Links, pithy comments, you know the drill.
- The graphics on this one might not be astonishing, but the idea of supermassive black holes being flung from collisons at galactic cores is probably cool enough on its own to sustain interest. I love how science writers drop line like “these objects can have masses equivalent to one billion Suns” the way I might say “they usually cost around $9.99”.
- Sticking with astronomy for a second, allow me to point out a couple of recent hits from APOD. There’s the photo of what should be called the “Dragonhead” Nebula. There’s the video of the sun exploding. And then there’s the one they claim is of ‘fogbows’, but which everyone who ever read Kirby comics knows is a friggin’ BOOM TUBE.
- While we’re in space, I would be remiss to not mention the story about Voyager either having a glitch, being taken over by aliens, or possibly becoming self-aware. Get your V’ger jokes ready and lock up the bald women, I guess.
- Moving away from space, let’s talk about connections
I can’t even type that without hearing O Fortuna in my head. . I think the first thing that really made the “six degrees of separation” thing real for me was seeing the chart that came with that King Crimson box set, showing how all the members of Crimson were related to basically everything cool in music. From there it was a short step to the notion that all the cool people are connected by a small number of steps. Hold that thought. I know I’ve mentioned my love of Lapham’s Quarterly before, but this chart showing connections between famous people of letters might be my favourite single page yet. Who knew you could connect John Ruskin to Harriet Beecher Stowe in two steps? Or Byron to Hemmingway in as few? And I just love what’s happening in the bottom right of the chart. - This link isn’t really for me, but I bet some of the audience will appreciate it. Everything’s supposed to be on Tumblr, right? So there must be a gender-flipped equivalent…
- Well, that’s a pretty solid response to anyone who says graffiti is always just vandalism. Warning–you can get lost in that link for quite a while if you’re not careful. (Anyone know where in Toronto that Banksy one is?)
- Once again Hollywood attempts to adapt Dick. I am prepared to be unimpressed. (No, I’m not even pretending to have an open mind any more.)
- I am, however, trying to keep an open mind about the forthcoming adaptation of (former HGPA member) Bryan O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim books, despite Michael Cera’s undeniable punchability. If you’ve read the books, you might be interested in a photo-tour of some of the real places in Toronto that show up in the books
I recently had a chance to drive around some of the less public places that serve as settings for stuff in the books, in a short tour given by the guy who is the real-world analogue of Wallace from the books. Because, you know, all the cool people know each other. . - If you don’t know how to remove hiss, crackling, and popping, from an audio file with something like Audacity or GoldWave, then there’s no point in trying to listen to SCOOBY DOO AND THE MYSTERY OF THE STRANGE PAW PRINTS over at Mr. Kitty’s Crazy Music Emporium right now. If you do, it will take about two minutes to make the audio listenable, and you can marvel at how Frank Welker’s voice is instantly recognizable across decades. Whether you listen or not, you should go over now to experience the cognitive dissonance of Cyrillic Scooby.
- Buy this book. You won’t regret it. That is all.
