Various

  • Fantasy Magazine describes Exo-Squad as “nearly influential,” which seems about right. It was never anything like a hit, and wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an American cartoon show this ambitious or well plotted. Especially one that wasn’t a comedy. Most of the first season is available on Hulu, if you’ve never seen it.

  • You know, it would be cool if Tina Fey played Sarah Palin on this week’s Saturday Night Live. But I’m really hoping no one will have to play her — or even remember who she is — after Election Day.

  • Wow, I knew the Large Hadron Collider had generated some silly fears that it might, y’know, destroy the universe, but actual death threats? (Well, okay, maybe not so much. I think the headline plays up that angle a little too much, but still.)

    • I guess it’s worth repeating, but the LHC won’t destroy the universe. It may rock you in the head, but the universe is pretty safe. If the sort of particle collisions that are planned could create a black hole, as has been suggested, then those black holes are already being created all the time in the Earth’s atmosphere by the collision of cosmic rays. But if you’re still worried, and want status updates on whether or not the universe has been destroyed, check here.

  • Theodora Goss: “I find it funny and a little disturbing, the extent to which children’s books reinforce a mammalcentric point of view. Mommy frogs take care of their baby frogs, mommy spiders take care of their baby spiders. No wonder when Ophelia sees butterflies, one larger and one smaller, she assumes one is the mommy and one is the baby. Intellectually she knows that butterflies come from caterpillars. If you asked her where butterflies come from, she would tell you: caterpillars. But we react to things emotionally, not intellectually, first. So, baby butterflies.”

3 thoughts on “Various”

  1. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s a little bemused and slightly uncomfortable by that universal mammalcentricism in kid’s stories. I mean, I enjoyed Finding Nemo, but the entire time I was watching it, this squirmy little voice in the back of my head kept insisting that it was a really bad idea (on a many levels) to use r-strategy critters to illustrate a heart-warming tale of paternal love.

  2. It’s not just books – it’s become universal. At the zoo, if 3 animals are exhibited together, they are automatically mommy, daddy and baby. In the tortoise yard we have 2 big 500 lb males, and a small female, 150 lbs. But because of the size differences, well, you guessed it. And I must confess, I get a strange sort of perverse pleasure at the traumatization of these innocent children when “mommy” starts humping “baby” before their wide little eyes.

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