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Things 11: Video Store Clerk, Theremin Cat, Ambigram

(Originally sent April 2008)

This week’s film – one line review
Forgetting Sarah Marshall veered too far away from that interesting brand of comedy I liked in Superbad toward boring old-school stand-up sexist tripe.

Next week’s film
Well, we’re going to see Persepolis on May 1st, aren’t we.

A Puzzle
If you were designing mammals for optimal reproduction capacity, you might think it would be more efficient to arrange for there to be more females than males. But in fact it’s more like 50/50. Why is that this remarkably equal ratio has evovled?

A Quote
This quote sounds profound but I don’t understand it:

William Blake: No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

A Link
Video Store Clerk, the game. Guess how real customers rated movies. Strangely compelling.
http://www.videostoreclerk.com/

A video
A cat playing with a theremin:

A picture
An ambigram.

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Things 6: Elliptical Orbits, AI Koans, Magnetic Liquid

(Originally sent January 2008)

This (actually last) week’s film – one line review
I am Legend turned out to be one of the best ‘last man on earth’ films I’ve seen, but the story took an abrupt turn for the worse towards the end.

Next week’s film
I’m going to see Charlie Wilson’s War.
Imdb rating: 7. 8/10
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 81%

Prognosis: A hilarious historical black comedy about complex ethical issues starring Tom Hanks… fascinating.

A Puzzle
At Christmas my dad asked me why planetary orbits were elliptical. I realised that a mathematical demonstration wouldn’t convince him, so decided to try to come up with an heuristic argument. Turns out this is a good, hard puzzle.

A Quote
Laurence: You will have a vested interest in someone that has a vested interest in something that you have a vested interest in.

A Link
Some AI Koans:
http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/koans.html

A video
Magnetic liquid art:

A picture
I’ve put together all the posters of films I reviewed in 2007 in the order of how good I thought they were, highest rated being top left, lowest rated being bottom right, in rows: