February 21, 2006
Frankly, neither am I. My wife and I refer to clueless teens generically as "like-you-knows."
But who cares what we think when even Captain Kirk agrees?
(Hat tip: LLamas).
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February 15, 2006
Examples:
SUCH A REASON PIST MY GOOSE, or MY GOOSE PIST. Said when any one offers an absurd reason.
TWIDDLE POOP. An effeminate looking fellow.
TO WIN. To steal. The cull has won a couple of rum glimsticks; the fellow has stolen a pair of fine candlesticks.
WOMAN'S CONSCIENCE. Never satisfied.
ZAD. Crooked like the letter Z. He is a mere zad, or perhaps zed; a description of a very crooked or deformed person.
(Via Gravity Lens).
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February 14, 2006
Native Eye, a New York photoblog. (This Reinventing Monet is quite cool, as is this lovely Red Hyacinth. Wow - stunning composition).
A lefty Australian's blog: Lindsay's Lobes. Disregard the occasional politics and new agey vibe here. Instead, focus on the clean prose, tasteful site design, several beautiful pictures of a New Zealand holiday, and entertaining musings on family, the environment, and culture.
Finally, here's a Texan cyclist's site: Wallace Alaniz. Lots of really cool pictures from in and around Austin, Texas, one of the greatest places on Earth to live or visit. (Check out the pic accompanying this post).
Hope you enjoy these new sites.
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February 13, 2006
I know I was. Familiar with the work, that is. Not the man who produced it.
Edgerton invented the technique of synchronizing a high-speed stroboscope to a high-shutter-speed camera to create super-realistic stop-motion photographs. As an example, here's an image of a drop of milk splashing as it hits a table top, captured using Edgerton's technique:
In 1947, Edgerton developed a special camera (the Rapatronic) capable of capturing images of nuclear explosions from seven miles away, with some images as short as 10 nanoseconds.
I've always thought that nuclear explosions were eerily beautiful (not that I would ever want to witness one, unless from the safely-shielded command deck of an Orion starship). Here's a representative sample of an atomic fireball captured using a Rapatronic camera:
Check out more Rapatronic photos here.
(And for even more ultra-cool nuclear images and movies click here).
(Hat tip: Gravity Lens, who pointed out this article).
Update: Remember to Duck and Cover!
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February 07, 2006
It was her film, "Submission," that the late Theo Van Gogh directed. A Muslim took offense and, rather than debating the issue, pinned a note to Van Gogh with a knife.
Read what she has to say. She knows first-hand what it is like to live in an illiberal society. Can we (i.e., Western liberal democratic culture) survive? Will we assimilate and transform Islam into something modern and tolerant? Will we destroy Islam? Will we instead [shudder] submit?
Update: I titled the post before I was done editing. Quite simply, where are the "liberals" from the West? Arguing that the cartoon flap was a setup by Bush? Justifying the violent Muslim reaction as an understandable response to the existence of Israel and Western colonialism? Where are the grown-ups?
Fortunately, Ali demonstrates a true liberal analysis of the situation.
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Go there, and just keep scrolling up. He's a liberal, like I am, in the non-political, classical sense of the word. I just wish more "liberals" were.
Update: Did anyone else see tonight's Colbert Report? Hilarious critique of the cartoon violence. One of my favorite lines (paraphrased): "I have decided to take the brave and ethical stand of not showing the offending cartoons to avoid being killed..."
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February 01, 2006
What cruel videos will they be making about bloggers 20 years from now???
(Via The Llamabutchers).
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January 30, 2006
Love those satin gloves and pearls!
(Found via BoingBoing).
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January 24, 2006
She frequently posts an (appropriately anonymized) story about her former students - many of them born and raised in the Park Cities bubble themselves. Painting with a broad brush, she tends to hit her mark (how's that for a mixed metaphor?)
Check out this story, related to her by one of her students. Here's a non-spoiling excerpt to whet your appetite:
Background needed. Many of the sorority girls who deign to take part-time jobs opt to become nannies to the wealthy families in the exclusive neighborhoods around the campus. We're talking estate-like mega-mansions, not the shoddy McMansions of the ugly suburbs. Even a teardown in this area can go for half a mil, with a $5 million, three-story behemoth taking the place of a 1950s one-story brick cottage.
So who lives in these places? Movers, shakers, big deal makers. They are still young, very ambitious and have children who still need minding. To help look after their offspring, lawyer-mommy and mogul-daddy hire a Tri-Delt or a Kappa to pick them up at school, haul them to soccer practice or gymnastics, and maybe get them fed and medicated (they're always medicated) before the parents get home late from their offices.
Tessa worked for such a family. She said the mom was a control freak extraordinaire. Left Post-It notes everywhere about everything. "Put Justine in the pink and black leotards for ballet. NOT the purple ones." Or "Phillip has a birthday party at the DeWildes' on Tuesday. Be sure to ask about peanuts. NO PEANUTS ALLOWED!" Another note said simply: "No TV--Enrichment activities only!"
Trying to raise her children via notes to the hired nanny, the mom rarely interacted with them herself. Tessa said she never saw either parent hug or kiss their kids. Or, for that matter, each other. They were an emotionally chilly family and the kids sometimes acted robotically emotion-free.
By the time you get to the end, you realize that material wealth alone provides - at best - cold comfort.
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December 15, 2005
The earlier study indicated that young humans are much more likely to "ape" (sorry!) their teacher than are chimpanzees. Both children and chimps were shown different boxes that they had to get something out of:
The [first] box was painted black and had a door on one side and a bolt running across the top. The food was hidden in a tube behind the door. When they showed the chimpanzees how to retrieve the food, the researchers added some unnecessary steps. Before they opened the door, they pulled back the bolt and tapped the top of the box with a stick. Only after they had pushed the bolt back in place did they finally open the door and fish out the food.
Because the chimps could not see inside, they could not tell that the extra steps were unnecessary. As a result, when the chimps were given the box, two-thirds faithfully imitated the scientists to retrieve the food.
The team then used a box with transparent walls and found a strikingly different result. Those chimps could see that the scientists were wasting their time sliding the bolt and tapping the top. None followed suit. They all went straight for the door.
When they turned to human children, however, 80% followed the unnecessary steps for the transparent box.
The more recent study built on these results, using new experiments designed to test the human child's tendency to "overimitate" versus a chimpanzee. Carl allowed his young daughter to participate in the study.
Using new puzzles, the researchers showed that children (who could solve the puzzles on their own) would faithfully "overimitate" their teachers by following extra and unnecessary steps. Thus:
Mr. Lyons sees his results as evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn. If he is right, this represents a big evolutionary change from our ape ancestors. Other primates are bad at imitation. When they watch another primate doing something, they seem to focus on what its goals are and ignore its actions.
As human ancestors began to make complicated tools, figuring out goals might not have been good enough anymore. Hominids needed a way to register automatically what other hominids did, even if they didn't understand the intentions behind them. They needed to imitate.
Not long ago, many psychologists thought that imitation was a simple, primitive action compared with figuring out the intentions of others. But that is changing. "Maybe imitation is a lot more sophisticated than people thought," Mr. Lyons said.
We don't appreciate just how automatically we rely on imitation, because usually it serves us so well. "It is so adaptive that it almost never sticks out this way," he added. "You have to create very artificial circumstances to see it."
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December 12, 2005
I liked mojo's comment, which seems to indicate some consistency from A (A is A for Aristotle) to Z (as in Zen):
“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”
-- Zen Proverb
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I think that's a pretty safe bet.
In fact, I'll go out on a limb and bet that "actual books" (including new books, not just archives and collections) will survive for at least another hundred years.
Update: I've changed the name of this post; I should have searched my archives before naming it. I did a post on this theme with an identical title more than two years ago, inspired by James Lileks and Neal Stephenson. Go read it.
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December 08, 2005
During my adult life, I have not felt much of a personal or emotional link to the Deity, so I'm a bit at a loss when I encounter people or churches that really wear their faith on their sleeve. I grew up in a somewhat traditional Methodist church, with appropriate religious and classical music and a fairly academic, scholarly approach to matters of faith and scriptural interpretation. Everyone wore their Sunday best, and the service was a set liturgy.
I first began to notice as a teen and have continued to notice since then a rough correlation between the informality of the church and the fundamentalism of the theology. In other words, the more casual and loose the liturgy, the more fundamentalist the theology. This isn't an axiom, and I can think of the Eastern Orthodox churches as a specific counterexample, but among Protestant Christians, it seems to hold true.
One trait shared by the more fundamentalist Christian sects is active evangelism. The message of their evangelism is usually pretty simple: get baptized and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior (remember the capital letters!) There's not much room in that message to explore possible contradictions in the text of the bible, to analyze the synoptic gospels or the four-source hypothesis of Old Testament authorship and redacting, or the doubtful historicity of many of the bible stories. Really, your best sales line is not to raise questions but to offer simple answers.
What's interesting to me is to observe how modern evangelism uses current technology to spread decidedly pre-modern ideas. I actually like Veggie Tales (and still have a soft spot in my heart for Davey and Goliath from my childhood), but am otherwise cold on specifically "Christian" videos. I'm definitely offended by televangelists (who I think are among the worst violators of Matthew 6:5-13). I also don't much like when church leaders get involved in politics.
Another area of "modern" evangelism that makes me uncomfortable is contemporary Christian music, mainly because the [substandard] music is made subservient to the [banal] lyrics.
So this is all a long-winded way to express my profound discomfort with Contemporary Christian Porn (as my wife dubbed it) exemplified in JC's GirlsGirlsGirls. I looked through this site and I am pretty sure that they are actually serious. There is a definite amount of earnestness here, not the easy-to-spot smart-assery of a Landover Baptist type of parody.
Sure, these ambassadors for JC are likely to get some attention:
But doesn't this somehow seem to cheapen the message? I would be interested in feedback.
(Hat tip to the Commissar).
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October 27, 2005
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This story just makes the language geek in me feel all cuddly and warm. How cool to spend your time reading a dictionary and trying to find the fake word.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
(Via BoingBoing).
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September 28, 2005
Gender roles have been undergoing a redefinition in recent years as women enter the workforce as never before and men embrace less confining views of masculinity....
The market for male aesthetics has grown fourfold in the past seven years to $400 million annually, including day spas for slimming treatments, facials, manicures and painful sessions of eyebrow plucking. The largest such chain -- Dandy House -- has doubled in size since 2000, with 60 locations across the country.
Skin treatments have become particularly popular for bridegrooms, while many men are opting for costly electrolysis procedures for permanent removal of unsightly facial hair....
On busy Tokyo subways these days, it is not unusual to see men fishing for packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes in European-style male purses. They have many models to choose from at Isetan Men's -- the successful 10-story department store in chic west Tokyo that opened two years ago and is now the cathedral of masculine vanity....
Perhaps most inexplicably, male thugs in the yakuza -- or Japanese mafia -- are now known to wear pink women's sandals and floral-patterned shirts while prowling the streets late at night....
In an email to Ms. Postrel, I noted that the same article could have been written about American men a couple of years ago (remember "metrosexual"?) In any case, the trend of "feminization" - to the extent it exists - is not unique to Japan.
I think it is a reflection of our post-industrial culture. There are not many jobs left that require men to be stereotypically male all day. Most of us sit at a desk all day reading and typing. As a result, many of us have smooth hands and skin, and carry an extra bit of weight around.
Throw us back 100 years and most of us would be lost. How many of today's typical men could do the heavy manual labor performed by farm and factory workers of the early 20th century? Even a manufacturing worker today is more of a computer operator, pushing buttons to operate the robotic assembly line.
Just some random thoughts. And, on a humorous note, I have found definitive evidence of the feminization of a well-known "man" in Japan (click on the extended entry link):
more...
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September 20, 2005
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September 16, 2005
Very good movie. Excellent cinematography, screenplay, and acting. I'm not sure what my expectations really were going in, but this far exceeded them.
Now I want to go learn more about the real history of Howard Hughes. What a larger-than-life person. Texan, naturally. Many scenes in this movie recalled scenes from Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
I loved seeing Hughes put Kate Hepburn (portrayed by the lovely Cate Blanchett) in her place: "you're only a movie star!" Also worth the price of admission just to see Hughes put the senator (Alan Alda) in his place at the committee hearings toward the end. And note that Alec Baldwin did a great job playing the sleazy Pan Am boss.
(Geeky Aside: I remember a few years ago on the Star Wars fan sites there was a nasty rumor that Leonardo diCaprio would be playing Anakin Skywalker. You know what? He would have been excellent in that role. Watching his descent into OCD madness in this movie was a good example of how he could have portrayed the fall of Anakin.)
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September 13, 2005
After winning a small real estate matter in justice court many moons ago, I took out my client representatives (both were apartment managers) for lunch, and they had fun telling me the weird stuff that their tenants did. Nothing quite like V-man's story, though.
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August 30, 2005
Tying this to a SciFi theme, I feel like I have "seen" this before, in my mind's eye, while reading Lucifer's Hammer, in the descriptions of the post-impact flooding. The looting, the rapid loss of civilization.
Also, I remember David Brin (a very good, albeit leftist, SF author) writing in Earth about the futility of holding back mother nature:
...The Big Easy had class all right. In decline, there remained an air of seedy blaisance, and even the inevitable bandit types believed in courtesy.
He listened to the barge horns and thought of the manatees that had inhabited this area, back when La Salle's men first poled their way through endless marshes, trading ax heads for furs. The manatees were long gone, of course. And soon...relatively soon...so would New Orleans.
The dying of any city begins at its foundation....
Logan had inspected hundreds of kilometers of embankments, thrown up in forlorn efforts to save the doomed shore. More tall levees contained the river, whose gradient flattened over time. Suspended silt began falling out even north of Baton Rouge. Soon the sluggish current no longer held back the sea. Salinity increased.
Upstream, the Mississippi fought like an anaconda, writhing to escape. The contest was one of raw power. And Logan knew where it would be lost....
Fortunately, Claire would move away long before the Mississippi burst through the Old River Control Structure or some other weak point, spilling into that peaceful plain of cane fields and fish farms....
In effect, he could only pray the Corps' new barriers were as good as they claimed. It was possible....
But rivers see decades, even centuries, as mere trifles.
The Mississippi rolled by. And, not for the first time, Logan wondered if Daisy might be right after all. I try to find solutions that work with Earth's forces. I like to think I've learned from the mistakes of past engineers.
But didn't they, too, think they built for the ages?
He remembered what Shelley had written, about an ancient pharaoh:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
...Can we build nothing that lasts? Nothing worth lasting?
Logan sighed. He had been away too long. He turned away from the patient river and took the rusted, creaking iron stairs back into the ancient city.
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