Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Thirty years ago today...
"Right here in New York City... magic happened. An artist was born that would rival Leonardo da Vinci... or Michelangelo. But his tools would not be pen, nor brush, nor chisel, nor palette. His tools would be his comically over-sized glasses... and his soul. So please... welcome... the greatest performer ever to have graced this Earth, Andy Scates."
Okay, not quite like that.
So big deal, 30 is just an arbitary number. Unfortunately, it's also an arbitrary number chosen by health insurance companies to raise montly payments at. What I didn't expect was to actually be sore all over today - I thought that was a gradual thing, not something that hits the instant you turn 30. Of course, it might have been that McDonalds bacon and egg biscuit that somebody gave me yesterday, which was the first time I'd had McDonalds anything in a year. Ew. Tasted good, though.
Labels: life
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
How to become a robot.
One of the staple cliches of scifi is to transfer a person's consciousness to a computer (especially one in a robot), but the question remains, is this robot actually the person, or is just a copy of the person? The same argument is often applied to the transporter device in Star Trek: is the person stepping out of the transporter simply a copy of a person that was destroyed on a distant transporter platform? What is self, and what is the soul attached to?
Personally, I think the way to do it is to gradually replace living brain tissue with artificial components until nothing is left except the artificial computer brain, which can then be extracted from the body and placed in a robot body with the strength of five gorillas (alternatively, the organic brain can be placed in a robot until the conversion is complete).
Anyway, now we're a step closer. Here's a Fox News story about some researchers that glued a rat brain cell and some snail brain cells to some microchips (as seen in above photo):
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189323,00.html
Labels: geek stuff, science/tech
Monday, March 27, 2006
Weird Dream.
(or "You Know You're Obsessing Over Snakes on a Plane Too Much When...")
So, I dreamt that I went to go see Snakes on a Plane with some friends. Next thing I know, I've actually been cast to play the son of Samuel L. Jackson's character in the movie. The skin tone differences were explained by the fact that he married a caucasian woman, so the eldest two kids (me and some girl) were fair skinned, while the remaining ten siblings (five pairs of twins) were somewhat darker. Anyway, we were only in the opening sequence, and we were all sitting in the kitchen for breakfast before Samuel L. Jackson got on the plane, and then I was playing in the driveway and somebody had brought some candy that was like giant chewy sugar cubes in wax paper.
Labels: dreams
Friday, March 24, 2006
What do you get when you cross a Jew and a Jazzmaster?
That's right, you get Meshugga Beach Party, an instrumental rock band that plays traditional Jewish folk tunes surf-style. It's great stuff. Mel Waldorf, a practicing Jew, has been playing surf rock for a few decades now and has composed surf songs for several films and tv shows. (Mel is also does the Jazzmaster and Jaguar Page (www.jagandjazz.com), a nice history and info page on those guitars.)
Visit the band's website: www.meshuggabeachparty.com
Labels: music
Turn to Hymn Number What?
When peace, like a river,
attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet,
though trials should come,
let this blest assurance control,
that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
and hath shed his own blood for my soul.
It is well with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul...
Labels: film/tv/books/arts, music, religion/theology/philosophy
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
"That's no moon..."
Oh, wait, nevermind. Yep, that's a moon. Mimas, in orbit about Saturn.
Link to NASA website: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07639
"That's no moon..."
It's a space station. Except, it's in the wrong movie. Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam, or as we call it in the States, Turkish Star Wars, is a remarkably bad movie made in Turkey in 1982 that uses random clips stolen from Star Wars and random clips of actual NASA rockets to serve as its own visual effects, many of which are realized by just having footage of some guy with a motorcycle helmet sitting in front of screen that has Star Wars clips playing in the background. Yikes.
To watch some clips of it on IFILM, go here:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2645732?htv=12&htv=12
To read a fun review of it, go here:
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=22122
Labels: geek stuff, science/tech
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Happy Pi Day!
Have some pie! Have some pineapple! Hit a piñata!
(read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_day)
Labels: science/tech
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Thus begins Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower series, which tells of Roland Deschain, Gunslinger of Gilead, and his quest for the Dark Tower, which spans many years and many worlds (and seven books), incorporating elements of fantasy, science fiction, western, and horror all into one.
Inspired by Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Lands", and of course, Tolkien, King wanted to write an epic fantasy on the same scale as The Lord of the Rings, but in a different setting, and begins his tale in a world something like that of Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, with his gunslinger character seemingly (at first) not too different than that of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name.
Roland of Gilead is the last of the knightly order of Gunslingers in a "world that has moved on", and is more or less falling apart, with things such as time, distance, and direction increasingly having little-to-no meaning. He finds doorways to other worlds, where he meets his twentieth-century companions Eddie, Susannah, and Jake, who learn the way of the Gunslinger as they journey toward the Dark Tower, encountering nuclear mutants, vampires, demons, beast-men, robots, and suicidal bullet trains along the way. But who is the Man in Black, and why is Roland chasing him? Will Roland ever reach the top room of the Dark Tower and discover what secrets it holds? Well, I'm not telling.
Labels: film/tv/books/arts
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The Amazing Pavement Art of Julian Beever.
Julian Beever is a British artist who, among other things, creates chalk drawings on sidewalks, that when seen from a specific viewpoint, appear 3-D.
Visit his website: http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/index.html
Labels: film/tv/books/arts
Recent Discoveries
New Animal Resembling Furry Lobster Found. A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.
Read more - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_sc/france_new_crustacean_3
The Lethargic Nosebleeds. A "performance art group" that I was a part of in high school. I recently found the old video of us butchering "Sunshine of Your Love" in the talent show. It's truly awful. Click here to watch the video on YouTube.
Labels: science/tech