Tag: video

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Things 26: Shoe Friends, Gondry Music Video, Sushi Cat

(Originally sent August 2008)

I  am now initiating a more nuanced system for Things, as more people get added to the mailing list. [Things was originally, and still is, an email publication – T.M. 6/11/10]

There will now be two separate mailing lists.

By default, everyone will be placed in the BCC mailing list. With all email addresses in BCC, this means your email address remains private, and you do not get involved in any ‘reply to all’ discussion.

Anyone can ask to be put on the CC list instead. It’s redundant but I’ll say it anyway: the only other people on this list are other people that chose to be on the CC list. They can see each other’s email addresses and can reply-to-all at will.

So, if you want to be moved onto the reply-to-all see-each-others-addresses list, just let me know.

This week’s film
I saw Dark Knight for the second time at the IMAX, which I recommend. Seeing it for the second time there that is, not the first time. A lot of the action does not read well on such a big screen and would make things more confusing than they already are.

Next Week’s film
All the films out now are rubbish or I’ve already seen them enough times.

Last week’s Puzzle
Last week I asked why Olympic records keep getting broken. I had my own theories about this, but I asked John Broughton who gave me a very thorough response:

  • Better drugs. Drugs an athlete took to enhance their performance six years ago will still enhance their performance now due to long lasting body improvements, but will not show up in a test.
  • Better drugs. There is always an arms race between the drug tests and those developing new drugs that won’t show up.
  • Better incentives. More money in more countries is being shifted to support sporting activity.
  • Bigger potential population. Globally the middle class is expanding, meaning more people are able to take the time to obsess about something. Given a bigger pool, better contenders will tend to emerge.

This week’s Puzzle
Now in an experimental new format!

There is a plate in this office that reads “Shoes are like friends… you can never have too many!!” Since I disagreed with both halves of this comparison, I wondered if the fundamental tenet might still hold true. Are shoes like friends?

So, here is the challenge: complete the phrase “Shoes are like friends…” so it fits your own view of shoes and friends, and I’ll report on what people sent in next week!

A video:
My favourite Michel Gondry music video, mixing his penchant for in-camera effects with music, dance and mental disturbance:

A link
One of the things I love about the paranormal is how easy it is for it to exist. Confirmation bias is such a powerful effect that even – in fact, especially – the most rational people will happily ignore or explain away anything that does not agree with their world-view. So things like this can happen, and nobody really bats an eyelid:

’40 die after deliverance prayer – Family of 3 dies of food poisoning’
http://www.tribune.com.ng/16072008/news/news2.html [Link is dead, luckily the article was copied wholesale here – T.M. 4/11/10]

Interestingly, this news story has the more exciting headline and is actually much more plausible:

‘Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico’
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1442474520080815

A quote
I was looking back on my life notes for the past 15 years to try and come up with a name for my forthcoming blog. I found that I once said this:

“You have to identify the things that will never happen, and avoid them.”

A picture
Food as art:

Categories
New

Things 85: Talking Cats, Shark Facts, 285 trends

Video
Bowing to the inevitability of Moore’s law, cats with captions are no longer as popular, instead being replaced by dubbed videos of cats. Lip-syncing and attitude-matching are key:

Links
I recently discovered that Sharks can sense electricity! And are also viviparous, despite not being mammals! These things should really be taught from an early age. If you didn’t know those things, do follow those links and fill in this shocking gap in our educational system.

Quote
On Luke’s Facebook profile under ‘quotes’, he writes:

I am not big on quotes, as I think proper arguments take more than a few lines to construct. Quotes are therefore like mantras – declarations of universal truths which I am naturally rather suspicious of.

To further undermine this entire section of Things, I was recently reminded of David Malki’s thoughts on the matter; he also monetised the idea by producing a suitable bumper sticker. A banner on the same basis was the kind of thing likely to be seen at the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Puzzle
After recently trying to convince people that the number 285 occurs more often than it should (a perennial hobby of mine), I re-ran the numbers on search volumes and found something rather strange. What is going on around August here?

Last week’s Puzzle
Last week I asked how one might devise an experiment to test for the existence of Free Will, using “any definition of Free Will you think might be useful” (since an experiment reported in the Telegraph seemed obviously lacking).

John cited far more interesting MRI experiments which strongly suggest ‘decisions’ are made up to 10 seconds before we are consciously aware of them. But I felt that the nebulous concept of Free Will could also dodge this attack; perhaps Free Will ‘happens’ before that decision process becomes visible to MRI and before we become aware of it. There are plenty of other experiments that demonstrate that a lot of strange processes conspire to construct the illusion that we are experiencing the world in ‘real time’, but that’s another story.

Tarim said he couldn’t think of any definition for Free Will, which is a pretty reasonable response. I admitted I had personally found considering the ‘devise a test’ question a useful line of thought for clarifying the matter in my own mind, but just trying to come up with a definition is actually a more direct route.

This being the internet, we don’t have to look too far to find people trying to give definitions of Free Will. It actually seems fairly straightforward: it can either be used in a ‘Compatibilist‘ sense, or in a sense that doesn’t make any sense.

Angela (who also noted the definition problem) said she would ask her solicitor, who apparently offers a free will service.

Finally, I note that Things 66 (sent just before I started blogging each edition) included this link on the subject.

Categories
Old

Things 24: 5 Easy Pieces, Clever Fountain, Innate Hypocrisy

(Originally sent August 2008)

This week’s film
Actually, I managed to resist seeing Space Chimps.

Next Week’s films
The Clone Wars. As I forecast many years ago, Star Wars is moving into TV series, but they realised they could release a feature-length pilot episode of the CG series in cinemas. I’m not expecting much. The live-action TV series, still a few years away, seems more promising to me.
Trailer: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zPI48Ti548c
Imdb: Not yet rated
Rotten Tomatoes: 27%

If I’m feeling mad I may also go to see ‘You Don’t Mess With Zohan’ purely because I like the character trope of a nice peace-loving guy that happens to be totally badass and can catch bullets in mid-air :
Trailer: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BzPlTvdkEvA
Imdb: 5.7
RT: 34%

A Puzzle
A stripper hands you a perfectly square piece of paper and a scisors. She tells you to divide it into 5 pieces of equal area without using a ruler or a compass. Can it be done? If so, how? If not, why?

Bonus puzzle
Where did I get the above puzzle from? (This is very difficult, but I just thought I’d throw it out there as it is at least theoretically knowable. The spelling of ‘scisors’ is in the original.) [No longer as hard as it used to be – T.M. 18/10/10]

A video
As with all great ideas, it seems obvious in retrospect. How clever can a fountain be?
(Video is rather long and you don’t miss too much if you skip through it a bit).

A link
A fantastic experiment that demonstrates how hypocrisy is innate to human beings – make sure you read the bit where they introduce wrist-bands towards the end as that is the most important result.

A bunch of related quotes
Arther C. Clarke said:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

My friend Laurence said:

“Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.”

Hanlon’s Razor states:

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

Someone on Wikipedia says:

“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. [citation needed]”

A picture
Eric Poulton’s entry for the Last Man Standing competition at ConceptArt.org; click through to his site to view the full fantastically deep image, with convenient ‘flip’ button in the bottom right. (If link breaks, I’ve mirrored the image here).

Categories
Old

Things 23: Google Trends, Talking Pets, Growing Beard

(Originally sent August 2008)

This week’s colon-heavy sequels
X-Files: I Want To Believe: Only for hard-core X-Files continuity-followers, does not warrant a big screen.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Great example of how to do a ridiculous and silly film that leaves the audience smiling.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Great example of how to do a ridiculous and silly film that leaves an audience feeling they wasted their time and money.

Next Week’s films
Next week I may take myself to see Space Chimps, purely because I heard that the second half goes crazy psychedelic and makes no sense, which is often a good sign.

IMDb: 3.7/10, RT: 34%.

Er… perhaps not then.

A Puzzle
Google Trends shows search volume over time, which is often fascinating. For example, we can see that in the eternal battle between pirate and ninja, 2004 was a key turning point.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=pirate%2C+ninja&ctab=0&geo=GB&geor=all&date=all&sort=0

You can also use it to track the popularity of different things rather well. For example, the decline of the wrist watch as mobile phones render them redundant:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=wrist+watch&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Given all this, how do you explain the following apparent decline?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=mobile+phone&ctab=0&geo=GB&date=all&sort=0

Quote
As Yasmin is leaving, here’s a line I remember from her that I would love to get into a screenplay some day:
Yasmin: “Oh, I’m not looking for a man to marry. I just want a man to… buy me dinner.”

Link
This week it has to be Talking Pets!
http://www.talkingpets.org/

Video
Nursery rhymes performed by modern artists (just audio really, the visuals are cobbled together by someone with MS Paint):

Picture
Me growing a beard.