a garden of varied delights

Apr 06 2008 ∞

I think the reason I find efficient design so interesting is that is plays on another idea I find fascinating, namely the concept of creativity being driven by constraint.

[via:videosift]

Mar 27 2008 ∞

“ Human cognition has a problem — anecdotal thinking comes naturally whereas scientific thinking does not. The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism illustrates this barrier. On the one side are scientists who have been unable to find any causal link between the symptoms of autism and the vaccine’s ingredients. On the other are parents who noticed that shortly after having their children vaccinated autistic symptoms appeared. Anecdotal associations are so powerful that they cause people to ignore contrary evidence. In the vaccination case the imagined culprit for autism’s cause is the preservative thimerosal, yet it breaks down into ethylmercury that is expelled from the body too quickly to have a damaging effect (plus autism continues to be diagnosed in children born after thimerosal was removed from vaccines). The story holds power despite the contrary facts.

The reason for our cognitive disconnect is that the brain evolved to be cautious. We favor anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are `belief engines’ that seek connections.

— From Michael Shermer’s review of the new book Charlatan, a book that is going on my wish list, mostly due to the titular charlatan’s particular quackery, which was the inserting of goat testes into the scrotums and near the ovaries of humans.

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Muxtape / jprickett

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a muxtape, too.

The songs are mainly what I have been listening to for the past day or so, inspired by reading a review at the A.V Club of the re-released special edition of the Lemonheads album, It’s a Shame About Ray.

Which means you won’t find any of your fancy modern indie rock here. Just stuff that I might have been listening to in the early- to mid-90s. Oh, and one “hair metal” ballad.

Mar 26 2008 ∞

BSG-tastic!

Hulu has a couple of interesting BSG related shows up right now.

The first is Battlestar Galactica: Revealed, which is a great introduction to the show and the characters and the story arcs through the eyes of Executive Producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eike. I can’t really recommend it for getting people who haven’t watched the show up to speed…but, if you have friends pestering you about watching it and you don’t have time to watch all three preceding seasons before the new season starts, or you just wonder what all the hubbub is about, you could do a lot worse. It’s still no replacement for watching the other seasons.

The other is Battlestar Galactica: Phenomenon wherein the show is lauded by some of it’s many minor celebrity fans. It’s also something of a good introduction to the show when viewed in concert with the above video.

Also, the crew did the Top Ten list on Letterman last week. It’s mildly amusing in that way that Letterman’s Top Ten lists often are.

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(via moneyissues)

Mar 23 2008 ∞

Heavy Metal Dog

I lol’d, hard.

[via: pajiba]

Mar 22 2008 ∞

sillywalksnew.jpg

[via: xtc]

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heippa_kaikille.jpg

Ok, show of hands, how many of you thought “o, hai” upon seeing this?

[via: xtc]

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“ ITHACA, NY—After weeks of being sleepy all the time and never finishing his din-din at night, area daddy Howard Lewis was put in a bye-bye box early Monday morning so that he could go on a vacation with the birds and clouds in the sky.

—

Daddy Put In Bye-Bye Box | The Onion

Saddest Onion story ever.

[via: scalzi]

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Season 3 now on DVD, Season 4 starts April 4th.

[via: fancyprosestyle]

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“ Spaghetti Western is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced by Italian studios.

The name led to various other non-U.S. westerns being associated with food and drink.

Sometimes the names chorizo/paella western are used for similar films financed by Spanish capital. Publicity for the Japanese comedy film Tampopo coined the phrase “Noodle Western” to describe the parody made about a noodle restaurant. Robert Rodriguez’s westerns, El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, have been called “Burrito Westerns.” Sometimes Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s Viking movies are called “Cod Westerns.”

The German Westerns of the 1960s, which were successful in Europe before the Italian Westerns, often made after novels by Karl May and mostly filmed in Yugoslavia are often called “Sauerkraut Westerns”. The GDR DEFA Studios made Sauerkraut Westerns in Yugoslavia like their West German counterparts and also had a Native American as hero.

The Red Dwarf episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse has been described as the world’s only “Roast Beef Western”, although the British director Shane Meadows’ film Once Upon a Time in the Midlands has been described as a “tinned-spaghetti Western.”

John Woo’s Western movies were described by Roger Ebert as “Dim Sum Western.” The Thai film Tears of the Black Tiger by director Wisit Sasanatieng has been dubbed both a “stir-fry horse opera” and “a Pad Thai Western” by critics. The “Red Western” or “Ostern” is the Soviet and eastern bloc’s take on the genre.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus provided a “cheese Western” parody as a film critic discussed Sam Peckinpah’s Rogue Cheddar film.

An entire sub-genre of Westerns produced by the Indian film industry, and especially Bollywood based in Mumbai, is whimsically named “curry Western.” Notable as being one of the most successful box-office hits of all time in India is the “curry Western” Sholay.

— Spaghetti Western - Wikipedia

Mar 19 2008 ∞