December 18, 2012
P.J. O’Rourke on marijuana and same-sex marriage
December 17, 2012
Kim Jong-Un is Time man of the year (with help from 4chan)
Tim Cushing on 4chan’s latest use of Time as a comedic sidekick:
4chan has returned to the limelight once again to torment reluctant sidekick TIME by voting early and often in its own particular idiom (read: bots, prolly) for Person of the Year. And the winner is none other than North Korean dictator and poster boy for evil, nepotism and ill-fitting grey smocks, Kim Jong-un. Here’s a portion of Time‘s statement on the poll results, which is good naturedly resigned, much in the way parents raising child 7+ are more concerned with keeping the cleaning products, bandages and fire extinguisher close at hand than preventing the feat of daredevilry that is currently being performed using Sharpies, a purloined Zippo and the second floor bannister.
Kim Jong Un is having a good year. After taking over the leadership of North Korea from his late father Kim Jong Il, at the end of 2011, he’s solidified his control over the country, appeared on TIME‘s cover and he was even named “Sexiest Man Alive.” (OK, that honor was actually bestowed as a spoof in the satirical newspaper, The Onion, but a Chinese news service mistook the Onion piece for real news and the story went global.)
Now, he’s gotten the most votes in TIME‘s completely unscientific reader Person of the Year Poll with 5.6 million votes. Not bad for a man who didn’t make an official public appearance until 2010.
December 15, 2012
December 14, 2012
“… a landscape so breathtaking, it’s as if New Zealand and Photoshop had a baby”
Chris Knight carefully puts on Snarkya, the ring of criticism, and reports on The Hobbit:
Their leader is Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror. (These are the kind of spittle-producing introductions that will nicely boost a film’s running time, especially if you travel with 12 other dwarves, each with his own proud lineage, which is exactly what Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, does.) Played by Richard Armitage, he’s a redoubtable dwarf, 5-foot-2 if he’s an inch.
The company arrives on the doorstep of Bilbo Baggins, perfectly embodied by Martin Freeman. He’s become known of late at Dr. Watson on TV’s modern-set Sherlock Holmes series, but his quintessential (or at least most relevant) role is probably that of Arthur Dent, Englishman and homebody, from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Middle-earth and middle-Essex are each home to a certain kind of reticent hero, and Freeman plays both with ease.
Gandalf and the rest of the dwarves — whose names, if you must know, are Balin and Dwalin, Bifor, Bofur and Bombur, Fili and Kili, Oin and Gloin, Nori, Dori and Ori — convince Bilbo that a spot of adventure would be just the thing to write home about, and they set off across a landscape so breathtaking, it’s as if New Zealand and Photoshop had a baby.
[. . .]
You’ve also got a host of excellent performances from the likes of Ian McKellen as Gandalf; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; and Cate Blanchett as token female, also known as Galadriel, whose flowing white robes are so artfully composed that she must have been sky-craned into her every scene.
December 13, 2012
US Army study confirms what every NCO already knows
The US Army recently conducted a study on the effectiveness of their officer corps:
Army Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno announced today the results of an Army-wide study on company and field-grade leadership, which showed Majors are far more dangerous to soldiers than Second Lieutenants.
“While this was something we suspected for a long time,” Odierno said, “this study confirms it and provides the scientific background so we can appropriately react.”
[. . .]
After several pie-chart-rich slides, Bond summarized, “While we all know 2LTs have no experience and practically no training to mitigate that, no one expects anything more than marginal performance from them and no one gives them any real responsibility. That rests with their platoon sergeants.”
“Majors, on the other hand,” Bond explained, “with around 10 years’ experience in the Army are expected to actually know something and can be given positions of pretty significant authority. With that authority, bosses expect these majors to perform. Unlike when they were lieutenants, these majors seriously think they can succeed without a senior NCO carrying the weight for them.”
Odierno admitted that this was a problem he has had his eye on for a while. “Remember I was there once. When I was a 2LT, I had a Platoon Sergeant looking after me. When I made major I was the battalion S3, Ops Officer, and suddenly the Battalion Commander had expectations. Fortunately they were low expectations. At least I didn’t lose two vehicles like the major in supply. Of course Dennis recovered and he’s the Commanding General at Army Material Command now. Our boss just kept reminding us we were really lucky he graded on a curve.”
H/T to John Donovan for the link.
December 11, 2012
This’ll take you back
The Verge on a 1960s interpretation of Google search:
Google didn’t exist during the 1960s, but if it did, it may have looked a lot like Google60. Described as “an art project to explore distances and heroism in user interfaces,” Google60 is the latest creation from designer and developer Norbert Landsteiner, who earlier this year released Google BBS — a project that allowed users to conduct Google searches from within a 1980s bulletin board-style interface. The idea behind Google60 is largely similar, except here, Landsteiner replaces the Google front end with a virtual IBM 360-like interface, replete with punch cards and a “Mad Men style,” 1960s aesthetic.
December 9, 2012
December 8, 2012
December 3, 2012
“Wookierotica” in Oz
The Register is always willing to go the extra parsec to get the NSFW story. Here’s Simon Sharwood on a burlesque show with a Star Wars theme being performed in Australia this month:
The show’s creator says the performance doesn’t necessarily involve nudity, as he dislikes notions that burlesque always has to end up with a pile of smalls on the floor.
As the NSFW video below shows, the production will certainly leave you feeling rather more kindly disposed to storm troopers. You may also find out whether Jabba the Hutt bought Princess Leia just the one bikini.
The show is billed as a parody and is definitely not in canon. It’s also proving hard to suppress: since debuting late last year, it has enjoyed several seasons around Australia. A new run of shows kicks off in early December at Sydney’s Vanguard Theatre, just in time for Vulture South’s Christmas party.
November 25, 2012
At the intersection of “Bronies” and wargaming
At what many would expect to be a quiet, uninhabited intersection you find the World of Tanks mod for My Little Pony fans:
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a relatively new TV show that’s garnered a huge geek audience, is now invading the most non-pony of places: World of Tanks. Modder RelicShadow has combined several of his and others’ modifications for WoT into a definitive 5GB overhaul package. The result? A ground-up transformation of World of Tanks in which ponies pervade every inch of the battlefield.
November 22, 2012
The Apple ad that tells the whole truth
The Commercial that Apple never wanted to show us, but today I’m going to show it to you 😀 I highly recommend to watch it 🙂 It’s short and sweet.
November 21, 2012
The Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness returns
Darren Barefoot has revived the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness as a Pinterest site:
November 20, 2012
A basic tenet of (male) human psychology seems to be misunderstood here…
Emily Esfahani Smith on “hook-up culture”:
The good news is that Sex Week is only around every two years. In 2008, the Harvard Crimson quipped: “Sex at Harvard is a year-round activity. At Yale, it lasts a week.” It’s a funny line, but not exactly true, which brings up the bad news: There is another part of the social-sexual landscape of Yale and other schools that is more lasting and endemic: the hook-up culture. In the hook-up culture, which is primarily driven by women, college students prefer to have sex with “no strings attached” — that is, they seek to have meaningless, casual sex outside of the context of a relationship. Some women consider this “empowering,” as Harden finds out by eavesdropping on a conversation between two female students, one of whom has this to say about her hook-up conquests, who are football players on campus: “If you go up to them at a party and just get them drinking, and start dancing with them, and kissing them, they will totally end up sleeping with you. They don’t even know they’re being played. They have no clue.”
Cue reality: “Could it be possible,” Harden writes, “That these girls don’t understand a fundamental fact about the human male? You normally don’t have to trick a man into having sex.” Young women today, influenced by Sex Week-style programming, have lost track of how the sexual marketplace really works.
November 18, 2012
The Two Scotts psycho-analyze the New York Jets
Scott Reid and Scott Feschuk try to explain the New York Jets:
New York Jets (plus 3) at St. Louis
Scott Feschuk: The New York Jets have done the impossible: they’ve made me feel sorry for Tim Tebow. Here we have a team that’s 3-6 — a team that over the past two weeks has been blown out by Seattle and Miami… a team that stops the run about as well as Kevin James stops at eating just a couple of your fries… a team that insists on starting a quarterback who plays like a kid dressed up for Halloween as an NFL quarterback — and all week this team devoted its energy to debating whether its backup QB, who hardly ever plays, is or is not “terrible?” Here’s the hard truth: the Jets have tuned out Rex Ryan. They need to make a change. You know who should coach this team? That Jill Kelley lady from the David Petraeus sex scandal.
She seems to be able to make grown men do anything. Within minutes of meeting her, FBI agents are ripping off their shirts and army generals are sending off lewd email messages about their four-star boners. Surely, if anyone could get Mark Sanchez to throw the ball in the general direction of someone — anyone — in green, it’d be her. Pick: St. Louis.
Scott Reid: Pro-tip for you buddy — it’s not all that difficult to get army generals talking about their boners. In fact, military men can be included in a rather exclusive list of male-dominated professions that can be easily coaxed into talking online about their wood. This group includes, but is not necessarily limited to: doctors, lawyers, door-to-door salesmen, pastry chefs, magazine editors, cabinet ministers, air conditioner repairmen, director Kevin Smith, certified management accountants, video game designers (especially video game designers!), piano instructors, hot air balloonists, dairy farmers, astronauts, union leaders, clergymen, tutorial assistants, pipe fitters (no surprise there), air traffic controllers, official team mascots, building inspectors, glass blowers, financial regulators and whatever the hell it is that you call what we two do for a living. The real trick, in fact, is to get us men NOT to talk about our boners. How? Actually that was a ruse. There is no way to get us not to talk about our boners. But the wise among us do know better than to do it via email with chicks who suffer from “f-ing crazy big-eyes syndrome.”
Of course, none of these human failings afflict Tim “Mr. Vanilla” Tebow. You know, maybe a little dirty-talk over the interweb would help Tim straighten out his skinny post (and yes, I’m speaking metaphorically). Pick: St. Louis.
Having (in)famous ancestors
John Scalzi is having mixed reactions to all the Twitter updates about Lincoln and theatres:
Man, if I see another joke about Lincoln and theaters, I might just have to shoot someone.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) November 18, 2012
Fun fact: John Wilkes Booth is my great-great-great(etc) uncle. It’s true. Also: He has the same birthday as me.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) November 18, 2012
And he wrote about his infamous relative a few years ago:
Every family should have an interesting skeleton in the family closet. In my family, it’s John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln, who, of course, was the President of the United States during the American Civil War. Booth assassinated Lincoln not long after the cessation of hostilities between the Union and the Confederacy, by sneaking into the President’s box at Ford’s Theater (the show: Our American Cousin) and shooting him in the back of the head with a pistol. Booth then leaped from the box to the stage, shouting “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus it is with tyrants”) and “The South is avenged.” He broke his leg but managed to escape nevertheless. However, eleven days later, he was discovered in a barn, burned out, and then shot (by himself or by a soldier, it’s unclear). He died shortly thereafter. Some maintain that Booth’s body was never positively identified, so it’s possible he actually escaped. Either way, he’s dead now.
For the record, I’m not a direct descendant — my line goes through one of his nine other siblings, making him something along the lines of a great-great-great-great-great-grand-uncle. Whenever I mention my relationship to him, though, people’s eyes get wide, their jaws go momentarily slack, and some people actually back up a step, as if a long dormant assassination gene might suddenly fire up, and they’d be the unlucky recipient. I get a kick out of that. Then I go for the extra point my mentioning that John Wilkes and I have the same birthday: May 10, 131 years apart. By the time I mention I get edgy handling pennies and five dollar bills, people begin to wend their way to the nearest door.
