Welcome
   to the
    Electric Brain

Megalopolis is director Francis Ford Coppola's magnum opus, a $120 million self-financed epic nearly 50 years in the making. It's audacious, ambitious, and one of the strangest movies you're likely to see. It mixes sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, political commentary, and alternative history against a surrealist backdrop reminiscent of Federico Fellini. It's dense in dialogue and visuals, spiced with references to history, Shakespeare, current events, and classic cinema. Adam Driver stars as Cesar Catilina, an eccentric architect in the mold of Ayn Rand's Howard Roark or New York's Robert Moses — except this New York is New Rome, capital of the still-extant Roman Empire. The mayor opposes Cesar's utopian urban-renewal plans and reacts badly when his daughter (Nathalie Emmanuel) joins Cesar. Other notables are Jon Voight as a Trump-like feeble billionaire, Dustin Hoffman as his devious fixer, Aubrey Plaza as a greedy Fox News-style personality, Laurence Fishburne as Cesar's wise chauffeur, and Shia LaBeouf as Cesar's hostile cousin. They debate whether Cesar's visions are madness or genius. Coppola sides with genius and the hope that breaking the status quo can save a once-proud nation from descent toward dystopia. This fascinating but controversial film is further from mainstream entertainment than any major production in recent years.

Lee dramatizes the World War II career of Lee Miller, one of the few women credentialed to cover the conflict in Europe in 1944–45. Miller was among the first journalists to photograph the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, and she famously posed herself in the bathtub of Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment. Kate Winslet delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as the war-weary photographer who never recovered from the psychological shock of the scenes she captured on film. Told in flashback, this drama also shows her carefree Bohemian lifestyle before the war and her flings with multiple lovers. It's a gritty testament to Miller's devotion to the truth, her determination to compete in a male-dominated field, and the respect her work never achieved during her lifetime.

Apollo 13: Survival dramatically documents the April 1970 moonshot that nearly ended in tragedy. NASA aborted its third mission to land astronauts on the moon when an explosion halfway to their destination severely crippled the spacecraft. Their crew capsule suddenly lost power when an oxygen tank burst in the adjoining service module. All three astronauts sought refuge in the lunar lander, which became their lifeboat to return home. Filmmaker Peter Middleton gained first-ever access to all radio recordings between NASA and the astronauts, as well as phone conversations between NASA and mission commander Jim Lovell's wife. Even those who remember this historic event will be surprised. Despite the mission's failure, many regard this ordeal as NASA's finest hour.

Lisa Frankenstein surpasses even Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (1973) as a bizarre twist on the Frankenstein legend. Teengirl-whisperer Diablo Cody wrote this modern-day comedy/horror flick in the same vein as Jennifer's Body, her 2009 take on demonic possession. This time, the alienated teenager is Lisa Swallows, who's obsessed with the 1837 grave of an anonymous bachelor. When lightning restores his life (sort of), she gradually warms to his zombielike demeanor and desires. Kathryn Newton is fetching as Lisa; Cole Sprouse artfully plays the reanimated corpse. Their demented relationship soon leads to trouble with family and friends. It's not easy finding a new angle on the Frankenstein franchise, but this sly creation hits the mark while skirting an R-rating for sex and violence.

See more mini-reviews: Civil War ... Unfrosted ... The Bloody Hundredth ... Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces ... 20 Days in Mariupol ... El Conde ... Anatomy of a Fall ... The Zone of Interest ... IF ... Godzilla Minus One ... American Fiction ... Poor Things ... The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar ... Napoleon ... Leave the World Behind ... May December ... Rustin ... Maestro ... American Symphony ... Nyad ... Killers of the Flower Moon ... Barbie ... Oppenheimer ... All the Beauty and the Bloodshed ... Moonage Daydream ... and hundreds more!

Tom's Inflation Calculator

Tom's Inflation Calculator includes the latest U.S. government inflation data for 2023 plus alternative data sets. It's free and should run automatically in your web browser after clicking on the link above. By using historical data and forecasts, it can adjust U.S. dollar amounts for retail price inflation either forward or backward in time for any years between 1665 and 2100.

Tom's Inflation Calculator also includes the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, which the Federal Reserve uses to guide its monetary policy, plus an alternative data set from ShadowStats, a private company. It's the best inflation calculator on the Internet!

Computer Dictionary

Are you baffled by a technical term or acronym you've never seen before? Or just curious about the latest techie slang? Tom's Computer Dictionary may have the answer. From "AAC" to "zoo virus," it defines more than 900 terms in plain language. Learn to speak geek!

Mini Movie Reviews

Tom's one-paragraph reviews of more than 1,900 movies and documentaries, including shorts, silents, independent productions, and experimental cinema. Special attention to old classics, film noir, science fiction, and horror thrillers!

Unseen Photographs
of Haunted Franklin Castle

Franklin Castle is said to be Cleveland's most haunted house. Now you can see rare interior views I photographed in 1980 while guided through this spooky 1881 mansion by a ghost hunter. My photos have never been seen before! I shot two rolls of film that dark night, including infrared film in an attempt to capture phenomena beyond the spectrum of human vision. Follow this link to Franklin Castle as it was in 1980 — and will never be again!

Radio Havana 1972

On this page you can listen to rare recordings of English-language shortwave-radio broadcasts from Radio Havana in Cuba. In April 1972, I recorded these shows from an antique radio and learned about propaganda. One recording is "The Voice of Vietnam," with news of the Vietnam War from the communist side. Another is "Post Office Box 7026," which answers questions mailed by listeners from all over the world. These echoes from the past are historical, interesting, and amusing. The MP3 files will play in most web browsers.

Unseen Photographs
of a Lost Earth Artwork

"Partially Buried Woodshed" was an unorthodox earth artwork created in 1970 by Robert Smithson at Kent State University in Ohio. After an arson attack and decades of deterioration, only traces remain, and new campus buildings and parking lots occupy the site. I took numerous photographs of the artwork while it still existed in 1975–76. Now you can see a few, never before published.

Guitar Cheat Sheet

Do you want to learn the most common major and minor guitar chords? Instantly transpose songs from one major key to another? Find out which major and minor chords go together? Play scales in any major key? Learn the notes on the fretboard? It's easy! And it's free! Just print Tom's Guitar Cheat Sheet.

 Nessie

 The First
 Photography
 Videogame!

Nessie is credited as the first videogame in which players use a virtual camera to take pictures of things inside the game. I created Nessie in 1984 and published the program's source code in a book for Atari computer users. It's a nonviolent game in which the goal is to take a clear picture of the legendary Loch Ness Monster. For the first time, here's the story behind the game's creation.

Index to Tom's Articles

Here's an index to more than 500 of Tom's articles in Microprocessor Report, the insider's guide to microprocessors, networking chips, and mobile-phone chips. Learn about embedded processors, microcontrollers, digital-signal processors, and related topics. (TechInsights subscription required to read most articles.)

Scramble Text With ROTator

ROTator is an applet that lets you encode and decode text in the popular Internet format known as "ROT 13." Lots of other programs do that, but my applet goes further by allowing you to encode and decode text in any rotational letter-substitution format. You can shift the letters left or right, and you can shift them by any number of letters from ROT 1 to ROT 26. Use my all-new JavaScript version (recommended) or the original Java version.

Test Your Java Security

How safe is your system from hostile Java applets? Find out with JSecure, one of Tom's free applets. JSecure harmlessly tests the security manager of your Web browser or applet viewer by trying to access information from your computer's operating system and hard disk. Try it today!

BYTE Magazine Articles

Here's an index to more than 180 of Tom's computer articles from BYTE Magazine published from 1992 to 1998. (BYTE ceased publication with the July 1998 issue.) All of my articles are available online and some include the original photographs and figures.

And more stuff...

• Tom's Mini Movie Reviews. Snappy reviews of recent movies, like those in the blue column at left. Reviews that scroll off the column land on the Mini Movie Reviews page.

• Shutterbug Articles. More than a dozen of Tom's photography articles from Shutterbug magazine are now online. Learn how to personalize your film speed, banish dust from your darkroom, make postcards, find the best deals on used cameras, create special effects with open flash, and more.
• The Death of BYTE Magazine. In 1998, after 23 years of operation, BYTE Magazine was folded by its new owner. To learn the inside story about what happened to the world's second personal computer magazine, see Tom's Unofficial BYTE FAQ.
• Tools for Web Builders. The hardware, software, programming tools, and books used to build this web site. Some tools may be useful to you, too.

Visitors to this web site since August 29, 1966:

Last site update: November 5, 2024

Hosted By