Signs Taken for Wonders

Update re: that conversation post

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:29:58 GMT

On the last day of class I went out for lunch with some of my coworkers, and we ended up having a sprawling conversation about health care, outsourcing & pollution. At the end of lunch one of my coworkers got up, looking rather dazed, and said, "wow, I haven't got to talk about politics in ages."

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:25:24 GMT

This has been making the rounds, but just in case you haven't seen it:

Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border

For those of you in search of SF reading

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:16:20 GMT

A couple of SF stories by folks I know have just appeared on the web: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz's 59 beads is at Apex Magazine, while Elizabeth Bear's The Horrid Glory of Its Wings is out (with a lovely header illustration) at Tor.com.

In the news

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:43:24 GMT

The other Vancouver (the American one) tries to deal with not being Vancouver

The NY Times 10 Best Books of 2009

I haven't read any of these (yet).

Q. What's the difference between a car and a golf ball?

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:43:27 GMT

A. Tiger can drive a golf ball 400 yards.

In other entertainment news:

Spielberg, Jackson Talk More "Tintin":

"Probably the most surprising reveal in the interview is that it looks like elements from the mostly North African-set opium smuggling story "The Crab with the Golden Claws" will be incorporated into the first film. The reasoning makes sense though as it was the first book in which Captain Haddock appeared - "Peter Jackson and me concluded that it was necessary to introduce Haddock to the world at the same time as Tintin" says Spielberg."

(YES! THANK YOU PETER JACKSON!)

Don't expect a contemporary updating either, Spielberg says "There will be no cell phones, no TV sets, no modern cars. Just timeless Europe."

(YAY!!!!)

I'm happy about this. In more ? news, it looks like there may be Third "Riddick" Film in the works. Is Vin Diesel ponying up his own cash for this? I didn't even think this was a financial possibility.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:54:59 GMT

New Theory about Jane Austen's Death Points to Cows

Poor Jane. I really do wish you'd lived longer, and died happier.

I was amused

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:43:35 GMT

Video Tribute to Hollywood's (Repeated) destruction of New York

Yup, that was a Monday

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:22:36 GMT

Today was one of those days where nothing seems to go right. Power outages, printer mishaps, dead technology preventing my from doing my planned powerpoint lecture... Thank God for cute kittens.

This is one of the rare science articles that made my day better: Biologists suggest Humans may be Naturally Cooperative, Altruistic

..."biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. Their conclusions are derived in part from testing very young children, and partly from comparing human children with those of chimpanzees, hoping that the differences will point to what is distinctively human.

The somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others. Of course every animal must to some extent be selfish to survive. But the biologists also see in humans a natural willingness to help."

Tickled Kitty

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:09:54 GMT

You could gripe about Monday. Or, you could just look at the cute kitten!

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:37:04 GMT

British Soldier who "Smuggled" Himself into Auschwitz tells his story

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:16:59 GMT

Outfoxed: How Roald Dahl's stories for children eclipsed his fiction for adults

I happen to be very fond of the one where the woman kills her husband with the frozen lamb leg.

Thanksgiving update

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:51:19 GMT

The cookies turned out like this:

The ones that actually look like cookies are lemon glazed vanilla cookies. The malformed ones are raspberry swirls, which did not so much swirl as rise like some Cthuloid beast from the depths and then melt all over the shore. They tasted good though.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:42:03 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

I intend to celebrate today by baking two new cookie recipes. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Links

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:40:40 GMT

Phys Ed: How Necessary Is Stretching?

The Legal Perils of Paternity Tests

The Treatment of Low Sexual Desire in Women

Taking Parenting Tips from Dog Training

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:37:34 GMT

Those of you who are interested in dance may be interested in this: Overcoming Cerebral Palsy, Gregg Mozgala learns to dance

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:37:32 GMT

I've decided to go on a Thanksgiving strike: no more grading tonight. Instead, I will treat (?) you to entertainment news.

The "Howling" Franchise is getting Rebooted Unlike a lot of recent dear-god-why? "reboots" of horror frachises, the one makes sense. The original "The Howling" had a couple of good scenes, but it wasn't great, and the last scene was destroyed by terrible FX / makeup decisions. No more poodle debacles, please.

In other news, the "Uncharted" games series is headed to the screen, a new "Kull" film is headed our way, and in the most important film news of the week, Hugh Jackman is set to star in an SF film about robot boxing.

This one's worth reviewing:

Hugh Jackman.

+ Giant Robots.

Boxing.

And apparently it's based on some Richard Matheson short story I've never heard of.

I'm generally very fond of Richard Matheson's work: Duel, most of the really famous Twilight Zone episodes... and now one of his stories is getting the big screen, ultra FX Hollywood treatment with a major star attached. Really, what could go wrong?

On second thought, never mind.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:07:20 GMT

Thank you, Onion: New 'Noveller' Allows People To Post Novels They Write During Course Of Their Day

..."I love it," said Sheena Wulf, a Novellist from Kansas City, MO. "If I'm ever sitting in a coffee shop and my sense of alienation and utter detachment from contemporary life provides me with sudden insight into the world that helped shape my family, I just grab my phone and Novel it out to people."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:02:44 GMT

I just watched The Happening while grading some quizzes, and boy, what a terrible, terrible movie.

I mean really, it was terrible.

The worst part is I don't get is *why* it had to be so terrible. Admittedly, the premise is a hard sell, but the movie doesn't even try to sell it. In fact, there are numerous scenes where Shyamalan seems to be making fun of his own movie. The man's practically turning to the camera and shouting "heh - you see this? This doesn't make sense either!" Yeah, we know, Shyamalan. And MSTK3ing doesn't work well when a) the movie is deliberately bad b) it's your own movie, you dumbass.

I feel like watching The Birds to cleanse my mental palate and remind myself how "When Nature Attacks!" films *should* be done.

The honesty of the search box

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:27:55 GMT

The Rhetoric of the Google Search pt 1 and part 2

To quote Ben Casnocha, "When you type a query into Google it will suggest the most popular completions to the given prefix.

There are some remarkable contrasts, Slate found, between "dumb" searches and "smart" ones. People who start their search "how 2" are more likely to search "how 2 get pregnant" or "how 2 grow weed." People who start their search "how one might" are more likely to search "how one might discover a new piece of music" or "how one might account for the rise of andrew jackson in 1828."

The most fascinating contrast is between "is it wrong to..." vs. "is it ethical to." One change in word generates very different suggestions."

Namely, "is it wrong to" searches generally involve sexuality ("is it wrong to sleep with your sister?") while "is it ethical to" searches involve business and finance ("is it ethical to sell customer information?")

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:11:39 GMT

The best TV series of the 00s?

Discuss!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:53:52 GMT

Yoinked from matociquala: Liu Bolin: The Invisible Man (cool Chinese art)

Entertainment news

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:05:24 GMT

First he mutilated "I, Robot," then "I am Legend," and now Will Smith is going to take on Flowers for Algernon. In other SFish news, Ridley Scott, lending plausibility to the rumors that he has lost his damn mind, is making a movie out of the Monopoly board game.

While you're chewing on that, here are some projects that sound interesting: Darren Aronofsky is making "Black Swan". Veteran ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman)... finds herself locked in a competitive situation with a rival dancer named Lilly (Mila Kunis), with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach the ballet school's next big production, a new version of "Swan Lake". The veteran however is unsure if the rival is a supernatural apparition or if she herself is simply having delusions.

Also, FOX is adapting What Alice Forgot: a woman... suffers a head injury and wakes to find that she actually might be 10 years older and forgotten a decade of her life.

Meanwhile, the following projects are dead: the planned Oldboy remake (yay!), the Dark Tower series (alas?), and Dollhouse (eh.)

Yoinked from Kyle

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:11:50 GMT

Yeah, I liked this. "Weird" comic

Seal Dance

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:08:14 GMT

It looks more like a sea lion to me, but whatev. I applaud its skillz.

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:22:29 GMT

Interesting nytimes article on Why Exercise Doesn't Necessarily Lead to Weight Loss