Damn you Samaraaaaa!

Remember the movie The Ring? How the people who watched the cursed videotape would show up in pictures with a messed-up blurry face?

Well apparently my dog watched the videotape...


Poor Cocoa... poor, poor Cocoa...

Accident humour on Wikipedia

So I was looking up the word "cunt" on Wikipedia. I am not going to explain myself. Of particular interest was the "Other meanings" section. There is this picture there:


Maybe it's just my dirty misogynistic mind, but isn't this absolutely hilarious? Especially after reading the rest of the article about all the vulgar sexist connotations of the word, this caption has at least two interpretations which made me laugh out loud. To figure out what two interpretations I mean, I leave as an exercise to the reader.

Deux Ex Machina and The Da Vinci Code

Those who know me know that I don't like The Da Vinci Code.  I've always maintained that I find the subject matter interesting, but the ridiculous plot and poor writing completely cancel that out.  After recently seeing the movie, I have been able to better crystallize my criticisms of the story; i.e. it's much easier to see the crap when it's all condensed together in a short time frame.

One major annoyance that I had with the plot was the abundance of "deux ex machina" moments.  These are moments in a story where the characters seem to be in a hopeless situation, but then something completely unexpected or unrealistic comes along to bail them out of it.  This kind of plot device is okay if used in moderation, but it happens way too many times in Da Vinci.  To wit:

(Spoilers ahead...  although the spoilers basically amount to: they don't die.)

• Robert and Sophie are trapped in an armoured truck.  A villain is pointing a gun at them.  Instead of just shooting them, the villain decides to close the door of the truck, right onto a bullet shell casing that Robert had just happened to kick into the doorway.  The door bounces back and the villain comically bangs his head on it.  Yes, yes, I know in the book some explanation is given as to why he pushed the shell casing into the doorway... but really, I'm not going to go and read it again.
  
  
• Robert and Sophie are standing in some church.  A villain is pointing a gun at them.  Suddenly, a dove flies by and distracts the villain, who then proceeds to forget how to shoot a gun.  He fires and misses.  A dove flies by!  What is this, a John Woo movie?
  
  
• Ian McKellan is sitting in his house.  A villain (Silas the crazy monk) is pointing a gun at him.  He grabs his crutches and swings.  Incredibly, Silas, who we have just seen killing a nun with a single, well-timed and ruthless strike, fails to react fast enough to shoot Ian McKellan at point blank range.  I would expect Jackie Chan to be able to pull a move like that off, but Ian McKellan?  And this isn't Gandalf Ian McKellan.  Or Magneto Ian McKellan.  It's crippled scholar Ian McKellan!
  

And that's all I have to say about that.

The British and Baba Skins

During my recent trip to Cuba, I had the opportunity to observe the mysterious culture of the British people.... actually, it's more like, I had the opportunity to be completely confused by what they they were talking about.

I was sitting on a catamaran at the time, on a boat tour around some of the coral reefs near the island. A small boat is the perfect place for eavesdropping, as you can't help but overhear conversations in such a small space. Most of the other tourists on the boat were British, and one particular retirement-age couple were talking to the captain of the boat, a local Cuban man. They said to him, "Has anyone ever told you you look like baba skins?"

Baba skins?? Some sort of English culinary item? Like potato skins? I don't care how delicious it is, but I wouldn't want anyone telling me I look like a plate of food.

"I'm not familiar with him. I like Rowan Atkinson, though, he is also British," said the boat captain.

Okay, so it must be a British comedian or entertainer of some sort, as yet unknown in North America. Maybe "Baba Skins" is a goofy stage name, like Carrot Top. (still thinking food, here)

The British couple tried to clarify. "He was in that Jennifer Lopez movie... Maid In Manhattan."

Hmm... haven't seen that one.

"He was also in that cartoon... what was it called? Roger Rabbit!"

Ah! BOB HOSKINS! Amazingly, the boat captain actually agreed: "Oh, yes, I do look like him!"

The funny thing is, he didn't even look like Bob Hoskins... he looked more like Phil Collins.

The Overcompensating Backslash

You hear a lot of news reporters and journalists on TV and radio referring to website URLs these days. I have noticed, not without ire, that many of them make the mistake of saying "backslash" when they really mean "slash", e.g. "Visit our site at http-colon-backslash-backslash www-dot-ctv-dot-ca backslash news."

I can only imagine the media personality in her youth, back in the 80's, perhaps working a lowly office job before she got her first reporter gig, running into an unpleasant DOS geek system administrator:

Pre-media personality: "Can you help me with this? I saved the file to C colon slash documents, but I can't open it anymore..."

DOS geek system administrator: "It's backslash, you idiot! C colon backslash! Don't you know how to use a computer?!"

The emotional trauma of being yelled at by a scruffy, heavy-set man has undoubtedly stayed with our media personality all these years, and now she subconsciously overcompensates every time she sees a slash. That is, until this happens:

Media personality: "Can you help me with this? I want to put up a link for http-colon-backslash-backslash microsoft dot com backslash windows to this story I did on software obsolescence..."

Web geek system administrator: "It's slash, you idiot! Don't you know how to use the Internet?!"

Emotional Trauma 2.0

I must see this movie...

This is some screwed-up shit... the synopsis on the trailer page:

The core idea of Drawing Restraint 9 is the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme it symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid Vaseline, called "The Field", which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film.

Vast sculpture of liquid Vaseline?? Called "The Field"?! I don't care about all that... it's got Björk! And Japanese people!

Tags: bjork, movies, crazy, drawing restraint 9

A Meditation on Smart-asses

There's something about cars and driving causes people to become arrogant and self-important. A video that's recently been popular on the Net demonstrates the superiority complex that self-prescribed "good drivers" have.

The video shows a bunch of students that believe they have a point to prove, and then go about trying to prove it in a completely irrelevant manner. It's called, pompously, "A Meditation On the Speed Limit." The point they're trying to make is that driving at the speed limit is dangerous, and to illustrate this, they... well, just watch.



The line that sums up their conceited attitude is when one of them says, with indignation, "We're going to follow the rules, and show them how stupid the rules are." Here's what I think... you've done nothing but show them how stupid you are. This little exercise proves nothing about the speed limit, it only proves that if you go and intentionally block traffic, then bad things will happen. And they have in fact contradicted their original hypothesis: that driving at the speed limit is dangerous. Clearly, everybody who was driving the speed limit was fine; it was the ones who tried to pass them at a higher speed on the shoulder who got into trouble. And why were they trying to pass on the shoulder? Because you were fucking blocking traffic! Smart-ass student kids these days...

Tags: video, driving, cars, speed limit

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

I've been reading a pretty interesting book called The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (author of Contact). The book is basically an extended diatribe against pseudoscience or "junk science." Sagan addresses such issues as alien abduction, UFOs, psychic healers, psychic mediums, etc. He believes that the general public is antipathetic towards true science, and instead embraces superstition and the supernatural as legitimate forms of scientific knowledge. Here's an excerpt, which is also printed on the back cover:

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where are we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us--then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.

I found his examination of the alien abduction "phenomenon" especially interesting. Throughout history, people have been seeing things. In the Middle Ages, it was demons (that's where the title of the book comes from). Hallucinations continued through time, going from demons to saints to witches, and now aliens. Sagan's view is that whatever fears are in the minds of the public at a certain time in history, that's what people will see, or claim to see. Makes a lot of sense to me... We look back at these stories of witch hunts and exorcisms and such things with the sense that we're progressed above that, so how can alien abduction be taken so seriously by so many? Sagan is actually an enthusiast when it comes to extraterrestrial life. He was involved in SETI and other scientific methods to find alien intelligence. This makes his arguments all the more powerful. I have great respect for the fact that despite his personal goals and his desire to believe in alien life, Sagan was able to produce such a comprehensive work of skepticism.

I wonder what Carl Sagan would have thought about the whole Intelligent Design intelligent design concept. (I refuse to capitalize it.) One of the main themes of The Demon-Haunted World is the willingness of individuals to ignore science, and the scientific method in particular, because of its difficulty. Mainstream society even subtly encourages ignorance, because wild pseudoscientific theories are just more entertaining. It's somewhat more disturbing in the case of intelligent design, because it goes beyond mainstream media and entertainment. Intelligent design backers are actually trying to turn a religious belief into a science, and teach it as a science. I have nothing against anybody's religious beliefs, it's the attempt to institutionalize them that I find appalling. One part of the book in particular made me think of the intelligent design controversy. Sagan describes a hypothetical dragon living in his garage to make the point that if there's no way to disprove an assertion, then there's no scientific meaning to that assertion. (E.g. you can't test that the dragon is there by seeing it because it's invisible, you can't test by looking for footprints because it's flying, etc... You can counter any way of experimentally testing the existence of the dragon by giving the dragon some arbitrary property.) Sagan's dragon, in a way, is a precursor to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (albeit not as funny).

My only complain/concern about this book is that it's preaching to the converted. I can't imagine someone who's not already interested in science reading it. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn't really change how I think about the world, as I pretty much agreed with all of what he was saying. Even if a "non-scientific" person reads the book, he/she might be put off by Sagan's harsh tone, condemning mainstream society for its gullibility. He/she might actually be insulted and turn away from science even more. ("These scientists think they're so smart and that they're better than us.") I'm guessing that this is the fate that was eventually suffered by the book. It was written in 1996 and I don't think it's been particularly successful. Nevertheless, I thought-provoking and worth a read.

Tags: books, science, intelligent design, carl sagan

Pack this, Google! [rude gesture]

So the big announcement by Google at CES was the release of Google Pack. (Actually, it wasn't. The real big announcement was the Google Video Store, but that's not out yet... and besides, I don't have anything to complain about with that.)

That said, the Google Pack is the first time I've been disappointed with something Google has done. First of all, it's not a product at all... it's just an installer. There's nothing here that I can't download and install myself (e.g. Firefox, Acrobat Reader), but they're hyping it like it's revolutionizing the desktop experience.

What I disliked about the Pack is that it gives you no control over what you're installing. You download the executable, run it, and the next thing you know, the thing is downloading 50+ Megs of software and installing it. There is apparently a way to configure what gets installed, as explained on the About page:

Do I have to install all the software in the Google Pack?
While we believe you'll find all of the software in the Google Pack useful, you're welcome to install as much or as little as you'd like. To customize your installation package, please click the "Add or remove software" link under the download button on the Google Pack homepage. On the Customize page, simply uncheck the box next to any program you'd prefer not to install and click the "Continue" button to complete the installation process.

I honestly didn't see the link under the download button when I downloaded it, and there's no excuse for not reading carefully before downloading, but this is the kind of thing that you would expect from the RealPlayer installer (a checkbox saying "Do you not want to not install the RealPlayer Message Centre?"). Configuring an installation before you download it is completely counterintuitive to what we expect from every other application out there.

I'm willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt on this one--maybe they felt that the average user would prefer to have a one-click installation--but if I see this kind of trickery from them again... I'll... uh... start using MSN Search!

Technorati Tags: google, google pack, software, internet