The spectacularly obtuse blog

Paused

That's it, then: I'm pressing the pause button for the remainder of this year. Work simply keeps consuming all my time -- which is not to say I don't like being busy in this "exhausted but happy" way; never thought I'd admit it, but I actually quite enjoy things as they are. If only I could sleep a little better and longer... and read the fifty books I'd like to read just for fun... watch QI and whatnot on DVD... and... see, I always was a terrible liar!

Until next spring, you'll find random obtusity on Twitter, a link every now and then¹ at del.icio.us, and without a doubt I'll keep flooding my Flickr photostream with images of  bugs and stuff.

Oh, and never forget: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Just so it doesn't escape anyone's attention.

--
1    Mostly boring and partly in Finnish.

Bullshite!Tag

A dog magazine I browsed the other day had an intriguing ad for something called the Shoo!Tag. It claims to be "using your or your pet’s electrical field" and "create a protective barrier from targeted pests, reaching maximum strength within 36 hours after attachment".

Apparently, the tag "utilizes Nature’s energetic principles in combination with physics, quantum physics and advanced computer software technology", and behind all this is "the three dimensional electromagnetic field embedded in the magnetic strip".

What pseudoscientific nonsense. I can't believe people are actually buying these.

Tetherd Cow offers another take on the subject.

Free ideas for gifted authors

I know just how it feels when you have too many ideas and one day realise you won't have time to follow up on all of them, ever.

Chine Miéville guestblogs on things someone else should totally do; please, please someone write #2 and #4 (and write them well)! (link via)

Them Browncoats, they're all over the place

Sometimes the internet produces unexpected little joys, such as the second comment to this post (which doesn't particularly whet my appetite):

#2 posted by Poustman, June 10, 2009 9:35 AM:

This is how the Reavers got started, methinks.

Rainy day misc.

• Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year winners. I really like these two. This one gives me vertigo. 

• Towards a grand unification of cutlery (via)

• The science news cycle seems somewhat familiar (via)

• Some lovely packages (via)

Hoopy froods

Seeing that Towel Day was approaching, I nearly ordered this, but I'm making do with the Flickr towelday group instead.

Saw Star Trek last Wednesday; been rewatching Firefly; have so many things to write that I expect my head'll explode before the end of the week, which is exactly why my towel and I are now headed for the cottage to work. No internets, no worries, see.

Here's one of my favourite bits -- the one I can really identify with -- from THHGTTG (well, from So long, and thanks for all the fish, actually):

In Santa Barbara they stopped at a fish restaurant in what seemed to be a converted warehouse.

Fenchurch had red mullet and said it was delicious.

Arthur had a swordfish steak and said it made him angry.

He grabbed a passing waitress by the arm and berated her.

"Why's this fish so bloody good?" he demanded, angrily.

"Please excuse my friend," said Fenchurch to the startled waitress. "I think he's having a nice day at last."

Grumble

Why is it that we never have this sort of equestrian sports photography in Finland? Gotta love photos #5, #7 and #19.

Newbie

Tim Jonze has never seen Star Wars, and writes about what he thinks happens in the film:

The baddies are all white and called Stormtroopers and led by a black stormtrooper called Darth Vader. The baddies storm (that's all they can do - that and troop) on to the white circular ship. It's time for Luke to be heroic and say to his collection of really weird mates: "May the force be with you." It works: the baddies all end up getting killed, whereas nobody on the goodies' side worth caring about dies. This is some achievement considering it's an army of trained soldiers against a 2ft robot and a camp rug.

And then he actually watches the film:

My version began with the words: "It is the future." The actual version kicks off with: "A long time ago ..." Not the best of starts! Although you can probably forgive me for thinking that intergalactic robot battles might not have happened some time around the Tudor period.

(...) My worst mistake, though, was Obi-Wan Kenobi. There was I, imagining this flying ninja thing with long legs and an alien's head. Turns out it's Alec Guinness in my mum's dressing gown! Who knew?

Lights off

Earth Hour photos you can switch "on" and "off". Quite a difference in Hong Kong, Jakarta and Las Vegas.

For fellow Finns

Taru sormusten herrasta -leffamaraton Mansessa keskiviikkona. Lippuja näkyy olevan jäljellä vähän alle 20 per näytös.

Kaikki kolme näkee 13 eurolla. Menkää. Toivon salaa, että tämä on Finnkinon aprillipila.

Wow

The things you can do with sheep (definitely work safe)!

Sheep crack users

Picked up a copy of New Scientist in Tampere on Saturday. Feedback always makes me smile:

Unusual paper titles

SOMETIMES the titles of press releases about advances in technology can read entirely lucidly to people familiar with the field, but are decidedly obscure to everyone else. An example received by our colleague Jeff Hecht in Boston is "Bunkspeed Releases Free Beta Plug-In for Rhino".

On other occasions, titles of learned papers offer greater clarity, but at the cost of conjuring up mental pictures you could do without. Felix Naughton directed us to one such example in Life Sciences, vol 48, p 2129: "Inhalational administration of cocaine in sheep".

Coincidences

Strangely enough, Tom Bombadil was never my favourite character either. And I think "Fuck it, we're all going to die" sounds like a very interesting children's book.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Neil Gaiman

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Mark Sanford
NASA Name Contest

Sanitary Tiara

• Poor manatee! (via)

• Random band name and album cover generator. It uses random Wikipedia articles, quotations and photos recently uploaded on Flickr. The first album I got was Endurance of the human bladder by Phil Martelli, and then other gems by groups called "Sanitary Tiara", "Gaseous Arthritis", "Gastric Madonnas" and "Redundant Boozers" (who sound like the perfect St. Patrick's day band). (via)

• This is how you should correct errors in printed media.

• Stuffed monsters designed by children (via)

• Vita, a beautiful monochrome photo set, some frozen nature photos, and photo clichés (via 1, 2)

Smitten

Official Map of the Verse:

"The Complete and Official Map of the Verse is the first comprehensive guide to the worlds of Joss Whedon's Firefly and Serenity. The map – which is available in a Z-folded packet for easy reference or rolled for framing and display – measures 25 x 38 inches and documents the location, relative sizes and names of the 215 terraformed worlds and moons, seven gas giants, seven protostars and five distinct star systems that comprise the star cluster known as The Verse."

There's also The Verse in Numbers (pdf). Both found via.

Showing my TV ignorance

A nifty meme snatched from next door (can blogs have "next door"? they can now!):

Empire Magazine has revealed its list of the 50 Greatest TV Shows ever:

1. Bold the shows you watch/used to watch.
2. Italic the shows you've seen at least one episode of.
3. Strikeout the shows you've never seen.
4. Post your answers.

Not too surprising

German mathematician, dead for 450 years, gets TV bill:

"We received a letter saying 'To Mr Adam Ries' on it, with the request to pay his television and radio fees," said Annegret Muench, who now heads the club.

Muench returned the letter to the GEZ with a note explaining the request had come too late because Ries had died in 1559, centuries before the invention of television and radio. She nonetheless received a reminder a few weeks later."

Random fact of the day

The short-eared elephant shrew is one of the few monogamous mammals, and actually not a shrew but a sengi. See the nose in action (and a very long tongue as a bonus).

Photo: Olaf Leillinger / Wikimedia Commons
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

Eerily true

"No offence, future man, but is everyone in your time retarded?" (via)

Baboon metaphysics

• A complete set of Star Wars Matryoshka dolls (found via). Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2D2, Yoda.

• I'm no great fan of the Harry Potter movies¹ (even though I love the books to bits), so it's sort of weird that the new HP:HBP trailer actually makes me want to go and see the film in July. Signs of a fragmented mind, surely?

• The shortlist for oddest book titles of the year

• Five ways your brain is messing with your head

• Soviet food posters (via)

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1    Except for a few characters, whose casting is spot on with what I had imagined: Professors Snape, Lupin and Trelawney, Bellatrix Lestrange, and perhaps Malfoy Senior.

New week

• Oklahoma legislator to Richard Dawkins: "We don't like your kind 'round these parts. Sigh. (via)

• The secrets of belly button fluff have been revealed. And what a study it was: Dr Steinhauser "made his discovery after studying 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button". (via)

• A fine collection of vintage razor blade packages (via)

• Some beautiful old things and Star Wars as classic art

• ...speaking of which:

Oh dear. Off she goes again.

So. International Women's Day. While it feels nice on one level, on several other levels this particular day of global celebration makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Women are smart, funny, amazing, brilliant, lovable, sexy, etc., no doubt about that. Women's achievements don't get enough attention, recognition and media coverage, no doubt about that either. But 1) how do we define a woman, and 2) which qualities are considered OK or not so OK for women, in our culture or elsewhere? 

So, for me March 8th should be more like "International Women's Day (even for those who can't identify with most of the female population of this planet)". A bit long, yes, I agree.

And I do have a genuine problem with Women's Day gifts and flowers. (Not that I'm getting or even expecting any of those.) Women, and people in general, deserve respect every day of the year, so what's with the gifts? Let's bribe them and be total arses for the remaining 364 days of the year? (Yes, this is how I tend to feel about Mother's Day too.) Now that I think of it, I also have a problem with how the World Book Day is celebrated in Finland, i.e. "a book for him and a rose for her". Dare to bring me a rose on that day, and you'll end up eating the bloody thing. No sensible creature wants a piece of a dying plant when you can have a book.

Oh, and when did things get this complicated?

Whichever way you're celebrating the Women's Day (or not), have a look at

• some beautiful roads (via), 

• what a bunch of hypocrites are trying to do (via),

• thirteen writing prompts; I especially like #1: "Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man's friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not mention the girlfriend, the man, the woman, or the argument" (via), and

• how to graph song titles in rather ingenious ways:

I can has lunch?

This is probably one of the coolest things CCTV cameras have captured in Finland: an Eagle owl eating its prey on the roof of the main post office in Helsinki. The best bit -- scary but funny -- begins at 05:00.

...in a hurry, part two

• Critters and 99 other illustrated horror movie posters (more) (via)

• How accurate was 2001: A Space Odyssey about the future? (via)

• I've been watching Star Trek: TNG after getting this box set from the pre-Christmas sale (a mere 49 discs!), and That Jean-Luc Picard really is extraordinarily funny. "ROTFL" doesn't even begin to describe it. The last time I laughed this hard at something on YT must've been the original Kahen kilon siika and its Pingu remix.

Dump

• Greek to me: mapping mutual incomprehension (via)

• Crappy balloon animals, including snake, eel and earthworm (via)

• How web skimming is different from the way we read books. A very interesting article, especially if you write for both printed and online media. (via) 

• A panoramic image of Easter Island statues (via)

• A photographic survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms. Beautiful. (via)

Hurry, she's in a hurry

• Worst food product ever? (via)

• "I can has a vowel?" T-shirt goodness. (via)

• The 15 stranges college courses in America (these remind me of a few Finnish ones). The saddest thing is that I'd love to take The Science of Harry Potter, Zombies in Popular Media, Myth and Science Fiction and Far Side Entomology. (via)

• Love at Thirty-Two Degrees is a marvellous poem by Katherine Larson. (via) 

The astronomer gazes out,   
one eye at a time,

to a sky that expands   
even as it falls apart

like a paper boat dissolving in bilge.
Furious, fuming stars.

When his migraine builds &
lodges its dark anchor behind

the eyes, he fastens the wooden buttons
of his jacket, & walks

outside with a flashlight
to keep company with the barn owl   

who stares back at him with eyes
that are no greater or less than

a spiral galaxy. (...)

There and back again

Inane blogging: what better way to try and adjust to normal daily life again? The manuscript's finished, and I've also managed to wrap up a dozen of other Very Important Things To Do (which will, in ten years' time, seem totally unimportant, I'm sure).

Random thoughts after months of internet and leisure time deprivation:

• Watched Stranger Than Fiction on dvd in January and again on the telly last night. I like the script, but let it also be known that you can't get more lovely than Emma Thompson in this film. What an awesome, talented woman, and what an awesome, talented portrayal of a quirky British writer. It's saying something that I've watched the film twice already -- even though I have an unusually strong dislike of Will Ferrell and don't really like Dustin Hoffman either.

• Music finds:
• • Antje Duvekot has the sort of rich, earthy and totally disarming voice you can't but adore, even if hers isn't my favourite genre of music. Her lyrics aren't half bad either: check out Poisonjester's Mask.
  • Lonely Drifter Karen is also quite far from what I usually listen to, but that doesn't make their music any less delightful. This article gives a pretty accurate description: "...a delicious concoction taking in Weimar Republic cabaret, Parisian café music, Mittel-European classical traditions, rustic Italian ballads, gipsy folk and more, all topped by the whimsical, occasionally child-like songwriting of frontwoman Tanja Frinton."

• On the book front: Christopher Hitchens, Master and Margarita (whee, audiobook!), Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, Tim the Tiny Horse (don't ask). Still haven't found the time to bite into Neal Stephenson's Anathema or Matter by Iain M. Banks -- both are simply too long, so I'm mainly having short fiction or poems by Italo Calvino and Julio Cortázar as a light snack in bed. Also anticipating my n^th reread of The Left Hand of Darkness, which I'm sort of saving for an exceptionally miserable day: with this book, the heavens open and everything is good again, because it's a bloody brilliant piece of fiction (the bloody brilliant piece of fiction, in fact), and everything but jolly. I can't stand jolly things on miserable days.

• Addendum: the mysteries of iPods! Mine suddenly claims I have no audiobooks, but Charles Darwin, Douglas Adams, J.K. Rowling and Bill Bryson now appear on the artist list (but not, of course, Stephen Fry or Richard Dawkins, who actually read the audiobooks). Beginning to suspect the thing hates me.

Bestsellerin varjoon jäänyt teos

Toimihenkilöunionin lehden rivi-ilmoituspalsta tänään:

"Halutaan ostaa Darwinin kirja Lasien synty."

A wombat, I ask you. A Wombat?!

News items probably don't get much weirder than this one, not even old news items. It has all the right ingredients: a wombat, an orchard worker (what a romantic word this is: orchard), and a lawyer whose short statement ("alcohol was not a problem on that day", instead of "was not intoxicated" or something; why "not a problem"?) is so absurd in its own well-mannered and quiet sort of way that it leaves me quite speechless. The things they do with words, eh?

New Zealand man sentenced after claiming to have been raped by a wombat:

"Arthur Ross Cradock, a 48-year-old orchard worker, admitted in the Nelson District Court yesterday to the charge of using a phone for a fictitious purpose, after calling police with the message, "I've been raped by a wombat".

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that on the afternoon of February 11 Cradock called the police communications centre, threatening to "smash the filth"  if they arrived at his home that night.

When asked if he had an emergency, he replied "yes", Mr Stringer said.

On a second subsequent call to the communications centre, Cradock told police he was being raped by a wombat at his Motueka address, and sought their immediate help.

He called police again soon after, and gave his full name, saying he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

"I'll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he's pulled out," Cradock told the operator at the communications centre, who had no idea what he was talking about, Mr Stringer said.

"Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all," Cradock then told the operator.

Mr Stringer said alcohol had played a big part in Cradock's life. However, defence lawyer Michael Vesty said alcohol was not a problem that day."

Wheeeee

Neil Jordan to helm Gaiman's Graveyard Book.

(A huge manuscript is staring me on this very table, if a manuscript can stare with its nonexistent papery eyes, and saying it has to be finished in two weeks' time. See you soon.)