Physics of the Sandman

James Kakalios gets to use the latest Spider-Man movie as an excuse to explain the physics of granular materials in the New York Times. Good thing they didn’t ask a biologist about Sandman … all I could think about was that there was no way a loose aggregate of coarse sand would be able to mimic the function of the human brain, which is built upon the sub-micron-scale specific organization of diverse molecules. I would be such a wet blanket.

No, wait, I did think of another thing: could you incapacitate Sandman by dumping your cat’s litterbox on him? I’d think he’d go running off to do some emergency particle segregation right away.

I will say that the Sandman special effects were the best part of the movie. The rest — plot, acting, dialogue — eh, not so much.

Hammer has risen from the grave

Rumor has it that Hammer Films might be coming back—I don’t know if this is good news or not. I love the old movies and have a stack of their DVDs right next to me, but all the money in horror movies seems to be in ghastly 1½ hour extended torture scenes, like the hideous Hostel and unwatchable Saw series. Let’s hope they don’t taint the brand by putting some hack like Rob Zombie to churn out seedy, misogynistic squish-and-splatter flicks.

Music for evilutionists

We have some musical talent among our readers. I was sent lyrics and a link to …

BRAINY PRIMATE BLUES words and music by Bruce Woollatt

Sometimes I wonder why
we ever left Olduvai.
It’s a mystery to me
why we didn’t stay in the trees.
Well a million years ago we should have thought the whole thing through
’cause a million years have gone and we’ve got those Brainy Primate Blues.

Listen to Brainy Primate Blues here.

Pharyngula: the blog that brings you one step closer to the Old Ones

Michael Alan Nelson, writer for the Fall of Cthulhu comics from Boom! Studios, sent me a couple of copies of the comic today, for some dark, mysterious reason. For a little context to this page, the two heroes have just witnessed a horrible suicide, and are going through the dead person’s effects and computer files to try and figure out why he blew his brains out.

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Peter Cushing criticizes the Mummy’s religion

Abject fan of the old Hammer Horror movies that I am, I was thrilled to see this bit from the 1959 version of The Mummy. Our hero, John Banning (played by the always wonderful Peter Cushing), has gone to the home of the suspected villain, Mehemet Bey (George Pastell), to see if this recent arrival from Egypt is the person who dispatched the Mummy (Christopher Lee) to kill his father and uncle, and attempt to kill him. The way he chooses to probe for clues is to talk to Bey about … religion. And by golly, he sounds just like me. Bey gives the usual theistic excuses: but people are devoted to him! You just can’t comprehend the god! You don’t know anything about him! And then come the threats. It’s very familiar.

Obviously, the apologist for religion turns out to be the murderous master of the Mummy. The rest of the movie involves a beautiful young woman who is the spittin’ image of the dead Egyptian priestess the Mummy loved, slow motion chases through a swamp (they at least set it up early that the hero is partially lame, so it almost makes sense that the lumbering Lee and limping Cushing are in a fair race), and big guns.

While Cushing’s sneering dismissal of foolish religion does remind me of me, I’m pleased to say that none of my critics have yet managed to reanimate a dead guy and send his plodding corpse my way. They’re welcome to try, and mummies are especially welcome—they never seem to be particularly effective, you know.

Turning science into a party

Lucky Cambridge: a whole bunch of organizations, including Harvard, MIT, and the Cambridge public schools and libraries are collaborating to put on the Cambridge Science Festival—9 days of science activities around the town. That is exactly the kind of broadly supported activity in the service of science education that can make a difference in public perception. It’s an excellent idea…now if only more communities had that kind of concentration of scientific organizations to make that kind of sustained activity possible.

(via Science Made Cool)

300

The movie 300 has finally arrived in Morris, and I saw it last evening. I’d heard a lot about this film, in particular that it was loaded with relationships to current events—the war in Iraq, in particular, with arguments for it being pro-war, anti-war, a jingoistic propaganda film, etc. The arguments are all wrong. I could tell exactly what this movie’s hidden meaning was: it’s a retelling of the creation-evolution struggle! “But of course!” you’re all saying to yourselves, “It’s so obvious, now that you mention it!”

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The Mutant Variety Show

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It’s Thursday, 5 April, and you know what that means: today is the day of the Mutant Variety Show here in Morris! At 7:00 this evening, in the HFA recital hall, all of the local mutants will be exhibiting their bizarre phenotypes to the public. I’m very much looking forward to it, and anyone else in the region should swing on by.

Note: I am expecting mutants. I insist on mutants. If there are insufficient mutants to satisfy me* … well, I have an Illudium Q32 Explosive Space Modulator, and I’m not afraid to use it.

*Or at least a theremin.**

**I might settle for a kazoo. But that’s rock-bottom. No more compromises.

What do the godless do on Easter?

Well, Skatje’s going to Minicon next weekend—sending her off to hang out with intelligent nerds and geeks and people like Charles deLint and Lois McMaster Bujold and the Nielsen Haydens and Jane Yolen is probably the most responsible thing a parent can do. If any of my readers are also going, make sure she doesn’t just go hide in her room and knit or chat on the computer. She needs to get out and socialize! Make friends! Watch Dr Who! Something!

Unfortunately, although I’ll be providing the shuttle service to get her to and from the con, I’m going to be swamped with work for the next few weeks and just can’t afford to take the weekend off. I’ll probably get a day pass and hang out on Friday evening for a while, though, before Skatje shoos me away. Next year, though, I’m going to plan my calendar a little better and see the whole thing.

So my daughter gets to go to Minicon and she probably won’t even get me a lousy t-shirt.