pompe

18:47 : Clunky
I've watched Transformers: Rise of the Fallen and man, was that a seriously clunky movie. Lots of robots, lots of crashing and exploding and generally quite dull and silly. How can you spend all that money and 2.5 hours of film time with so little to say? It's almost an achievement in itself.

10:12 : Novelisations
The Guardian's Joe Queenan on movie novelisations. Hilarious!

11:48 : Quality News
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5540634/Phoenix-crop-circle-may-predict-end-of-the-world.html

07:14 : Translocation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/05_may/05/wallander.shtml

In the world of TV the BBC has produced films about the detective Wallander, based upon the books by Swedish author Mankell. (I'm not a big fan). So what they do is take British actors with British accents, and a leading Kenneth Branagh, shoot the films in Sweden on location, with Swedish signs, names and newspapers... ...and, okay, to me it sounds a bit weird and closely related to those German films shot in Sweden with German actors playing Swedes named Inga. I wonder how the Brits prounounce Swedish names as a start. Like "Wallander".

There is a Swedish Wallander series too, of course.

00:24 : Yaldabaoth's People
I'm not exactly a sucker for classic education, but I do believe that there is a certain amount of Source Books one should read in one's life in order to be able to form an own opinion about what the world is like. Anyway, in order to be a bit more updated on the religious source material for the West I've started to go through Augustine's City of God and the Nag Hammadi Scriptures and another set of Lost Gospels, and it makes me wonder how many of those Christians who actually read material like this. (For one, it wasn't that simple to find the City of God in the city at all. Nag Hammadi ironically was simpler).

It is really weird. I mean, I can understand the Gnostics but I can't understand their alienation or their fascination with very strange and complex cosmologies. I guess it is the alienation bit, when good the gnostics are actually quite good but far too often it feels like the 2nd century version of Secret Loser Club Extraordinaire. I get the feeling that many of these people would be the same Smart-but-Stupid misfits today, desperately seeking their own little clique and their own little dreams of a Higher purpose and Chosenness, to be more than the Regular People around them in a world they do not belong in.

But if this world is the real one, isn't it the fantasy cosmology and false alienation of the gnostics which is the creation of a lesser god?

21:56 : Cutdown
Sweden's Internet traffic dropped 33% yesterday.

Guess why.

20:30 : Things which hopefully go straight-to-video
Yes, it is time!

Screamers II: The Hunting

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Death Race

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19:03 : Your New-Caught Sullen Peoples, Half-devil And Half-child
From james_nicoll's journal I note that the Libertarians are out finding targets for the Hall of Fame award.

http://www.lfs.org/2009HoFFinalists.html

This year, both Kipling and Tolkien are in. (It's the Libertarian Futurist Society, to be specific. Tolkien and Kipling!)

You vaguely feel libertarianism is a bit of a loser ideology when they have to resort to nominees like that. And that the future isn't what it used to be.

23:36 : Ash
Just so as to out me as bleedingly oblivious (or overworked) to Important Things I've suddenly realized that I have no idea what RaceFail09 is.

19:02 : 200
Happy Darwin Day!

The Jehova's Witnesses handed out a hilarious issue of their publication in the subway to celebrate. Not believing in evolution in 2009 feels a bit like not believing in electricity or the curvature of the Earth.

12:55 : January's Textbook Read
Okay, that was a busy month.

My technogeekery status is probably dismally low compared to many esteemed computer workers on my friends-list, but I actually bought one of those netbooks, an Acer-one. Blue, nice and tiny, weighs less than one kg, 160 gig hard drive, runs XP and I've ordered in a better battery so it'll keep running more than three hours. Aside from being faster than the venerable HP laptop I have at work I kind of like the size of the thing. I always hated the rotten Palm computers and those clunky cell phones with keyboards because they were too small to be usable, but this one actually is just small enough to still be usable for presentations, writing and reading anything online.

Anyway, January's textbook.

Sociology 5th Edition by Anthony Giddens

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18:15 : Predictability
It is a New Year, and apparently the end of an old year makes people extra interested in Predicting The Future. (Or maybe you just note it extra much around New Year, I don't really know).

LJ friend mindstalk notes that John C Wright has a list of twenty predictions. Homosexuality, "Mohammedan"* and the Constitution are mentioned.

I wonder if Orson Scott Card has made a list too and what the main differences would be.

Of course, most of you reading this aren't professional authors like John C Wright (some are, however), but perhaps this is a time to line up predictions of our own for the next 50 years. Wishful thinking, "truths" which are no "truths" and ideological-religious-nationalistic demagoguery is to be avoided.

*Quoted. I don't use that word myself as I was taught it was impolite when I was little, but I'm not sure how the general stance regarding it's use is in English.

21:26 : There are two kinds of scientists
The ones who believe ultimately everything depends on things falling from the sky and those who don't.

Interesting, though. But what's a "swarm of comets"?

23:04 : Woof II
Another holiday review!

Skinwalkers

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23:35 : Screen Art
I suffer so you will not have to. ,-)

In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

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D-Wars

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14:13 : Choice
The Russians are voting for the Greatest Russian of all time, and a Georgian is currently in fourth place. The BBC tells us:

"Stalin made Russia a superpower and was one of the founders of the coalition against Hitler in World War II," says Sergei Malinkovich, leader of the St Petersburg Communist Party.

"In all opinion polls he comes out on top as the most popular figure. Nobody else comes close. So for his service to this country we can forgive his mistakes."

Not only is Mr Malinkovich prepared to forgive Stalin's "mistakes", he also wants the man who is regarded as one of the most bloodthirsty tyrants of the 20th Century to be made a saint.

As I was interviewing him, he held a small neatly framed icon of Stalin's face.

I'm not sure if Stalin would like to be made a saint of the church-y kind, admittedly he went to some sort of theological education but overall I doubt that his life showed much of love for the church. And seriously, this guy is a Communist Party leader? What is he doing with icons? Hasn't he read Marx and Lenin? Or for that matter, Stalin himself? I have a book by Stalin - it's in Swedish (and printed by the Communist Party in 1935, so it isn't some sort of way to throw dirt at Stalin), but I'll translate to the best of my ability what he says:

"The Party can't be neutral to those who preach religious prejudice, to the reactionary priesthood, which is poisoning the consciousness of the working masses. Have we crushed the reactionary priesthood? Yes, we have. It is a shame that we haven't currently eradicated it completely."

"The Party can't be neutral to religion and it operates an anti-religious propaganda against every kind of religious prejudice, as the Party is pro-science and the religious prejudice is against science, as all religions are against science."

This is from an interview by American communists with Stalin. In the same interview, Stalin also concludes when the Americans say that some "good communists" disagree with the concept that all new members of the Party should be atheists that he doesn't know of any such "good communists" and asserts that they hardly exist.

Let's hope Pushkin wins the poll instead.

21:22 : Review Time
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

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18:47 : Another Frozen Place
The Fourth Nuke of Thule was never found.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7720049.stm

Makes me wonder what it'd be like if found 200 years later in the melting ice above the coasts of a rapidly warming Greenland. Could someone scrounge enough fissionables from the old warhead to upset the Global Balance in a happy, advanced post-nuclear world?

19:40 : Not Even On All Hallows
I did the traditional thing today and headed out to the Northern Cemetary to put lights on the graves of my ancestors. ("Halloween" the Commercial Version seems to have failed fairly miseraby over here, thankfully).

It was a wonderful late autumn day, low sun and clear skies, still a bit of yellow on a few trees. Cold but not quite freezing, and not excessively humid. If it hadn't been All Hallows I probably would have been out looking for autumn mushrooms, the fall chanterelles are still out there until the snow comes. If it comes, apparently the Russians can sail the NorthEast Passage along the Arctic this year, and the flowers are returning to bloom unaware of the winter which should be here. I'll head out tomorrow and see the sun barely climb above the horizon, golden light falling into your face as you stand waiting for the subway. There's something about the low sun which makes the light very special, much richer than it should be, a day which is just sunset and sunrise.

Anyway. I noted on the cemetary that a lot of people were driving cars on the little roads. (Obviously petrol isn't expensive enough). Now, I of course understand that the infirm should have the opportunity to head out and place candles and lights in the memory of their relatives, but most of these people were neither that ancient or infirm. It was parents with kids driving their bloody SUVs and station wagons. What the hell, can't the kids take a 500 meter walk on a day like this? Do people really need to drive? Do they need to save the time on a day like this - All Hallows? Who works? What are they late for on mid day? Is it that tough to walk for an hour with your four-year old kid among the lights and all the people out to remember? What kind of values do these parents give their children? That you should drive as close to GrandDad's stone as possible to save your legs or that this moment is a moment to get rid of as quickly as one can?

Come to think of it, what's this deal with carriages for the kids when they are like four years old? Aren't kids at that age supposed to be able to well, walk? Why drive the kids around in cars and push them around in carriages as long as humanly possible?

Sheesh, I think people drive too much already. We should outlaw any driving where a walk of less than 30 minutes would work instead, get rid of all those little trips. I mean, I've seen the scary data where it is shown that suburban and country kids actually walk less than the kids of the concrete city because the parents drive them door to door between school and football practice, whereas little Aden in his high-rise have to walk in subway accessways and Project hallways - and walk to the crumbling box the politicians call school.

But if people actually can't take leaving the car at home or at least outside the cemetary on All Hallows, I guess it is too much to ask. Drive-In-Memorial, Bring-The-Kids! Maybe they can play PSP in the car or watch High School Musical 5 on the DVD instead of walking, won't we all be happy?

Now I'm going to start playing Fallout 3 and stop whining. Merry All Hallows, everyone!

07:28 : Now For Today's Political Message
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/10/29/ec.cambell.brown.hagan.ad.cnn

In Brief:
Disgusting #1: Politician makes really tacky campaign ad portraying opponent as "Godless".
Disgusting #2: CNN lady is outraged not because the very accusation's use as such indicates theocratical lunacy by an intolerant mind but because it is a factual lie.