“ [They follow] the ancient British procedure. First they cordon off a stretch of the road. Then they dig a hole. Then they brew a nice cup of tea and contemplate the hole. Then they simply vanish, like the Mayans, leaving the rest of us to wonder what they meant by these baffling excavations. ”
Science doesn’t work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven’t any of these guys ever heard of “peer review”?
There’s this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. …
[But science is] not a hippie love-in; it’s rugby. Every time you put out a paper, the guy you pissed off at last year’s Houston conference is gonna be laying in wait. Every time you think you’ve made a breakthrough, that asshole supervisor who told you you needed more data will be standing ready to shoot it down. You want to know how the Human Genome Project finished so far ahead of schedule? Because it was the Human Genome projects, two competing teams locked in bitter rivalry, one led by J. Craig Venter, one by Francis Collins — and from what I hear, those guys did not like each other at all.
This is how it works: you put your model out there in the coliseum, and a bunch of guys in white coats kick the shit out of it. If it’s still alive when the dust clears, your brainchild receives conditional acceptance. It does not get rejected. This time.
(It’s not embedded because it wouldn’t do it justice. Click on the link and watch it in fullscreen.)
Daring Fireball linked to this short film a while back and it’s been sat in my open tabs ever since. So when I finally got around to watching it today, I had entirely forgotten what it was. The sudden memory, about halfway through, that this is entirely computer graphics*, blew my mind.
Even more impressive, it’s entirely the work of a single person: Alex Roman. He even orchestrated and sequenced the music.
Remarkable.
* (apart from a few very minor elements: the photographer, the pigeons, the timelapsed growing flowers, the flying airplane, and the sky backgrounds)
I’m not particularly into computer games; but I found this series of videos about an obscure and insanely difficult NES platformer utterly compelling—I enjoyed it more than I’ve ever actually enjoyed playing such a game, that’s for sure.
The engaging annotations (which discuss the game’s design, technology, and cultural significance in depth) are what make the videos so great, so make sure you have them switched on (with the controls at the bottom right of the YouTube video enclosure).
A wife compiled the best musings of her sleep-talking husband in a blog.* I’m only skimming through it now, but here are some of the ones I like best, so far:
You can’t be a pirate if you don’t have a beard. I said so. MY boat, MY rules.
Your mum’s at the door again. Bury me. Bury me deep.
Flap’s on fire. Your flap’s on fire! Chili in the vagiiiiina. I’m a bad bad boy.
* Some people seem to think it’s a hoax. One can never be sure, but it’s funny, so I can’t say I care.
Have you seen this SarcMark thing? It’s a “new” punctuation mark which has been reported by many of the slightly less salubrious media outlets (and even some of the more reputableones).
The articles seem to come in two formats:
Straight-up copy-and-paste-from-the-press-release from the company that is selling* this new product,
Slightly amused tone, lots of telegraphed jokes based around sarcasm. Oh ho ho do you see what they have done there.
But three things seem obviously missing from the coverage to me:
Any mention of why company-tries-to-sell-something-lame is news, and why it’s deserving of what is basically a free advert in what is supposed to be the news section,
How ugly it is. Seriously. That thing is ugly,
Any mention of the fact that the irony mark—which is effectively the same thing—already exists, and was first proposed at the end of the 19th century. Some new meaning of the word “new”, then.
The wikipedia page about the irony mark—also known as the snark—includes some other wonderful punctuation marks which I’m sad haven’t caught on: the doubt point, the certitude point, the acclamation point, the authority point, the indignation point, and the totally sweet love point. Go check out the page to see what they look like. (Hint: they are all awesome.)
According to Roald Dahl: ‘In music, the equivalent would be the golden age of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. In painting, it was the equivalent of the Italian Renaissance and the advent of Impressionism at the end of the 19th century; in literature, Tolstoy, Balzac and Dickens.’ Cheap chocolate is one of the things that this country used to be very, very good at.
Exploring Tumblr today, I accidentally ended up getting a funny little ribbon on the bottom-right corner of my avatar. This signified that I had donated money to Haiti relief, which I hadn’t done. To remedy the situation, I tried to remove the ribbon. This proved to be impossible. Left with no other options — except hypocrisy — I gave some money to Doctors Without Borders.
A bad user experience created a good outcome. Go Tumblr!
PS: I really do wish I could easily remove this ribbon. It’s not a big deal, but I just don’t like:
Joining some faceless online army for any reason
Changing — or even noticing — my avatar. Avatars are like small, mean mirrors that pop up on your computer screen with minimal warning. I guess this is rooted in deeper issues.
Gestures of support that inevitably conclude. Remember when Iran had that election and everyone on Twitter made their avatar green? I don’t see any more green avatars. At this point, a green avatar would be ridiculous and dated. But I would hate to be the Twitter user deciding who, for the sake of aesthetics and timeliness, changes their avatar back to normal and in so doing essentially withdraws support from Iranian dissenters.
PPS: I might have donated money anyway, even without the ribbon! But we’ll never know. The events that transpired rendered impossible any understanding of my own actions; forever — at least in this particular case — closing the door to self-knowledge.
I did the same thing and had more or less exactly the same objections. Not a complaint — seems over the top to complain about something like this, given the circumstances — just a nod to Tumblr: this was confusing! The donation links don’t even look like links.
Tint your avatar Tumblr-blue if you think this is an outrage!
Yup. They got me this way, too.* I kinda hope this was a deliberate design decision, so that I can think of it as deviously clever, as opposed to just poorly thought out.
I hope they do unveil some way to revert your avatar at some point in the future. Having to have the ribbon on there forevermore seems like a bit of a pain.
* I probably would’ve donated without this extra impetus, but this way they** got my money quicker.
** Médecins Sans Frontière, because they have the coolest name.
