- Oh sure, when you pee on a colleague’s office door it’s a crime. When you pee on another author’s grave, however, it’s an artistic act. [via]
- Could we really have two suns and no night by 2012? Get ready for a Mayan apocalypse/sparkly vampire crossover! [via]
- We all work for Facebook now. [via]
- A Guide to Lunchtime Social Groups, Through Life [via]
- And finally, Bing caught cheating off of Google, totally has to go to the principal’s office afterward. [via]
various
Thursday various
- Netflix wants to know: How often do you watch racism like Mark Twain? This may be Photoshopped — Netflix apparently thinks so — but it’s still amusing.
- Speaking of movies (in a roundabout way), Roger Ebert shares some thoughts on 3D from Oscar-winning film editor and sound designer Walter Murch. It’s an interesting read, particularly for Murch’s contention that 3D simply can’t work, from an evolutionary standpoint. Ebert gets a lot of flack for not liking 3D, or for continuing to express his dislike for the effect, but I don’t think he’s wrong. Even in the handful of recent films that I thought used 3D reasonably well, and to the max of its potential — like Avatar and Coraline — didn’t benefit enough from the process to make the overall experience worth it.
- So George Lucas doesn’t believe the world is going to end in 2012. Good to know. I’ll admit to being amused by the Lucasfilm rep’s response.
- Warren Ellis on naming characters:
I tend to look for a name, particularly with protagonists, that somehow strikes sparks off elements of the character….Or not. You can easily reverse that out.
- And finally, a planet where apes evolved from men?! A British gorilla has learned to walk upright. [via]
Monday various
- Man admits mailing hundreds of tarantulas. Why do I feel like this is just a weird viral marketing campaign for the new Spider-Man musical? [via]
- Gail Collins in the New York Times on why we won’t miss having Joe Lieberman to kick around anymore:
He will leave behind a long list of achievements, from helping to consolidate the nation’s intelligence gathering services in a way that appears to make it more difficult to gather intelligence, to threatening to filibuster the health care reform act until it had been watered down to suit his own high principles.
- Well this is slightly disturbing to learn about Manhattan’s restaurants:
“The data suggests that when you visit an A-rated restaurant, the odds are that it barely made the grade,” he writes.
Related: state-by-state report cards on health department response to foodborne illness.
- Al Franken makes an unlikely friend in the new Senate. This is that “strange bedfellows” business I keep hearing about, right?
- And finally, Stephen Colbert on Sarah Palin:
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
Thursday various
- I don’t know why I find this particularly interesting, but I do:
The post office ignores the return address for Netflix DVDs and sorts them separately for a Netflix truck to pick them up early in the morning for processing.
Discs are shipped back to the nearest processing facility, regardless of the address on the return envelope; that address is there just for legal reasons, apparently. This seems like something I maybe sort of already knew, but it’s a reminder of the volume they (and by extension the post office) have to process.
- John Seavey’s Open Letter to Zombie Story Writers:
In essence, the human body is a machine, like an automobile. You are trying to describe the ways this machine can malfunction to produce a specific effect, and that’s good, but please stop explaining to me how it keeps going without wheels, gasoline, or a functioning engine.
He raises some interesting points, although I don’t think they apply to the “zombies” in films like 28 Days Later, as he seems to. At least from my recollection — and I re-watched the movie pretty recently — the infected population there a) don’t act at all like George Romeroesque zombies (i.e., no human flesh, no brains), and b) don’t continue acting beyond physically believable limits. Beyond normal pain tolerances, sure — there’s the one guy who keeps running even though he’s literally on fire — but into the realm of sheer impossibility.
- “What is, come with me if you want to live, Alex?” So you may have heard: a computer has won at Jeopardy. (There goes that Weird Al remix idea!) I’m still looking forward to the televised rematch next month, though perhaps not so much to the subsequent robot apocalypse.
- It’s worth it for Goodnight Dune alone: Five Sci-Fi Children’s Books. [via]
- And finally, Jeff VanderMeer on Everything You Need to Know to be a Fiction Writer.
Monday various
- Roger Ebert on The Green Hornet:
Casting about for something to praise, I recalled that I heard a strange and unique sound for the first time, a high-pitched whooshing scream, but I don’t think Gondry can claim it, because it came from the hand dryers in the nearby men’s room.
- At first I thought it was like that urban legend about the ghost on the set of Three Men and a Baby, but apparently this one’s true: Han Solo does appear in many, if not all, episodes of Firefly.
If you’re wondering, Mal shot first.
- Alex Beam of the Boston Globe wonders — or maybe wondered back in November when I first saw this link — are new translations necessary? It’s an interesting question, but there’s no mention of instances when newer translations get things right, or make necessary corrections, or significantly change our understanding of a text. Proust’s famous novel is better translated as In Search of Lost Time, for instance, and newer translations of Camus’ The Stranger have called into question earlier readings of its famous opening lines.
So, short answer? Yeah, I think they’re still necessary. [via]
- Speaking of translations, the surprisingly intriguing story of why Uncle Scrooge McDuck is called “Dagobert” in Germany. [via]
- And finally….
The Justice League, re-imagined as a 1977 punk rock movie, based on an art challenge posed by Warren Ellis and by the exceptionally talented Annie Wu.
