A small point

Attention, internets: in English, we read left to right, top to bottom. This affects how we interpret static visual media generally. And this applies to emoticons in ways you do not appear to understand.

What I'm about to say may only apply to those of us with a Roman or Cyrillic-alphabet-based written first language, but for now, that's all I care about. So for instance, if you are reading this, chances are that if you see a sign with a single word written vertically, you probably don't start at the bottom and try to read to the top. Because even though the data cannot be interpreted left-to-right, reading bottom-to-top would violate the left to right, top to bottom template that becomes automatic within the first few months of learning to read. So you have no problem interpreting the Chicago Theater sign, even though there are no visual clues as to how it should be read--i.e., there is no capital letter signifying a starting point, etc. In short, when left-to-right does not apply, your brain switches to top-to-bottom to interpret the text.

It follows that if left-to-right seems to apply, but makes no sense, the English-reading mind's next logical step is to interpret left-to-right data as if it were top-to-bottom. So, if you are like me, and you are reading a line of left-to-right text, and you encounter a collection of marks that does not make sense left-to-right, e.g. the following emoticon: :-) your mind attempts to interpret it as top-to-bottom data (the reverse also works when top-to-bottom makes no sense, e.g. when a vertically-stored book has its title printed lengthwise along the binding). Anyway, for the above emoticon, you probably see a pair of eyes, a nose-like thing, and a smiley-face--as opposed to say, a baseball cap bill pulled down to the nose of a person with double upper-lip piercings. In other words, would this (-: make sense if we didn't already have :-) already cached in our pictographic lexicons? I say no, because it requires the English-language reader to stop, drop everything he knows about his written language, skip ahead a few characters to what he hopes is not an arbitrary point, read backwards for a bit, then skip ahead further and resume reading left-to-right.

And for precisely that reason, this symbol/emoticon is a problem: <3. People of the internet, because you are injecting <3 into English-language phrases, it must be read left-to-right/top-to-bottom. You are using it to signify 'heart' or, by extension, 'love', but it is not a heart! The heart shape has two rounded bumps on top and a point at the bottom. According to the the left-to-right, top-to-bottom template, <3 has a point at the top and two bumps on the bottom. So this symbol either signifies 'less than 3' or (interpreting it as if it were top-to-bottom data, because 'less than 3' does not make sense in context) represents a shape that is narrow at the top and widens into two rounded things at the bottom.

To restate, because of the way the English language--and the English-language-reading mind--work, <3 cannot possibly represent 'heart' or 'love'. Instead, it must signify either 'less than 3' or the nearest shape in everyday life that it resembles. And there aren't a great deal of things out there that look like that.

In other words, to put it bluntly, when you type 'x <3 y', if any English-language-reader reads it as anything other than 'x tea-bag(s) y', then something has gone wrong.

♥ = Heart. But <3 = Tea-bag. Sorry I had to be the one to break it to ya. Twitter/facebook accordingly.

Spoon's Guide to Dining Out, Chapter 1

If your butt is still in your seat when the restaurant closes, the amount you are ethically obligated to tip automatically goes up to 20% of the post-tax total. For every two minutes you remain after closing, your tip obligation increases by 1%. So, for example, if you stay thirty minutes after close, you should tip a minimum of 35%. Don't want to tip 35%? Don't stay thirty minutes after close.

Thank you,
Your friends in the service industry.

Why Does this not Exist?

All I want is an iPhone contacts manager that looks like this:

See? It looks like the built-in app, except that for contacts with SMS-enabled phones, it has an SMS button that allows you to instantly compose a text. The button doesn't display a menu that asks you which number you want to text; it just lets you compose a text to a pre-set default. And the SMS button is nice and big, so there's little danger of accidentally placing a call when all you want to do is text.

Also, although you can't tell by looking at it, this contact manager lets you make groups and SMS the whole group. It's so got-dang simple. Why does this not exist?

Halloween Humbug

I find myself genuinely perplexed by the frequency with which I have observed the following Halloween costumes in the past three days:

Pirate--Like a million times. Look, I get it; Pirate is fun and harmless and a Halloween classic. However: News Flash--it's also, evidently, a cliche. At least half of you could have gone as Ninja and appeared halfway clever.

Girl who Just Left the Gym: two times. One girl--whose Halloween-costume reasoning contained a lot of false lemmas about what is necessary and sufficient for a costume--who stumbled into the conclusion that work-out clothes constitute a costume I could understand. I'm prepared to accept that. But two? Two in one night??? Something has gone seriously wrong in Austin.

Slutty Jets Fan Wearing a Straw Cowboy (not Cowboys™) Hat: one time. There are so many things wrong with this, I almost can't form the sentences to elaborate them. I mean, I don't doubt that female Jets fans exist. And I wouldn't consider it outside the realm of probability that there should be slutty Jets Fans. But what the hell, really, does a cowboy hat have to do with it? And what the fuck, seriously, was the reasoning that led this unfortunate creature to believe that Slutty Jets Fan Wearing a Straw Cowboy Hat represented a goal to be achieved as a costume? Aren't costumes supposed to comprise, at least on some level, the culmination of at least a portion of one's fantasies, an alter-ego that need be revealed once and only once a year? On that account, at least Work-Out Girl has something; fantasizing about fitness is a laughably plausible delusion to have in 21st-century America. But who aspires to be a Slutty Jets Fan--in a Straw Cowboy Hat???

Furthermore, I think there's a fundamental difference between the (slutty) nurses, (slutty) pirates, (slutty) policewomen, etc, and the Slutty Jets Fan. In the former class the sluttiness seems accidental to the costume, but in the case of SJFWaSCH, the sluttiness must be essential. How do I know? Because a (slutty) Jets fan would have just worn generic Eagles garb, but SJFWaSCH wears a Slutty Sanchez Jersey! Jets fan as costume + supporting Sanchez --> my mind completely melting down.

I give up. Sort it out in comments--if you can.

P.S. (one more). Antoine Dodson: zero times. I didn't see a single Antoine Dodson this weekend. And I think that may be more astonishing than the existence of Slutty Jets Fan.

How to Shop at REI, a nine-step process

1. Make a list; this list will essentially double in size once you start shopping.
2. Gather all the stuff on your list plus all the stuff you didn't know you needed.
3. Estimate how much the stuff in your cart/bag will cost.
4. Add 25% to the cost of your estimate. Prepare yourself to pay this amount. Now...
5. Add another 20% to that number. This is what you'll actually be paying.
6. Repeat to yourself "I'm going to get 10% back in dividends."
7. Try not to crap your pants when the total is actually more than the amount from #5.
8. File for bankruptcy. Assume a new identity and/or flee to Mexico.
9. Have fun in the great outdoors!

As close to a conspiracy theory as you're gonna get around here

Fact: The Free Case Program for iPhone 4 will only last thru September. At the end of September, Apple will "re-evaluate".

Report: A "high-level" source at T-Mobile claims his company will have the iPhone by the "end of Q3" (which ends in September).

Speculation: If T-Mobile gets the iPhone, and it turns out that it works better on the T-Mobile network, Jobs isn't about to keep handing out free cases to consumers who have the option to choose the better service.

Prediction: T-Mobile will get the iPhone in late September (and there will be great rejoicing). Apple will put a hold on the Free Case Program while it waits to see if its phone functions better on T-Mobile's network.

But calls won't work any better on T-Mobile's GSM than on AT&T's GSM. The problem lies in Jobs's choice of cell-radio technology--not in the network (the Infineon radio in the iPhone is designed for European areas that have higher tower density). However, the iPhone's internet speed will be better because of T-Mobile's more data-efficient 3G.

And people will still think a Verizon iPhone is just around the corner, even though it will be another year before Apple can buy smaller iPhone 4 guts to make room for the gigantic CDMA chips.

Terms of Service: Rdio

To use the new Rdio music service, one must agree to (among other things), the following (with translations):

"Rdio makes no representation or warranty that (i) the Service Applications or the Rdio Service will meet your expectations or requirements...or (v) the Service Applications and the Rdio Service and/or the servers that make the Service Applications and the Rdio Service available are free of viruses, clocks, timers, counters, worms, software locks, Trojan horses, trap doors, time bombs or any other harmful codes, instructions, programs or components."

--(Hey, this thing might not do what you think it does; accordingly, we have the right to put a computer-mashing virus in it and you're OK with that.)

"To the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, in no event shall Rdio...be liable with respect to the Service Applications...any lost or corrupted data, lost profits, loss or damage to any computer, mobile phone or other device or any special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages, even if Rdio has been advised of the possibility of such damages or if such damages were foreseeable."

--(So, if we decide to put a computer-destroying Trojan horse in our software, and one of our people tells us its a bad idea but we do it anyway and it utterly ruins all of your data, we're not really liable for that.)

"You agree to defend, indemnify and hold Rdio...harmless from and against any and all claims, actions, proceedings and suits and all related liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, settlements, penalties, fines, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs) arising out of (i) your access, use or misuse of any of the Rdio Service..."

--(Also, if we do put an apocalyptic bit of nasty, viral code in our software and all you do is act like an honest consumer who uses it in the way you're supposed to--and our software causes your iPhone or Blackberry to, for instance, systematically wipe out all your image files and replace them with DVDA pics that pop up on your screen every ten seconds, rendering your smartphone utterly useless, you can't sue us.)

Sounds like a great deal, eh? I haven't gotten a great deal like that since I got charged $4 a minute to make a 45-minute call from the Dominican Republic to the US. My question now, since I rarely read TOSes in their entirety, is this: have these kinds of consumer-castrating terms become industry-standard?

[Read the complete Rdio TOS here]

You Missed Out, Friend

If you are among the majority of my friends and fam who didn't attend South by Southwest, you missed out on a whole helluva lot, let me tell ya (big props to my brother Tim and Phil Harder for showing up). If you haven't noticed, I love SXSW and I'm more than willing to evangelize on its behalf. Part of being an evangelist (thought not necessarily a good one) is rubbing the good news the faces of the uninformed. So here I present my Top 5 Bands and Top 3 Films of SXSW 2010. Check 'em out--and get your arse down to Austin next March!

Best Bands:
1. Balkan Beat Box.
These lively Israelites put on the most outside-the-box show I saw this year, complete with disco lights and roaming saxaphones. //Balkan Beat Box: Move It//
2. Warpaint. This all-chick band from LA rocked the faces off a late-night crowd. No gimmicks, just great music. //Warpaint: Elephants//
3. Das Racist. Despite being the drunkest act of SXSW, they put on a bumpin' show with deep bass beats and the kinds of tongue-in-cheek rhymes that I've come to expect from the NYC hip-hop underground. //Das Racist: Shorty Said//
4. Trampled by Turtles. TbT is a five-man hillbilly band that lays down some wicked licks featuring fiddle, banjo, and mandolin. I smiled as Texan audience members were shocked to learn that TbT hails from Duluth. //Trampled by Turtles: The Darkness and the Light//
5. Crystal Method/Steve Aoki. I've wanted to see these masters of the dance floor for a long time--even worse since Crystal Method's show was preempted by the Austin fuzz at last year's Moon Tower. And Aoki gets involved in the crowd; he doesn't just stare at his computer like most DJs. //Steve Aoki: WARP//

Top Films:
1. Micmacs.
Remember the deliciousness of the pranks in Amelie? Take that flavor and spread it over an entire movie, minus Amelie's high-fructose sweetness, and you've some idea what to expect from Micmacs. Also expect beautiful photography, ingenious mise-en-scene, delightful performances, and fantastic fun. I like Micmacs so much I'd hate to spoil any of it by writing about it. Just go see it.
2. Harry Brown. Most of the blurbs I saw about Harry Brown touted Michael Caine's excellent performance, but the real reason to watch it is the way that the filmmakers' method comprehends their message. The film asks the viewer questions about violence and justice, due process and vigilanteism, but offers only ambiguous answers. Throughout, the director and DP offer us camera angles that suggest the ambiguity of the content. Is that group of kids downstairs about to become victims of a random attack? Or will the film reveal them to be the instigators of the opening scene's shooting (the most shockingly visceral attack I've ever witnessed as an opening scene)?
3. MacGruber. MacGruber the SNL sketch features Will Forte's anti-MacGyver getting blown up in under thirty seconds--every time. How, I wondered, could that possibly translate to the big screen? MacGruber the movie works because (a) it is really stinking funny, and (b) because Forte & crew broadened the scope of their spoof to include all kidnapped-missile movies, all spec-ops movies, all buddy movies, all ass-kicking movies with a romantic sub-plot, and all Val Kilmer movies. So, all action movies, basically. And did I mention that the writing and acting made me and the 1200+ people who showed up for the premiere laugh hysterically? While MacGruber bears no pretensions of being a smart action film, it proved to be a worthy bit of feel-funny escapism.

Your Butt Says Hi

I get butt-dialed a lot. Call it the curse of the double-A name. I don't really mind; I just wish I could understand the contents of the long voicemails that result. Almost as good, however: Google Voice transcripts of butt-dialed messages. Here's what my friend Wheaton Ian's ass had to say today:

"Hi, Well hey. So, hello hi hello for what. Hello Kurt, call me bye bye. Aloha, Hello all, Bye bye hey. Ohh, hi hey bye."

Smell ya later, buddy.

Consuming the Corpse--with Relish

“Art is dead; Godard can’t change that,” the Situationists proclaimed in 1968. “Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.” Jean-Luc Godard must have anticipated both of these sentiments when crafting Pierrot le Fou (1965). Quoting literary art at every turn, the titular Ferdinand-Pierrot insists that art remains very much alive. With Pierrot, Godard creates a marvelous mashup of genres—a spectacle worthy of applause. Indeed, it seems that Godard was bent on twisting the Situationists theses against them; Godard’s appetite for the whole body of western art proves insatiable.

Pierrot opens with a rather lengthy voice-over exposition on the painter Velasquez. What we mistake for a narrator’s voice turns out to be that of the protagonist, enjoying a bath and a cigarette and reading a passage of a biography to his young daughter. Aside from injecting humor into situation, Godard takes an early opportunity to make a serious point. That is, how can art be dead when part of its essential nature just is to be disseminated, received, and reinterpreted in a new context? In fact, Godard himself has already been enacting this three-fold process in the opening montage. The printed pronouncements of the biography come alive over images that interpret and inform them; Pierrot speaks the word “twilight” and Godard presents us with an image of sunny afternoon tennis game. Several shots later, he presents twilight over water, but now the voice informs us that “space reigns supreme.”

For a corpse, art is doing quite a lot of work here. Or perhaps it might serve us better to say that the sound and images are doing a lot of work to create a work of art. The juxtaposition of quotation with new images, of “twilight” with light, and of twilight with “space” suggests (1) an ongoing dialog with art of the past and (2) a continuing struggle to create something that interprets our experience in space and time. But what is art if not the latter? And how does a work dialogue with its predecessors if it is not one of them itself? One might answer that the critic or essayist partakes in both but does not create art. But the critic’s craft operates in the intellectual domain; the artist’s spans the sensory, emotional, and intellectual. Pierrot le Fou assaults the senses with fireworks, gunfire, and flashing neon, pricks the emotions with a love affair, a journey, and a betrayal, and invites the intellect to apprehend a barrage of images and plot points that can only be understood in context.

The context of Pierrot comprises not just the Situationist state of affairs and the state of cinema itself, but the whole of performance spectacle dating back to at least the 16^th-century Commedia Dell’arte, from which Godard's protagonist receives his nickname. In that comic tradition, the trusting Pierrot pursues the love of Columbine; she betrays him for the affections of the agile Arlequin. In Pierrot le Fou, if fickle Marianne plays Colombine to Ferdinand’s Pierrot and to dancing Fred’s Arlequin, Ferdinand’s fate should come as no surprise. Yet Godard surprises us because he closely associates Pierrot with himself (via quotation), Marianne with the state of French culture (she wears the colors of the flag), and Fred with violence and war (suggesting the collapse of French imperialism). Pierrot's betrayal occurs at the last minute, leaving the audience with sensory exhaustion and a strong emotional charge, but still chewing on the meaning of every quote.

Indeed, the ability to inspire affect and introspection in its absence proves to be one of art’s most powerful qualities. Art lives in Godard’s film, and he clearly wishes to spread it around. That he co-opts his opposition’s terms—especially, spectacle—makes Godard’s artistic food for thought all the sweeter.

Webb 3.0

I saw Derek Webb at Austin's legendary Cactus Cafe tonight. You could call this the third incarnation of Webb--after Caedmon ensemble guy and solo acoustic folkster--and I gotta say, the new show is pretty rad.

I'd only heard a song and a clip or two from the new album, and what I'd heard shocked me. Derek went from folk-acoustic to synth-electronic. I worried that D Webb wouldn't be able to pull off the electronica live, but he, his drummer, and his everything-else guy put on a great concert. (They even had a little bit of a light show that added to the experience.)

In good Webb form, they played the new album in its entirety, including the "controversial" What Matters More. While I like that song's lyrical ballsiness, I thought it a musically a bit weak in context; everything else on "Stockholm Syndrome" is even better. I especially liked "Freddie Please". Most of the show tended toward drum-and-bass with Webb's signature vocals, which worked in spite of the fact that at times it proved a difficult to separate Derek's vocal style from his acoustic self.

He did a solo acoustic set, too, taking requests as is his custom. My only real complaint is that he did the acoustic set in the middle of the show and it sapped the momentum that they had built with the more electronic stuff. Still, it was great. The PA died during the last song, but Derek finished strong, unplugged and unmiked--quite moving, actually. Oh, and the opening act, Marc Scibilia, did a fantastic job, too. All in all, a wonderful evening.

* * *Derek Webb plays Mokah Coffee Bar in Dallas on Sunday, October 25 at 7pm* * *
Support independent music and independent coffee!

P.V.I. Me, ASAP

In the middle of giving a counter-intuitive answer to the Special Composition Question (when do xs compose a y? If and only if they compose an organism), Peter van Inwagen pauses to acknowledge his argument's affront to common sense:

"A good many philosophers...may want to accuse me of a philosophical ploy that Saul Kripke has described in these words: 'The philosopher advocates a view apparently in patent contradiction to common sense...Personally, I think such philosophical claims are almost invariably suspect....The real misconstrual comes when the claimant continues, "All the ordinary man really means is..." and gives a sophisticated analysis compatible with his own philosophy.'"

Inwagen then proceeds to (1) deny that there is any such body of belief as common sense and (2) answer Kripke's philosophy-of-language-informed charge by denying that he is proposing an analysis of language. Up to this point, Inwagen has been saying something analogous to this: "When the ordinary man says the sun has moved behind the elms, what he really means is that the earth has moved in such a way that our position relative to the elms and the sun has changed such that the elms now block the sun." But then he seems to switch gears and claim that the ordinary man really does mean the sun has moved behind the elms and that furthermore, "this sentence is sufficiently empty of metaphysical commitment."

Prima facie, Inwagen's move smells like a blatant contradiction. One philosopher that I know, however, suggests that it's possible that Inwagen is stepping outside the metaphysics room momentarily to address Kripke. Perhaps there's even more to it. Maybe Inwagen is pointing out that statements of this sort constitute "protocol" sentences which, in contrast to "system" sentences, are about primitive, immediate perceptions and not scientific fact. And since such protocol sentences are never really false, what's the problem? In short, PvI gives a linguistic rebuttal to a linguistic objection and continues doing metaphysics as if he's just swatted away a fly. Personally, I take his remark as a kind of F you to philosophy of language on the whole (and, as such, humorously endearing), but decide for yourself [here].

Casting a Dream Net

Question for all of you: What themes or events recur often in your dreams? For about as long as I can remember, I've had dreams about weird things happening with elevators--doors not working properly, the car stopping between floors--usually ending in a cable/brake failure and a terrifying free fall. But lately it seems the dreamland lift engineers have figured out a way to put emergency brakes on those things, however, and I survived the two elevator-free-fall dreams I've had this month. Anyone else have recurring, evolving themes/events that have endured through the years? It's not the one-time weird dreams that are worth pondering; it's the ones that keep coming back that are intriguing.

C.S. Lewis is Alive and Well

In reading a mere twenty pages of Lewis's A Preface to Paradise Lost, I have discovered two rhetorical gems that are, today, as true and relevant as when he wrote them.

The first regards a recent debate in the literary world as to whether Shakespeare ought to be translated into Present Day English just as Beowulf and Chaucer have been. John McWhorter fired the first ghastly salvo, D.H. Lawrence fired eloquently back, and Alan Jacobs called in the air support. Both replies are well worth your time, but it appears that Lewis had seen it all before and planted this delightful time-bomb in his defense of the lost art of solemnity: "The desire for simplicity is a late and sophisticated one. We moderns may like dances which are hardly distinguishable from walking and poetry which sounds as if it might be uttered ex tempore. Our ancestors did not. They liked a dance which was a dance, and fine clothes which no one could mistake for working clothes, and feasts that no one could mistake for ordinary dinners, and poetry that unblushingly proclaimed itself to be poetry. What is the point of having a poet, inspired by the Muse, if he tells stories just as you or I would have told them?"

The second struck me because it explicates in a sentence what Charlie Kaufman demonstrates in his brilliant two-hour mind-scrump, Synecdoche, New York. "The attempt to be oneself," Lewis writes, "often brings out only the more conscious and superficial parts of a man's mind." Indeed, that one line comes close to summing up the thematic and artifactual whole of Kaufman's work; the thread of superficial self- and consciousness-feedback runs through all the films of his that I've seen. And yet I wonder whether Kaufman also understands what Lewis says immediately following: "working to produce a given kind of poem [or in the case of Synecdoche's Adele, a given kind of painting] which will present a given theme as justly, delightfully, and lucidly as possible, he is more likely to bring out all that was really in him, and much of which he himself had no suspicion."

String Theory: Shoe-String Edition

Pardon me while I go all Andy Rooney for a minute here.

What the hell is wrong with shoe companies these days? Every pair of shoes I've owned since like 2002 has had the same problem: the damn laces won't stay tied. Before '02, all I ever had to do was tie a simple bow and my kicks stayed tight all day long. But the last, like, seven pairs of shoes I've bought inevitably untie themselves--sometimes in as little as twenty steps.

Really, Skechers? Seriously, Puma? Et tu, Asolo? Shoe-lace technology has had what, 3000 years of research & development, and you still find a way to screw it up? Did the secret recipe for laces that stay tied get classified after 9/11?

I wouldn't make a big stink out of it except that the obvious solution--double-knotting--is a big pain in the ass. Pain in the ass to tie when a man's running late in the morning, pain in the ass to untie when a guy just wants relief from sweaty sneaks. Even when I double-knot, my stinking laces undo themselves half the time anyway. And the less-obvious solution--velcro--is really expensive (85 bucks for canvas Vans!) or really ugly (you're not helping anyone, Wal-Mart).

I can't remember the last pair of shoes I bought that stayed tied...until now. I picked up a couple pairs of Chuck Taylors last month, and those puppies haven't untied on me once. So the moral of the story is this, apparently: in the age of iPhones and Large Hadron Colliders and the mapping of the human genome, the only shoes that stay tied are ones that were designed 92 years ago. Sometimes, the simplest designs prove the most excellent and enduring.

The Carbon Motors E7

The new standard in law-enforcement awesomeness:












Part KITT, part Airwolf, the E7 has 75+ features that you won't find on a retrofitted Crown Vic, including
-18" wheels
-300hp clean-diesel engine
-6-speed automatic transmission
-50/50 front-rear weight distribution
-75mph rear impact crash capability
-Body-integrated ram bars
-Heads-up display
-Video/audio surveillance of rear passenger area
-Integrated "laptop" computer
-Forward-looking infrared system (FLIR)
-Suicide rear doors for easier perp entry/exit
-Hoseable rear passenger compartment
-Integrated flashers/spots/takedown lights
-Remote start
-Nightvision-compliant interior illumination
-Radiation and biochemical weapon detectors

Dude, I want one!

Dante? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Or, EA Ruins Everything.

I should be writing a paper on Copernicus right now, so I'll try to keep this short. Electronic Arts, the biggest, mediocrest video game publisher in the world, is making a video game out of Dante's Inferno.

You would think it could be done without fundamentally screwing up the story. But you would be wrong if you think EA could do it. Among the horrific violence they are working on Dante's masterpiece: Lucifer he actually rules Hell; furthermore, he is free to roam around the cosmos; and most ridiculously of all, he kidnaps Beatrice's soul as she dies. Dante, "a man who knows no fear", pursues Satan into Hell to rescue his beloved. Need I go on? Oh, and (spoiler alert!) as the game progresses through Hell, it "gets more hellish."

Look, I know a close adaptation would amount to little more than pressing X to snap a twig off a Suicide tree now and then, but come on, this is more than I can take.

Witness the horror for yourself here.

Can a Self-Aware Moriarty Hologram be far Behind?

The one thing I thought that the Star Trek: TNG holodeck stories never adequately accounted for was how people could walk around in there without bumping into the walls. They weren't just walking in place, after all, but running through dark alleys and up stairs and whathaveyou. Well, apparently the Japanese have been puzzling over the problem, too, and have come up with a prototype solution. Behold: the CirculaFloor.

Justin McElroy on 50 Cent's Video Game

"50 Cent: Blood on the Sand blends terrific gameplay with really bad ... well, practically everything else to create a final product that I love -- not like, love. I suspect you'll love it too ... just in that dark, secret way we love the things that are almost certainly making us stupider."

So...the way we love all video games?

Hard to think of any video game I've played that didn't make me stupider--except maybe for Clyde's Adventure.

Homer on Middle Knowledge

The Simpsons conduct an experiment in counterfactual conditionals.

Conclusion: "If you could live in the sauce, don't you think I'd live in the sauce?" Yep, that pretty much captures it. But what if it turns out that the messed up world as we know it is the sauce?




(Full episode here)