Something a computer does better than me: figure out what I can spell with my phone number.
Something I do better than a computer: spontaneously realize upon waking that, in the movie Clueless, Alicia Silverstone's somewhat-pudgy best friend was played by Brittany Murphy.
Try to figure that one out AI scientists! I'd been dreaming about spiders for goodness sake!
Been doing some cleaning around the place and I stumbled upon a sekrit cache of mementos. In particular, I found my notes from a working offsite I attended at my last job.
Herewith are the top 10 Death Metal Band Names inspired by a Seminar on Modern Portfolio Theory:
I love the idea of moblogging and I love that my friends do it so I don't have to.
To wit, Sutter's got documentary proof that we saw Hellboy this weekend at SF's best theater, the Coronet. Word is that the Coronet, the only one-theater movie palace in town that still shows first-run features, is due to be demolished. The Goldman (grr) Institute on Aging has bought the place and is going to sent up some kinda death dormitory in its place. But that geriatric sword of Damocles has been hanging over the Coronet for 4 years, and I still got to see a ruddy Ron Perlman whoop demonic butt.
Later on, Sutter captured the slender elegance of my new live-in lover, the Sony Grand Wega. I'd been waiting to meet my sweetheart for 6 weeks and when she finally arrived, I melted. With a 42" diagonal, my baby's definitely a larger woman, but deceptively light-weight and only a foot deep. For her debut, I had some folks over and we howled at The Big Lebowski.
Devil's Playground documents the Amish rite of passage known as rumspringa whereby 16 year-old Amish kids are allowed to experience the 'real world.' You know, drink, drive ... roll over on crank dealers in order to avoid jailtime, etc.
In explaining the philosophy behind rumspringa, Faron Yoder (the main teen subject of the movie) explains that it's like a vaccination. It's meant to give teens a taste of what they won't have so that they don't end up missing it.
Faron ends up snorting a lot of vaccine.
The ostensible tension of rumspringa is that the kids have to make a choice at the end of it: continue to live in the real world or join up with Amish church. However, it's basically a false choice. The 'real world' the kids experience is a hyper-realized and completely closed teenage existence. They only hang out with other Amish teens. Most still live at home.
So while they're allowed to throw as many drunken Amish parties as they want (usually at their parents' farms), their understanding of what it means to be a teenager is completely involuted. As in everyday teenage life, things trend towards homogeneity - it turns out that kids are good at picking up what's considered cool despite an austere upbringing. Amish kids quickly go from being completely bewildered by Wal-Mart's CD section to healthy pop culture consumers thanks to the social cues of their peers (and, you know, MTV).
But because of the in-bred nature of their society (even before getting the same haircut, the kids look a lot alike if you know what I'm sayin') and the temporary nature of their furlough in the real world, any random behavioral mutation will quickly spread through the group. To wit, the aforementioned crank.
It's interesting that even when completely strung out on meth-amphetamines these kids never question their faith. Heaven and hell are completely real and definite places. It must be a really bad trip to be totally spun on meth and the only thought rattling through your head is that you're bound for a literal hell much worse than the one in which you're trapped.
As if all of this weren't enough reason to see the flick, it's also got a great soundtrack. Selected Ambient Works volumes 1 and 2.
Boeing announced its plan to offer in-flight internet connectivity:
The flat rate, which would give a user unlimited Internet access, will cost $29.95 for flights lasting longer than six hours. Each three- to six-hour leg will be charged at $19.95, while access on trips under three hours would cost $14.95.
A while back, Gavin at gavinsblog.com linked to and excerpted a post in which Dr. John "Men are Mars ..." Gray was alleged to be a fraud. The claim is that he doesn't actually have a PhD.
His lawyers caught wind and sent a nastygram - not to the person who originally posted the story, or the authors of the original outing in Men's News Daily - but to Gavin. Which is pretty beat.
But also funny because in the letter, his lawyers attempt to establish his bona fides by pointing out that "Previously, Dr. Gray received his Master's degree from the Maharishi European Research University ... where he also obtained his Bachelor's degree."
I'm sure Maharishi U. is a totally legit university. They've even got an MBA program which combines higher consciousness and professional excellence. I really dig the illustration on this page ... dude meditating + flip chart with Feynman diagram showing something assuredly managementory.
Apparently, you can maximize profits through the proper application of transcendental meditation and quantum mechanics.
My cell phonaphobia may have finally caught up to me. I'm sitting outside the men's room on a conference call ... that's where they keep the pay phone. Of course, the wireless is really good so, there's that.
Silly Putty's come a long way, it would seem. Check out Crazy Aaron's Puttyworld for the varieties of 'Thinking' Putty now available.
I've ordered some color-shifting scarab putty ... you know, for personal use.
At lunch today, we were talking about Disney's classic foray into sci-fi, The Black Hole. Specifically, we were debating the super-creepy end to the movie wherein everybody ends up taking a tumble through ye olde singularity.
The results of this are mixed.
On one hand, the do-gooders of the Palomino end up in the Land of Tubular Bells - a shiny place, full of shiny goodness and, like, gossamer-winged adventure.
On the other hand, EvilBot Maximilian and scruffy scientist Hans Reinhardt end up ... somewhere else. They're shown drifting towards one another in the hazy fog of the black hole. As general relativity tells us, when a robot and a man are put in a black hole, they will embrace gently. And then they'll be fused together into some sort of cyborg, standing watch for eternity over slaves toiling in a smoky hot pit.
It's quite the metaphysical end to an otherwise subphysical movie. Steve pointed out that he'd turned to the Internet for help in understanding this symbolic stew and the IMDB forums provided the hook-up.
Obviously, the simplest answer is that the filmmakers decided they need some sort of "far out" ending like 2001. But lacking imagination or actual talent, they tossed up a weirdly literal, pseudo-spiritual meditation on Heaven and Hell.
Alternatively, they may have decided to make the most out of the fact that Maximillian was also the first name of the actor playing Dr. Reinhardt. "What if, like ... they were the same person! But you know, in Hell! Hey, man, puff, puff, give."
