Two nice books on movie physics!

Posted on January 15, 2008 by skullsinthestars

One of the nice Christmas gift surprises this past year was a pair of books from my girlfriend’s sister!  (Thanks!) Both books deal with the physics of Hollywood movies, though from slightly different points of view:  Don’t Try This At Home, by Adam Weiner, and Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, by Tom Rogers.  Both books are quite recent publications (late 2007), and cover quite recent movies.  I give a brief description of each beneath the fold…

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Posted in Entertainment, Physics | 1 Comment

Incredibly stupid conservative quote of the week

Posted on January 14, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I’m always amazed at some of the ridiculous things that come out of the mouths of the so-called ‘conservative elite’. Here’s Jonah Goldberg, defending the premise of his book Liberal Fascism on Salon.com (h/t Crooks and Liars):

To sort of start the story, the reason why we see fascism as a thing of the right is because fascism was originally a form of right-wing socialism. Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I.

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Posted in ... the Hell?, Politics | 2 Comments

A LaTeX how-to (for windows)

Posted on January 13, 2008 by skullsinthestars

There was a nice post on Good Math, Bad Math about Donald Knuth’s classic scientific typesetting software, TeX. In the comments section, a number of people asked about how to learn to use the software. I thought I’d write a little introduction on how to install and use LaTeX, with a nice sample file to play with. Since I often have to do this for my students anyway, it’ll be nice to have it all in one place.
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Posted in Mathematics, Physics | Tagged | 7 Comments

I’m doomed…

Posted on January 11, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I’m not sure what to make of this xkcd comic; after all, I’m active in 3 of these categories, including the top one, and I do take a lot of elevators…

Posted in Silliness, Sports | 9 Comments

A brief San Antonio travelogue!

Posted on January 10, 2008 by skullsinthestars

So I’ve been posting a little light this week because I’ve been in San Antonio on business.  Now that the work is done, and I’m heading home, I thought I’d post just a few pictures of the highlights…

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Reincarnation in horror…

Posted on January 10, 2008 by skullsinthestars

While on vacation, I stumbled across one of Brian Lumley’s early novels, Khai of Khem, a fantasy adventure story set in pre-historical ancient Egypt. One of the major plot points of the story is the idea that Khai has, in essence, already lived a reincarnated life in the future, and his knowledge helps him fight his foes. That reminded me of a few other horror tales in which reincarnation is a major plot point, and it seemed worth a post to discuss them!

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Posted in Fantasy fiction, Horror, Robert E. Howard | Leave a comment

The beginnings of ice skating…

Posted on January 8, 2008 by skullsinthestars

Okay, one more post tonight (I’m really bored).  I stumbled across a fascinating article (h/t Pigspittle, Ohio) about the oldest human-powered means of transport: ice skates made of bone.  Apparently ice skating may have started in about 3000 BC in Southern Finland, which has a high density of lakes (and mosquitos, as I can personally attest).

I find this especially interesting because I’m an avid figure skater.  (I’m also getting the girlfriend involved.)  The early skating was apparently not for fun, though, but to minimize energy expenditure in travel.   The results were published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London.

Posted in Science news, Sports | Tagged | 2 Comments

Found poetry: Tell about a the book the nightmare man

Posted on January 7, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I’m in San Antonio this week for work, and a bit bored. Drawing inspiration from Blake Stacey’s writing of “found poetry”, I hereby present my own brief poem (Found poetry is the practice of taking phrases from other sources, in this case search terms people used to find my blog, and making a poem out of them):

  • tell about a the book the nightmare man
  • keyboard in your mouth
  • twenty is the number of heads on the hydra
  • looming alien invasion
  • Nicolaus Copernicus prove bible wrong
  • What is a Wave?
  • roddy macdowell alive or dead
  • pond ripples

No need to applaud, thank you, thank you…

P.S.  If someone hasn’t made this idea a blog meme yet, they should…

Posted in Fiction | Tagged | Leave a comment

John Grant’s ‘Corrupted Science’

Posted on January 7, 2008 by skullsinthestars

While I was in a bookstore over the holidays, I stumbled across a relatively new publication by author John Grant, Corrupted Science: Fraud, ideology and politics in science. I snapped it off the bookshelf without a second thought (well, one second thought, which I’ll mention below), because I’m fascinated by frauds, crackpots and crazies in the sciences. I just finished the book last night, and my highly unscientific verdict… amazing!

If you care to hear a few more details than that, look below the fold…

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Posted in Politics, Science news | Tagged | 1 Comment

Happy birthday to Clancy Brown!

Posted on January 5, 2008 by skullsinthestars

I’m a sucker for distinctive character actors who carve themselves a nice niche doing weird and dark roles.  Today is the birthday of another such actor: Clancy Brown!

If you haven’t seen Clancy (you have), you’ve certainly heard him: he’s done a seemingly endless collection of voice-overs for animated films, including the voice of Mr. Krabs in Spongebob Squarepants, the voice of Lex Luthor in the 1990’s Superman series, Mr. Freeze in the 2004 The Batman series, and Long Feng in my beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others.

Most people would recognize him as the evil immortal Kurgan in the movie Highlander, as well as the corrupt prison guard Captain Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption.  He’s appeared on Lost, ER, and the short-lived Earth 2.

Finally, I’m looking forward to his turn in the upcoming animated Conan movie, Red Nails.  Happy birthday to Clancy Brown, and best wishes for future endeavors!

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