For parents, and everyone else:
links
Randomness for 6/25
Standard1) via Robin Bailey, this video about a guy who’s mom “beat the gay out of him” is crazy funny. It seems so real at the start…
2) Kitten wearing a tiny hat eats a miniature ice cream cone.
3) Next step: cub burgers. You know what surprises me but shouldn’t? The free-range lion “farm” (not ranch?) in Illinois. No one would believe it if they read it in a book.
4) Steve Martin’s Tour Rider leaked! So funny, and I so want to steal this idea for my upcoming non-existent book tour!
5) Cormac McCarthy’s Toy Story 3.
6) Reality TV artists create book cover designs, prove they are not book designer.
Randomness for 6/23
Standard2) The rule, usually, is “Don’t read the comments,” yes? But look at this post about a delicious salad sandwich and then scroll down to the fourth comment by “Brownhornet”. WTF? I don’t understand that at all.
3) A trailer for all Academy Award Winning Movies. This is funny.
4) So is this: The angry police captain. Seen via the-isb.
6) Want to have a good-looking kid? Talk to the sperm (and egg, supposedly) donors at beautifulpeople.com. Money quote: “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”
7) “Do you think the author wanted you to learn something?”
“No screaming.”
In which I reveal my ignorance, part two
StandardWho knew jaywalking as a pedestrian norm was safer than a norm of crossing at the crosswalk?
I’ll admit that it pings my skepticism meter (along the lines of “Volvos are dangerous because people feel safe in them and drive like idiots”) but I still hmm over it.
Seen via this article about the punching incident earlier this week, when the Seattle police officer used “the punching technique” when a bystander objected to a jaywalking arrest.
In which I reveal my ignorance, part one
StandardI will shamelessly reveal my ignorance here, because everyone is ignorant about different things, yes? First, I want to link to Oil spill crisis as opportunity, a rather detailed post that covers a lot of ground, including a much friendlier analysis of Obama’s “War on the Oil Spill” speech than my own, a clip of Rahm Emmanuel that I can’t watch, and a really awesome graph (I mean REALLY AWESOME) that shows what our energy sources are and what they go to.
But I want to comment on this:
Someday when battery technologies improve, the fuel and power worlds will blend in the U.S., and there will be strong and direct economic relationships between the production of electric power and the use of oil.
His point is that Obama is using the oil spill (caused by the extraction of a fossil fuel used mainly for transportation) as a basis to regulate coal and natural gas, too, which are used for very different purposes.
And this is something I’ve thought a lot about, too. Once we have a sensible (unlike, say, flywheels) way to store a lot of energy inside a moving vehicle, people will be able to charge their vehicles at home/work, and we’ll be powering our transportation sector (or at least, large portions of it) off the grid.
The grid, of course, can get energy from hydro power, solar, wind, tides, whatever. It doesn’t have to be coal, for instance.
However, my understanding is that the real problem here is the battery (makes sad face). There is no great new battery tech breakthroughs, are there? Most of the advances (to take one prominent example) made in powering portable devices is in LEDs and other ways to reduce power usage, not storage.
But maybe I’m wrong. Have there been big advances in battery technology? As far as I can tell, the barium-titanate powders never panned out. Am I missing something or is this a pipe dream?
But be sure to check out that graph.
Randomness for 6/17
StandardI sure am posting a lot of these lately.
2) How to clean oil off a pelican.
3) How to tell a completely believable story.
4) How to make crappy Hollywood movies.
5) How to plot a novel, Glenn Beck style
Randomness for 6/16
Standard1) Mary Jane Watson, master of the obvious. Now THIS is writing!
2) Thomas Kinkade, if Thomas Kinkade was cool.
3) I know I’m behind the times linking to this, but damn! This is cool.
4) Look upon the face of evil.
5) Night Of The Killer Lamp: 23 Ridiculous Horror-Movie Adversaries
6) The Stockholm Library. It’s a rare library that gives me vertigo. There’s this one and the main downtown library in Seattle. Brrrr.
7) Star Wars, now with more pants.
Randomness for 6/15
Standard1) Tee hee.
2) All fame is fleeting. Best-selling books of decades past.
3) Somehow, I don’t think Syfy is taking their movie originals very seriously.
4) How to keep someone with you forever.
5) A friend made a documentary called THUNDER SOUL about a famous high school funk band from the 70’s
and their reunion tour. Listen to the band here.
6) Quote from article: “The findings do not directly link playing video games to reckless driving. They only show an association. Researchers say the impact of playing games like “Grand Theft Auto” is minimal.” Headline to the same article: “Study: Video Games Linked To Reckless Driving.”
Brief notes, briefly
StandardMy post analyzing THE NIGHT STRANGLER, the second of the Carl Kolchak tv movies and the lead-in to the series, doesn’t seem to have posted to my LiveJournal friends list. I wonder if it came up as backdated, which prevents it from appearing on the list. It’s on LJ right here. Warning, it’s a long post.
Also, the back cover copy for Game of Cages has appeared on Amazon.com. Here it is:
A SECRET HIGH-STAKES AUCTION
As a wealthy few gather to bid on a predator capable of destroying all life on earth, the sorcerers of the Twenty Palace Society mobilize to stop them. Caught up in the scramble is Ray Lilly, the lowest of the low in the society—an ex–car thief and the expendable assistant of a powerful sorcerer. Ray possesses exactly one spell to his name, along with a strong left hook. But when he arrives in the small town in the North Cascades where the bidding is to take place, the predator has escaped and the society’s most powerful enemies are desperate to recapture it. All Ray has to do is survive until help arrives. But it may already be too late.
I like that.
Also, I have to put up a complete first chapter for GoC soon, along with revamping my website a bit. I haven’t done it yet, because Life keeps getting in the way. Soon, though. Soon.
This is not complicated.
StandardI’m going to make one of my obligatory posts about spoilers and spoiler warnings. If you’ve been here before, skim on by.
It’s prompted by this quote by Catherynne M. Valente:
It hamstrings the review to not be able to directly discuss any of the actual events that take place in the movie. How can you engage with the text without acknowledging anything within it? It’s infuriating.
Essentially, she puts a spoileriffic review of the movie SPLICE behind a cut because of the “howls” from people complaining about spoilers.
Look, let’s make this clear and simple for people who like to pretend their being harassed or censored somehow: If you’re going to write about a book or movie in a way that includes spoilers, just say so up front[1]. It’s a courtesy for people who haven’t seen the movie yet. Is that so challenging? Eight little letters? No one wants to “hamstring” anyone. No one wants prevent discussion. Just let us know what you’re about to do so we can make an informed decision about it.
Why is that even mildly controversial?
But what really annoys me is this assertion:
Especially because it implies that the only worth of a movie or book is the shock value in a turn of plot, nothing else. If you know the ending of The Sixth Sense going in, it’s somehow a failure as a film.
Ms. Valente has always seemed pretty sharp to me so I’m not sure what to make of this. Is it hyperbole that missed its mark? I don’t even know.
But let’s be clear: Spoiling a movie for someone changes their experience of it. I’m not going to go through the whole thing again about how it affects me to know, for instance, that a particular character is going to die, but it changes the way I experience a movie. It takes away the pleasure of a clever plot twist. In some movies, that matters. A lot.
Using spoiler warnings doesn’t imply that the only worth in a story is in the shock value of a plot, it simply acknowledges that shocking plot twists have value. It doesn’t imply that a spoiled movie is a failure, it accepts that the pleasure of seeing a spoiled movie is reduced.
All of which could have been avoided with a little basic courtesy.
In other news, yeah, there is some stressful shit going on. It doesn’t show, does it?
[1] Yeah, I realize there are people out there who don’t want spoilers on the net in any form, even after there’s been a warning. Fuck those people for being idiots. There has to be a place where people can discuss plots in full detail, and that place is anywhere they please. I’m not asking for an end to spoilers, only for a little labeling.