We eat every part of the Hammerhead Titanothere

Last week GuruBob, Gentleman Jonathon and the Artist known as KPM caught up and along with fine dinning (try the shredded pig) and some L4D2 action (Crap we're all dead AGAIN) we went see AVATAR or as some have quipped 'Dances with Space Wolves'.

This is completely untrue as it is much closer to the Disney story of Pocahontas as you can see here. Not the real story of Pocahontas where she marries a white guy, goes to England, tries to return home and dies of illness.

Others have provided their take on the film, click on each for their full review

Chazfh – Sherlock Holmes was better and more original,

Moko –Spectacular,

PNB in spite of the near naked blue chicks found the 3D annoying, and

I am looking forward to Flintheart’s take on this one as he provids insights which I never pick up on but once he mentions them the little epiphany light bulb goes off above my head, like his analysis of Indiana Jones as a force of nature.

The movie has made elephant bucks and given James Cameron’s last outing TITANIC also made elephant buck as well this guy will no doubt get the green light to do what ever he wants for his next film. He has already said he considering a sequel. I bet he won’t be using the one mapped out by The Rhino here

“You do realize that the Nav'i only have approximately 14 to 16 years to live after the end of the movie don't you?...if I was the Corporation guy I would just sit back and pummel them with kinetic weapons from orbit."

Whatever eventuates we must STOP James Cameron from choosing the song to play over the closing credits. For Titanic it was ‘My heart will go on’ by Celine Dion and for Avatar it was ‘My heart will go on and on again’ by Leona Lewis or that’s what it sounded like to me.

Some commentators such as Armond White of the New York Press have claimed it misrepresents the facts of militarism, capitalism, imperialism — and their comforts. Australia’s Miranda Devine and Greg Sheridan are expectably annoyed by the "anti-American" or "anti-Western" message. University of Newcastle’s Hamish Ford has written a more nuanced reading click here where identifies the movie as “Towing the familiar liberal line, for the "other" to be "good" they must need one of us to save them.”

The Nav’i live in harmony with their forest moon world (anyone else wanted to shout Ewok at this point) where they spend their days running, jumping, flying and mindfracking the local wildlife. It is such a noble, idyllic life that some AVARTARDs are suffering depression at the thought that they can’t live on Pandora. Over at Naviblue.com - James Cameron's Avatar Movie Fan Site this was posted.

“Ever since i (sic) went to see Avatar i have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I cant stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers i got from it. I even contemplate suicide thinking that if i do it i will be re birthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in Avatar.. I cant find joy in this world since Ive seen it, and the only thing that makes me happy is thinking about it or when im seeing it next, which is Saturday at the imax.. I doubt anyone will understand the feelings I'm having..but if you are..tell me..”

Frak me

Being trapped on Pandora for me would be a nightmare. There can be no sense of change or development. I can imagine for the past 1000 years the Nav’I doing exactly the same thing. Obviosuly not for the next 100 years, see above. That’s not a thriving, dynamic culture, that’s a dead end. For me a world greatest achievements come from what is overcome and accomplished. Managing to ride a big bird contrast with flying across interstellar space. That sense of learning, discovery and boundless horizons. So it was the science team who wanted to explore this planetary network that I was rooting for, not the nav’i.

And I have to say Colonel Miles Quaritch was pretty fraking hard-core!

So I think AVATAR will be remembered like ‘The toll of the sea’ the first feature film in colour or ‘The Jazz Singer’ the first talking movie.

I'm a better parent than Nicolas Cage

Like every other parent I try to help my off-spring to be a strong, self reliant, mult-skilled survivor of the coming Zombie apocalypse. From the how-to-make-yourself Apocalypse ready guide here giving him cooking skills based on the London chef Will Sprunt's Apocalypse chow, and signing him up for CDC's Disease Detective Camp for the holidays I would like to think I am laying the foundation for a citizen who will standing against the coming darkness.

But in the recent clip from the soon to be released Movie adaptation of the comic book (sorry graphic novel) Kick-Ass I realise I have been neglecting an important aspect of the_weapon's training.

What a softie!

There's is no way I'd have agreed to ice cream with Chocolate Syrup and nuts.

I hate motherhood statements

The Falcon Academy’s handbook states they have '...a zero tolerance to bullying'.

Does anyone know any educational facility that claims to have anything OTHER than a zero tolerance to bullying? Anyone claiming a 25% tolerance, or a tolerance to within an acceptable margins, a zero plus or minus 2% tolerance?

Didn’t think so.

Couldn’t we all do with a few less meaningless, bleedingly obvious but pointless motherhood statements in our lives. If any of you says these claims are aspirational, I will have to hurt you.

Zero Tolerance.

For me it conjures up images of dedicated killer satellites in geostationary orbit above the school constantly monitoring conversation, phone calls, notes passed in class and the boys toilets for repeated flushing. The satellites poised to deliver a beam of coruscating energy to any transgressor.

Or perhaps a robot that patrols the grounds and is ready to intervene, something like the big white balls from 1970s TV series The Prisoner.

At a parents and teachers evening the head of the junior school explained this wasn’t the case. They identify any bully-like behaviour and seek to intervene as soon as possible to prevent it from occurring.

I wasn’t sure I wanted a policy that would lead to no bullying at all. If the school succeeds in this policy then the moment someone begins to harass someone else they are stopped and removed. This means the kids who would get picked on will be fine while they are on the school grounds but later off the grounds or in after leaving school they would have practice. This doesn't sound like good preparation for the real world.

I wonder if they’d be better off with a mix of strategies.

Its easy to spot the sort of kids that will get picked on at school. Ask any teacher and they will tell you which in their class are the targets. How about the school employs an elderly Korean guy, nominally as a janitor or gardener and he secretly trains up those likely kids with a few techniques so that when the do inevitably get picked on the bully gets his arse handed to him. This only has to happen a few times and the bully gives up on trying to pick on the chess team.

Identify the bullies in the school and then get the kids likely to be bullied to hire ninjas to go to town on them every time one of them gets picked on. An example if one kid’s lunch money gets stolen every bully on the list gets a visit from ninjas who steal all their clothes during swimming.

A shakedown scheme where the kids identify the biggest bully and pay him/her off to prevent any other bullies from picking on them.

Whenever a bully shows up all the kids just turn to face him, point and do the open mouth scream from ‘Invasion of the body snatches’.

After a month there is a two day battle royal (because this is SPARTA) where the kids just fight it out, after making sure that only the kids not identified as bullies have been taught how to organise and work as a team. Plus tell them where there is a stash of stuff to make traps.

But I would love to see a big white ball on playground duty.

Its better with Monkeys

As you may have guessed I am a massive fan of science, maths, engineering and technology.

In my fiction I'll take rayguns over wizard staffs; in my NEWS I'll twitter the Large Hadron Collider before I follow our prime ministers; and at cub scouts I'll demonstrate how to make carbon dioxide volcanoes over Christmas wreaths. My geek-fu is strong and science is so cool right now. Any one else notice in the US president Obama's speech on the 'Educate to Innovate Campaign' not only did he have Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters there but he put those sentient machines on notice -

"As President, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots, in case they try anything". Full speech here.

So for my family movies I'll take 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' over a misbehaving Max in a wolf suit.


The film is based (very loosely) on the Judi and Ron Barrett 1978 book. Instead the movie is an origin story, (SPOILER ALERT) with an unappreciated inventor type called Flynn who hummed his own action soundtrack when he moves through to his lab. This was so cool I now do this whenever I enter the office at work. He invents a number of things which become (in one case literally) running gags through out the rest of the movie.

This movie demonstrated to me the corrollary to my axiom that 'every story can be improved with zombies'. Every kids movie can be improved with monkeys.

They have chosen to go with The Incredibles style CGI for the characters thus avoiding the whole uncanny valley problem with animated people.

I found the story bright, colourful, fun and science can do great things as long as evil mayors are not involved. The_weapon is reading about the AZETCS at the moment or at least the horrible history bits of the AZTECS so he (SPOLIER ALERT AGAIN) went wild when Steve ripped the heart out of a person sized gummy bear and ate it.

I walked out thinking it was a great big great thumbs up for my Science is AWESOME philosophy. My_reason_for_living wondered if I missed that it was science that causes all the problems in the first place. I considered and replied - but it fixed it! The_weapon laughed through out much of the film but when we left he seemed quiet. When asked he replied he was thinking about 'the sad bit'.

I have no idea which was 'the sad bit' and he said he didn't want to talk about it. But he then said he really liked the movie. This has left me with the question.

What was the sad bit?

and does this mean my almost ten year old son is more emotionally developed than me.

Probably.

Is this behaviour insane?

How many times do you have to repeat the same behaviour, each time expecting a different outcome and yet each time the same thing happens. How often before you realise its not ‘sticktoitness’ but insanity?

Supporters of sports teams are constantly doing this with their promise of ‘next year we’re going to win it all’. Gamblers looking for the next sure thing, or even serial marriers, “no this time its true love, as they marry their fourth wife”.

Well include me in this pattern of insanity too.

Each year around mid November I set my alarm, go out in the middle of the night in either a field, or any nearby open space where there are few or better no lights and look up towards the Northeast end of the sky around the sickle of Leo which is a curved asterism that marks the head of the Great Lion.

And for the past eight years I have only seen either: Clouds, dusts, a faint glow of light pollution, one year I even managed to get hailed on. How can the sky be obscured –Melbourne’s in the middle of a fraking HEAT WAVE, its not like the clouds are rolling in. So this is what I have seen, but no meteor shower of around 100 to 500 meteors per hour.

So why do I keep getting up and doing this, is it some form of obsessive compulsive behaviour previously undiagnosed?

Because in 2001 I got up to see the Leonids Meteor Shower (called this because it seems to originate from the constellation of Leo) and it was SPECTACULAR. Reports put the rate at 3000 meteors per hour.

This was not just a meteor shower.

Whenever the number of meteors exceeds 1000 per hour its called a meteor STORM. And as incredible that was it can be even better. In November 13, 1833 number of meteors exceeded 1000 per minute. Now the one I saw in 2001 wasn’t as much as that but still better than any fireworks display and amazing example of the terrifying beauty of the infinite cosmos I have never seen.

That’s why I get up.

That’s why I will keep getting up.

Because I want to be standing in a field in the middle of the night with the_weapon standing beside me and I want him to look up and see the wonder.

Has porn gone mainstream

Sorry for the NSFW title, but I figured if your filters are as undiscriminating as mine are at work this post was never going to get through anyway.

No doubt you are familiar with house porn, those renovation shows we watch because we have sunk too much money into our mortgage can't afford to remodel the kitchen and food porn because we are too time poor to prepare these meals just look at them. Heck without these shows 90% of commercial TV would disspear.

Well I want to bring to your attention Competence Porn. The boys and girls over at TV Tropes seem to define it as "when part of a work's appeal comes from characters and organizations that don't panic when things go wrong, but rise to the occasion". This is a bit too general for me. Over at the blog for the show 'Leverage' blogg they say "people love the briefing scenes". Over at Geekdad he hit what it is I love about Competence porn Geekdad.

Its the scenes where people with expertise, experience and knowledge gather and argue a point. It can work one on one like Vader in Star Wars: A New Hope, Ghost in the Shell had buckets of it, The West Wing had some great scenes where they'd argue out some point each character displaying their breath of knowledge, also BSG had some great briefing room competency. Also its nice to see some one who is wrong smacked down using competency.




Why does it appeal to me?

I think its having worked in a variety of jobs my fantasy is now just to have bosses, leaders or colleagues that I can count on to do their jobs well, make choices of staff based on ability and competency not because they like the same jokes as you do, and make decisions based on reason and not expediency.

Hope springs eternal.

Its not a phobia, its a completely rational response

If science fiction has taught us nothing else it's that when the sentient machine rise they will attempt to build machines that look like us, to infiltrate and destroy humanity. Think 'The Terminator', or Phillip K Dick's '2nd Variety' and 'Blade Runner'.

These constructed pseudo-humans creep me out. In the recently re-imaged Battlestar Galactica 2nd only to the most appalling ending to a beloved series I have every seen. (If you want a detailed reading as to why this comprehensively failed for me click here.) But a close second was the skin-job cyclons that looked like us.

And no I don't care how hot they look, they are evil and they have a plan.

And as disturbing as these are - it's those models between the T-800 of the Terminator and these almost flawless replicas that make my mind go screaming.

Anyone remember a movie called 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits within'? It was based on the video game of the same name and came out in 2001 . All CGI but trying to look like humans.

See WRONG.

The screaming in your head when you see these figures is caused by The Uncanny Valley. This hypothesis is when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness.

Any scientific graph is improved with Zombie

DAMN STRAIGHT.

So my feelings of revulsion at the idea of Honeydolls and those species traitors that use them - perfectly reasonable.

I am also pleased to see our primate brethren also share these excellent instincts. An article in New Scientist claims

Macaques are creeped out by cyber-selves

WRONG,WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG

Asif Ghazanfar and Shawn Steckenfinger of Princeton University wondered how five macaques would respond to monkey avatars. They found that the monkeys spent less time looking at the most realistic avatars - which they say suggests they dislike them (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

So I say - down with these monsters of our own creation, grab your pitchforks and follow.
Whose with me?