- Creationists take on Dr. Pepper. They do know he’s not a real doctor, don’t they?
- Speaking of which: Video Dial-a-Doctor Seen Easing Shortage in Rural U.S.
- Tree removal for space shuttle arrival tempers excitement:
For some South L.A. residents, the excitement of Endeavour rumbling through their neighborhoods en route to the California Science Center faded when they learned that 400 trees had to be cut down.
- Birds Hold Funerals for Their Dead
- And finally, Johnny Carson’s senior thesis: How to Write Comedy for Radio [via]
medicine
Wednesday various
- How Doctors Die [via]
- A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead
- Every Beatles song played at once. Can you make it to the end? It isn’t easy, and I’m not sure it rewards you for your efforts — audibly, that is; some of the comments are quite funny — but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless. [via]
- “Won’t it make you lose your wits, / Writing groats and saying grits?” Can you pronounce all these words correctly? [via]
- And finally, Warren Ellis on what sounds like the worst computer repair problem ever:
One day, a few years ago, my backups all got corrupted, and my backup device died. I didn’t have online backups at the time. I’ll fix that on Sunday, I thought, as I was under deadline pressure. Saturday evening, my main machine died in flames. Sent it off for data recovery. The guy running the data recovery shop took it in and then went off to Europe for an operation. And died on the operating table. Came back to the shop to get my machine, because no-one was answering the phone, to find it boarded up, the (mostly off-the-books, apparently) employees scattered to the four winds, and the shop stripped down to the plaster. Not a computer left in there — not even mine. I lost everything, all notes and scripts for work in progress as well as the entire archive.
Tuesday various
- “The days of aliens spouting gibberish with no grammatical structure are over…” Creating a new language for A Game of Thrones
- Along the same lines, 20 awesomely untranslatable words from around the world. I particularly like
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start†[via]
- Are we truly living in the age of fanfiction?
What’s been truly bizarre, though, is the way the mainstream has slowly headed in the same direction, and without anyone noticing it, we seem to have handed over our entire industry to the creation of fanfiction on a corporate level, and at this point, I’m not sure how we’re expecting the pendulum to ever swing back. I know people love to blame Spielberg and Lucas for creating the modern blockbuster age, but at least when they decided to pay tribute to their inspirations, they did so in interesting ways. Spielberg has talked about how his frustrations at hearing that only English filmmakers could direct James Bond movies led to the creation of Indiana Jones, and Lucas was working out his love of Flash Gordon when he created “Star Wars.” Those are healthy ways to work through your love of something, and absolutely make sense as important pieces in the creative process. What’s scary is how these days, filmmakers wouldn’t bother with that last step, the part where you take your inspirations and run them through your own filter. Now, instead, we live in an age where we are simply doing the source material again and again and again, and where original creation seems to be almost frowned upon as a “risk.” [via]
- See also: they’re re-making Starship Troopers. And The Munsters. As a “dramatic re-imagining.”
- It’s so sad to see Monty Python members fight among themselves.
- Blackwater is changing its name. This is like if the Devil started asking us to call him Gus.[via]
- David Milch to adapt William Faulkner? I am so there.
- They’re coming to crowd-fund you, Barbara… ‘Living Dead’ Fans Digging Up Funds to Keep Chapel from Going Under
- Bruce Wayne’s medical records [via]
- And finally, I haven’t seen the new Tintin movie, but this fan-made opening sequence is really quite wonderful. [via]
The Adventures of Tintin from James Curran on Vimeo.
Wednesday various
- Mike Daisey remembers Steve Jobs:
Mr. Jobs’s magic has its costs. We can admire the design perfection and business acumen while acknowledging the truth: with Apple’s immense resources at his command he could have revolutionized the industry to make devices more humanely and more openly, and chose not to. If we view him unsparingly, without nostalgia, we would see a great man whose genius in design, showmanship and stewardship of the tech world will not be seen again in our lifetime. We would also see a man who in the end failed to “think different,†in the deepest way, about the human needs of both his users and his workers.
- Actress sues IMDb for revealing that she’s totally old and gross. It’s an interesting case, although I don’t think IMDB has a responsibility to lie in order to combat Hollywood’s unfortunate age- and sexism.
- Mysterious paper sculptures [via]
- I’m sure by now you’ve heard this, but it’s still pretty remarkable: Online Gamers Make Discovery in HIV Battle
- And finally, learning the wrong lesson from 127 Hours.
Tuesday various
- Third Triplet Born 11 Years After Her Sisters. It’s not as incredible as it sounds — frozen embryos, in vitro fertilization — but still. [via]
- Meet the woman without fear [via]
- Ricky Gervais on why he’s an atheist [via]
- “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa…in 3D!” (Though I guess it’s no sillier an idea than The Great Gatsby 3D…)
- And finally, Polite Dissent runs down The Best (and Worst) Comic Book Medicine of 2010.