Link Dump

Time is short tonight, so just a few links (loosely affiliated with the Six Weeks of Halloween):

• There’s a Clown Terrorizing a British Town – Stephen King would be proud.
• Horror Happy Meal Parodies – Wow, I’d actually want to got to McDonalds if they had these!
• The Ten Coolest LEGO Horror Movie Reenactments – There are a startling number of these.
• Close Encounters Studios: “I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This one” – Heh.
• H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society – The original Ghost Busters.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for some Saw movies on Sunday…

The usual mish mash of stuff procured from the depths of the internets, just for you:

• Squirrel Power! by Jon Mooallem – This article is glorious:
  

  SOME say the world will end in fire. Some say ice. Some say coordinated kamikaze attacks on the power grid by squirrels.

  At least, some have been saying that to me, when they find out I’ve spent the summer keeping track of power outages caused by squirrels.

  Humorous, well-researched article featuring my new favorite acronym: P.O.C.B.S. or Power Outages Caused By Squirrels. Mooallem really walks a tricky line between goofy and witty and serious in this article, and it’s definitely worth reading the whole thing. (via Clive Thompson)

• The Third Core’s Revenge by Alex Wellerstein – Interesting article about a little known bomb:
  

  By the end of August 1945, there had been a total of three plutonium cores created in the entire world. Everyone knows about the first two. The first was put into the Gadget and detonated at Trinity in July 1945. The second was put into the Fat Man and detonated over Nagasaki in August 1945. The third, however, has been largely overlooked.

  While not used in war, it earned the nickname “demon core”…

• Recollections of Alien Image Gallery – New site made by a guy who worked on the miniatures unit of Alien. Cool stuff. (Thanks Roy!)
• Starcher Trek! – Some genius took dialog from Archer and edited it into the Star Trek Animated Series. It’s a surprisingly good match. It’s also completely frivolous, but it reminds me that maybe rewatching Archer would be fun.

That’s all for now…

Plumbing the depths of the internets, just for you.

• Stanley Kubrick, cinephile – A pretty nerdy list of films Stanley Kubrick has said he enjoyed, from various sources. There’s lots of typical and expected stuff, but on the other hand, the list also includes White Men Can’t Jump (not in this article, but I remember watching a documentary about Kubrick which mentioned that he was fascinated by Sanka commercials because they were like little 45 second movies that still managed to tell a story.)
• One Page Screenplays – A guy named Bobby Finger has taken to writing one page screenplays according to minimal rules (“two famous people/a location/a genre”). Sometimes I get the feeling that the two famous people are just supposed to be, like, the actors playing a role. Other times I get the impression that the screenplay actually features the famous people as themselves. Regardless, these are great.
• Hashtags: Why didn’t the creator of Hashtag patent the concept? – Chris Messina (the actual inventor of hashtags) answered on quora, basically proving everyone’s suspicions that it’s because he’s a nice guy who understands the internet and if he had patented it, no one would have ever used them.
• The Reddit sleuths who brought down a meme empire – This is an interesting story, though let’s not give Reddit too much credit. After all, they kinda created the problem in the first place and quite frankly, the shenanigans described in the article seemed to go on for quite a while before those Reddit sleuths actually figured out what was going on…
• The Pixar Theory – This is old and you’ve probably already seen it, but it’s an impressive bit of retconning:
  

  I’ve obsessed over this concept, working to complete what I call “The Pixar Theory,” a working narrative that ties all of the Pixar movies into one cohesive timeline with a main theme. This theory covers every Pixar production since Toy Story.

  It’s far fetched but fun.

That’s all for now. See you on the other side.

The building blocks of the internet, links! Now in convenient Shot and Chaser format:

• Shot: How Google Rediscovered the 19th Century – Interesting article about how Google Books increases the visibility of public domain stuff. Of course, since we’re talking about public domain, we’re talking about 19th century stuff, because come on, copyright needs to last 150 years now.
  

  …the role of the digital archive in the rediscovery of the 19th century.

  Any reader who has done a project that is historical in nature, regardless of discipline, will recognize the truth of that observation. Thanks to Google, 21st-century scholars are becoming far more accustomed to reading 19th-century books, simply because, being out of copyright, they are online.

  It’s an interesting point. As content owners continue to restrict consumers’ rights, consumers are bypassing them and looking at the public domain because digital services like Google Books make them available. It’s an interesting look at the push and pull of technology.

• Chaser: Google Reader Died Because No One Would Run It – I’m not bitter about the sunsetting of reader, I swears.
• Shot: The Sweet Spot: Tech Jargon? Ping Us. – Wherein New York Times journalists admit that they use jargon to make it seem like they know what they’re talking about, when they really don’t. (Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe not.)
• Chaser: Nothing to See Here: Demoting the Uncertainty Principle – Wherein New York Times journalists (correctly) diagnose the misuse of technical jargon, specifically Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (most people who use that term are really looking to use the phrase “Observation Bias”, but that’s not sexy enough I guess. Plus, it’s not named after a scientist.)

Heh.

As usual, my elite squad of chain smoking monkey researchers have uncovered various tidbits that may be of interest:

• Powered Jacket MK3 – I seriously can’t tell if this is meant to be serious or if it’s some sort of parody (I’m actually pretty sure it’s a real product, but this video is so bonkers insane that I don’t know what to make of it). Either way, the video is amazing. Another gem from my i’mnotscaredenoughofthejapanese tag on delicious.
• When THE THING Became John Carpenters’ THE THING – Fascinating look at a fortuitous quirk in scheduling that allowed some course corrections on the script, yielding one of my favorite movies:
  

  It is often mentioned that John Carpenter had the luxury of time when he made THE THING … and that this expansive schedule in large part contributed to the films’ overall quality. Although this was true in some respects it stands in contrast to a frenzied Six Week period from late October to early December, 1981 in which THE THING shape shifted into something harder and more powerful, and in the process took a decisive turn toward the dark side. During this time John restructured the film, wrote what was essentially a new Second Act to conform to the editing he had done ( including new death scenes for two characters ), adopted MacCready as his spiritual doppelganger, and scrambled to get all of it shot on location in Stewart, B.C.

  This post touches on every change, every decision made during a 6 week break in the schedule, and it’s utterly fascinating. Hat tip to Film Crit Hulk.

• The evolution of soft drink cans – Pepsi sucks. (The link doesn’t really support my claim, instead focusing on interesting notes surrounding the way can designs have changed over the years for lots of brands. I just hate Pepsi.)
• The Rock ‘n’ Roll Casualty Who Became a War Hero – This is a pretty amazing story:
  

  Jason Everman has the unique distinction of being the guy who was kicked out of Nirvana and Soundgarden, two rock bands that would sell roughly 100 million records combined. At 26, he wasn’t just Pete Best, the guy the Beatles left behind. He was Pete Best twice.

  Then again, he wasn’t remotely. What Everman did afterward put him far outside the category of rock’n’roll footnote. He became an elite member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, one of those bearded guys riding around on horseback in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.

  Heh.

That’s all for now.

Time is short, so just a few links from the depths of the internets. Go forth and be merry:

• Are Critics Too Lenient On Early Summer Movies? – Matt Singer takes on Devin Faraci’s theory that “critics gets less forgiving as the summer goes on.” This is based on Man of Steel‘s relatively craptacular 59% on Rotten Tomatoes versus Star Trek Into Darkness‘ pretty amazing 87%. Even though I found Star Trek to be better than Man of Steel, I do think it’s a lot closer than Rotten Tomatoes bears out, and there is a sorta intuitive sense that maybe critics are getting worn down by blockbusters by this point (Man of Steel is especially rough in that respect, that last our is just pure action and special effects, which I imagine grating on critics.)
• Other Knight Rider License Plates Guaranteed To Fool No One – More glorious stupidity from Previously.tv that nevertheless made me laugh loudly. Utterly brilliant. In other news, hell yeah (cannot wait for their podcast).
• How JAWS 3D Was Almost JAWS 3, PEOPLE 0 – I’m sure it felt like the right decision at the time, but just imagine how awesome it would be right now if they actually made JAWS 3, PEOPLE 0. Missed opportunities.
• The Tragic Imprisonment Of John McTiernan, Hollywood Icon – This doesn’t really explain what happend to John McTiernan after his amazing late 80s, early 90s run of great action movies, but it does highlight why he hasn’t done much over the past decade or so and why he’s serving a year in prison (supposedly due to some weird actor vendetta).
• METI: Should We Be Shouting At The Cosmos? – David Brin wonders why we’re shouting at the universe with METI (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), a sorta splinter group of SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). It makes sense to try and figure out if there are other intelligent species in the universe (Via SETI), but we may not want to be as overt as METI.
  

  Recently, several groups, ranging from radio astronomers in Argentina and Russia all the way to the web advertising site Craigslist, have declared that they intend to commence broadcasting high-intensity Messages to ETI… or METI… an endeavor also known at “Active Seti.” Their intention is to change the observable brightness of Earth civilization by many orders of magnitude, in order to attract attention to our planet from anyone who might be out there.

  Let there be no mistake. METI is a very different thing than passively sifting for signals from the outer space. Carl Sagan, one of the greatest SETI supporters and a deep believer in the notion of altruistic alien civilizations, called such a move deeply unwise and immature.

That’s all for now…

Time is once again short, so just a few interesting links to tide us over until Wednesday, when time will no doubt still be short, but enough preamble, here’s some stuff:

• Saving Summer’s Trashiest Cocktail: Make Way For The $21 Long Island Ice Tea – Ben Crair loves him some Long Island Iced Teas:
  

  It came in a highball with four perfect cubes of ice and a wedge of lemon. It cost sixteen dollars and tasted just like college.

  There is no cocktail as maligned as the Long Island Iced Tea. Equal parts vodka, gin, white rum, white tequila, and triple sec, plus sour mix and a splash of coke—its reputation is basically on par with rufinol.

  Heh.

• Anatomy of a Logo: Star Wars – It turns out that the now classic star wars logo was the result of a tumultuous evolution of designs.
• Starship Century Symposium: Neal Stephenson – File 770 has been running recaps of each presentation from the Starship Century Symposium, and of course I had to link to Stephenson’s entry, which is basically about building a skyscraper that goes so high that it aids in space launches.
  

  Stephenson began wondering how tall we could build a structure using mundane materials – things available now, because if you have to develop special new materials then people push you off into the future, saying go play in the sandbox and come back in 15 years.

  Sounds good to me.

• Huge six-legged robot built in UK by enthusiast – Sign of the times:
  

  The robot, driver-operated by joysticks within a cockpit, can only travel at 1.5km/h (1mph) and manage a distance of 5km on a 20-litre (4.5-gallon) tank of diesel.

  “It’s not about miles to the gallon, it’s about gallons to the mile,” he said.

  “It wasn’t built to be efficient and fast. It was built to look cool and insect-like and fun.”

  Mr Denton said he was inspired by science fiction to create the “walking” machine.

  “But legs are very inefficient – the wheel was invented for a reason,” he added.

  And I, for one, welcome our new insectoid robot overlords…

And that’s all for now, hope you’re having a great weekend…

Yet more links from the depths of the internets. Enjoy:

• Let’s Star Trek Into Darkness – A long and humorous look at the most recent Star Trek movie from longtime fans.
• New Mexico’s “Atari Dump” to be Excavated – Video Gamers have long heard of this fabled location:
  

  For gamers, the Atari Dump is the stuff of lore, long associated with the failure of “E.T.”, Atari’s attempt at a home-game tie-in to Steven Spielberg’s 1982 movie. The company paid handsomely for rights to the title and rushed an ungainly game to market, making such a face-plant in sales that it almost ruined the company. “E.T.”‘s epic fail became a cautionary tale and a symbol of the video-game industry crash of the early 1980s.

  Now, Fuel seeks to exploit the legend by filming a documentary about the excavation of the dump, perhaps hoping to find thousands of “E.T.” game cartridges and Atari 2600 consoles — or at least hoping that viewers will hope to find that.

  And they might indeed find them — along with a lot of other stuff. Historical records suggest that the dump may be full of all manner of industrial detritus.

  Heh.

• Previously, on Arrested Development – Someone has wayyyy too much time on their hands. As Arrested Development gets revived by Netflix, someone has created an insanely detailed mapping of recurring jokes. I’ve started watching the new season myself, and I guess I’m enjoying it well enough, but then, I was never that big of an AD fan to start with…
• R’ha (Short Film) – Pretty amazing little sci-fi short film considering that it was written, directed, and animated by a single man (with an assist on music and voice acting).
• Famous Family ‘Amazing Race’ Teams We’d Like To See, In Order Of Their Predicted Eliminations – This is awesome:
  

  Zooey and Emily Deschanel

  Zooey, unable to see through her bangs, runs full-speed into a column at the Parthenon and is pulled from the Race by medical with concussion symptoms.

  …

  Mads and Lars Mikkelsen

  Calm demeanor and cultural open-mindedness, pluses; tendency to get sucked into crime scenes and murder investigations throughout Western Europe, minuses, and Mads is distracted by keeping a running tally of annoying “let’s win this leg…OF THE RACE haw haw” jokes. Lars’s muttered wisecrack about ladyfingers in the customs line leads to a two-hour search delay, and their elimination.

  Hehe.

That’s all for now…

I hope you’re all having a good holiday weekend. Me, I’m filled up with smoked/barbecued goodness right now, so mental capacities have been rerouted to digestion services. As such, here are some links I found interesting of late…

• A Thing You Probably Didn’t Notice: Riker Sits Down Like A Crazy Person – I cannot believe I never noticed this before.
• Chandelier Turns a Room into a Forest – Or, as Dave Cole notes, “Hey parents, create misadjusted kids with this nightmare fuel chandelier.”
• Space Oddity – As sung by an actual astronaut in an actual space station. In other news, we haven’t left low-earth orbit in quite some time. I wonder why!
• Description of Bientôt l’été, attempt #6 – Who says video games can’t be “insufferable” art? Yet another treat from my idontknowwhatthefuckisgoingoninthisvideo tag on delicious.
• A Sincere Letter of Thanks to Roger Ebert – That previous video reminded me of this classic article from Kevin Beverage, Noted Games Journalist (who is a story in and of himself, but that’s not a tale for this post) in which he comments on Roger Ebert’s insistence that games can’t be art:
  

  I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to you for recently stating in your column that videogames can never be art. Noting the content drought on many game enthusiast websites, you selflessly decided to peel the crusted top off of the cesspool that is the games-as-art debate, to present us gamers with the opportunity to wallow in our own intellectual feces for a solid week-and-a-half. And with bony fists raised in impotent rage and eyes fixed unflinchingly on our navels, we took up the call.

  Brilliant.

• A T-shirt celebrates Philly’s rudeness – Every now and again, I leave the Philly area and find that people are, like, outgoing and stuff. It’s so weird.
  

  At the DMV, which can bring out the ornery in people and Philadelphians in particular, the San Francisco clerk inquired: “Why are you so angry?”

  To which Monteiro answered, “I’m not angry, I’m from Philly.”

  And with that, a slogan, a T-shirt and, dare I add, a cosmic world view and fundamental genius understanding of human behavior were born.

  Heh.

• How Did This New Limited “24” Series Come To Be? – Does anyone remember the most excellent, but now defunct Extra Hot Great podcast? Well the reason it went away was because they were founding a new website, called previously.tv (this is the same crew that created Television Without Pity way back when), which is great, though I guess I don’t watch enough TV as they are covering lots of stuff I didn’t know existed. Also, no podcast yet (hopefully soon!). Anywho, this article about the new season of 24 being based on The Da Vinci Code is hilarious.

I sure do seem to be leaning on these link dump posts of late, sorry about that, but things have been busy, so time for writing is sparse. By which I mean that I’m actually spending too much time faffing about in the internets, hence actually having a bunch of links to dump. Speaking of which:

• And Now, Deep Thoughts About ‘Deep Thoughts’ – Really just an excuse to partake in some Jack Handey brilliance, but also an interesting note about how Handey has influenced modern poetry.
  

  This past fall, while teaching poetry to undergraduates, I witnessed something of a literary tragedy. Each week, I asked a few students to read a contemporary literary journal of their choosing and present one poem that particularly struck them. An unmistakable pattern began to emerge. In the final week of the quarter, I voiced my discovery: “Have you guys noticed that you gravitate toward poems that are like ‘Deep Thoughts,’ by Jack Handey?”

  Crickets. Blank stares.

  To a person, all the students were born in or after 1990; not one of them knew to whom I was referring. Therein lies the tragedy.

  Quite tragic. Apparently a lot of poets these days attempt to go for that Handeyesque style, without even really knowing Handey. Interesting.

• How the sky would look if the planets were as close as the moon – I don’t really have anything insightful to say here. It’s just cool.
• Sports Balls Replaced With Cats – Niche site of the week.
• Interview with Kevin Stewart – Who? Oh, he’s actually Professor Badass. Ok then.

That’s all for now!