No Posts Today

No posts today, as I am too sick to be at the computer. Tune in tomorrow; hopefully, I'll be feeling better.

Hot Sauce is Not a Toy

I'm a fan of hot sauce. Hell, I'm a fan of hot things, in general. I like spicy food. I recently met my match with an especially hot serving of twelve wings from a local establishment, wings I had consumed dozens of times before but that, on that particular day, well exceeded my level of comfort. To my credit, they were the hottest wings on the menu, and I had consumed them before, but that day those wings put me under the table.

They are covered in a thick habanero sauce, but sometimes the sauce is thicker than other times. Sometimes it is an entirely bearable amount; others, it is not. This time, it definitely was not.

As per usual, I dug into the first two or three wings, thinking that, as always, I would grow accustomed to the stinging in my mouth and be able to enjoy the flavor (I do like the taste of habanero), but the sensation only grew worse.

My stomach burned. My eyes watered. My lips became numb, and when I talked, my mouth, too, watered profusely. It's the kind of place that gives you one big cloth rag rather than a napkin, and the wings were so full of sauce that I quickly ran out of space on the "napkin" and had to resort to licking the red poison off my fingers. Bad idea. Even heaping dollops of bleu cheese dressing and stick after stick of celery could not alleviate this particularly heinous form of discomfort.

I felt true physical pain, like someone had doused my face with kerosene and lit a match. I drank three 32 oz. glasses of Coke and 2 smaller glasses of water and became as miserably full as I was just plain miserable. Sad thing was, I didn't even finish all of the wings.

Needless to say, I've given up on the idea that I can eat anything spicy, but I just read a story on the Times Online that makes my story pale by comparison. Go check it out, because it has definitely cheered me up on this gloomiest of days.

[Help, quick – I’ve unscrewed the top on a ticking bomb]
[img source=fortune cookie (wiki commons)

Brutal Legend

The demo is live for Brutal Legend, which will be released on October 13 for XBox 360 and PS3, starring Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, whose mission in the game is a hellish one.

The game's soundtrack will feature over 100 heavy songs from 75 bands, and below is a list of sonic highlights (the LA Times:

• Black Sabbath - Children of the Grave
  
• Children of Bodom - Angels Don't Kill
  
• Dethklok - Mermaider
  
• Diamondhead - Am I Evil?
  
• Dragonforce - Through the Fire and Flames
  
• Judas Priest - The Hellion/Electric Eye
  
• Mastodon - Crack the Skye
  
• Ministry - Thieves
  
• Ozzy - Mr. Crowley
  
• Rob Zombie - SuperBeast
  
• Slayer - MetalStorm/Face the Slayer
  
• And Plenty More
  

Better than 'Guitar Hero'? 'Brutal Legend' packs 100+ heavy metal songs

Cinema's Top *Human Villains Montage

This is a pretty well-done montage regarding the best human film villains of all time. It covers a lot of ground, but of course it couldn't have gotten everyone in a matter of three minutes. It's still worth a look, though I don't know how well the music fits. What are your thoughts?

Super Hero Cocktails

Comics Alliance has posted a list of alcoholic bevs named after super heroes and comic book characters. If you enjoy that sort of things - or have no friends, drink by yourself, or don't care if your friends think you're a nerd - then mosey on over there and have a look-see.

Two Million Minutes Trailer

2 Million Minutes is (obviously) a documentary about education in the 21st century. Filmmaker Robert A. Crompton searched the world, looking for schools that exhibited the kind of curriculum conducive to learning in today's environment.

This film takes a deeper look at how the three superpowers of the 21st Century - China, India and the United States - are preparing their students for the future. As we follow two students - a boy and a girl - from each of these countries, we compose a global snapshot of education, from the viewpoint of kids preparing for their future.

Our goal is to tell the broader story of the universal importance of education today, and address what many are calling a crisis for U.S. schools regarding chronically low scores in math and science indicators.

The film's name is a reference to the number of minutes a youth experiences in his/her teenage years. You can watch the above trailer or order it on the site.

Only One of the Truest Things CNN Has Ever Reported

Typewriters in the Pre-Electric Age

Typewriters did, in fact, exist in the days preceding electricity, and people speaking English had it fairly easily even then, considering the sparse number of characters in the language. But what about the Japanese? What did they do, with their thousands upon thousands of characters?

The answer is the kanji typewriter (和文タイプライター or 邦文タイプライター), which was invented by Kyota Sugimoto in 1915. This invention was deemed so important that it was selected as one of the ten greatest Japanese inventions by the Japanese Patent Office during their 100th anniversary celebrations in 1985.

Believe me, it was a very complicated process. I mean, of course I don't know, for a bevy of reasons, but according to the blog post I checked out, it was extremely cumbersome but a technological innovation nonetheless. There are more pictures and in-depth explanations of its function on the site itself.

[img srce=miya (wiki commons)
Japanese Typewriters - GT! Blog

Sandwich Calculator

This post could go under the 'frugal' or 'OCD' label, but BoingBoing just posted a link to a sandwich calculator, in which you can plug in all of your ingredients and find out just how much money it takes to make a sandwich in your home. Well, basically. There are only a few ingredients in each category, but still. Cut me a break.

Lose/Lose (Game) Situation

lose/lose from zach gage on Vimeo.

The video game Lose/Lose isn't just mindless entertainment. Indeed, there are real-life consequences associated with playing it.

It's your basic scrolling shooter, a la Galaga, but for every alien you kill, a file on your computer is deleted. If your ship is destroyed, then the application is deleted.

lthough touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land?

It's an ironic take on gaming, and it's something I, personally, will NEVER be playing, unless I take on a vendetta against someone. But, if you're willing you can download the game right now, if you like. I, for one, will stick to mindless violence.

The Game That Kills Your Files

He-Man Covers "What's Up" by 4 Non-Blondes

This is pretty self-explanatory but also entrancing, like Bo Derek's trek across the beach in '10'. Enjoy.

Oh, and as an added bonus, if you would like to see Masters of the Universe characters drawn as hipsters, go to Street Level.

[Comics Alliance]

'Ardi' Fossil Revealed - Oldest Known Hominid

An international team of researchers has revealed the remains of the oldest known hominid in existence, nicknamed Ardi due to its name (Ardipithecus ramidus).

The details can be found in the Science journal:

Researchers have unveiled the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor--and it is full of surprises. Although the creature, named Ardipithecus ramidus, had a brain and body the size of a chimpanzee, it did not knuckle-walk or swing through the trees like an ape. Instead, "Ardi" walked upright, with a big, stiff foot and short, wide pelvis, researchers report in Science. "We thought Lucy was the find of the century," says paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, referring to the famous 3.2-million-year-old skeleton that revolutionized thinking about human origins. "But in retrospect, it was not."

Scientists urge, though, that we not jump to conclusions. Some, among them David Pilbeam, think the chimpanzee and Ardipithecus ramidus did not evolve in a mutually exclusive manner: "I find it hard to believe that the numerous similarities of chimps and gorillas evolved convergently." We have no evidence that Ardipithecus gave way to Australopithecus, and more tests will have to be done to discover what exactly occurred. But still, this is a HUGE find!

[Ancient Skeleton May Rewrite Earliest Chapter of Human Evolution]
['Ardi,' Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled]

Romero to Pen His First Novel

I won't say that George A. Romero single-handedly created the zombie film genre, but he is widely regarded as the father of it. What he did was take what was ostensibly a throwaway movie trope and turn it collectively into a viable force in the horror genre. Today there is a certain canonical zombie archetype, which can ultimately be traced to Romero, and that is why it's impressive that he's writing a novel about it.


Here is what The Guardian UK had to say about the project:

"There is no one more qualified to write a zombie novel," said Mellor, who pointed to the success of the films Shaun of the Dead, I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, and the runaway bestselling book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as proof that the genre "has legs". "You just have to look on the internet and around the world at the enthusiasm with which Romero, and zombies, are greeted, to see that there's a huge amount of potential for these books," she said. The Living Dead will be published in July next year.

The problem is, and I'm just being honest, by writing this novel, Romero is ultimately not playing to his strengths. He's not the best writer, and it's his visual style that defines him most successfully. If he can manage to translate the gritty, gory, paranoid claustrophobia of his films intact in the novel, then it may be hugely successful. Let's hope that's what happens.

[Cult director George A Romero to pen zombie foundation myth]
[George Romero to Write his Definitive Guide to Zombies]

Harold Ramis on Ghostbusters III

I love Ghostbusters. I love Ghostbusters II a little less, but still I love it. I cannot wait for a third Ghostbusters movie, if, in fact, it happens. Chances are, it will. But I heard about a fourth Indiana Jones movie for a looooong time before it actually hit the screen. In other words, I hope the Ecto 1 isn't a set of interlocked Rascal scooters. That's all I'm saying.

Over at Den of Geek, they recounted an interview with Harold Ramis regarding the potential release of the new movie. Though everything is in a hypothetical state so far, I'm a little giddy to hear the familiar bu-da-da-da-da-dow-dow of the theme song on the screen. Here is what Ramis had to say about it:

He went on to deny that the film is set to deal with the Mayan calendar, and confirmed that, as of yet, no actor has been approached or signed up to appear in the film (save for the confirmation of the returning names). He ended by saying, "Yeah, we definitely are introducing new Ghostbusters. That much is for sure. And there will be inter-dimensional creatures visiting New York. And we will deal with it. That's all I am allowed to say at this point."

Ramis admitted that Dan Aykroyd is the "driving force" of the third film, so it appears that he really is the gatekeeper of this franchise.

[img srce: Chad Davis]
[Harold Ramis on Ghostbusters III
[Chad Davis on Wiki Commons]

The Appalachian Trail

I'm about to finish Bill Bryson's wonderful A Walk in the Woods, and reading it has spurred my interest in hiking. Not that I would consider walking the entire AT, but it would be nice to take a week to see how well I could handle the rigors of such a journey. Here is a picture from the trail, taken near the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Enjoy Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

Banned Books Week started September 26 and will run through October 3 this year. When we talk about banned works, we're not just talking about works that came out last year, or the year before that. In the list of challenged classics, you'll find 'To Kill A Mockingbird' alongside 'The Catcher in the Rye' and 'Lolita'.

Books on the list are not necessarily government censored, but they happen to be "challenged" by parents to administrators who, worried about mollifying parents, try to take the offending title out of the library. Many titles on the list are there mostly by reputation, like a popular band releasing a new album each year that you just know is going straight to number 1.

With that in mind, I'd like to repeat a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, who gave librarians across this country their due for keeping challenged books on the shelves of the local institutions:

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

So celebrate this week by reading one of the banned works, or else by recommending one to a friend or colleague. You can also visit The American Library Association to learn more.

Sources: [ALA Banned Books Week]
[I Love You, Madame Librarian]

Quote Magnetism - Be Careful What You Quote...

If you often find yourself quoting famous figures - who also seem to have more quotes attributed to them than time to speak the words - then you may be more wrong than you are erudite or smart. I'm certainly guilty of this psuedo-intellectual misattribution, but I'm not the only one, apparently. At least according to Good.is, it happens all the time:

That Mark Twain was something else, wasn’t he? He said so many memorable things, like “If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes” and “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” What a writer, what a guy.

Unfortunately—even though Twain is the great American humorist—he didn’t say either of those things. Twain is what scholar Fred Shapiro calls a “quote magnet,” someone who receives credit for sayings and proverbs that never passed their lips or pens. Also called “Churchillian drift” by Nigel Rees, quote magnetism is a common phenomenon that infects everything from student papers to political speeches, and respected books of quotations aren’t immune. As quote experts Rees and Shapiro have shown, “So-and-so said” are some of the least trustworthy words in the language.

The article goes on to talk about reasons for this particular brand of passive intellectual laziness, and the common ingredient seems to be, well, commonness. According to the article, "In America, Shapiro said that “people associated with folksiness” such as Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Yogi Berra are the big quote magnets."

145 mi to the "Farthest" McDonald's

This graph - made by Stephen Von Worley - has been circulating for the last few days, but I decided to post it so the last dark corners of the internet for posterity's sake. The orange dots represent the McDonald's in the country, and the (few) darks spaces where no McDonald's exist. As you can see, there are very few parts of the US uninhabited by at least one Golden Arches.

To be fair, McDonald's unfairly receives ire for its unabashed takeover of every strip mall, interstate exit off-ramp, and city street in America. But it is a symbol for a certain kind of corporatism, and it is by far the most visible, so there you go.

Through his research, Von Worley discovered that the farthest distance from a McDonald's is an astounding 145 miles:

For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.

Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!

What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You?

Why is it that we store books in such a public fashion? Of course, we don't line up a row of shelves on our front lawn to show off that copy of The Riverside Shakespeare, but our bookshelves do seem to convey something to anyone who enters our home. Plenty of bibliophiles I know tend to showcase the books they're "proudest" of in the living room, and the others with less prestige (though still enjoyed) are housed on a separate, more private shelf.

I do the same thing at my house. I'll display even my most treasured genre books above those that I'm not necessarily as proud to own. Why is that? What is it about a book collection that lends itself to such public display? Why not store them?

It's an intriguing question to ask, and an article on the BBC site delves headlong into the phenomenon:

And yet, more than 500 years after the invention of the printing press, the importance and value of keeping books is showing no sign of waning. The internet was supposed to spell the end of the printed word - instead one of its earliest success stories was an online book shop, Amazon.

It's hard to escape the theory that there is an exhibitionist side to our bookcase obsession - it's about showing off how much you have read, or plan to read, or pretend to have read. You are subtly suggesting that you are the sort of person who keeps Finnegans Wake handy, for example, just in case you ever fancy dipping in for a quick, albeit incomprehensible, catch-up.

I am somewhat of a book exhibitionist, with not one, but six, fully stocked bookshelves in my living room alone. I would rather have them out in plain sight than in a box somewhere collecting dust. Part of it is that I see little value in storing what I do not use on a consistent basis, but also because I am, indeed, proud of my little collection of bound adventures. Somehow, I feel as though they are, like pictures from a vacation, proof of my enduring adventures, evidence of where I have been and who I am because of the books I have read. It may be a little off, but what isn't?

Billy Bookcases on IKEA.com
[IMG Source=Stewart Butterfield]

Banned XBox 360 Commercial

Self-censorship sometimes takes some very strange forms, as indicated in the above 360 "ad" (if it never aired, could it really be advertising anything?) from 2007. Ostensibly, the commercial advocated violence and was stopped from being aired in the first place.

In a strictly business sense, I completely understand the reason for shelving the advertisement. Having people engage in fake gunplay makes the company more liable for unsavory outcomes attributed to video games, and it also simultaneously makes Microsoft look insensitive to those who lose family members and friends in violent situations.

However, it's a clever, essentially uncontroversial ad that pokes fun at adulthood and "play". And it contains a healthy dose of irony, something this country has been loathe to understand recently. It's a shame to me that the gaming industry need to walk on eggshells, due mostly to its perception in the eyes of parents and the media. Isn't stylized violence what gamers partake in every day? Do children not "play war" in neighborhoods across the country? Well, maybe not, but still...

New 'Nightmare' Trailer

So the new 'Nightmare' trailer has been released, and it actually looks pretty good. Jackie Earle Haley definitely has the cred to pull of Freddy, but the rest of the cast looks kind of...vanilla. Tame. Perhaps that was the purpose. It does look entertaining, though.

One thing I noticed - and I may be mistaken here - but from the trailer it looks as though the movie might (like the Friday reboot) tackle the first two movies in a single go. I saw elements from the original and another scene at a party that looked vaguely reminiscent of the second movie. Could be.

ALSO IN HORROR NEWS:
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox-Arquette, and David Arquette have all signed on to do 'Scream 4', and Bob Weinstein has approached Wes Craven to direct, says Variety. The movie will be the first installment into what they hope to be a trilogy.

Looks like the Halloween franchise isn't done, even if Rob Zombie is done with it. Rumor is the third installment will shoot in 3D, as will 'Scream 4'.

[Dimension Goes Back to Its Roots]

Victorian Undead

I just saw over at io9.com some hype for Victorian Undead, a comic premiering next month that features Sherlock Holmes and his erstwhile compadre Dr. Watson during the zombie apocalypse.

It seems like an awesome steampunk-meets-zombies collaboration, and I, for one, look forward to seeing it. The comic hits stores November 18.

[Wildstorm]
io9.com]
[img source: shootforthehead]

President Obama Advocates for Longer School Days/Years

The argument for a longer school year is heating up, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seems to support the idea of a year-round school fully. "Go ahead and boo me," Duncan said in April to Denver students. "I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, eleven, twelve months a year (from The Atlantic).

The Obama-Duncan model would have schools open later in the afternoons and on weekends, so that students would have a "safe place" to go, and also for longer periods in the year, up to 11 months as Duncan suggested.

It's not an entirely new argument, though support for it is ramping up due to sagging US test scores.

There are a lot of moving parts in the argument for a longer school year, though the central one seems to revolve around using an outmoded agrarian model has put us behind other countries in the 21st century. To a lot of the supporters, there seems to be little room for a compromise, an intermediate length between 180 days and 290.

Conor Clarke, a correspondent from 'The Atlantic' has more to say on the historical reasons for summer vacation:

The long summer break, moreover, doesn't even pretend to have a rational basis in educational policy. It's a response to (1) inadequate farming schedules; (2) the mid-20th century's lack of air conditioning; (3) the mid-20th century's fear of summertime disease transmission; and (4) the no-doubt timeless desire to mimic the summertime vacation habits of the rich.

Source: The Atlantic

Clarke's argument seems a bit specious. The idea that a longer school term will help students ignores the quite real possibility that students have already been overburdened with structure in the school in the first place, and that placing them for even longer periods would, in essence, cause a more intense and prolonged burnout, which would be counterproductive to learning.

The real problem isn't how long students are in school but how we are educating them, because quantity doesn't necessarily quality. It seems more like an oversimplification of the multiple problems facing our educational system. What we should perhaps do is create a school environment more akin to what most students will see after graduation. More computers and computer access, some instruction/classes based on real-life situations, and perhaps a more fluid, malleable idea of "success", rather than demanding that college is the only route to a successful career.

Another likely issue in the fight is teacher pay. Would pay go up for teachers spending that much more time in school, or would their ostensible "hourly" wage go down? If the average teacher makes 33,000/year - and we'll use that figure as an estimate - if we went from a 180 day school-year to a 240 day school-year, that's a 30% increase. A teacher making 33K would need an additional 11K in compensation to make pay equal time increased.

And what about property taxes? Unless I'm mistaken, property taxes pay for local schools, and with a rise in costs for schools, property taxes would also go up, along with the overall cost of schooling.

While education cold probably use more funding, our system would probably benefit more from a smarter use of government funds rather than a precipitous incline in them. Neither President Obama nor Secretary Duncan has mentioned how much instruction testing and test-prep has taken away from teachers and students. The system itself right now is entirely too inefficient, and efforts to rectify that would hopefully have a more lasting impact than an 11-month curriculum.

UPDATE (10/6/09):

Arnie Duncan went on 'The Colbert Report' last night, advocating for the longer school year.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Arne Duncan
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

'28 Days Later' in One Minute

I know that one minute re-enactments of less-than-decade old films may seem a bit too high school drama-y and quite overly nostalgic, but that sort of sums up America, I think. The above vid is '28 Days Later' in one minute - if you couldn't or didn't read the post title - and the below vid is 'Kill Bill, Parts 1 AND 2' in under a minute. If you enjoyed these brief productions, head over to College Humor to watch them again. Apparently, they'll make money if you watch them enough times.

A No-Blog Weekend

I have been too immersed in the worlds of 'BioShock' and college football and grad school to blog this weekend. I'll be back to blogging full-time on Monday. Thanks! :)