(500) Days of Summer
(500) Days of Summer is a very good movie. Legitimately funny with sweetness and remorse. It’s also a wonderful piece of filmmaking, with creativity in its creation, storytelling, and visuals. And yet for all that, it’s well grounded in real emotions, and doesn’t betray its characters or emotions. Zooey Deschanel, who I thought was great in Elf and Almost Famous, can’t really hold up to the character’s description (after all, how many people can legitamately be described as drawing “18.4 double-takes per day” while also looking like a normal person who could be someone’s secretary.) She’s good. It’s a very Read more…
Jurassic Park still pretty dang good
Mary had an inspired idea to watch Jurassic Park, as a sort of summer blockbuster in the heat of summer. We had a great time re-watching it–and it makes me want to pick up the book again, which I haven't read since 7th or 8th grade. Here's a pretty great "adaptation." I remember this was on TV long ago, although I don't remember the context. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJEPevcswk?wmode=transparent]
Giving it the ol’ college try
Good luck to my senior year college roommates who are going across the world on new and interesting programs this year! Joe is leaving for England, where he'll be taking on a year-long Masters program in publishing. He's promised not to become a Kindle-hater. And Caleb is going to work for something called the Human Terrain System, a project of the Army (though involving civilians) where he will serve as a liaison between the army and the community they are in (possibly in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Africa). The description from the site is: The near-term focus of the HTS program Read more…
If Seven-of-Nine wasn’t crowned Miss Illinois …
… would Barack Obama be President today, 20 years after that event? The last idea in the last post that the eruption of Tambora was the indirect cause of Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein gets to one of those fun games of alternate history. Maybe I'm just a sucker for them, especially after my readings on randomness. But here's a thought experiment: Barack Obama was able to run for President because he was a Senator and not still in the Illinois State government. He was able to win his Senate seat in part because Republican candidate Jack Ryan withdrew from the Read more…
Almost 7 billion now …
This is a well-produced video about the “myth” of overpopulation. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM?wmode=transparent] I agree with its message … to a certain extent. I think that those like Kunstler who predict widespread devastation (whether as a result of overpopulation or a dearth of oil) are wrong to ignore future technological innovations. There’s a reason we didn’t all die of in 1890, or 1970, and that’s that we got a lot better at growing things and getting them to the people who needed them. On the other hand, consider what a major natural disaster could do to our system. Take the year Read more…
Fooled By Randomness
I finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book Fooled By Randomness. I'd previously read The Black Swan by him. Even though it's his second book, I would refer it to anyone before Fooled by Randomness. Fooled is a dense book, as close to a philosophical treatise as I will probably ever read. I appreciate the content, though. Taleb uses anecdotes, hypotheticals, and his own experience as a trader to argue that when it comes to areas with a lot of uncertainty and randomness (the market, etc) that success is not necessarily indicative of actual merit. (He also argues that there are many Read more…
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