Author: metatim

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Things 10: 100 Scientists, Paranormal, Laika

(Originally sent April 2008)

This week’s film – one line review
Happy-Go-Lucky was a film about an optimistic nutter, her crazy friends and family, and an intense conspiracy-theorist driving instructor. It wasn’t really much more than these people interacting, but that was very entertaining nonetheless.

Next week’s film
Next week I plan to catch the preview of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Imdb rating: 8.1 /10
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 83%

Trailer: FilmCrave seems to fill the niche I’ve been looking for of a film database with easy access to trailers:
http://www.filmcrave.com/movie_page_main.php?id=25468

The trailer doesn’t look entirely convincing to me, but it’s the guys that did Superbad and Knocked Up, and 8.1 and 83% are impressive figures, so that convinces me.

A Puzzle

It’s a serious one this time!

A mad dictator has his team of 100 scientists build him a superweapon. Having completed the task, he decides to kill them all, but his advisor convinces him to instead use the following method of killing, which will permit some to survive:

The 100 are to form a line, one behind the other, so the scientist at the back can see the 99 in front of him, the next scientist can see 98 but not the one behind, and so on. The dictator has 100 black hats and 100 white hats; he will go to each scientist in turn, flip a coin, and use the result to determine which hat they get. Each scientist cannot see which hat he gets, but can see all those in front of him.

The dictator will then take a gun, and starting with the scientist at the back, ask him to guess whether he has a black or a white hat on his head. If the scientist does anything other than say ‘black’ or ‘white’ in a monotone voice, he will be killed. If he is wrong, he will be killed. If he is right, he goes free. The dictator will then go to the next scientist in line and repeat the process all the way to the front of the line.

The advisor tells the scientists that this will happen in advance, so they are able to prepare some kind of strategy.

What strategy could they devise that would allow the most to survive?

A Quote
Me: Wow, this compilation has the Beach Boys on it!
My sister: What are they doing on there?!
Me: God Only Knows.

A Link
I’ve always been interested in the paranormal – both how it suggests there exist things we still can’t explain, and also the way people delude themselves into misinterpreting things. Just browsing this forum is absolutely incredible:
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/

A video
The music video of one of my favourite tracks tells a dramatised version of the story of Laika, the dog that the Russians sent into orbit. The dog sings and the scientists dance. Brilliant!

A picture
The fun you can have attaching balloons to your car:

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Things 9: Statistics Art, Dramatic Prairie Dog, Flag Diagrams

(Originally sent April 2008)

It’s the return of Things!

This week’s film – one line review:
Last night I saw Son of Rambow, which was kind of Beano-like, over the top, strange, and put together with more heart than writing competence much like the film-within-a-film it portrays, and fortunately heart is the most important aspect of a film, so that was rather good.

Next week’s films:
Next week I plan to catch the preview of Happy-Go-Lucky. It’s a film about the power of optimism by Mike Leigh, and Mark Kermode was enthusing about it, so it sounds well worth seeing.

Imdb rating: 8.6 /10 (from 87 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes rating:  N/A (insufficient data)
[Now gets 92% on RT – metatim, 16/5/10]
Clip : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTlFY84yYU
[Link is dead, I think this is the same one though – metatim, 16/5/10]

The clip doesn’t seem terribly demonstrative given what Kermode was going on about, but it’s the best I could find.

A Puzzle:
In the last Things I left you with the rainbow paradox. I don’t have an answer but I saw a diagram once of the colours the human eye perceives separated by how distinct we perceive them to be, that looked like a clue. If I find it then I’ll use it as the image attachment of a Things one day. [That diagram can be found here, from this Wikipedia article on colour vision – metatim, 16/5/10]

This week: If there are 3 people in a room, what is the probability that at least 2 of them are of the same sex?

A Quote:
Federico García Lorca: The iguana will bite he who does not dream.

A Link:
Chris Jordan has a series called ‘running the numbers’, in which he takes amazing statistics and makes art out of them:
http://www.chrisjordan.com/

A video:
This 5-second video was big in June 2007 but I somehow missed it. It’s an internet classic and it is vital that you see it with sound:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs

A picture:
Below is an image which, like Chris Jordan’s art, also presents statistics in an interesting way.

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Things 8: Rainbow Paradox, Angry God, Messiest Desk

(Originally sent January 2008)

This week’s film – one line review:
I saw an interview with Tim Burton in which he said he was much more concerned with creating a resonant memorable image in the viewer’s mind than telling a story, and watching Sweeney Todd this was very clear.

Next week’s film:
I’m going to see No Country For Old Men at some point next week. But I already went on about that last week.

A Puzzle:
The Rainbow Paradox

Soundwaves can vary in frequency across a vast range, part of which we can hear. The lowest part we perceive as a deep bass, the highest as a high squeak.

Similarly, the electromagnetic spectrum consists of a vast range of frequencies, a small range of which we are able to see. The lowest frequency we can see is what we call red, and the highest frequency is what we call violet.

However, while we perceive the ends of the audible sound spectrum to be very different, the ends of the visible light spectrum, red and violet, seem very close to one another, and we even have a colour we call purple that is a mix of the two yet does not actually appear anywhere in the spectrum between them. In fact, we can draw a circle of the colours we perceive and it is not at all clear where the ‘ends’ are.

Why is this?

A Quote:
From one of my lecturers at Imperial:
Ray Rivers: Path Intergral theory is like a bicycle – it’s not something you prove the existence of, it’s just something you ride.

A Link:
One of my favourite pieces of satirical writing: a report on a press conference shortly after September 11th, 2001, titled “Got angrily clarifies ‘don’t kill’ rule”:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28151

A video:

These days, amazingly, The Onion has shifted from newspaper style satire to full video versions. The production quality is incredible:


Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

A picture:
The winner of the ‘messiest desk’ competition run by old-school geek hang-out bash.org:

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Things 7: Mistranslated Menu, Michel Musicvideo, Mysterious Moneypit

(Originally sent January 2008)

This week’s film – one line review
Charlie Wilson’s War was an extremely bizarre mix of overly polished and sharp dialogue and insanely unbalanced pacing, marred by editorial decisions taken due to pressure being applied to the studio by the people the film was based on. Oh dear.

Next week’s films
Next week looks awesome. I’ll probably see one or more of these films at the weekend.

No country For Old Men
Imdb rating: 8.7/10 (putting it at the all-time #25 after 37,000 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 95%
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBqmKSAHc6w
Prognosis: I was already a big fan of the Coen brothers, and now everyone is saying they are at the peak of their powers. The premise and trailer are not particularly compelling, but everything else bodes extremely well.

Sweeney Todd
Imdb rating: 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hgrfZVlJA
Prognosis: Depp and Burton do a musical. That’s enough for me!

Aliens vs Predator – Requiem
Imdb: 5.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 17%
Trailer: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1220953wjWkZhyT
Prognosis: It’s rubbish, but it’s got Aliens and Predators and Predaliens in it, and is made by people whose only experience is in special effects. Sounds great!

A Puzzle
Why do clocks go clockwise?

A Quote
Thomas Sowell: Most problems do not get solved. They get superceded by other concerns.

A Link
The worst translated menu in the world
http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

A video
My second favourite music video by Michel Gondry – it requires a lot of mental attention:

A picture
The Oak Island ‘money pit’ remains one of my favourite unsolved mysteries. A helpful diagram is below.