Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

In this post, I’m going to ramble quite a bit about things that I’ve been enjoying recently. Books, music, movies, TV, etc. If you want something that may actually be relevant to your own life, then... well, why are you even here? This will be a long post, so you can click below for the full post.

Books
My good friend Lee gave me Robin McKinley’s Sunshine for Christmas and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s a vampire fantasy novel – No wait! Stay with me! – with a bit of a new spin. It takes place in a sort of unspecified near future extrapolated from our own current technology, only there are a few differences. First, vampires, weres, demons, sorcerers, etc. have always existed and everybody knows about them. It would be hard not to know, because some years prior to the events of the novel, the “Voodoo Wars” took place, where more than half of the world’s population was wiped out by all sorts of nasty creatures. The reduced population actually relieved some of the pressure between the ‘races’ and so since then, some people have been able to rebuild some semblance of a normal life, albeit one where you have to buy wards and charms for your house, where your neighbor may be a demon part-blood, (the only notable impact of which is that whenever she pours coffee, it’s always hot,) and when one of your employees always calls in sick around the full moon, it may be because he’s a were-chicken.

The story follows Rae, a.k.a. Sunshine, a young woman who works in a Coffee-Shop Bakery, and who has started to wonder if there’s something missing in her life. She quickly discovers what it is, but also that she was happier when she didn’t know. All this leads to kidnappings by vampires, magic transmutations, goddesses of pain, and cinnamon rolls as big as your head. The story is told in a very informal first-person pov that really puts you in the head of the protagonist. The book is very clever and a lot of fun throughout, even when poor Sunshine is having a truly awful time. It drags a tiny bit in a middle section, and the end has a little less resolution than I wanted, but those are very minor complaints about a book that I really enjoyed a great deal. Thumbs up.

Currently Reading: State of Fear by Michael Crichton
Haven’t gotten far enough yet to have much of an opinion, but I’ll keep you all posted.

Music
My brother David gave me a nice mix CD with a lot of great songs on it, and there is also a nice gradually evolving mood. Each song goes nicely with the ones adjacent to it, but it shifts over the course of the album. Here are the tracks, in case anyone feels like recreating it.

KXMAS – Studio Dave Remix
1. Photograph / The Verve Pipe
2. Hotel California / Eagles
3. Play that Funky Music / Wild Cherry
4. Get Ready / Sublime
5. Californication / Red Hot Chili Peppers
6. Stripsearch / Faith No More
7. In the Cold Cold Night / The White Stripes
8. Wastin’ My Time / Eagles of Death Metal
9. No Rain / Blind Melon
10. Could You Be Loved / Bob Marley and the Wailers
11. Crazy Game of Poker / Oar
12. Sugar Magnolia / Grateful Dead
13. Karma Police / Radiohead
14. Release / Pearl Jam

Recent CD Purchases:
The Garden State Soundtrack
Perfectly suited to the film itself, wistful, melancholy, touching. Features some great songs by bands that I otherwise never would have heard of, like The Shins or Zero 7.

Never Mind the Bollocks – The Sex Pistols
American Idiot – Green Day
For whatever reason, I’ve been on a punk kick lately. There are, however, reasons for these particular albums. For the first, I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls re-runs on ABC Family recently (great show, btw) and the Sex Pistols have been referenced more than once, including this particular album. Besides, how can you not love that album title! For the second, I’ve never followed Green Day all that closely, but I own and still enjoy their first album, “Dookie”, and Stephen King in his Entertainment Weekly Column “The Pop of King” rated their newest effort his number one favorite album of the year, so I thought I’d check it out. I’m not enough of a music expert to really analyze them in any detail, but I’m really enjoying them both.

Movies
Of course, I’ve been putting up reviews of most of the movies I see, but in other news, I’m really happy that a local theater has re-opened. A Madstone Theater had been there previously, showing a lot of Indie and Foreign films, which was great, because it gave me the chance to see a lot of movies that wouldn’t be able to see in the local multiplex, but they closed a while back and I was very disappointed. The new owners have called it Galaxy Cinema, but they are apparently still committed to foreign and indie films! Hooray! Saw a Japanese / Thai film there last night called “The Last Life in the Universe”. A beautiful, touching little piece about lonely strangers finding solace in each other.

DVDs
Got a number of good ones for Christmas. Return of the King Extended Edition, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Spiderman 2. A bit of a side note, I actually received the Full Screen version of Spiderman, so I went to Circuit City (had a gift card from there too) to exchange it. It was a brand new, unopened, still shrink-wrapped DVD identical to one that I found on their shelf. All I wanted was to exchange it for the widescreen version, which they also had. The two were the same price, but they told me that I had to provide proof that the one I had was purchased at a Circuit City! Since I didn’t have it, they wouldn’t exchange it for me. Now to me, that’s some pretty crappy customer service. I had been planning to buy another DVD or two, as well as browsing for a new receiver, but frankly, their refusal to exchange my movie has put me off of Circuit City a bit. Maybe it’s petty of me, but I went to Suncoast and they exchanged it no questions asked... You know it occurs to me that, if my story were to have a real point, I would say that I then shopped at Suncoast instead of Circuit City, but I didn’t because their prices are absurd. *shrug*

In other DVD news, I’ve been watching the past seasons of Alias on DVD from Netflix. I never caught the show when it was new, but because I’m enjoying Lost so much, I thought I’d check out J.J. Abrams other show. It’s a great show, with interesting characters, good action and complex, intriguing plots. As such, I’ve been trying to get completely caught up before the new season starts next week.

Also, if you haven’t already seen it, I recommend you check out Shaun of the Dead on DVD. It’s not really like any other movie you’ll see. It’s a British “Rom-Zom-Com” or Romantic-Zombie-Comedy. Very funny, but actually kinda scary in parts too. On the strength of that movie, I sought out the British sitcom done by the same people: “Spaced”. I caught a couple of episodes on Cable, and loved it, but it turned out that those few were all they were showing, and they were heavily edited to boot. Because the DVD’s were only available in Britain, and because my existing DVD player kind of sucked, I started looking into purchasing a Region-Free DVD Player. Turned out I didn’t have to buy it myself as I got it for Christmas as well. (Thank you, Mike!) That made it possible for me to import the British Region 2 DVDs of the entire series. It’s a great show and I highly recommend you check it out if you ever have the opportunity.

Finally, on New Years Day, I’m going to a Lord of the Rings movie marathon with some friends. Starting at 9AM we’re going to do all three Extended Editions back-to-back. It’s gonna be awesome!

Video Games
Also for Christmas, I got Viewtiful Joe 2 and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for my Gamecube. Great games both, the first a quirky movie-themed platform fighter, the second a Mario-themed comedy RPG. Lots of fun to be had, and of course, more and more time spent not doing anything productive. Boy, do I need more time-wasters, I’ve been far too efficient recently.

So, anyway, I suppose you can see that I live my life entirely through media. Not a bad way to live really. At least it keeps me entertained.

Apparently, there's a new Trojan virus that infects users when they use the Help feature of Internet Explorer! Matthew 7:9-11 says:

9“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

So there you have it, if there was any doubt in your mind, now you have proof. Microsoft is not God.

(Okay, that was the long way around just to spread the news about a new virus... hmm, maybe I can redeem the post by offering another link.)
Just in case you thought that you had no alternative to Microsoft, I'm here to tell you that you are absolutely correct. But if you want to pretend for a short time that you are resisting, you can download Mozilla's browser. Pros: More secure, blocks pop-ups, nice interface, allows you to make a purely symbolic show of defiance. Cons: Bill Gates may break your kneecaps... Or at least your Caps Lock.

Kevin Kibelstis pointed me to a cool geography test where you attempt to place the states on a blank map. Pretty neat. My score was 88% in 300 seconds with an average error of 29 miles.

I'm still digesting the news about the huge earthquake/tsunami around Asia. For several days I haven't really managed to think about it much, because the scale is just so... vast, as to make real comprehension nearly impossible at this stage. So I don't have any deep insight at this point except to point at a few other people who have already managed to get some of their thoughts out.

-Fred Lebaron talks about the Theology of Natural Disasters.
-More on the Christian Theology answer to Natural Disasters.
-Kevin Kibelstis talks about morbid curiosity and natural awe, and how that can make us feel.
-Amazon.com has a spot up where you can make donations. 100% of the money goes to the American Red Cross relief efforts

I may write more on this at some point, when I can think more coherently about it.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
This is a good movie to see with a couple of glasses of wine under your belt, (I prefer merlot for movies.) That’s not to say that you need to be drunk to enjoy it, but rather that the mellow calm provided by a nice wine will get you in the right frame of mind to enjoy the funny, melancholy, existential film that Wes Anderson has created here.

If you liked The Royal Tenenbaums, or Rushmore, you’ll probably like this, though you may find that the story lacks the same sharp focus that he’s had in the past. Wes Anderson’s films are populated with smart, passionate characters who have withdrawn into themselves. They recognize the difficulties inherent in trying to solve emotional problems with intellect, yet they find themselves unable to find a better way.

It’s very funny, but in a bittersweet way that often led me to follow my laughter with a sad smile. It’s got a couple of action sequences, but the gunfire and explosions seem almost beside the point, as though the characters wish they could just get the messy fighting over with so they can go back to brooding and bickering with each other. You may have seen the trailer, where Steve (Bill Murray) is assigning crew members into teams. When he finishes, Klaus (Willem Dafoe), a salty German diver, sulks, complaining: “Thanks. Thanks for not picking me.” In the film, Steve tells him that he had always seen him as a little brother. Klaus says he had always seen Steve like a father. Then he asks Steve to keep the rest of the crew from making fun of him for saying so.

The fact that Zissou's crew consists of documentary filmmakers is appropriate, because the film has the same sort of existential ever-present now that can often mark good documentaries. You have context and history, and perhaps predictions about the future, but all of your focus is on the now. The characters treat their lives in much the same way. People, even animals, show up and they are instantly part of the family, for good or ill. Plans are changed dramatically at a moment’s notice, often on a whim, or the discovery that a particular course of action isn’t turning out to be as fun or interesting as predicted. This, I think, may be what people are responding to when they say that the movie is ‘aimless’ or ‘wandering’. A legitimate opinion, perhaps, but I felt it tied right into the themes.

When bad things happen, (and they do,) there is no melodramatic denial or raving fury. The reaction instead tends to be more along the lines of a deep sigh, followed by: “Okay, now what?” That question tends to define lives of these characters. I hesitate to really describe the plot or characters, (most other reviews will do that, if you really want a synopsis,) mostly, I just wanted to describe the mood.

Anyone who wants an uncomplicated laugh-riot is going to need to look elsewhere. The movie is funny, but the humor often comes from the recognition of universal human foibles, like picking on someone because you really like them but can’t quite admit it, or how the nickname ‘Steve-z’ just isn’t the same as ‘Dad’. Steve occasionally presents himself as someone so self-possessed that he doesn’t care what people think, though in reality, he cares a great deal that people think of him that way. This results in people being very candid with their criticisms, then he pouts because they’ve hurt his feelings. It’s hard to have the self-confidence required to ignore the critics when none of them like you.

Whether you will like it or not depends a great deal on your taste in movies. The entire cast is fabulous, and Bill Murray in particular turns in a performance that, to me, is at least as good as his role in Lost in Translation. If reading this review makes it sound interesting, then I have high hopes that you will like the movie. I liked it a lot, as did my brother and the friend I saw it with, but not everyone will. The two people sitting next to us walked out. That said, Wes Anderson remains, to me, one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. Not everybody will like it, but I did, and I hope you will too.

The NY Times has a quiz up with questions about news events in 2004. Pretty good quiz, I thought. Hard. I got 15 of 27 right, which lists me as "Pretty well informed." Check it out! How many can you get?

A seventh-grader dressed as Santa Claus was told that he could not enter his Junior High School dance because he might offend people.

Principal Fred Muscara said he told the boy he couldn’t get into the dance because he was wearing the costume.

"It was a holiday party," said Muscara. "It was not a Christmas party. There is a separation of church and state. We have a lot of students that go to Hampton Academy Junior High that have different religions. We have to be sensitive to that."

You know, I think it's important to be sensitive to people's different beliefs, but sometimes it just gets silly. Anyone who is going to be offended by a student dressing as Santa at a Holiday dance is going to see a hundred offensive things on their way to school in the morning. What next? Are we going to strip the Salvation Army of their tax-exempt status because of the street-corner Santas?

Okay, wow. Apparently, the Mexican city of Villahermosa has passed a measure making it illegal for people to walk around naked, even inside their own homes!

"We are talking about zero tolerance ... for a lack of morality,'' said city councilwoman Blanca Estela Pulido of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, which governs the state and city.
...
Pulido said she was confident that citizens who catch a glimpse of offenders would report them to police — though the law also threatens jail for peeping Toms.
...
"The majority of houses have a lot of ventilation and we give ourselves the luxury of going naked," Pulido said. "Because we walk past the windows, you see a lot of things."

Boy, I can count the number of times that has happened to me on... um, never. Still, its good to hear that the local officials down there are nipping this problem in the bud, before it has a chance to become an actual problem. I mean, why should people have the right to wear whatever they want in their own homes? Nothing about that in the constitution. I expect this will set a new precedent, and we can expect to see similar measures here in the States any day now.

Check this out, apparently "something" has been cleaning the Mars Rover, removing layers of dust and boosting the signal strength far higher than scientists had anticipated.

Rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told New Scientist that a process still not understood has repeatedly removed dust from the solar panels. "These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape," he says.

Anyone else get an image of Martians holding a spray bottle and a rag?

I'll bet you thought that our calendar, (you know, January, February, etc.), was just fine, but apparently you're wrong, because this guy thinks we need to change it.

Wouldn't it be convenient if your birthday, Christmas and the Fourth of July — not to mention most other major holidays — all fell on the same day of the week, year after year? Wouldn't it make life — or at least planning — easier, for instance, to know that Dec. 17 would always fall on a Saturday or that January 1 — New Year's Day — would always be celebrated on a Sunday?

Richard Conn Henry, professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University, thinks it would. He has designed — using computer programs and complex mathematical formulas — a new calendar that would make it happen.

Under Henry's plan, each new 12-month period is identical to the one that came before. Each month has either 30 or 31 days. January, for instance, would have 30 days, as would February, April, May, July, August, October and November. March, June, September and December would all have 31 days.

His plan would also get rid of leap years in favor of a week-long 'mini-month' that would occur every five or six years. On top of all that, he also wants to have everybody change to one universal timezone.

Henry also urges everyone to simultaneously switch to what is called "Universal Time" (formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time). Doing so would synchronize the date and time the same worldwide, streamlining such things as international business and exchange.

"We would quickly get used to the fact that sunrise and sunset henceforth occur at what seem to us unusual hours by the clock,"

Do I think this guy has some interesting points? Yes. Do I think he has the slightest chance of getting his plan implemented? Not so much. Besides, I don't think he has considered all the implications... Like what about that whole "Thirty days hath September" poem? Or the Pirate Song in Pirates of Penzance? Without the leap year, the 'most ingenious paradox' is ruined! The week-long mini-month, which he proposes naming after Isaac Newton is hardly an acceptable substitute.

Over at Nature.com, they have this story about a new technique that allows researchers to, in effect, take a picture of an electron orbital. This may not seem so spectacular unless you know a bit about electrons. The old picture of a little spark running circles around the nucleus like the moon orbits the earth is incredibly oversimplified. True electron orbitals are more like a cloud of probability, where the electron's position cannot be precisely determined.

They have come up with a technique however that can sort of make the electron send out a one-time signal beacon.

Measuring this interference for thousands of ionizations allowed the scientists to reconstruct the shape of the outermost electron orbital in nitrogen. It produces a blurred image, says Villeneuve, like a swarm of flies snapped in a long-exposure picture.

Electron orbitals and their various interactions are the basis for all chemistry, and a better understanding of them could lead to untold advances. Now I'd better leave this topic alone before I accidentally induce an O-Chem flashback coma. (Chemistry majors will know what I'm talking about.)

I don't know about you, but I think that "dude" is one of the greatest all-purpose words in history. You can make it mean almost anything depending on context. Depending on my personal context however, I often keep that opinion to myself.

But never again will I be embarrassed about my fondness for dude-culture, for it's initiated into the ranks of legitimate academic study! Check it out!

Dude, professor studies 'dude'
And there's an NPR audio story here.

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

How high is your tolerance for silly?

This is an important question, because the answer counts for 90% of the grade you will give to the Spongebob movie. If you have little patience or humor for phrases like “bubble-blowing double baby,” (say it out loud to test your response,) or cars shaped like hamburgers (“The Patty Wagon”), then this movie will be the cinematic equivalent of a root canal.

If, like me, you are already smiling, then Spongebob has a pretty darn good movie for you. As I suggested above, the movie is extremely silly, but it is also clever, well-animated, and in several segments it attains an almost transcendent surrealism.

Those familiar with the show already know what they are in for, I suspect, and I’ll only say that if you like one, you’ll like the other. As such, I’ll devote the rest of my review to any of you who may not be familiar with young Master Squarepants.

Consider, first of all, that he is not actually a Sea Sponge. He is an actual rectangular yellow kitchen sponge, thus the “Square Pants”. He lives in “Bikini Bottom”, a city beneath the sea populated with fish-folk, who walk around on the ocean bottom with legs and feet. He works as a fry-cook at The Krusty Krab and has a meowing pet snail named Gary. No attempt is made whatsoever to explain any of this. You either accept a biker fish wearing big spiked boots, or you do not. Whether you accept his name or not, (Dennis,) is another question entirely.

I could explain the plot, but I don’t really think that it matters that much. To be sure, it is important within the context of the movie, but it is not the reason to see the movie. Instead, you should see it for the live-action pirates. You should see it for King Neptune’s tragic secret. You should see it for the way Mer-Princess Mindy decides to turn Spongebob and his friend Patrick “into men.” (G-rated, I assure you) And finally, you should see it for David Hasselhoff, whose cameo turns out to be far more critical to the plot than you might suspect.

In summary, I say only this. I’m a goofy goober, yeah! Are you a goofy goober? The answer may change your life.

...

Well, probably not, but it might change your afternoon.


NOTE: Despite being a children's movie, pay attention to the PG rating! I would say that the movie contains considerably more mature content than the show does, and parents with kids under ten or so may want to consider studying up on it a little more before going to see it. In particular, there is a lot of 'naked rear'-type humor.

Sideways

In the last couple of weeks, top 10 lists, critics awards and Golden Globe Nominations have been coming out and a little film by the name of Sideways has gotten quite a lot of attention. Deservedly so, in my opinion. What a shame that it isn’t receiving a wider distribution. A shame, though not particularly surprising.

You see, it’s about two old friends on a road-trip through wine-country. For one, it’s one last week of freedom before he gets married. For the other, it’s an opportunity to share one of his great passions, (wine, the pinot noir, in particular,) and also a temporary reprieve from what seems to be an inevitable descent into depression. It’s directed by Alexander Payne, whose previous credits include Election and About Schmidt. So, not exactly the sort of movie you can promote by placing ads on Survivor or CSI during sweeps week.

For lovers of film, however, and those who appreciate a brilliantly told, clever, funny, touching human drama, I strongly suggest that you seek out Sideways while it’s still in theaters.

The two men are Miles and Jack. Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is an actor whose best years are behind him. He’s still working, but he’s gone from starring in TV series to voice-over work reading the fine print in car commercials. He’s thinking of going into business with his soon-to-be father-in-law, “for the stability,” but with the understanding that auditions will take precedence.

Miles (Paul Giametti) is a teacher / writer with a passion for wine that has started to go from a hobby to a lifestyle. He’s two years out from a bad divorce, but still hurting, and though a publisher has recently ‘shown some interest’ in his book, he cannot bring himself to accept congratulations. He knows better than anyone that ‘showing some interest’ is a long ways from offering him a contract, and his manuscript has already been rejected from everywhere else. Ah, but wine! Wine he’s an expert on, and he’s looking forward to sharing some of his passion with his friend on this trip.

So when Jack announces that he is determined to get laid one last time before marriage, Miles is less than thrilled. Noticing Miles’ hesitation, Jack gets even more ambitious, deciding that he will get Miles laid as well, over Miles’ objections if necessary. Jack’s enthusiasm soon nets Miles a date with Maya (Virginia Madsen), a wine-country waitress whom Miles has admired from afar for years. Jack himself hooks up with Stephanie (Sandra Oh), a winery bartender.

I won’t say any more, because the way the movie unfolds is sublime. It has adult, complex, interesting characters with the types of conversations that feel authentic and magical at the same time. It is deeply touching, even sad at times, but other parts are incredibly funny, such as a scene where Miles must get back into the car and drive away as quickly as possible. (You’ll know it when you see it.)

This movie is not for people who can’t appreciate a movie unless it has gunfights and car chases, but for those with an appreciation for sophisticated human drama, I give it my highest recommendation.

Last week in Greece, a pair of gunmen took a busload of people hostage and demanded one million US dollars in ransom. They didn't get it.

Now, they're in prison, and they're very sorry.

Two Albanian hijackers who held 23 passengers hostage on a bus in Greece apologized to the Greek people in court today, saying it was a "stupid act", a judicial source said.

On the one hand, it sounds like these two may have had genuine psychological problems that made them commit the act in the first place and I don't want to make light of that. Nor do I want to dismiss the seriousness of their crime or the mental anguish they inflicted on the victims.

That being said, I just picture them red-faced, hands in their pockets and digging the toe of a sneaker into the ground. "I'm really sorry that I took you guys hostage and stuff." I think that's pretty funny. Is that insensitive of me?

Clarissa Smith pointed me to this, which points to this.

Apparently Chow Yun Fat has been cast in the sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean.

Now, when I heard about sequels being made, I was a little wary. I loved the first one so much that I was concerned that sequels might dilute the legacy. I would rather have no sequels than crappy sequels. The news of Keith Richards joining the cast as Captain Jack's father had me equally wary. Could be good, could be bad. But this new casting of an excellent Hong Kong action star has got me excited. It's sufficiently unexpected that I think they're really going to bring something new to the table instead of just re-hashing the original.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that there is a lot of bogus science out there when it comes to health, and I had always placed magnetic bracelets in that category.

Then I saw this article. Apparently they did an actual study on the effect of magnetic bracelets on arthritis pain.

They found a significant reduction in pain scores between the standard and dummy magnet groups. The results for the weak magnet group were similar to those of the dummy magnets, and this suggests that the magnetic strength of the bracelet is important.

Of course, we'll have to see if these results are repeatable, but frankly, I wouldn't have expected even this level of results. Weird, eh?

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you of an extremely troubling tale. Those of you who are pure of heart should avert your eyes, for the following review is filled with the darkest of events and the saddest of stories. It is truly, "A Series of Unfortunate Events." If you wish to retain your illusions of sense and order in the world, or your faith in happy endings, then you should proceed no further.




...



Still here? Very well. If you insist, I shall relate to you that Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events contains no talking pieces of furniture, no high squeaky voices, and no happy, giggling little elves. Well, it has one happy little elf, but his fate is not to be envied. Those of you looking for reasons to hate Jim Carrey will find yourselves sorely disappointed, for his blend of mania and menace only amplifies the sense of surrealistic gloom that hovers over the entire film like a dark cloud, blocking out the sun. The children's performance are likewise somber and intense, providing a consistent blend of empathy and determination. Happy-go-lucky optimists best look elsewhere for enjoyment, for there is little to be found here in the way of silliness and cheer. Only those who revel in melancholy and find solace in the macabre could find enjoyment here.

That being said, I am one of the latter group, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Funny, inventive and visually striking. Thumbs up, but may be too dark for kids under eight or so.

Apparently in San Antonio, the city council has just passed an ordinance requiring all exotic dancers to wear their permits while on stage. I wonder where they put them?

Check this out.

It's a Wonderful Life... the 30 second version... re-enacted by bunnies.

On the same site, the Bunny Theater Troupe also performs Alien, The Exorcist, The Shining, Titanic, and Jaws.

Other great flash cartoons:
Homestar Runner
Bonus Stage

Fred LeBaron pointed me to this article at Policy Review Online about the cultural impact / influences of music by people like Eminem, Papa Roach, Kurt Cobain and on and on.

This ties directly in to my earlier post about video game ratings. To me, there is not really any doubt that violent/bigoted/misogynistic content in videogames/music/movies have at least some impact on the people who play/hear/see them. Let me point out once again that I'm no censor. I don't oppose to these things in principle. I just think that it's important for parents to monitor what their children are exposed to.

Yet, the above article reminded me that there is another element to this question that often gets overlooked. What is it about our society and culture that makes this type of music so popular? It wouldn't be so successful if it did not appeal to large numbers of people. Consider this selection from the article regarding Eminem:

Perhaps more than any other current musical icon, he returns repeatedly to the same themes that fuel other success stories in contemporary music: parental loss, abandonment, abuse, and subsequent child and adolescent anger, dysfunction, and violence (including self-violence).

The article points out that, in the music most often reviled for being angry/hateful/misogynistic, those themes are to be found nearly everywhere. I'm not defending all of those songs per se, but I think that many of them are genuinely passionate works of art that are generated from real feeling, and enough young people across the country are identifying with those feelings that the music becomes popular. That's something we really need to think about before just writing them off as bad influences. What sort of things influenced the music?

Okay, that title is not really fair. Some people are really coming up with interesting points on both sides, but in the recent controversy about Intelligent Design vs. Evolution in the classroom, there are a whole lot of people going completely nuts.

*sigh*

I've been participating in a conversation on the subject here, and there are some good opinions and some bad ones on each side.

UPDATE!! The debate at the abeve link is really heating up. Lots of good stuff there. Check it out!

Some other articles of interest:
--My post about a famous atheist changing his mind because of Intelligent Design
--A defense of Intelligent Design
--Exploring the Evolution / Creation debate
--An article claming to collapse the concept of "Irreducible Complexity"

Content / age ratings. Everyone is familiar with the G/PG/R style ratings one movies. A smaller, but growing number pays attention to the ratings being placed on television shows, but how many of you even knew that there were ratings on video games?

Odds are, even if you know about them, you're ignoring them. At least, so says the NYTimes in this article. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series contain some serious adult content, very much the equal of rated R movies, sometimes even beyond. Nudity, violence, language, sexual content, but despite the content ratings being placed on the games (E for everyone, T for teen, M for mature, etc.) it seems that they are very rarely heeded. Stores allow kids to purchase the mature-rated games. Parents or family members buy the games for their kids.

What is the problem here? Why is it that these ratings aren't being enforced? Could it be that the parents are behind the times in realizing that these adult-oriented games exist? Have they decided to cave to their spoiled children's demands, so that the kids won't hate them? Has the culture changed to the point where this sort of thing is accepted?

Search me. Now, I have no problem with the existence of these games. I don't play them personally, but I think that adult gamers are a growing proportion of the video-game market, and there should be games targeted at them. It all comes down to who is responsible for keeping them away from kids.

UPDATE!
Apparently there is someone trying to make it illegal to sell adult games to minors.
When I was younger, my parents didn't allow me to see rated R movies. At the time, I found it very frustrating. Especially when, at 14 or so, my burgeoning film buff instincts kept running me up against the brick wall my parents had placed in my way. Now this wasn't a blanket ban, per se. If my parents saw the movie and deemed it acceptable, I was allowed to see it. I saw half a dozen R-rated movies this way before I was 17, but you had better believe that if I tried to see them on my own, my parents came down hard. My parents cancelled all our movie channels after catching me watching "Silence of the Lambs" without permission.

Now, do I think that I was mature enough to handle those R-rated movies? Yeah, probably. Most of them anyway. But one of the things that I've discovered as I've gotten a little older is that you can't un-see things. My passion for film makes it impossible for me to say that movies don't affect people. They do, sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad ways. Certain images and concepts can have a very powerful impact on us, and especially on young people, who are still solidifying their personalities. It's a bit like original sin, in that once you are exposed to something, you can't get rid of it. It will forever be part of your mental landscape.

I've played video games for a long time. We had an Atari 2600 when I was little, followed by the NES, the Super Nintendo, a Gameboy, and a Dreamcast. Right now, I own a Gamecube and a Gameboy Advance SP. I play them regularly, and play a number of PC games as well. I'm not against video games, and though I generally don't prefer them, I'm not against games with adult content either.

But I am against games with adult content being played by young children. For other people's kids, I have no say. All I can do is offer my opinion. But I am aware that it can be extremely difficult for a non-gamer parent to know which games are suitable for their kids and which are not. That's where the ratings come in, but they aren't going to do any good if they are ignored! So if you have kids playing video games, check out that little white box before you buy a game, before your kids see something they can't un-see.

Jeremy Tolbert pointed out this link on his blog. It's a whole bunch of photos taken in China, covering a broad spectrum of Chinese life. It's really a deeper look then we normally get on TV or the news. Check it out...

This one, the picture doesn't really match, and makes me a look a little more depressed than I feel, but oh well, I didn't draw the pictures. The stacking thing is kind of neat though, and the text isn't that far off.




Your World (Part One): What is your world made of? [girls]
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This one is pretty accurate I think.

J:

Your Beauty lies
in Dreams. Day-dreamer, creative and forever lost in thoughts. You're a
dreamer, wanting more in your life than you have now. Though you a lot of your
dreams never seem to leave your own mind. You've created your own little world
inside that head of yours and you're most beautiful when your mind is in
the clouds with sparkles in your eyes.
You'd rather be asleep than awake and
people find it hard to have long conversations with you as you mind often
wanders and you aren't a big fan of reality. You are long and almost child-like
probably with a great love for Fantasy or Science Fiction. You're very creative
and most likely love to write wonderful stories or draw and even sing, anything
creative that you can use that vast imagination of yours. You're a bit of a
puzzle to people love to wonder as to what is going in your mind.

Some Things
That Represent You:

Element:
Water, Wind Animal: Eagle Color:
Purples, Blues,
Pinks, Misty Colors Song: Imaginary by
Evanescence Expression: Blank Stare

Gemstone:
Rose Quartz Mythological Creature: Unicorn,
Fairy Planet: Saturn Hair Color:
Strawberry
Blonde Eye Color: Violet

Quote:
"I lie inside myself for hours and watch my
purple skies fly over me."

Where Does Your Beauty Lie? ..::Original Pictures Are Back! Detailed Results::..
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Hmm, haven't read this one. Maybe I should.

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a
mystery novel dealing with theology, especially
with catholic vs liberal issues. You search
wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that
learning is essential in life.


Which literature classic are you?
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Okay, and for pure silliness:

Which Monty Python & the Holy Grail Character are you REALLY?
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I’ll admit it: I’m a fan of reality TV. Some of it, at any rate. Many of them strike me as a cross between sports and elaborate game shows. I enjoy Survivor thoroughly.(See my post about Chris winning) Last season of The Apprentice was better than this season, but I’m still watching every episode. I’ve caught an episode or two of half a dozen others as well. I don’t like the relationship shows much. (The Bachelor, Temptation Island, etc.)

I've enjoyed The Amazing Race as well, but last night something disturbing happened. If you were watching, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t, essentially we saw the team of Jonathan and Victoria move from slightly creepy to full-blown upsetting. You can read the official episode summary here. In particular, this bit:

Jonathan & Victoria drove into the city limits of Berlin, arguing over directions. Jonathan warned, "If another Team beats us, I'm going to lose it." Pulling into the parking area at the same time as Freddy & Kendra, Jonathan & Victoria dashed from their car, taking the early lead in the footrace to the Brandenburg Gate. Soon, however, Jonathan's pack proved too heavy a burden, and he opted to ditch it on the street. Fearing the bag would be stolen, a frantic Victoria screamed, "No! They're going to take it, " and carried both their packs as Freddy & Kendra passed them. Furious, Jonathan ripped his bag from Victoria's shoulder, screaming, "Why did you pick up my bag? Why?"

As Jonathan & Victoria continued to quarrel, Freddy & Kendra stepped onto the mat in first place. Host Phil Keoghan informed the Team they had won a trip to exotic Mexico, compliments of American Airlines' website, AA.com. Just before stepping onto the mat in second place, Jonathan continued his attack on Victoria, shoving her and shouting, "How could you do that?" After being checked in by Phil, Victoria walked off the mat crying, to which Jonathan remarked, "She has to live with her choices."

(My Italics) Let me also point out that she was literally sobbing throughout this and he was screaming at her with very aggressive body language.

Throughout this season, we have seen Jonathan verbally and emotionally abusive toward Victoria over and over again. This was a particularly heinous example, but when he shoved her, he crossed yet another line. Yelling was extremely tacky. He was being a complete... well, let’s say ‘jerk.’ It was a very abusive dynamic, but emotions are high and many of the couples yell at each other from time to time. Shoving her was completely out of line, and to me, speaks of a great deal more beneath the surface. Realize, this shove was outside, in a public place, on national television! If his self-control is that lacking, what is he doing to her in private?

So to me, it’s pretty clear that he’s abusive, emotionally at least, and if the physical abuse hasn’t started yet, then I doubt it’s far off. I noticed at the time, but then this post over at Hannah Bowen’s blog got me thinking about it some more.

What is the responsibility of the show producers in all this? Legally, I doubt there’s any. With all the release forms they all sign, I doubt there is any real liability, but what about ethically? Morally? I imagine that, if he actually assaulted her, they would disqualify them from the show. I know that Survivor has a rule about striking the other competitors. But what can you do with this? If the shove is as physical as it ever gets, and if she continues to apologize for him, what can the producers really do? Not to mention the fact that if he's disqualified, he'll almost certainly take it out on her. It’s like with any domestic violence situation, only it’s playing out on the national stage. Clearly, unless this guy gets himself into some serious anger-management therapy, she needs to dump the creep, but if she doesn’t want to do that, do we as fellow human beings have a responsibility to force the issue? Or is it none of our business? How about watching on TV? Suddenly I feel voyeuristic and dirty for watching.

Perhaps on the next episode of the show, there will be continued ramifications. I certainly hope so. I really don’t want them to just let this go. I know that if they don’t do anything about it, I may stop watching the show. I want to watch a race, not an exploitive documentary about spousal abuse, staged as a competition.

Check it out!

Christiania!

In this post, I discussed the heroic efforts of the Coast Guard to rescue the crew of a crashed freighter and to begin cleaning the oil spill.

Well, in the small blessings department, it looks as though the oil spill isn't as bad as it could have been.

The federal government's incident commander, Capt. Ron Morris, said just 41,138 gallons of bunker fuel were inside the tank directly breached when the Malaysian soybean freighter Selendang Ayu split in two Wednesday on an Unalaska Island shoal.

Coast Guard officials last week said they thought the 140,000-gallon tank had been full.

Of course, any oil spill is still awful, and is proving difficult to clean up, but at least it isn't as bad as it might have been.

The NYTimes has an interesting article today on new tests for early detection of autism.

For years, autism was rarely noticed before the age of 2, its symptoms overlooked by busy parents or so subtle that pediatricians missed them. According to federal figures, only a third of the 6-year-olds who were receiving treatment for autism in 2002 had been identified by age 4.

But in the last two years much has changed. Propelled by an explosion of public awareness and growing evidence that early treatment with behavioral therapy can improve a child's chances, scientists have set out to diagnose the disorder as early as possible, and slowly, more children with autism are being identified before they turn 2.

It's a very interesting article. In my experiences as a day-care / Sunday School teacher, I've met two autistic children. They can be wonderful at times, but they are definitely more work. The reason early detection is so important is that there are many behavioral therapies that can help autistic children achieve a higher level of functionality than they would have without them, but these therapies are most effective when started as soon as possible.

If you are the parent of an infant or toddler, or know people who are, you should definitely make yourself aware of the early warning signs. Some children may demonstrate some signs without being autistic, and some autistic children won't display all the signs, but regardless, it's best to be informed. Check out FirstSigns.org, an excellent sight devoted to the early identification of children with develomental delays or disorders.

The NY Times quote of the day for today comes from this article:

"Within two decades, most of the world's knowledge will be digitized and available, one hopes for free reading on the Internet, just as there is free reading in libraries today."
--MICHAEL A. KELLER, Stanford University's head librarian.

On the face of it, this sounds great, yet I can't help but wonder what impact this would have on the publishing industry. My take, I think that there will always be a market for physical books over purely electronic data. So perhaps it will become a Print-on-Demand world? Books and stories available for free online, but you pay a fee in order to print them in a physical book? *shrug* Who can say?

John Varley is one of my all time favorite writers. If you've never heard of him, he writes science fiction. His book, Steel Beach, has got to be one of my top 5 favorite books. His short story, "The Persistence of Vision" has the number one spot locked up, and has since I read it about eight years ago. His writing contains interesting, sophisticated, well-developed characters, real emotions, cool imagery, exciting concepts, and analysis of how real (but unique) people would act in extraordinary circumstances. That, plus the fact that most of his characters view the amazing technology around them with about as much wonder as we would devote to a microwave oven. It just gives the whole thing an emotional legitimacy that I don't see very often. He's got a wonderful short-story collection out right now, The John Varley Reader. It's got my favorite in there, as well as a number of other wonderful stories. Check it out.

But the reason I bring him up just now, is that he's also a huge movie buff. As a fellow movie buff, I was delighted to no end when I saw that he had posted a list of his Top 25 movies on his site. He's got fabulous taste in film, and he knows that there were good movies made before 1994. Before 1977 even! I haven't seen all the movies on his list, (I'll bet good money you haven't either,) but all of the ones I have seen are excellent. The ones I haven't, I plan to. Check out his list and take it with you next time you head to the video store. They do have movies that aren't in the New Release section after all.

So, Disney is making a movie version of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." It's not the first live-action movie done of the story, but it is certainly the biggest, the most notable. I don't think there is any doubt that the project got green-lit on the strength of the "Lord of the Rings" box office. The special effects are even being done by Weta, the SFX power-house that did the LoTR trilogy.

What I'm wondering is how they are going to handle the religious allegory that is so inherent to the story. To remove it entirely would outrage huge sections of their potential audience, but to leave it is a big risk too, because allegory can easily become preachy. It's a razor's edge that this movie will have to walk, and I'll tell you, I'm looking forward to seeing if they pull it off.

To be sure, the stuff Weta is putting together looks fantastic. Over at Aint-It-Cool-News, they've got this story with a behind-the-scenes look at the pre-production work. Check out the link to a quick-time movie with even more. It's got a pretty impressive non-cgi minotaur!

Some French scientists have calculated the perfect throwing angle for skipping stones.



I always enjoy learning about the science behind fun everyday things like this. Of course, 'knowing' the perfect angle isn't necessarily going to help me actually skip the little stones. That would require coordination and skill.

So, Chris won Survivor: Vanuatu! Makes me happy. I'd been cheering for him since mid-way through the season, and his comeback was pretty darn impressive. It also made for a very interesting finale, because between him and Twila, he lied a lot more than she did, but her one real lie was a much bigger deal to everyone. Anyhow, I thought this season was fantastic. To anyone who still refuses to watch Survivor, I strongly recommend you give it a shot. But give it at least six episodes, because it doesn't really start getting good until you've had a chance to get to know the people involved. Also, for next season, check out the Survivor Fantasy League! Makes it even more fun.

There's a lot of crappy Reality TV out there these days, (*cough*TheSwan*cough*Wife-Swap*cough*, goodness, excuse me!), but I figure that they are the price we pay to have the good ones. Just like we put up with tons of crappy sitcoms or angsty teen dramas, in order to keep the quality shows around.

Scientists have had some recent luck in the field of synthetic cells. Though their creations are not technically alive, they can produce proteins in large quantities when supplied with the necessary amino acids as raw materials.

Ready-made mixtures of all the biomolecules that a cell needs for protein production are commercially available, extracted from bacteria such as Escherichia coli. These mixtures can make specific proteins, but they stop working within about two hours unless they are continually fed with raw materials and cleaned of waste products.

To enclose this biomolecule mixture inside membranes like those of natural cell walls, Noireaux and Libchaber made microscopic droplets of the cell extract suspended in oil. Soap-like molecules called phospholipids then coated the surface of these droplets in the same way that emulsifying agents surround the droplets in a salad dressing, stopping them from coalescing.

The researchers then coated the droplets with a second layer of phospholipids, to form a double layer that looks just like the membrane of a real cell. They publish their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pretty neat stuff, if you ask me. No need to really get into any philosophical debates here, I don't think. This is really just bio-chemical manufacturing on the cellular scale. These things really aren't alive in any real sense. So no need to dig that old Voight-Kampf test kit out of the attic any time soon. (20 points to anyone who gets that reference. 20 more for people who get the one in the title!)

Religious bliss, that feeling of being watched, feeling a supernatural 'presence' in the room... What causes these feelings? Or alternatively, what is happening in the brain when we have these feelings?

For a long time, studies had seemed to suggest that feelings of this kind could be stimulated in research subjects by targeting the temporal lobe of the brain with electromagnetic fields, but Nature.com has an article discussing new experiments that cast doubt on those original conclusions.

A group of Swedish researchers has now repeated the work, but they say their study involves one crucial difference. They ensured that neither the participants nor the experimenters interacting with them had any idea who was being exposed to the magnetic fields, a 'double-blind' protocol.

...SNIP...

In contrast to the results from Persinger and others, the team found that the magnetism had no discernible effects. Two out of the three participants in the Swedish study that reported strong spiritual experiences during the study belonged to the control group, as did 11 out of the 22 who reported subtle experiences.

What does all this mean? Well, it just goes to show you that even some things that we think of as "proven" scientifically may not, in fact, be true. Now, I have a great respect for the scientific method and science in general. I think that they are tremendously useful for increasing our understanding of the world around us. I just think that there is a tendency among some to think that they can explain everything unequivocally, and that's where I disagree. To quote the Bard: "There are more things in heaven and earth...Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Wow. The Golden Globe Nominations came out today and I haven't seen hardly any of these movies. *sigh*

Okay, now that my movie-buff ego has been set back a notch, I can look at the silver lining. This just means that, for me, the best films of the year may be yet to come! That's always good. One of the great things about movies, (books too!) is that you'll never run out of good ones to watch.

I don't know if you heard about the Celebrity Nativity, but apparently it's been vandalized.

The attacker waited until other visitors had left the area and charged at the figures, kicking and punching them in a frenzied attack. The face on the Victoria model was damaged most but her husband's was also severely crushed before the man fled into the street.

Now, I found the whole thing pretty tacky, but that was all. The fact that the celebrities in question did not give permission for their likenesses to be used in this way makes it a potential legal matter. But neither of those reasons justifies vandalism. If someone objects to a public work of art this way, that's their right and further, it is their right to protest. But vandalism of this kind is not only illegal, but it discredits the very point it is trying to make. This guy who attacked the models has not changed any hearts or minds. He's won a battle, but ultimately done a disservice to his position. I'm reminded of the phrase: "Is this the hill you want to die on?" Please people, when something offends you, criticize in constructive ways. It will do more good in the long run, and it will keep you out of jail.

Over at Boston.com, (linked there from Google News,) they've got an article originally from the LA Times about the 10th Annual Convention on Climate Change going on this week in Buenos Aires. It was an incredibly well-done article, I thought. Very balanced. Some selections...

Observers here say the United States is increasingly being shut out as the rest of the world adopts the global mechanisms by which each country will meet its targeted reductions, including a potentially lucrative trading mechanism by which companies can trade reductions in carbon emissions in a kind of global pollution market.

The United States produces 30 percent of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases. Washington pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

And this...

"The Kyoto Protocol was a political agreement," said Harlan L. Watson, President Bush's senior climate negotiator and the head of the US delegation to the conference. "It was not based on science."

...SNIP...

Watson and other US officials here point out that the Bush administration has set aside billions to fund climate research and weather monitoring programs around the world.

In 2002, Bush committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by the year 2012 but linked the reductions to growth in gross domestic product. However, US officials at the conference said emissions were likely to be 15 percent above 1990 levels, far higher than mandated in the Kyoto pact. The US plan is based chiefly on voluntary measures, because Bush administration officials believe mandatory limits would hinder economic growth.

Stupid Criminal stories: that apparently never-ending news sub-genre.

ABC News in Houston is reporting this:

Back in March, Sandy Wilson was taking care of her three grandsons when a group of men attempted to burglarize her home, pointing a gun at the kids.

The children happened to be playing a video game called Grand Theft Auto at the time. The game has dozens of random police scanner messages, which blare out calls such as "This is the police! You’re surrounded!" Believe it or not, Wilson says the burglars heard that message and thought police were outside the door waiting for them.

You can read the full story here.

I don't know about you, but when I think of the Coast Guard, heroes has not always been the word that first comes to mind. However, the story this week about the oil spill off of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska has gotten me thinking about these brave men and women. Six members have already been lost as the Coast Guard braved frigid water and ferocious storms trying to rescue the crew of the wrecked tanker. Even now, they are continuing to fight through the harsh weather, trying to survey the extent of the damage and beginning their clean-up efforts.

"We're working in a remote area with difficult weather right now," U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Ron Morris, the federal on-scene coordinator, on Saturday.

"It seems to be stopping some of the progress that we'd like to make to get on scene. It's very difficult to plan and to execute if you can't get out there and the weather keeps your helicopters grounded," he said.

It's far away from most of us, but lets try to keep these brave folks in our hearts and prayers.

Over at the NY Times, there's an editorial (free registration required for link) advocating a manned repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. Essentially, in the next couple of years, the existing batteries will start to fail, and they need to be replaced. They are considering a robotic mission, but that is risky, because it might not work, and might even damage the telescope. A manned voyage would have a much higher likelihood of success, but of course, the cost is much higher as well, not to mention using NASA resources that would otherwise be available for other missions.

As of now NASA is pursuing a robotics program that it still deems highly promising and doing nothing to pursue an astronaut mission. The real reason the agency prefers robotics is that the same technologies might prove useful in the president's long-range plan to explore the Moon and Mars, whereas diverting a shuttle to the Hubble would disrupt NASA's planned high-speed dash to complete the station and retire the costly shuttles to free up money for the president's exploration program.

The agency faces two important design reviews for its robotics program next year. Unless those show astonishing progress, NASA should get cracking on an astronaut flight to the Hubble. The great danger is that NASA will convince itself and Congress that robotics will work, and then down the line confess failure and let a spectacularly successful telescope die from neglect.

Over at The Daily Meme, I found this one about movies. The idea is to take the American Film Institute's list of Top 100 Movies and highlight the ones you have seen. So here goes...

* - Movies I've Seen
** - Movies I Own
(Movies that I've seen, but long enough ago that I don't remember them are not marked.)

Of the 100 movies, I've seen 70, including the first 16, and own 21.
The Complete List:
1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)*
2. CASABLANCA (1942)*
3. THE GODFATHER (1972)*
4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)*
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)*
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)*
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)*
8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)*
9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)*
10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)*
11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)*
12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)*
13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)*
14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)*
15. STAR WARS (1977)**
16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)*
17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
18. PSYCHO (1960)*
19. CHINATOWN (1974)*
20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)*
21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)
22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)**
23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)**
24. RAGING BULL (1980)*
25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)*
26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)**
27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)*
28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)**
29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)*
31. ANNIE HALL (1977)*
32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974)*
33. HIGH NOON (1952)
34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)*
35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)*
36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)*
37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946)
38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)*
39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)** (Note: I bought this one on it's reputation, but still have not watched it)
40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)*
41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)*
42. REAR WINDOW (1954)*
43. KING KONG (1933)*
44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)*
46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)*
47. TAXI DRIVER (1976)**
48. JAWS (1975)**
49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)*
50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)**
51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
53. AMADEUS (1984)**
54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
56. M*A*S*H (1970)**
57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)*
58. FANTASIA (1940)**
59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)**
61. VERTIGO (1958)*
62. TOOTSIE (1982)*
63. STAGECOACH (1939)
64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)**
65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)*
66. NETWORK (1976)
67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)**
68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)*
69. SHANE (1953)
70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)*
71. FORREST GUMP (1994)*
72. BEN-HUR (1959)
73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)**
75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)*
76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)**
77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)*
78. ROCKY (1976)
79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)*
80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
81. MODERN TIMES (1936)**
82. GIANT (1956)
83. PLATOON (1986)*
84. FARGO (1996)**
85. DUCK SOUP (1933)
86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935)
87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
88. EASY RIDER (1969)*
89. PATTON (1970)
90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927)
91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)
92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951)
93. THE APARTMENT (1960)*
94. GOODFELLAS (1990)**
95. PULP FICTION (1994)**
96. THE SEARCHERS (1956)*
97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)
98. UNFORGIVEN (1992)*
99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967)
100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)

Have fun!

I've added my blog to a couple more listings...

I was surfing various blogs and came across one called Kung Fu Trees! He's got a post up that links to an art site where you can use your Flash plug-in to paint a water-color type painting right on the screen.

Here's mine. Click on the thumbnail for a bigger version.


And you can see a painting replay here.
From there, you can also paint your own. If you paint one, the easiest way to get a URL for it is to email it to yourself. Once you have, link to it here!

Over at the Science Blog, they've got a story about some new deep tremors they've detected under the San Andreas fault. These aren't new so much as newly discovered. Scientists are hoping that they could be used to make better models for predicting earthquakes.

Frankly I don't see what the big deal is. If the big one comes, all we have to do is get Superman to fly backwards around the planet a few times.

Well, this isn't exactly a brand new story, but a woman is suing Warner Brothers and the Wachowski Brothers, claiming that they illegally stole her idea. She is actually suing about the Terminator movies too. All this story is really saying is that the case is actually going to go to trial.

Now, my gut reaction when I hear about this type of story is skepticism, because it happens all the time that two people independently have similar ideas, so just because someone wrote a story that has some things in common with the Matrix, doesn't mean they stole it from her. But at the same time, this story seems to suggest that she might actually have a legitimate case! Supposedly she actually submitted the script to them before they made the movie, and supposedly, they actually referred to it repeatedly during pre-production, then took footage out of the final picture in order to limit liability.

The inclusion of the Terminator movies does raise my skeptical reflex though, because Harlan Ellison already sued them, saying that the movies were based on his stories. He won, and newer prints of the movie include a credit for him. The likelihood of those movies also being based on this woman's ideas sounds like a stretch.

***UPDATE***
Kat Allen apparently did a little more research than I did, and in an email on the OWW mailing list she pointed out this and this saying that the Terminator suit was settled out of court over Cameron's objections, so the legitimacy of the claims was never tested. The second article contains the following:

During the pre-release hype for the movie The Terminator, Canadian director James Cameron made the mistake of stating, in an interview, that he had been inspired by two episodes of the old Outer Limits TV series — "Demon With a Glass Hand" and "Soldier", both written by famed SF author Harlan Ellison. Now, let me tell you something about Ellison. Ellison is what is charitably called "a character". He first gained prominence in the 1960s for his short story writing, which won him a gazillion prizes, then even more prominence when he wrote the most popular episode of Star Trek, "The City on the Edge of Forever". But over the years, he has cultivated a furiously combative personality, and it is for that that he is best known today. He doesn't suffer fools gladly — which can be amusing so long as you aren't the "fool" in question.

Needless to say, when Ellison learned of Cameron's admission, he made like Yaphet Kotto at the end of Live and Let Die... (Remember? Remember? Come on, people, keep up with me.) Then he did what any famous writer with a bit too much time on his hands would do — he sued. Since Cameron had, after all, admitted being inspired by Ellison's scripts, the production company figured it was better to settle out of court than fight a battle they would probably lose. (Some websites claim Ellison sued and "won", but he didn't. They settled out of court, and that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.) To the credits on the video release of The Terminator were added the words: "Acknowledgement to the works of Harlan Ellison". Which seems fair enough, right?

So who knows? We'll have to follow the trial I guess.

Well, maybe not entirely shameless...

I was reading this article about how to promote your weblog. As a result, I've made a few more subtle changes to the site, and registered with Technocrati.com, Daypop.com, Blogdex.net, and Popdex.com. Will this be effective? I have no idea. Guess I'll just have to see...

Spotted this over at Dave Barry's blog. Ever been in a really tiresome business meeting? So bored at a lecture that your attention drifts to thoughts of suicide by ballpoint pen? Check this out: It's a Catapult Watch! I defy you to tell me you can't think of a million fun uses!

Over at Ebear's blog, she was discussing a current mailing list debate regarding homosexually in fiction, and her unhappiness at the tone of that conversation. I replied with a post explaining my own strong feelings of ambivalence on the subject. She replied to me, and I replied back, and well, here's the link.

I'm not going to go into it all again here except to say that I remain quite conflicted on the whole matter. One way feels right, but goes against what I've been taught, and I know from personal experience that my 'feelings' don't always lead me in the right direction. *sigh* I doubt that I'm going to come up with a solid answer anytime soon. Just like the Iraq war, I find myself holding strong, but contradictory positions.

Over at MSNBC.com, they've got this story about some of the recent scientific experiments involving the blending of human cells and animal cells.

I don't have too much to say on this one just yet. I'm still thinking about it. On the one hand, the science-fiction geek in me thinks it's all pretty damn cool. On the other, you don't have to look too far down this road to see some seriously gray ethical situations. For example, using human stem cells to produce mice with human-like immune systems, blood proteins, etc. But in theory, such an experiment could accidentally produce a human embryo being fertilized in a mouse. Or what about producing a chimpanzee with a substantially improved capacity for speech and reason? At what point does it become deserving of all the same rights as a human being has now? Tough questions, but questions that we may actually have to find answers for, and soon.

Saw this story on The Drudge Report. A British philosophy professor by the name of Antony Flew has been a long 'believer' in Atheism. In particular, he feels that, in discussing the existence of God, the burden of proof must be on the person asserting that God does exist. He even wrote an essay called "The Presumption of Atheism". On that point, I agree. It is impossible to prove a negative, so it is up to the believer to present evidence of God's existence.

The surprise? Apparently Dr. Flew is convinced! He has concluded, on the basis of scientific data (mainly study into the origins of life,) that there is a "god" in some form. He has not followed this line to any particular religion, (he calls himself a "Deist",) but he feels that there is sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that "Intelligent Design" is the most reasonable theory to explain the existence of life.

This makes me happy. Not in the sneering "Ha ha, I told you so!" way, but in the sense of having a shared conclusion. In school, I studied a fair amount of biochemistry and evolutionary theory. The more I learn about the innermost workings of the human body and life in general, the more I marvel at the incredible intricacy of it all, and the less it seems that it could all just be the result of random chance.

Just the same, that wasn't what led me to believe. When I was in high school, I considered myself a logical, reasonable, agnostic. "There's just no way to ever know for certain," I'd say. It was close friendships with believers that brought me to God. I spent some time with Christian friends and gradually came to truly believe that they had something that I didn't. When I finally crested the hill and saw into the valley of faith, it was truly an epiphany for me, and there are no words to describe it. Faith hasn't solved all my problems or anything, but since that day, my life is immeasurably better.

The tension, ('conflict', I think, is not quite the right word,) between intellectual belief and emotional faith has always been an issue for me. It is important, I think, not to have a blind faith. Simply ignoring evidence because it does not support your pre-existing belief is not is not the way to go. (Or to please God, for that matter.) Having said that. Sometimes faith requires believing in things you can't see. Sometimes even continuing with that belief when you can't feel it for a while. How do we resolve that tension? If you figure it out, let me know...

There's a trailer out for the new Tim Burton / Johnny Depp version of "Charlie and the chocolate Factory" and...

Wow...

Seriously, I'm near speechless! Now, you can never count on trailers being truly representative of the final film, but if this one is, I'll tell you, this movie could be everything I could possibly hope for from a Tim Burton / Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka. This trailer is really twisted in the most delicious way, but I wasn't kidding about that subject line. The trailer is here, but don't say I didn't warn you. Enjoy!

Over at Alice and Bill, they've got a post about a new camera called the R-1. Think you have a fancy digital camera? Got those megapixels? Well this thing operates on the level of gigapixels!! It can take a picture of a mountain seven miles away, and the photo contains so much information that it can be blown up to clearly see a single footpath! Pretty impressive, says I.

Over at The Science Blog, I found this story. It talks about how new techniques have allowed better energy efficiency in Hydrogen Gas generation by raising the temperature of the electrolysis reaction. This may not sound like a big deal until you consider that increased efficiency of hydrogen generation brings the practicality of Hydrogen fuel cells that much closer. It sounds like a good thing in my book. They say that they are getting energy efficiencies of up to 50%, compared to 30% with previous techniques. (Note to self: look up what kind of efficiency other technologies use.)

It's important to remember though that Fuel Cells are not an energy source. It takes energy to make them, so they are more like batteries than oil. But if the efficiency can start to approach the energy efficiency of making gasoline from oil, then that could be a huge breakthrough in reducing car exhaust and greenhouse gas emissions.

So did you hear about this guy? He's a naval officer who has deliberately and publicly refused to re-board his boat and sail back to the Persian Gulf because of his opposition to the Iraq war.

Over at Instapundit, I found a link to Indepundit, which has an open letter to this particular officer.

Basically, the letter calls the guy to task pretty harshly, pointing out all sorts of perhaps unforeseen consequences that his actions will cause, both to himself and to his shipmates. To be sure, the ramifications of his desertion are a lot more severe than I had realized based on most news reports. I wonder if he really considered all of them before making his decision.

I'm sure he thought of some of them at least, and he made a decision to desert publicly. He showed up where he was supposed to be with press on hand and refused to board his ship. He says he's prepared to accept the consequences because he believes the war is unjust. Now, whether or not we agree with his position on the war, I think that he is practicing legitimate civil disobedience. So often, people protesting things aren't really willing to put their own lives, careers, etc. on the line. This guy is in some serious trouble, but he didn't hide from it. I think that's admirable, whether or not you think that he's right about the war.

*shrug* My thoughts on the war would take too long to talk about just now. I don't know that this guy has all the right answers, but at least he has the courage of his convictions.

On the way home from work yesterday, I heard a story on the radio that really fascinated me. They've invented a new Table-Saw Technology called "SawStop" that can tell the difference between wood and flesh, and manages to stop the blade before it could do any serious damage to a person's fingers, hands, etc. Apparently, they run an electric current through the blade and since flesh is full of all sorts of conduct-y chemicals, the current changes and the blade stops. They demonstrate it with a hot dog on a two-by-four, and even when they slide it in there quickly, the blade stops before it does more but nick the hot dog! You can watch a video of the demonstration on the same site. Pretty impressive, I thought.

Since I haven't used a table-saw since I was seven or so, (don't ask!) my interest in this story might well have stopped there, but there's more. Even though this new technology wow's pretty much everyone who sees it, and could potentially save thousands of fingers every year (not to mention medical bills, worker's comp, insurance, etc.) this poor guy is finding his invention to be a really tough sell.

Cost is a factor, of course, and this technology adds anywhere from $100 to several hundred dollars to the base cost of a new table-saw. (Though surely if mass-produced, this number would begin to come down.) Also, since the technology is new, there isn't a lot of data about how the devices will hold up long-term. Yet these are not the only factors keeping power tool companies from adopting this item.

Basically, companies are concerned that adding this technology to all their models will price those models right out of their market share. They may be right, but why not offer a special model, for those willing to pay a little extra?

The answer? Lawsuits.

If they add this to one of their models, then someone is hurt by one of the other models, that person could potentially sue, claiming that the power tool company had an obligation to make their power tools as safe as possible. Given the availability of a safer option, it wouldn't be hard to convince a jury that the company could have done more.

Did you follow that? They can't make some of their models safer, because then they might get sued for not making them all safer, but if they just keep all their models the way they are, then they're fine.

You know what this country needs? A 'SawStop' for innovation! Now, we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater; there's no need to abandon lawsuits altogether, but the way things sometimes work in the world right now remind me of this poster. Anyone who sticks their neck out gets their head cut off by the conformity machine.

I was reading a business 'manifesto' by Tom Peters the other day, and he related a story from a book called: Aha! by Jordan Ayan wherein an artistic, enthusiastic, but non-conforming kindergartener is failing art class because he doesn't like to color within the lines! It's true, life does imitate cliches. In my own experience, I would often finish worksheets before the other kids were done, and I would have loved to just pull out a book of my own to read, but instead, I was told to just put my head down on my desk and stay quiet, or once, asked to practice bouncing a ball in the back of the room, to enhance my still-clumsy motor skills.

Now obviously not all new ideas are good ones, (Crystal Pepsi, anyone?), but should we really be organizing our society and educating our children in such a way that innovators are made to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Mistakes will be made, but the absence of mistakes is not perfection. It's stagnation.

I realize that I'm veering into a whole other set of motivational speaker cliches at this point, but it just reminds me of a great bit from The Incredibles. The mother is telling her hyperactive mischief-prone son that: "Everyone's special." His response? "That's just another way of saying no one is."

But it's a dilemma, isn't it? Studies have shown that gifted-and-talented students do better when placed in advanced classes. But studies have also shown that more average students due better when gifted students are in the same class with them. So who do we help? The special kids, many of whom will succeed anyway? Or the more average kids, who may need a little more help?

Perhaps that's not even the right question. Maybe instead, we need a more adaptive education system, one that is more suited to individual kids and less suited to pounding every kid's peg into the same shaped hole. How do we do it? That's a good question. That's an excellent question! Why don't we start trying to figure that one out instead of dumping more and more money into the currently failing education models?

Let's see, how could we do that? Maybe by not cutting the heads off of schools that try to do things a little differently? Magnet schools. Charter schools. Vouchers. Private Schools. Mistakes will be made of course, but let's allow those mistakes to be made and learn from them instead of allowing the existing system to continue failing year after year!

That's step one. Next step? Teach kids that failing is not the worst thing in the world. In the interest of self-esteem, a lot of kids are growing up in situations where they almost never experience the feeling of losing. Then, on the occasion that they do feel that way, they are told that they should get angry, because it wasn't fair that they should have to feel bad. Imagine an angry soccer mom screaming at a referee and see if you don't know what I'm talking about.

When we make losing or failing or mistakes seem like the most painful, scary, unpleasant experience you can possibly go through, we teach our kids (and ourselves!) not to take any risks. We become the wicked servant who buries his talent in the ground because he was so afraid that he would lose it. That's not what our lives are meant to be.

Well, that's the long-term solution. What do we do in the meantime, given that the lawnmower of conformity is still spinning above us? Well, we have to stand up anyway. We may get ugly haircuts ten times for every time we get past the blade, but otherwise, we'll develop pretty bad posture from hunching over all the time, to the point that we couldn't stand up if we wanted to.

And for God's sake, if you ever find yourself running the blade, put a SawStop on it! It may cost a little more, but the fingers (or hot dogs!) you save might change the world someday.

New Layout

Okay, so if you've ever been here before, you'll notice right away that I've updated the look of the site. I like this a lot better, and it contains so much more information. Of course, I'm just using one of the blogspot templates, but they have better ones available now.

Hmm, not sure I needed a post for something so inherently obvious. Those who saw it before will notice the change, and those who are new can't see what it used to look like, so this entire post is essentially irrelevant either way. Huh...

So I was surfing over at Matociquala's blog and I came across this post, discussing the idea of fetishizing books. To paraphrase her point, books are not stories. She loves stories, and could care less about 'books'.

On the one hand, I think she has a very good point. For me, and I imagine for most, the whole concept of liking 'books' is really based on the idea that they are stories given physical form. Why are books cool? Because they have stories / knowledge in them. In some cases, there can also be a historical element, but I think that primarily it is the story or the knowledge that ultimately has value, not the book itself.

I agree with her preference for paperbacks over heavy hard-covers, and likewise, I'm not particularly careful with my books. At the same time, I know I prefer reading a book to reading the same story on a computer screen. Something about actually holding the book in my hand makes a difference, and I think it's more than the absence of eyeball melting monitor radiation. Stories that exist purely as electrical information with no physical form somehow seem less real to me.

I imagine this sort of feeling will gradually grow less and less common as the generations go by, simply due to the increasing ubiquity of computers and the Internet. I use them myself, obviously, writing all my stories on the computer and generally only printing them when they are finished.

But I know that a print publishing credit would feel more satisfying to me than an e-zine, because it's something I can hold in my hands. Touch it, taste it (mmm, paper!) and smell it. Stick it on my bookshelf to impress guests, etc. This is not to say that I've never submitted to e-zines, only that I have an emotional preference for one over the other.

But what will all this mean in the future? For the time being, lots of people are like me in their preference for printed books over e-books, but how much of this is due to habit and the lack of the technology required to make e-books as convenient as the paperback? In the coming decades, both are surely going to change. So what is the future of books? Electronic paper? Recycled mega-cheap printing? *shrug* Beats me, but it's an interesting thing to think about. In my current WiP, my protag's father is a teacher, and she thinks it's amusing how he still likes to print his students' papers out before grading them.

I actually found these a while back, but recently rediscovered them. They are enormously entertaining stop-motion short films using Lego men!

The first is "The Han Solo Affair" and it takes place 'between the scenes' in The Empire Strikes Back.

The second is based on Spiderman 2, called "The Peril of Doc Ock" and has Spidey battling his metal-tentacled adversary all over the city.

The third is based on 2001: A Space Odyssy, called One: A Space Odyssey

The last, you may have seen before. It's based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail The movie is here. This movie is actually one of the bonus features on the Holy Grail DVD.

All four are incredibly funny. Btw, I've learned from the BzzAgent website that this sort of thing is known as "Viral" marketing, because it is intended to spread from person to person, each one passing it on to someone else. As opposed to "Buzz" marketing, which would be a great big one-time event or stunt designed to get people talking, for example, someone building a 20-foot high lego model of New York City or something. "Word of Mouth" marketing is basically when someone would try the actual lego sets, like them, then tell people that. More on my initial impressions of BzzAgent a little later.

You know, sometimes I think that quiz results consist of 90% of all blog posts, and another five percent is links to quizzes that don't actually display results. Anyway, in an effort to contribute to the problem, here's another one...

You are 30% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Frankly, I'm a little skeptical that I didn't score higher than this, but oh well, anything that associates me with Kirsten Dunst aka Mary Jane Watson-Parker is sufficiently flattering that I can't really bring myself to complain.

Well, I was listening to NPR this morning, on my way to work, hoping like hell that I don't get pulled over, (misplaced my driver's license in San Francisco! Whoops!), and the show was talking about a new company called BzzAgent. Apparently, what they do is sort of a new kind of advertising. Instead of (or in addition to,) putting out television or radio commercials, they recruit normal, everyday people to try products, and if they like them, they 'spread the buzz.'

A hypothetical example: We've got the Generizer battery company that has a new kind of battery they want to promote. They pay BzzAgent a fee, and provide free samples. BzzAgent distributes these samples to their agents, along with information packets. Those agents are encouraged to try the batteries, then share their honest opinions with their friends and family. The information packet has suggested talking points etc., but there is no obligation or script that the agent must follow. The company is very up front about saying that their agents should always be honest about the products they are trying.

On the one hand, I think it's a pretty cool idea. These days, in the age of TiVo, people can just fast-forward through commercials, or they can get ad-free sattelite radio, and it's just becoming more and more difficult for traditional advertizing to reach people. This is basically an elaborate version of offering free samples and encouraging people to tell their friends.

On the other hand, I can definitely see a point of view where this sort of thing could be sort of unethical. When you're chatting with some co-workers and one of them says "Hey, you got to read this new book!" or "You really ought to try this new breakfast cereal." How do you know if that is a genuine opinion, or whether you have just been advertised to? Say what you want about annoying used car commercials, or actors pretending to use a certain kind of shampoo, at least you know when you're watching an ad. Even with product placement, most viewers these days are sophisticated enough to know that it's no coincidence that The Apprentice challenges often feature Crest Toothpaste or Pepsi soft drinks. The point is, that we know they are ads and we know that we need to take what they say with a grain of salt.

When we talk to people we know or even chat with strangers about a product, we generally have an expectation that the person doesn't have any vested interest in suggesting that we try a new soft drink or buy a certain cellphone. There is an assumption of honesty, because, frankly, why on earth would they lie? With this sort of marketing, even though they encourage people to share their genuine opinions, there is a definite possibility that people, through their sheer enthusiasm at being involved, will tend to speak more highly of the products they are trying than they might otherwise. So even if it's something they would have liked anyway, they might speak of it in more glowing terms than before, simply because it's neat and exciting to be participating in this new sort of marketing.

I saw an episode of Futurama where Fry discovers that, in the future, advertisements are broadcast into people's dreams. That dream where you're at school in your underwear takes an odd turn when you discover that everybody is impressed with your new Astro-shorts brand briefs. In the episode, it is clearly satire about the ubiquitous nature of modern advertising, but I wonder if this "Word-of-Mouth-Marketing" isn't almost more insidious. I don't mean insidious in a malicious way exactly, but it is kind of sneaky. It takes ordinary conversations and taints them, ever so slightly, with an aftertaste of insincerity.

Or does it? After all, it's really not fundamentally different from coupons or free samples except in the shift of emphasis. If you get a free sample bottle of shampoo in a random mailing, the shampoo company is hoping that you'll like it, and implicit in that is that you'll tell people about it. BzzAgent is essentially doing the same thing, only their making that hope explicit and providing an organized way to actually track that word of mouth, instead of just treating the whole thing like a big black box and hoping that their sales rise.

Frankly, it seems like a sufficiently neat idea that I'm going to go sign up, if not actually participate. My commitment to myself and my own ethics and morals is of course, to never say something that isn't true or to shade my feelings. Essentially, I'm just going to give it a shot and see what I think after having tried it. I believe that regardless of where I ultimately come down on the subject, we're all going to be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing in the future. In fact, I'm thinking of adding an element like this to one of my current stories.

So, I'll report on what I find, and you'll have to just decide whether or not that makes me a mindless corporate drone. ^_^

Boy, I tell 'ya, this brain thing we all got is pretty darn cool. Now, of course I've been interested in the brain for quite some time, but occasionally, I still come across something that just makes me sit up a little straighter in my chair and say "Cool!"

In this story, they are talking about the brain's apparent ability to substitute one sense for another. Basically, contrary to what would seem like common sense, we don't see with our eyes, we see with our brains. The eye is of course a critical part of that process, but all it does is convert the visible light image it receives into a series of nerve impulses. Those impulses are sent to the brain, and the brain interprets the impulses as visual data. The same is true for all our other senses too. Hearing, taste / smell, touch, everything. What scientists have discovered is that the brain is capable of crossing its own wires, and can occasionally re-route those nerve impulses to different parts of the brain.

Of course, when this happens by accident, it produces a condition known as synesthesia, where people find that they "hear" colors, or "see" tastes. But apparrently, the brain can actually be trained to do this same rerouting in useful ways.

For example in the article I mentioned above, scientists have created a device that allows blind (from birth!) people limited sight through a device that stimulates their tongue with tiny electrical impulses. A video camera records a live picture and translates it to specific patterns on the tiny electrodes. Supposedly, it feels like a buzzing or bubbling on the tongue, but with practice, people can train their brains to interpret these buzz patterns as visual information, and people are literally seeing with their tongues! Another device has allowed someone with inner ear damage to regain her sense of balance using a similar device equipped with an electronic leveling device, with effects that last even after she takes off the device!

I don't know about you, but I think that's amazing! Not only could these devices be used to really help people with disabilities, but there could be thousands of applications even for people with normal senses. For example, the Navy Seals are testing sonar-like devices to allow their divers to "see" even in total darkness.

Anyway, I find it incredibly interesting, and the sci-fi technology geek part of my brain is just spinning. Hey, do you suppose I could temporarily reroute that enthusiasm towards balancing my checkbook?