- The idea of cubicle farms kept awake pharmacologically for 20-hour work days is absolutely terrifying. But this article raises some very interesting questions about the value, consequences, and even future necessity of cognitive-enhancing drugs. [via]
- Speaking of all things pharmacological, I’m just going to come right out and say it: Grant Morrison is pretty fucked up.
- “…if the future is about to be rewritten, the big question becomes: How?” Steven Johnson in the WSJ on How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write. [via]
- Apparently, 3-D animation is the only way to stay true to Charles Dickens’ original intent. So says Robert Zemeckis, anyway:
“The way he describes the ghosts, the way he describes the environment that these characters move in, has always been unbelievably visual and very descriptive. We’ve actually been saddled with technology that never really allowed us to present the ghosts, if you will, in a way that is put on the page by Mr. Dickens. So that was the main inspiration as to why we wanted to re-envision the movie in a way that I think is really more true to the novel.”
Having recently read Dickens’ original novel — a pleasant holiday read, no doubt occasionally thrilling when he recited it on-stage, but not necessarily one of his best — and having seen plenty of adaptations of it over the years, I’d say Zemeckis is pretty much full of it. Usually, “true to the novel” is a euphemism. In this case, I think plenty of people have been plenty true to Dickens’ novel. I have serious doubts that Carrey in motion-capture 3-D animation is going to be any improvement.
- And finally, this almost sounds like a present-day Canticle for Liebowitz [via]:
A Benedictine monk from Minnesota is scouring libraries in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Georgia for rare, ancient Christian manuscripts that are threatened by wars and black-market looters; so far, more than 16,500 of his finds have been digitized.
various
Saturday various
- Geoggrey K. Pullum in The Chronicle of Higher Education on what’s wrong with Strunk & White:
The book’s toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules. They can’t help it, because they don’t know how to identify what they condemn.
I’ve never even owned a copy. I’ll refer on occasion to my trusted Chicago Manual — or the APA Manual, which is the style guide we use at work — but mostly I just wing it, grammatically. [via]
- Meanwhile, a defense of adverbs. I usually don’t have a problem with them, unless they’re overused and don’t actually tell the reader anything, a la J.K Rowling’s favored “darkly.” [via]
- John Klima on editing and the value thereof. I love the proliferation of small fiction markets, mostly online, but I think some of them do a disservice to the field and writers by accepting everything they get, by not properly editing. If you’re just filling pages (paper or electronic), why even bother?
- Well this is potentially terrifying [via]:
Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London, says the experiment breaks ground because it pinpoints volition to a specific part of the brain, allowing scientists to experimentally control it.
- And finally, pick one. Gets harder to decide, doesn’t it? [via]
Friday various
- I’m all for celebrating the positive in science fiction and fantasy, and on paper the Science Fiction and Fantasy Ethics Group (or SFFE, or whatever they’ve changed their name to) sounds like an interesting idea. But it’s that word “ethics” that I keep coming back to, that keeps bugging me. As many commenters have pointed out, it suggests that anything dystopian or pessimistic is unethical, or that there’s something inherently more ethical in stories with a sunny disposition, and I think that’s a dangerous line of thinking.
- Meanwhile, Harlan Ellison turns down hometown prize. I don’t think it’s quite the fraud and sham he calls it — Ellison isn’t known for his restraint or tact — but it does sound pretty rinky-dink. I’m not sure I blame him. [via]
- You had me at “rogue NASA interns.” The untold story of how they stole millions of dollars in moon rocks. [via]
- Maybe they ought to send them to the moon for clean-up patrol. Apparently that place is filthy. [via]
- And David Tennant is quitting Doctor Who, right?
Thursday various
- Well this explains why I’m only just now getting registrations for books I sent them back in 2007: there’s a huge backlog at the Library of Congress:
The irony is that the slowdown stems from a new $52 million electronic process that is supposed to speed the way writers and others register their literary, musical or visual work.
Isn’t that usually the way with expensive electronic processes? [via]
- Why CuteOverload is Critical to Your Work. Well I’m sold! [via]
- Speaking of cute, I agree with Jessa Crispin, this really is too cute not to share.
- New research suggests ways in which newborn brains work better than our own [via]:
In fact, in some situations it might actually be better for adults to regress into a newborn state of mind. While maturity has its perks, it can also inhibit creativity and lead people to fixate on the wrong facts. When we need to sort through a lot of seemingly irrelevant information or create something completely new, thinking like a baby is our best option.
“We’ve had this very misleading view of babies,” says Alison Gopnik, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the forthcoming book, “The Philosophical Baby.” “The baby brain is perfectly designed for what it needs to do, which is learn about the world. There are times when having a fully developed brain can almost seem like an impediment.”
- Still, babies might have a little trouble puzzling out these 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense. I know I did. [via]
Wednesday various
- For Marlon Wayans, G.I. Joe is a serious movie. That might be part of the problem:
“For G.I. Joe it was all about me being appropriate and just being mature about my decisions of when to be funny and when not to be. It’s always a challenge. They may try and put you inside of a little box, but I know that, talent-wise, I look at my filmography and I’m able to do a lot. I’ve played a junkie in Requiem [for a Dream], a white woman in White Chicks. I played a little person in Little Man. I played a weedhead in Scary Movie. Now I get to finally play a hero, and I get to play a hero with some humor.”
I actually liked Wayans in Requiem, but G.I. Joe looks cartoonish (even for a movie based on a ’80s cartoon and action figure) — and I say that as someone who had a great fondness for both the cartoon and toys growing up. I think, on reflection, Wayans might have considerably less range than he thinks he does.
- Speaking of unnecessary remakes, and ridiculous ’80s cartoon shows, do we really need another Masters of the Universe movie?
Warner sees the big-screen version as a gritty fantasy and re-imagines Adam as a soldier who sets off to find his destiny, happening upon the magical world of Eternia, the trade paper reports. There Skeletor has raised a technological army and is bent on eradicating magic.
I was also a big fan of He-Man when I was a kid, but I now recognize it’s a ridiculous concept that doesn’t really lend itself to live action and updating. (The Dolph Lundgren version should be proof enough of that.) And if you’re going to rewrite the whole concept, why not just make a new movie? Where are all the new ideas?
- A Catcher in the Rye sequel just sounds like a bad idea all around. Read W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe — it’s the book that inspired Field of Dreams — if you want to read J.D. Salinger as a character in somebody else’s novel. (They renamed the character and cast James Earl Jones in the movie.) [via]
- Archie is getting married? Riverdale will never be the same again! Of course, they’ll just retcon this away with one of those “One More Day“-like deals with the devil. (Isn’t it weird how you never see Mephisto and Mr. Weatherbee in the same room together, ever?) Still, they’ll have to make sure they don’t start having to retcon the retcon, like the Spider-Man newspaper strip. (In other news: there’s still a Spider-Man newspaper strip?) [via]
- Meanwhile, who knew Jughead’s hat had such a rich history? [via]