprofit production and online distribution platform, hooks up the impatient with the aptly named, “Forget the Film, Watch the Titles” database. Be sure to check out the awesome sequence for The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

  -Obama and McCain gain (or lose) points for their pop-culture tastes.

  -8 words: free, customizable topographic maps for your weekend adventures.

  With a weekend full of that unifying Olympic spirit, we say turn that h8 to its side and see the infinite possibilities out there.

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  Posted on August 8, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Environment

  

  No Waste Left Behind

  Kamikatsu, a small arboreal village in south-west Japan, has begun the arduous process of becoming Japan's first zero-waste community. By its target year of 2020, the village hopes to say sayonara to any incinerating or dumping. The experiment involves each household separating its waste into no fewer than 34 categories before it arrives at the village recycling center; a sort of Baskin Robbins of rubbish. Here’s a sample of the regulations:
  
  “Glass bottles must be relieved of their caps and sorted by colour. Plastic bottles for soy sauce and cooking oil must be kept separate from Pet (polyethylene teraphthalate) bottles that once contained mineral water and green tea.
  
  All bottles, cans and even plastic food wrappers must be washed thoroughly; newspapers and magazines have to be piled into neat bundles tied with a twine made from recycled milk cartons.”
  
  It's an ambitious endeavor; we wish the folks of Kamikatsu luck and success.

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  Posted on August 12, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Politics

  

  The 180s Of The 2008 Campaign

  Besides continuing to depict Obama as a press-seeking celebrity, McCain and his people have also been referring to their opponent as a flip-flopper—the epithet that deflated Kerry’s campaign. Of course, the Obama camp has reciprocated the rancor by highlighting some of McCain’s switcheroos.
  
  With all this he-said, he-said finger-pointing (and finger-wagging), Politico and PolitiFact analyze five issues in which one candidate accused the other of a political 180-degree turnaround.
  
  While contemplating how the public deciphers two-sided polispeak, we came across a highly informative piece about subtitling—that uncelebrated art of simplification and similitude. The subtitler, who’s worked on everything from Shakespeare to porn, describes translating text for the screen as such:
  
  “I am some sort of firefighter trying to salvage as much as I can from an immense burning mansion. You take out the expensive furniture and artwork and all the people and you leave behind the wallpaper, the rugs, the goldfish tank and the occasional poodle. Sorry, folks, no time.”
  
  In some small way the politician and subtitler are in a similar predicament: each remains tethered to their working originals (platforms and productions, respectively) even as day-to-day developments force them to pick and choose what to filter and what to emphasize.

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  Posted on August 7, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Education

  

  Dot Your I

  In this past weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Caroline Winter asked an elementary question: “why do we capitalize the word ‘I’?”
  
  Winter digs up some etymology, dissects the evolution of the monolithic majuscule, and comes to the conclusion that the capital “I” doesn’t let us see eye to eye. Whereas the lowercased exchanges in other languages signify equal footing, Winter argues that the letter's capitalization, and the individualism it presumes, has made an imprint on our national character. This, of course, applies to all English-speaking countries.
  
  Most fascinating is the usage of the pronoun by our potential leaders. Winter writes: “On the last day of voting [during primary season], Clinton led the pack with 64 “I” ’s and McCain followed with 60. Obama’s “I” count lagged at 30, and he was the only candidate whose combined “we” ’s (37) and “you” ’s (16) outnumbered his “I” ’s.”
  
  Winter suggests that, for a few topsy-turvy days, we lowercase our "i"s and uppercase those addressed. We think it’s a lovely idea for Everyone.
  
  Thanks Aileen!

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  Posted on August 5, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  Lost In Transience

  From Boing Boing TV: Dowa Mondai: Assimilation Issues, a wonderfully unorthodox Bob Jaroc short shot through the eyes of a Tokyo drifter living in poverty near trendy Shibuya. Jaroc interprets a community on the periphery through dislocated film strips and captions, and second-long glimpses of the people's personal affects.

  In other Boing Boing news, be sure to check out Boing Boing WORLD. In the first series the BB folks give a marginalized Guatemalan community the chance to film their culture themselves with Flip phones. It's like an anthropological documentary turned inside out.

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  Posted on August 1, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Living

  

  Free Olympic Tickets!

  Rather than eBay away his Olympic tickets, GOOD friend John Britton has decided to refresh the world with a bit of charity. John is offering 3 pairs of free tickets for the equestrian events in Hong Kong on August 9. The pay-it-forward catch: you have to think of a good deed to do and post about it on his blog. He suggests a few altruistic acts: a micro-loan to our partner Kiva, hosting a CouchSurfing traveler, or subscribing to some magazine. Or just try something new.
  
  The 3 winners will be announced on August 6 and will have 24 hours to claim their golden ticket.

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  Posted on July 30, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  

  The Orwell Diaries

  George Orwell's oeuvre is everywhere this summer. Earlier this month, Penguin released redesigned editions of his two seminal works, Animal Farm and 1984. On August 9th, the Orwell Prize will issue the Orwell Diaries for blog consumption in daily servings.
  
  Like epistles addressed to no one and thus everyone, the Englishman's entries will offer a window into his personal life, critical inquiries, flora and fauna interests, and, of course, political views. Beginning with domestic affairs and transitioning into the political realm on September 7th, it's a chance to see the wordsmith refine his craft (the rules for which he outlined in Politics and the English Language).
  
  In a time when we are mere user names, Orwell offers this reassurance: "When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page."

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  Posted on July 30, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Culture

  

  Goodbye Columbus, So Long Leonardo

  After all the negative press, China is finally getting a little love from a British amateur historian, Gavin Menzies, who posits that the West owes more to the Chinese than we thought. In 2002, Menzies contended that Chinese explorers touched upon America’s shores nearly 70 years before Columbus.
  
  His latest and more controversial idée fixe revolves around Leonardo da Vinci’s machine drawings and their apparent resemblance to Chinese designs brought to Venice in 1434 by four ships from the aforementioned American expedition. In his just-released book, 1434, the sinophile ups the ante by arguing that “this was the spark that really ignited the renaissance and that Leonardo and (Italian astronomer) Galileo built on what was brought to them by the Chinese.”
  
  Most academics are obviously crying bullocks, and one declares that “he says something is a copy just because they look similar. He says two things are almost identical when they are not.” Nonetheless, a coterie of conspiracy theorists around the world support Menzies’ arguments: his first book sold over a million copies and this one probably won’t do too poorly given Da Vinci's current pop renaissance.
  
  Thanks, Brandon!

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  Posted on July 30, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• Duchamp: Better Than A Propeller

  Authored by Patrick James - 1 vote

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  Science

  NASA, Fifty Years Young

  
  On this day half a century ago, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act. With an executive flick of the wrist, imaginations (and patriotic intentions) spread beyond the terrestrial sphere.
  
  Of course, it's all relative. Fifty years, in cosmic terms, is a split second. Case in point: as of March 2007, our most distant space probe, Voyager 1, was 14 light-hours (or in earth calculations, 30 years of travel) from our lovely patch of green. NASA itself started as a Space Race measure against Sputnik speculation, took "one small step" in 1969, and now has its own television channel.
  
  NASA's achievements over its first five decades have been nothing short of otherworldly. And to be frank (Borman?), we still want to be astronauts. Thus, we hope that billionaire bad boy Richard Branson (who says we need to be astronauts) and his latest intrepid enterprise, Virgin Galactic, eventually provide affordable access to cosmic wonders—on our current salary, $200,000 is astronomical. For now, check out Wired's extensive coverage and the BBC's video timeline of NASA milestones.
  
  UPDATE: More news on Branson's super starship.

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  Posted on July 29, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Politics

  Your Ad-lai Here

  Boing Boing points us to the first use of television spots to secure a presidency. While the JFK vs. Nixon in ‘60 is a famous example of the importance of looking presidential on TV, it was the Ike Eisenhower-Adlai Stevenson face-off that first took advantage of the mass reach of the infant medium. Here’s a sing-song Disney endorsement for Ike:
  
  
  And here is a twilight-zone curio from Stevenson:
  
  
  You can check out Obama and McCain’s multi-platform ad campaigns on any major website, but for some historical (and hilarious) reference materials, check out 4President.org, a site that's collected candidates' bumper stickers, brochures, acceptance speeches, and other presidential miscellany from the 1960 campaign to the present. We especially enjoy the awesome variety from '72.

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  Posted on July 29, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

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  Art & Design

  

  A Decisive Moment

  With his cut-and-paste aesthetic, the Parisian street artist JR demonstrates Ezra Pound's imagist maxim: Make It New.
  
  We first covered the city-as-canvas artist in GOOD 005 for his Face2Face project in Israel and Palestine, in which he attempted to refocus the two-sided conflict through playful, larger-than-life photographs of Israelis and Palestinians pasted around eight cities.
  
  Now he's in the historic city of Carthagena, Spain, where he has photographed its oldest citizens and affixed the exaggerated shots (in size and pose) on buildings across the city. Titled "Los Surcos de la Ciudad" (The Grooves of the City), the project touches upon history, geriatrics and the ever-evolving status of an ancient city in a modern time. We think it's a beautiful, in-your-face wrinkle to wake up to everyday.

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  Posted on July 28, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• 1 vote

  Culture

  

  Capital Emo(scow)

  For the third straight year, Moscow has laid claim to the crown of most expensive city. The Russian capital was followed by money-draining mainstays Tokyo and London, and New York came in 22nd. It just shores up the argument that Russia doesn’t want your poor, tired, or huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

  In fact, the folks at the Kremlin are a bit worried about emo kids in the Motherland. The sensitive, nonplussed teens have been equated with skinheads, criminals, and adherents to a negative-nancy ideology. During last month’s hearing on the ambiguously-titled “Government Strategy In the Sphere of Spiritual and Ethical Education,” social conservatives screamed for Soviet-style regulation of the genre’s websites and the emo/goth uniform (black, tight, and torn clothing with asymmetric bangs) in schools and government buildings.

  Apparently a little emo about his country’s future, adviser Alexander Grishunin explained, "the point of the bill is so that by 2020, Moscow will have someone to rule its government.” We suppose that the emo kids will now have a real reason to feel persecuted.

  Comments (1)

  Posted on July 25, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan

• 2 votes

  Politics

  

  George W. Bush, Caped Crusader And Maker Of Merry

  Once again, our fearless leader has made life easier with his wise words. This time, he’s broken down our long-winded financial troubles to a night out on the town (or market if you prefer), saying “Wall Street got drunk.” Intoxicated with his own wit, Bush added, "The question is, how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?" By George, let’s make sure the economy’s not driving!

  While on the busy subject of Bush, the Wall Street Journal seems to have confused the W. for Wayne, having compared him to Batman, and made an articulate, attention-grabbing case for the link. For us, let alone terrorists, imagining Bush in that dark garb is frightening enough.

  And at that, who plays the Joker and Two Face?

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  Posted on July 25, 2008 by - Jason Jude Chan