Sunday, June 24, 2007

One day we'll defeat the alien technology that defocuses and distorts all known human means for recording visual evidence. I mean, come on: it's been decades, and we still don't have a single clear, in-focus, recognizable photo or video of our extraterrestrial overlords.

Someday.
I can't say that I agree with this list of the top 100 sci-fi movies at Rotten Tomatoes, but it's decent enough as such lists go. I've definitely already noticed a few I haven't seen and probably should, and a few I should see again.

I was disappointed to find Serenity at number 48, though. There are plenty of clearly inferior flicks in front of it. I would have had it in the top 15, at least.

Update: In fairness, this is based on overall reviews (not sure if just on Rotten Tomatoes or elsewhere), and so it's not per se someone's judgement about where any given film should appear.
This doesn't happen every day.
War is a terrible thing, I don't think any rational person denies this. Civilized people have serious problems with it, on an abstract level at the very least. Make it concrete to them, by inundating them with pictures and video of the utter human devastation of war, and it could cause them to lose their will to support war even when necessary.

Refraining from showing the slaughter is therefore the responsible thing to do, because the only point to showing it to people who are perfectly aware of the evil of war would be to help bring about its end regardless of victory or loss. In short, there's a reason why the American media doesn't show an American soldier being blown to pieces by a roadside bomb, while a terrorist organization posts it on the Internet.
Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a whopping 7394 Diggs, is, I'm sure, some sort of urban legend about misleading the police to get an emergency response to what is likely not an emergency situation.

Typical.
Beautiful.
I can't think of a story that has taken more statistics out of context and used them to draw a more sensationalist and ludicrous conclusion. I'm not sure what kind of site this is (some homeopathic bullshit, mabe), but man, does it suck.

And, it's not even worth a rebuttal. I can't stomach spending any more time on it.
There seems to be alot of this lately, or at least it's making the news more often. Maybe people are becoming less and less wary of nature, which ultimately couldn't give a rat's ass about us Homo Sapiens. And without our technology, we're really pretty helpless in the wild (and, there's a much bigger message there, as well, if you care to think about it).

And a note to those who haven't picked up the clue phone: bears aren't really our friends.
I wouldn't hang him, I'd lock him in a room full of sarin gas. Cruel and unusual? Cruel, certainly. But not unusual for him.

We should put some real meaning behind the nickname "Chemical Ali."
The problem with these sorts of "educational" issues lies within the nature of the public educational system itself which--in addition to the rest of its inherent failures--is necessarily political. Were this a private school, then such an issue would be trivial: simply do what the parents demand, and if you don't, you'll lose paying customers.