Random Beach Bum

Random Beach Bum
Originally uploaded by cinemamurray.

It's rare that I like photos of me, but this one, I like.

Maybe it's because I look at this picture and see myself relaxed and happy in my Tilley Hat.

It is a damn comfortable hat.

Film at 11 (what time is it now?)

OK, experimenting with something - let's see if this FilmLoop thingie works.

Well, I'm back

Cinnamon Bay ,
originally uploaded by cinemamurray.

But it would have been so nice to stay.

I was simply amazed at how beautiful the Virgin Islands are, and specifically, St. John. And so easy to travel to from the Eastern Time Zone.

Terrific, relaxing vacation.

On a side note: there are so many more super rich Americans than I'd ever really thought about. In my daily life I'm sure I see them, but there, in the islands, it's completely clear who has not just money, but extreme amounts of it. Frankly, I'm not envious, just astounded. Who has the millions and the time to sail about the Caribbean in the spring for weeks at a time on multimillion dollar yachts? Apparently far more people than I ever imagined.

Well, good for them. Glad to see someone doing so well. As for me, I'll dream of going back sometime in coming years.

And I use to call a green pepper a mango.

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Another Reason Not to Live in Jurassic park

I like Florida well enough to visit, but I don't think I could live anywhere that dinosaurs crawl up into your back yard to eat your pets and bugs the size of your hand might land on your face in the middle of the night.

Alligator Knocks on Fla. Woman's Door: "So now the alligators are going door to door. When Lori Pachelli heard someone knocking at the door of her home in a gated community in this southwest Florida community earlier this week, she looked out to see an unwelcome visitor on her front stoop: an 8-foot alligator."

Another point in favor of nice, quiet Ohio. Nothing bad could happen here. No siree, Bob.

That is not an invitation for you to send me a list of all the bad things that could or have already happened here. Screwed up presidential elections do not compare to a freak'n eight foot lizard knocking on your door. Yeah, "Land shark". Not so funny now, is it?

humor, florida, ohio, SNL

Not jumping on the bandwagon, but running along side

I really hope they are fully committing to the complete cheesiness.

Film Article | Reuters.com: "As film back-stories go, this one is fairly serpentine. The Samuel L. Jackson thriller 'Snakes on a Plane,' which wrapped last September in Vancouver, went back before the cameras this month for five days of additional shooting in Los Angeles."

What they don't point out is that "Snakes On A Plane" is a long standing Hollywood in-joke/complaint. It represents the worse possible "high concept" idea and is a phrase equivalent to "what'cha gonna do?"

That someone really made it as a movie is both scary and funny. Scary if they were serious about it. Funny if they embrace the absurdity.

What is brilliant is that the studio understands the groundswell of internet attention and have gone back to shape the movie to more appeal to this audience.

I smell a hit!

humor, movies, snakes on a plane, hollywood

Just a few more weeks till spring break.

I may not come back.

Special Relativity Of Framing

When I saw the link to this article I though, "hmm, sounds link an interesting physics article." Sorry, no. It's a badly framed article about cosmic rays and their aging-like effects.

Was Einstein Wrong about Space Travel? | Science Blog: "Consider a pair of brothers, identical twins. One gets a job as an astronaut and rockets into deep space. The other stays on Earth. When the traveling twin returns home, he discovers he's younger than his brother.

This is Einstein's Twin Paradox, and although it sounds strange, it is absolutely true. The theory of relativity tells us that the faster you travel through space, the slower you travel through time. Rocketing to Alpha Centauri -- warp 9, please -- is a good way to stay young.

Or is it?"

OK, please, if you're going to do popular science writing, get it right. Einstein wasn't wrong. You, article writer person, are. Einstein is talking about the effects of speed. You're talking about the effects of cosmic rays. So, putting on my scifi hat, I simply raise shields, no more cosmic rays, but still special relativity effects when traveling at sub-light, but very fast speeds.

Now, if I'm traveling faster than light (see the article below), then we can also forget about relativity.

These 2 things have nothing to do with one another. The writer thought that they were being clever, but frankly, they're just confusing people that might not understand.

science, ftl, Einstein, aging, relativity, cosmic rays, tags

Just Bury Me In A Captain Kirk Coffin

CNN.com - Scenes from Homer found in Cyprus 'warrior tomb' - Mar 20, 2006 "In one large painting, Ulysses and his comrades escape from the blind Cyclops Polyphemos' cave, hidden under a flock of sheep. Another depicts a battle between Greeks and Trojans from the Iliad."

This is an astounding find, but reading about a warrior being buried in a coffin decorated with scenes from the Odyssey made me smile. Essentially, he was buried in a pop culture themed grave. It's like having a NASCAR funeral, or being buried in a box decorated with scenes of the Death Star and Ice Planet Hoth.

Don't get me wrong. I believe the Odyssey is one of our greatest stories - a remarkable piece of literature. But I also don't forget that it was popular entertainment for people 2,500 years ago.

OK, so I want to be cremated, after anything useful is removed. But before you light the fire, dress me in my Star Fleet best.

star trek, homer, humor

Faster than light travel possible after all?

After reading this article, I'm left with the question: Is faster than light possible? Evidence for Universe Expansion Found: "Physicists announced Thursday that they now have the smoking gun that shows the universe went through extremely rapid expansion in the moments after the big bang, growing from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space in less than a trillion-trillionth of a second."

If the universe expanded that quickly, did it physically move through space over that trillion-trillonth of a second? Or did it move from marble sized to universal sized in the same period without traveling through the intervening space?

The term "inflation" brings to my mind the expansion through space. Perhaps I'm getting it wrong, but if this is so, there's got to be some big implications.

Should we start construction on our starship fleet now?

science, ftl

Pope Randy the First Blogs Again

You are the the Hierophant card. The Hierophant, called The Pope in some decks, is the preserver of cultural traditions. After entering The Emperor's society, The Hierophant teaches us its wisdom. The Hierophant learns and teaches our cultural traditions. The discoveries our ancestors have made influence the present. Without forces such as The Hierophant who are able to interpret and communicate traditional lore, each generation would have to begin to learn anew. As a force that is concentrated on our past and our culture, The Hierophant can sometimes be stubborn and set in his ways. This is a negative trait he shares with his zodiac sign, Taurus. But like Taurus he is productive. His traditional lore can provide a source of inspiration for the creatively inclined, and his knowledge provides an excellent foundation for those who come into their own in the business world.

Image from: Morgan E. Cauthers-Knox.



Which Tarot Card Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

That's always bugged me, too

Dividing by zero is verboten. It's "undefined".

So, why doesn't someone get around to defining it?

All of which goes to show why I never got beyond my college intro Calculus course.

And also brings to mind another concept that was hard to get my mind around. What lies at the end of the universe? A friend in high school, forever immortalized in his theory, stated, "it's a wall of dirt clods." Hence the "Keith Carol Dirt Clod Theory."

The above picture brought to you by the Dynamic Einstein picture generator.

humor

Posting from the Dashboard

In my never ending quest to find the easiset way to post, I'm trying the new "Widget" for Mac OS X "Tiger".  

Not bad - I press F12, type a few lines, and there you go.  

Of course, no easy links, no pictures, only BOLD and itallic.


Easy, yes.  Helpful?  We'll see.

And so it begins again . . .

10,000 years ago humanity one it's first and perhaps greatest battle by destroying the vicious and highly intelligent evil, furry elephants. And now, the cycle begins again.

Study: Elephants Might Seek Revenge

What? You thought we were the only evil, intelligent race on this planet?

Save this for the "Famous Quotes from Evil Idiots" File

Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.com: "'Americans depend upon imports to fill the gap,' McGill said. 'No combination of conservation measures, alternative energy sources and technological advances could realistically and economically provide a way to completely replace those imports in the short or medium term.'"

I believe he was twirling the ends of his long mustache and laughing maniacal while saying this.

My Name Up In, er, Pictures!

OK, this is kinda cool:





Spell with Flickr

Another strong argument for the Long Tail

This excellent article, recommended by BoingBoing is a strong argument for the Long Tail, even though it doesn't specifically mention it. Making Light: The life expectancies of books

Think of all those books, in print for the blink of an eye, unavailable, lost, buried. Why? Greed and stupidity. The concept of the Long Tail tells us that every book ever written would be read by someone, if they easily available and inexpensive.

But publishers are greedy and they want things to never expire from copyright. They might be able to squeeze another nickel out of it. And here comes the stupidity part: if copyright periods were reasonable, they could make untold billions. That's right, billions.

Imagine a system where you could go to a site, say Amazon, and order any book, not just those currently in print. For a small fee, say $.99, just like buying a song from iTunes, you could download ANY book ever printed.

How many books have been printed in human history? Now, multiply that times $.99. Over what period? Probably everything ever printed would be purchased every year. I'm betting the turns would be more often than that. Billions and billions.

What's fair for copyright? As an author, I would be happy for my lifetime plus 25 years. That means I would profit from anything I created, and my heirs would too, and the world would profit forever after.

What about corporations? Here's my radical statement for the day: corporations are not people. They are legal shelters and agreements. Fuck 'em.

long tail, copyright, publishing

Just a little problem with my secret lair

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa team sees explosion on Moon

Nope, just a little problem with security on my secret lair.

Damn you, Mr. Bond!

The Holiday Letter - '06 Version

A happy holiday season to you and yours!

The Narrative Instinct

Sometimes you see something, in an unexpected place, some little, passing idea, that makes one more piece of the cosmic puzzle fall into place. Perhaps it will mean nothing to you, but for me, it is a critical piece of understanding both the universe and my own nature.

The New Yorker: FAR FROM NARNIA: "The day we sat down at the Eagle and Child, Pullman told me about a speech he had delivered in May, 2004, at a colloquium on science, literature, and human nature. In the speech, he speculated on the possible origins of this "very clear and strong" sense he has that there is, inherently, "a right shape and a wrong shape" for any given story. Where do these shapes come from, and how can he recognize them with such certainty? Not surprisingly, Pullman rejects the notion that he's receiving direction from some "higher power" when he apprehends that the story he's working on is either whole or broken. His certainty might be a sophisticated form of cultural conditioning, he supposes, or simply the gift of experience. Because Pullman is an admirer of "The Language Instinct," the book by the evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, I suggested that, if linguistic grammar is hardwired, perhaps a grammar of narrative is, too. "I don't think that's implausible, but we just don't know," he said."

If you don't know Pinker, get yourself directly over to your local library, better yet to amazon.com and load up, starting with "How The Mind Works" and yes, "The Language Instinct." Oh, and don't forget, "The Blank Slate," where Pinker postulates that we may also have built in modules for ethics as well, centered on the key concept of fairness.

Do we sense the shape of a tale? Do we know a bad story from a good? Damn straight we do! And I don't believe it's just a matter of conditioning. Humans are story tellers and hunger equally for a good tale. And we know when a story is rightly told. Mr. Pullman does indeed know this, the part of telling a good story, that is. We'll have to leave it to Mr. Pinker to ferret out the actual hardware for making it all work.

Thanks to Hedwig for pointing out this excellent article.

his dark materials, new yorker, steven pinker