via 22 Words by Abraham Piper on 12/22/10
Dozens of technological metaphors taken literally…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Joshua Kors: Why I'm Returning My iMac
Wow...this guy goes and buys an iMac, hates it and returns it. But that isn't the interesting part...what is funny is the jumping offsides by Mac fanboys in the comments. To me, the whole point is that he isn't a computer genius, and that switching is supposed to be easy...which it isn't for him. Makes me laugh to see how bent out of shape Mac fans can get when their Jesus machines are challenged by logic. :)
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Eastbound and Down
I have recently started watching the show Eastbound and Down with Danny McBride as Kenny Powers, a former ace pitcher in the Major Leagues. He loses his mojo and is dropped so low he has to teach gym at his middle school with a few people from his past.
The show has shown some propensity to be funny, but most of the humor is just centered around Kenny Powers being a huge ass to everyone he encounters, because he used to be badass but hasn't quite come to the realization that his career is over.
Overall, I am liking the show, but my nitpicky brain is very, very flustered at one glaring weakness.
It is PAINFULLY obvious that McBride (the actor) has no idea how to throw a baseball. When you see him "pitch", it looks like he has trouble throwing a baseball 50 miles per hour, yet he constantly refers to his "98 mph" fastball that he used to be able to throw.
Sure, I know that the show is showing that he no longer has the ability, but his mechanics are so awful. My daughter has better mechanics than he does, and she is 8.
In the episode I watched last night, Powers gets pissed at a local high-school pitcher who throws a no-hitter, referring to him as the competition. It shows this high school pitcher in a game, and, surprise! He can't pitch either. It shows a high school kid throwing what was probably a 45 mph pitch....and I am supposed to believe he threw a no-hitter? Riiight.
I see this quite a bit in sports movies. Very rarely do they get it right, but when they do, it is good. Miracle was a great movie for sports mechanics. The Rookie was not (the kid playing Dennis Quaid as a boy threw better than Quaid did, and he was doing it opposite handed....look it up!). The Blind Side was ok, but you can read my previous post on that one.
I know that acting is a skill just as much as throwing a baseball or hitting a slapshot, but it kills me to see a show where it isn't a focal point. Give McBride a few weeks of pitching lessons and he can correct that, no problem. But it is obvious to me that they don't care about stuff like that...like it would have been real hard to find an actor who looks like he is in high school that can throw a real pitch.
Call me...I would be glad to be an advisor!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Bad Parking Job? Or just Ignorant?
Submitted for your approval:
I had to meet someone at Dairy Queen in Coppell today. As I pull into the parking spot, I notice that a small truck with a trailer has pulled into a regular parking spot with the trailer sticking out into the lot.
Insane?
Forgetful?
Just doesn't care?
Look at the picture, and you be the judge. Can't believe someone would do that on purpose, but you know how some people are.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Obsessive listening
Want to focus on something weird? Or just hear something you can never unhear? Listen to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem. Listen how he takes these super short breaths that sound exactly the same every time. They are in-between each line in the verses. It is maddening to hear. Now, if you do listen to it, good luck on paying attention to anything else ever in that song. Once you hear it, you won't think of anything besides this for the remainder of your days. You are most welcome.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Top 10 Movie Plot Holes You Probably Never Noticed Before
via Wired: GeekDad by Matt Blum on 11/16/10
Image copyright © 20th Century Fox
It’s a rare movie that has no plot holes at all. Even movies nearly everyone likes, like Star Wars (I speak of Episode IV, in case that’s unclear), are occasionally rife with them. Of course, for many geeks — myself included — part of the fun of seeing a movie is identifying and discussing its plot holes afterward.
Here, then, are ten plot holes from geeky movies that, in my judgment, are ones that are easy to miss — even though some of them seem pretty obvious once you think about them. Please feel free to add your own favorite plot holes in the comments, and check out the first and second lists of plot holes (AKA “unanswered questions”) we’ve published on GeekDad before. (Note: The list below contains spoilers for the movies listed, out of necessity.)
10. The Matrix - The machines are keeping humans alive for their body heat, right? But they also have nuclear fusion reactors, and (while I haven’t run the numbers) I’d be willing to bet that a single fusion reactor would generate more net energy in an hour than all the humans on today’s Earth would in a day. Plus, fusion reactors are considerably less likely to try to escape, so it’s pretty clear the only reason the humans are still around is so the movie can exist. Oh, and while we’re at it, how come the simulated world everyone’s living in still has computers? Wouldn’t it be much smarter to remove the computers, thus significantly reducing the likelihood of someone like Neo making an appearance?
9. Jurassic Park – The scientists clone dinosaurs from the DNA in the blood in a preserved prehistoric mosquito. The problem is that blood cells in many animals (humans included) don’t carry DNA, and when they do they don’t carry nearly enough that the frog DNA they use to fill in the gaps wouldn’t dominate the bits of dinosaur DNA. Plus, of course, they would have no way to determine which DNA strands came from which dinosaur — and which from the mosquito itself!
8. Spider-Man 2 - Doctor Octavius is trying to find Spider-Man, and Harry suggests he talk to his good buddy Peter Parker, because Pete is always taking photos of Spider-Man. Doc Ock promptly finds Peter and Mary Jane at a coffee shop, and introduces himself by throwing a car at them through the window, which would certainly have killed them if Peter hadn’t been Spider-Man, sensed the danger, and pulled himself and MJ to the floor. But Doc Ock has no idea that Peter is Spider-Man, so why would he try to kill the person he wants help from?
7. Superman & Superman II – It’s just astonishing how Superman conveniently acquires new powers whenever his already-impressive selection of powers is inadequate to the task. In the first film, Lois Lane dies in the massive earthquake caused by the nuclear missile hitting the San Andreas fault. Superman, understandably distraught, suddenly and miraculously not only has the ability to turn back time by flying around the Earth really fast a lot of times, but somehow knows that he has that ability, despite it never having been mentioned previously. Then, at the end of the second film, the same thing happens again — only this time it’s an amnesia kiss. How exactly is he supposed to be able to remove the memory that Clark Kent is Superman, while leaving other memories intact? It’s never explained at all.
6. Star Trek II & Star Trek III - At the end of STII, the Genesis device creates a planet out of the Mutara nebula and the USS Reliant, right? And that’s fine as far as it goes, because scientists do in fact think that planets form out of nebulae. There’s just one tiny little question, though: Where did the sun for the planet to orbit come from? It sure wasn’t there before the device detonated, and if the device could create a star from a nebula, you’d think Carol Marcus would’ve mentioned it.
5. Batman Begins – Ra’s al Ghul (AKA Ducard) and the Scarecrow use the microwave emitter they stole from Wayne Enterprises to vaporize all the water in Gotham City, thus making people inhale the toxin contained therein. A creative idea, to be sure, except that human beings are 60-75% water (depending on age and other factors). So everybody in Gotham should be boiled to death in their own tissues.
4. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – The final, climactic battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin rages all over and around the river of lava on Mustafar. Then it ends when Obi-Wan leaps onto the bank and tells Anakin he’s lost because Obi-Wan has the high ground. He turns out to be right, as Anakin leaps into Obi-Wans flashing lightsaber. Seriously, though, how does being on high ground matter when you’re both wizards who can levitate objects with your minds, leap incredibly high, and move astonishingly fast?
3. The Princess Bride – When the Brute Squad is cleaning up the Thieves’ Forest, Fezzik finds Inigo and nurses him back to sobriety. He tells him about Vizzini’s death and, more importantly, about “the existence of Count Rugen, the six-fingered man.” That’s great, except… how does Fezzik know Rugen is the six-fingered man? We see Westley notice Rugen’s extra digit, but he’s knocked out and taken directly to the Pit of Despair, so he clearly had no chance to tell Fezzik. And even if Fezzik had seen Rugen, is it really likely he’d have noticed? Fezzik isn’t that bright or that observant. (Incidentally, I looked this bit up in the book, and it doesn’t explain how Fezzik knew, either.)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - This is a problem in the book as well, but it’s in the movie so it counts. Barty Crouch, Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, arranges for the Triwizard Cup to be a portkey to take Harry to the graveyard in Little Hangleton so that he can be used to bring Voldemort back to life and then killed. He’s in the guise of a teacher at the school, so he had any number of opportunities to make a portkey out of, well, pretty much anything that he could be sure Harry would touch — Harry’s schoolbooks, his shoes, whatever. It’s been argued that Voldemort wanted to keep his existence a secret and make it look like Harry perished during the task, but really, having Harry just disappear without a trace wouldn’t be any more suspicious. And, incidentally, why did he make the cup a two-way portkey? It’s been established that most portkeys are one-use, one-way only. Why not make this portkey one of those, so that Harry had no way to escape?
1. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – Once Luke starts to figure out that the silly-acting, funny-looking little creature he’s with is in fact Yoda, Yoda’s mood changes. He criticizes Luke (legitimately, it must be said) and argues that Luke shouldn’t be trained to be a Jedi. Obi-Wan has to argue with him to get him to change his mind. Really, though, what choice does Yoda have? He either trains Luke or… what? The Empire wins? Good plan, Jedi Master.
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