|
A Maroon Cartoon
|
May. 8th, 2008 @ 05:54 am
|
|---|
In the otherwise inspiring story of sportsmanship ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) pecunium pointed to recently, there's an unfortunate comment:
"There's NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!"
I replied:
That's a very Hollywood attitude. One usually spouted by people who have never played the game.
Here's what Vin Scully says, who's forgotten more about baseball than you'll ever know:
*^*^*
(Scully) has seen ball players cry and he knows all the signs of sadness - the haunted looks, the dark circles under the eyes, the slumped figures at the lockers.
``I remember in 1982, Terry Forster giving up the home run to Joe Morgan on the last game of the season,'' Scully says of a game that cost the Dodgers the division title. ``And that hit just ruined him. It broke his heart. Terry was a big, emotional, warm-hearted guy and it just crushed him.''
Three years later, another victim (Tom Niedenfuer, who gave up a series-ending homer to St. Louis Cardinal slugger Jack Clark), another Dodger season ending in tears.
``(Dodger manager) Tommy (Lasorda) was devastated by that,'' Scully says. ``So don't let anyone tell you there's no crying in baseball, especially this time of year.'' |
|
Ah-ha!
|
May. 7th, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
|
|---|
"The rise and fall of oil production is asymmetrical."
Ah. Revealed at last, why Kunstler thinks a novel is "credible" when it shows people living at 1830's levels in about fifteen years from now.
As may be... Colin Campbell, the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas disagrees with him. Kenneth Deffeyes, geologist at Princeton and author of "Hubbert's Peak," disagrees with him. Hubbert himself, the original exponent of the peak oil theory, disagrees with him.
Peak plus 15 years should see global production at Peak minus 15 years' levels. Remember the great oil shortages of 1992, and the famine and death of industrialism that followed? No?
Me neither.
And that's before we get into, if we're "sleepwalking into the future," then OPEC is sleepwalking right along with us, given that they've become increasingly insistent in asking for guarantees of demand, and no replay of the glut of the 1980's caused by conservation.
UPDATE: Note this fairly detailed discussion at The Oil Drum (a site recommended by Kunstler in the past), titled, "Hubbert Theory says Peak is Slow Squeeze." |
|
Each game of chess...
|
May. 7th, 2008 @ 07:32 pm
|
|---|
Fascinating comment on Kevin Drum's blog:
"The whole Hillary campaign just reminds me a certain type of chess player. When they are overmatched and lose a major piece, like their Queen, they keep playing on and on and on in a slow death march that ends with their being checkmated. Even though the outcome is never in doubt, they keep on, with the hope that their opponent will accidently leave their Queen exposed or even worse, their King.
I used to hate those types of players. Still do." |
|
Alternate tagline for "Iron Man"
|
May. 6th, 2008 @ 02:00 pm
|
|---|
"Victor Gonzales is Ned Kelly"
*^*^*^*
I first noticed it in A Scanner Darkly, but I swear, Robert Downey, Jr. is as spookily like Victor as Sean Connery is like Jerry Pournelle during his drunken, safari jacket scenes in Lisbon in The Russia House.
It's uncanny. (Oops, wrong superhero group) |
|
What's in a name?
|
May. 6th, 2008 @ 01:54 pm
|
|---|
|
As James Fallows has pointed out (among many others -- here's a sample Google search) -- It's Burma, not Myanmar. Just like it's Cambodia, not Kampuchea (and for very similar reasons, if you care about human rights). |
|
Gentlemen, start your litigators!
|
May. 3rd, 2008 @ 05:43 pm
|
|---|
From the original article in the New York Times on Microsoft's offer for Yahoo:
"The offer of $31 a share represents a 62 percent premium over Yahoo’s closing stock price of $19.18 on Thursday, a far cry from its peak of $118.75 right before the dot-com bubble crash."
Microsoft has since increased its offer to $33/share, a premium of 72% on the original share price at Yahoo.
Yahoo's board has always maintained that MSFT's offer was "undervalued," and repeatedly refused it. In what universe they thought making $1.72 on every $1.00 invested was "undervalued" was never explained.
Today, Microsoft has withdrawn its bid. Rightly so, in my opinion.
The next act: Watching Yahoo's board have their pants justifiably sued off by shareholders who'll never see so good an offer again. This may be the stupidest bunch of managers since Coke's "reformulation." (Or any member company of the RIAA.) |
|
The Audience Is Listening
|
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 01:39 am
|
|---|
I was reading one of my favorite SF writers, Steven Gould, defend some of the compromises made in the transition of his novel Jumper to a movie. I think he's wrong in several respects, and I think he knows it (he has a later post showing a t-shirt: "Don't judge a book by its movie."). But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about.
Along the way, he characterizes the novel as, "...a first person, mostly interior, novel. I’m not sure how you would adapt it exactly without some sort of moronic voice-over or guy who talks to himself."
So. My questions are these: Are all voice-overs inherently moronic? Or is the current aversion to voice-overs as much a question of transient taste as neoclassical adherence to the "three unities" -- and just as likely to be forgotten in a few decades?
(I also think Gould is wrong on the face of it. Jumper is a novel. As such, it's too long compared to the usual ideal length for movie adaptation, the novella. I think there's easily a novella's worth of non-interior action in Jumper to have been teased out in a good screenplay, rather than the one that got this piece of wholly justified snark.) |
|
Reciprocity
|
Apr. 25th, 2008 @ 12:27 am
|
|---|
This is one of oh, so many responses to this post, or, more accurately, the firestorm that's swirled up around it.
"No," means "no," correct? Can we all agree on that? Can we also agree it would be boorish and insulting to think anything else?
OK. If so, then another statement must also be true, axiomatically:
"Yes," means "yes."
What I'm seeing is a whole lot of rationalization, and patronizing, and wishing away that "Yes," might possibly, actually, really mean "yes." I see cries of "privilege!" and "peer pressure!" and "objectification!"
The problem is, every single time someone chips away at YMY, they're also chipping away at NMN. If a person can't say "Yes," and have that decision respected and believed as sincere, it becomes very difficult for a person to say "No," and get equal treatment.
Which is, unfortunately, equally as boorish and insulting as not respecting "No," means "no," in the first place.
If people are independent moral actors whose desires are legitimate, and should be respected as long as they cause no harm, then that bet is, as the poker folks say, All in. Even when they say "Yes," to things you would never do.
This is, as usual, in one's own self interest. If you want your own moral choices respected, you have to respect the choices of others.
If not, then not. But be aware just how sharp that edge is. |
|
"If Lucy Fell" -- HANS!
|
Apr. 24th, 2008 @ 07:07 am
|
|---|
If Lucy Fell (1996) would be a mostly forgettable movie, except for the way some of the performances are plainly early versions of characters the actors would take up later. Lucy Ackerman, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is the template from which her portrayal of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City was drawn. Bwick Elias, flower-child idiot artist, is the ur-goon of every idiot Ben Stiller has played thereafter (notably Zoolander).
But there's also this great scene, at 0:56. Lucy and Bwick are on a date, at Bwick's apartment:
*^*^*^*
{Bwick joins Lucy on a couch, facing a painting we've seen him working on previously.}
BWICK: It's symbolic. {He gestures at the painting, which stays unseen.} Life equals love which actually equals death. Life equals death.
{We cut to see the painting}
LUCY: It's symbolic?
BWICK: Yeah.
LUCY: Symbolic death?
BWICK: Symbols of life, and death, and love. Life equals death which is in the middle. The sub-set is love. Which is really what the symbol is. Love. Life equals love equals death. It's symbolic.
LUCY: Wait. {She gets up off the couch, and walks over to the painting} You have a woman with "LIFE" painted on her, uh... area, and she's stabbing to death a man with a knife that says "LOVE" on it. And then in big, bold letters it says, "LIFE=LOVE=DEATH."
{beat}
I don't know that it's very symbolic, Bwick. It's kind of spelled out.
BWICK: So... It sucks. HANS!
LUCY: No. It doesn't suck. It's just that it's not really... You know, it's... It's a literal painting.
{As she says this, an assistant who looks like Fabio -- long blonde hair, overalls, no shirt -- splashes some sort of fluid onto the painting.}
LUCY: It's not symbolic. Which is... Fine.
BWICK: Hm-hm.
LUCY: It's literal.
BWICK: Right. It just... Literally sucks.
{We see that Hans is patiently standing next to the painting, now with a blowtorch in his hand.}
LUCY: No.
BWICK: No, you're right. You're right. It just symbolically sucks. HANS!
{Hans turns on the blowtorch, and sets the painting ablaze.}
BWICK: It certainly isn't very literal any more, is it?
{Lucy turns to the painting, as it continues to burn.}
LUCY: No, it's... It's symbolic. |
|
Sarah in the sun
|
Apr. 22nd, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
|
|---|
Just lazing on the couch on a recent afternoon.
|
|
How to be an Eeyore
|
Apr. 21st, 2008 @ 05:56 pm
|
|---|
Paul Krugman today mentions Peak Oil in the New York Times. I think this may be the first time anyone in the national-level commentariat has given it serious consideration (but am ready to admit being wrong).
Meanwhile, does James Kunstler notice this at all, and play up the potential turning point in the discussion? Nope. He's too busy tilting at railroads and the airlines. In Kunstler's world view, there is no such thing as good news, only bad news we don't know the punchline for yet (as any cursory glance at Kunstler's books The Long Emergency and World Made by Hand will show). Keep an eye on this space -- I intend to do a review of World Made by Hand eventually, and it'll be, um... lengthy.
To use Randy Pausch's image, Kunstler is definitely an Eeyore, not a Tigger. Which may be why he's been a bit voice-in-the-wilderness-y. Even when you agree with him, you hate to admit it.
Hey, pnh, if you're reading this... This all reminds me that one of the things I'd like to use in that review is your observation about Boomers being so in love with apocalypse stories, and how they never intended to live this long. While I can quasi-quote it, did you ever have a pithy, quotable version of your own that you could point me to, please? I'm all about the credit where credit is due.
(Apologies for typos, which seem to be both of commission and omission. I think this is my first post start-to-finish using my new eeePC.) |
|
I'm a patriot.
|
Apr. 20th, 2008 @ 11:19 pm
|
|---|
Having spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the original of this, I'm posting it to cast a vote with teh Googles:
"I'm a patriot. I love my decadent, cosmopolitan, self-indulgent, racially-mixed, godless, intellectually dilletante, drug-abusing, promiscuous, queer-loving country. And its flag is the Stars and Stripes."
Patrick Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com>
Date: 15 Sep 2001 12:04:24 GMT
Local: Sat, Sep 15 2001 5:04 am
"I'm a patriot. I love my decadent..." |
|
Tesla in "The Prestige"
|
Apr. 18th, 2008 @ 05:00 am
|
|---|
I was watching The Prestige tonight, when I started looking up more info on Nikola Tesla (as you do).
As I pulled up the Wikipedia page with the image on the right, the scene with the shot on the left played, with David Bowie in the role of Tesla.
Until now, I had no real appreciation just how closely they'd made Bowie look and dress like Tesla. But I think this side-by-side shows what a meticulous job they did.
|
|
i can has lolcat?
|
Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 03:51 am
|
|---|
Tinka, having found sufficient padding:
moar funny pictures |
|
Reverse graffiti -- local, this time
|
Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 02:30 am
|
|---|
Some may remember when I posted about Alexandre Orion and his reverse graffiti -- selectively cleaning the soot in a bus tunnel in São Paulo, to create images of skulls.
Well, take a look at this:
This is on Queen Anne Ave N, right by my work.
Not unlike Orion, the interesting thing here is the mix of what would normally be considered "defacement," but probably isn't because of the method -- cleaning -- and it's temporary. |
|
What's your name again?
|
Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 06:18 am
|
|---|
Occasional humorist David Brooks (occasionally he's funny, occasionally it's intentional) writes a piece in the New York Times that gives a fine example of "defining deviance down."
Brooks, who's had problems distinguishing between fantasy and reality for years ("He accused [the writer of the linked article] of being "too pedantic," of "taking all of this too literally," of "taking a joke and distorting it." "That's totally unethical," he said."), decides that he is the norm from whom all others deviate. Given that, and since he's apparently been having memory problems of late, he decides to declare, "In the era of an aging population, memory is the new sex."
I know, I know... he's just not doing it right. (And if by chance he ever should stumble upon doing it right, he can't even remember it.)
Trouble is, Brooks is in about the 5th percentile at this sort of thing. So 95% of us remember things better than he does. No problem -- we're "colossal Proustian memory bullies."
Awwwwwwww. Woody-oodums. Poor overpaid Times columnists, they just get picked upon so often. It's such a burden.
Cue Denis Leary: "Whining fucking maggot." |
|
Caillebotte and "Charade": separated at birth?
|
Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 03:43 am
|
|---|
I was just watching Charade and noticed a particular shot.
Left: Gustave Caillebotte's "La Place de l'Europe, temps de pluie," from 1877. Right: Cary Grant in the movie, in 1963.
|
|
Hu acknowledges the elephant in the room
|
Apr. 11th, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
|
|---|
...at least from the Chinese point of view. Here's the article from Reuters, echoed by the New York Times:
"[Chinese President Hu Jintao]'s comments, reported by the Xinhua news agency, were among the clearest yet from the top echelon of China's leadership framing the Tibet troubles as an existential threat to the country.
"Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem," Hu said.
"It is a problem of either preserving national unity or splitting the motherland."
Chinese officials have warned that groups campaigning for independence in Tibet have joined Muslim Uighurs fighting for an independent "East Turkestan" in the northwest region of Xinjiang."
This is why the Chinese government will not budge on Tibet, will not budge on Taiwan, and will not budge on Xinjiang. It's why getting Hong Kong and, god help us all, even Macao back was so important for them. They're a federative empire, they know it, and they have very clear memories of what happened to the USSR.
It's all a good chunk of why Leopold Kohr's The Breakdown of Nations is perhaps the 20th Century's most prophetic book. |
|
maps-google-com of Hazelburn
|
Apr. 3rd, 2008 @ 11:31 pm
|
|---|
This is a screen capture of the satellite image of our house, from http://maps.google.com. If you click through to Flickr's page for the image, you'll see I've made notes of the major outdoor features and trees, including the location of the (now removed) arbor vitae. The cars aren't ours -- they're of the previous owners.
|
|
Let there be light
|
Apr. 3rd, 2008 @ 09:55 pm
|
|---|
Today we had some arborists over from Superior NW Tree and Shrub Care to do some much needed work. All three apple trees and the pear tree got the arboreal equivalent of hair cuts.
The most dramatic work, though, was the removal of a shrub gone amazingly gigantic outside our living room. It's called an arbor vitae, and all I can think is, it must have seemed a good idea when they planted it, but it made the room so dark. That may be to the taste of some, but not to me, especially in the nothernmost big city in the USA.
Before, from 2007-05-17, when we visited the inside of the house for the first time. See the Great Wall of Dark on the left window, which is the southern (or sun-facing) exposure?:
After, taken today, stitched out of four images in Autopano Pro:
Also on display there is the great job of painting and color choice done by akirlu. Makes the mantel just pop right out, and gives a nice definition to the walls vs the ceiling.
UPDATED TO ADD: If you look here, you'll see the arbor vitae skulking outside the window, in a much more recent shot. Now -- gone, baby, gone.
 |
|
|
