Link Dump

It’s been a little while since the last link dump, so let’s see what’s queued up in my del.icio.us account:

• <a href="Saw V“>Saw V hit theaters this Halloween and seems poised to make the Saw franchise the top-grossing horror franchise of all time (in unadjusted dollars). I have to admit that I lost interest towards the beginning of Saw III, but I don’t really get the hatred this series seems to have garnered by critics and horror fans. I think Dellamorte over at CHUD brought up an excellent point a few weeks ago:
  

  IF YOU GREW UP IN THE 1980’S YOU CAN’T COMPLAIN ABOUT THE SAW FRANCHISE: If you think the Saw films are shit, but have a soft spot for Friday the 13th Part V: The New Blood, or any Nightmare on Elm Street sequel past the third film, or pretty much any of the Halloween sequels, then you can’t suggest that the rapid-fire sequels that have been born of the 21st Century deserve to be ridiculed any more than the rapid-fire releases of the 80’s.

  Exactly. I actually thought the first Saw was a pretty good movie. The sequels seem to be repetitious and unoriginal, but so what? Weren’t most of the the 80s horror movies (especially slashers) repetitious and unoriginal? And didn’t they get the same sort of curt dismissal as the current crop of remakes and “torture porn” films? To me, part of the joy of horror movies is that even when they’re bad, they’re good. Sure, that won’t work for everybody, but some movies aren’t made for everybody. The other movie series Dellamorte mentions in his post is the High School Musical series, which I have absolutely no interest in… and that’s ok. The only thing that does bother me a bit about the Saw series is that studios seem to have ceded Halloween to the series instead of trying to challenge it with new and interesting movies like Trick ‘r Treat (or so I’ve heard, because I can’t find this thing anywhere!) There’s probably a lot to be said about the state of modern American horror movies, but I don’t think it’s as clear-cut or simplistic as this sort of discussion usually tends to play out. I suppose the studios are still focused on remakes and reboots, but there are still plenty of interesting American efforts going on (it would perhaps be nice if those movies didn’t have so much trouble getting made or distributed though). This seems like fodder for a longer post…

• A Cartoon-off between XKCD and the New Yorker. Hilarious. I think the New Yorker cartoonist really gave XKCD a run for his money, though it should be noted that XKCD was deprived of one of the key components of its success (the alt tag!)
• PG Porn – James Gunn, who directed the excellent horror flick, Slither, recently started this series of short films that are basically porn films without the sex. Basically, some typical porn plotline starts up, complete with bad dialogue and stilted acting, then something horrible happens. The first episode, titled Nailing Your Wife, stars Nathan Fillion (of Firefly/Serenity and I suppose I should also mention Dr. Horrible fame) and real-life porn-star Aria Giovanni. It’s kinda twisted, but darkly funny. Amusingly, it seems to have caused something of a controversy because some people can’t comprehend black comedy.
• I know it’s after the election and all, but this politics by way of D&D post is hilarious, and of course, the Obama/McCain danceoff is amazing.

That’s all for now.

Just another set of blogs I have never linked to before. Enjoy.

• Celluloid Geekazoid: Blog that focuses mostly on movies and other geeky ventures. For movie podcast fans (like myself), his chart of detailed, weighted ratings are great.
• Reality of Nature: The Quantum Superposition in Video Games post is not to be missed
• Enter the Octopus: Another geeky themed blog, with particular focus on books. I was wondering how on earth he managed to do his Bookosphere posts so frequently… then I saw this. It’s understandable though, and it’s still a fun blog.

That’s all for now.

Well, I lost power for a good portion of the day, and it’s looking like I might not have much time tonight, so here are a few links:

• After the Coup by John Scalzi: A short story that takes place in the Old Man’s War universe. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting.
• Watching the Watchmen Trailer: A Detailed Analysis: Amazing shot-by-shot breakdown of the Watchmen trailer. While you’re at it, might as well check out the Watchmen Video Journals over at Trailer Addict. I’ve been following the production of Watchmen for some time now, and am really looking forward to the movie.
• 2008 US Movie Box Office: Interesting chart of 2008 movies, arranged by weekend gross. As you might expect, the first weekend is almost always the largest for any given film. You can see the various spikes as well, notably the Batman spike.
• Libra: I’ve been messing around with this application which lets you catalogue your library of books, DVDs, music, etc… It’s a neat little program, though it clearly needs some work. For instance, it crashed about 10 times while I entered my DVD library into it, and it also seems to crash every time I search for “Cryptonomicon.” The search results were also very strange, and I found myself sometimes having to find the item on Amazon first, then using the ASIN to find it in Libra. It would also be nice if it used a richer data source as well, because you really don’t get much meta data with it. You can add tags to each item… but you have to do it manually. Probably not something I’ll maintain, but it’s interesting, and it provides a neat export functionality – see my DVD collection here (Some DVDs still not entered, but this is a good portion of what I have).)

That’s all for now…

I’ve recently run across some interesting webcomics, so I figured it was time for another edition of linking to someone new:

• Abstruse Goose: Another minimalist nerd comic, but it’s actually pretty good. Just don’t compare it to xkcd (which is, of course, impossible – especially when he creates comics like this). This SETI comic is brilliant.
• Theater Hopper: Topical, movie-themed comic. The latest one features a rather obscure reference, but most of them are great, and he’s apparently been doing this for over 5 years (sooo, I’m a little late on this one, but it’s good anyway).
• Stolen Pixels: Ok, I cheated. I already linked this, but how can I not link to Shamus’ new, video-game themed comic? Great stuff so far. Now featuring legitimate webcomic navigation!

That’s all for now.

Time is short this week and I will be travelling this weekend so no entry on Sunday (perhaps one on Tuesday when I get back). Anwyay, here are some links to chew on while I’m away:

• As a follow up to the last entry, this pie chart of the ingredients of Soylent Green is pretty good (warning: Spoiler! But if you don’t know this spoiler by now, where have you been?)
• Directors’ Cameos in Films: This is an interesting collection. Some directors are very subtle with their cameos, some are not so much. Some work well and fit into the movie, others stick out like a sore thumb. For my money, no one does a cameo better than Hitchcock. Often, they’re difficult to find, but sometimes they take on added meaning and symbolize an important theme (for instance, Hitch downing the champagne in Notrorious (scroll down)).
• Interesting color coded map of generic names for soft drinks. I tend to use soda or Coke (interesting that a specific brand is often used as a “generic” name for soft drinks)..
• How to quit Assassin’s Creed on a PC: This is an absurdly stupid interface (pretty, but stupid)… except that it’s probably much better for consoles. A lot of games that are developed for consoles have menu problems when ported to the PC (see: Unreal Tournament 3).
• One Of The Best Pitches Ever Made: I can’t imagine this happening in any sort of professional league, but it’s brilliant.
• Tim Burton’s Concept Art for Superman Lives: I’m not a big fan of Burton, but when this now-defunct project was announced, I was pretty intrigued, mostly by the choice of Kevin Smith to write the script. Of course, the film probably wouldn’t have been that great, but then we’d miss out on Smith’s brilliant story of writing the script (and dealing with the producer).

That’s all for now. Again, probably no entry on Sunday, as I’ll be out of town with no access to internet…

I have a few ideas of longer type posts, but nothings gelling at the moment, so here are a few links I’ve run across lately:

• Mind Meld: Today’s SF Authors Define Science Fiction – It’s an interesting question, and there are lots of interesting answers here (don’t miss part 2). I tend to favor a more broad definition that some of the authors, something akin to John Scalzi’s or David Louis Edelman’s definitions. It’s hard to say though. How does one classify something like The Baroque Cycle. The whole thing takes place in the distant past, and there’s not much in the way of scientific speculation (the characters are speculating I guess, but we’re not), but it’s clearly got a handle on science and technology and Stephenson is clearly a SF writer. I don’t know that a definition that excludes The Baroque Cycle is a bad one, but I’d kinda like mine to do so.
• Fledge is a Singularity Skeptic – My problem with the singularity is that no one really knows what it would look like. We can speculate and doing so makes for fun SF, but still, I share Fledge’s skepticism for a lot of it:
  

  The proponents of AI argue that if we just add levels of complexity eventually we will have something approximating the real thing. The approach is to add more neural net nodes, add more information inputs, and [something happens]. But my sense of the human brain (which is partly religious and partly derived from my career as an MRI physicist specializing in neuroimaging) is that the brain isn’t just a collection of N neurons, wired a certain way. There are layers, structures, and systems within whose complexities multiple against each other.

  I’ll say that I think a singularity is possible, but I have no idea when. I’m pretty sure it won’t be happening in the next 15 years, as Verner Vinge has speculated. Of course, he freely admits the possibility of singularity failure…

• SF Starship Size Comparisons – Interesting. I always thought Star Destroyers were larger than they are…
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains – Not as comprehensive as it sounds, but still fun. References to the obvious (Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc…) and the not so obvious (Futurama).

That’s all for now…