Entertainment
grrlscientist | January 6, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Spectacled Owl, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is yet another fascinating stop-motion video depicting the creation of another of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's paintings. This time, it's a Spectacled Owl, a widespread bird of the American tropics that favors heavy woods near water and feeds heavily on crabs.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
grrlscientist | January 5, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Northern Casque-headed Treefrog, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is another fascinating stop-motion video by artist Carel Brest van Kempen. This video documents the creation of an acrylic painting of an unusual Panamanian frog, the Northern Casque-headed Treefrog.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
grrlscientist | January 4, 2010tags: art, wildlife art, stop-motion painting, Stargazing, Peregrine Falcon, birds, entertainment, Carel Brest van Kempen, streaming video
This is a fascinating stop-motion video of the creation of artist Carel Brest van Kempen's painting, Stargazing. This painting tells a cautionary tale about a Peregrine Falcon that has been poisoned by pesticides sprayed in a person's yard.
Carel Brest van Kempen published a stunning book, Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding [my review] and writes the art blog that goes by the same name, that might be of interest to you.
pharyngula | December 30, 2009I saw the most awesome tech demo reel tonight — a little show called Avatar. It was well worth the admission cost, but you should be prepared with reasonable expectations.
There isn't a plot. Well, actually, there is…but it's so predictable that they might as well have left it out. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy on rails. Don't worry about it, as long as you don't expect to be challenged or surprised, it's fine.
There are good guys and bad guys, and the good guys are really, really good, and the bad guys are really, really bad. Like straight from the associate of arts degree program at the…
pharyngula | December 22, 2009Tonight, on NOVA, it's The Last Great Ape, promising to have lots of sex and violence (violence provided by the genus Homo, I'm afraid). These are very cool apes, well worth watching.
pharyngula | December 20, 2009Richard Dawkins will be interviewed on Australian TV tonight, at 8pm. Since the news down under is full of this nonsense about the canonization of Mary McKillop, I hope they'll talk about that madness, and that Dawkins will introduce a little reason into the media.
grrlscientist | December 19, 2009tags: Chainsaw Illusion, magician, optical illusion, streaming video
I ran across this amazing illusion recently and have been intrigued: how did the magician do this?
Was the guy who was chopped in half actually two people? Was the short guy running around at the beginning of the scene the bottom half? Here's another view of the trick;
Apparently, "half-men" have been known before;
pharyngula | December 13, 2009Although, when the temperatures are down around -25°C, we people in the Northern hemisphere don't associate Christmas with drinking white wine in the sun. The sentiment is great, though, so I'll do my part and overlook the interesting seasonal reversal there.
grrlscientist | December 10, 2009tags: It Hasn't Happened Yet, entertainment, comedy, satire, funny, fucking hilarious, Christmas music, William Shatner, streaming video
I was hanging around on my little internet radio station last night, playing some music (of course), because none of my possessions have arrived in Germany yet -- including all of my music. This "Christmas song" is one that never fails to make me laugh, so I had to share it with you this morning.
Isn't that a great band that Shatner has? And the soloist, Fleming McWilliams, who backed him up is amazing .. and that note that she hit at the end .. wow!
pharyngula | December 6, 2009Look what Roy Zimmerman had to say on this video:
This one goes out to PZ Myers and the phine pholks at Pharyngula ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula)
"Christmas On Mars" will be featured on my "Real American" CD, due out early in 2010. As always, it'll be available on http://royzimmerman.com/ and at iTunes.
That's what we need, Martian Christmas carols!
pharyngula | November 3, 2009Tonight! On PBS' Nova! It's a promising new documentary on human evolution, Becoming Human.
I'm going to try to watch it, but unfortunately, my glasses are broken, and I just got back from an eye exam, so my pupils are dilated and the world is a far too bright blur. I'll try to see the glowing blobs moving on my TV screen anyway.
pharyngula | October 24, 2009Especially since the designer turned the description into a humanist manifesto!
pharyngula | October 20, 2009All it takes is an autotuner and a few well-known science popularizers.
pharyngula | October 11, 2009The Discovery Channel is having a documentary about Ardipithecus ramidus at 8pm Central time (in about half an hour). I'm planning to set my work aside for a while and fix a bowl of hot soup — it's cold here, with a snow storm on the way — and see if they actually do it right.
First half hour wasn't bad: nice overview of the practice of finding old bones, and a good illustration of the fragmentary nature of the fossil. At the same time, though, it's also doing a good job of showing how they know the pieces of Ardi are from a single individual.
S l o w i n g d o w n. So far this program is…
pharyngula | October 9, 2009
Here are the lyrics:
Don't need no god.
Don't need no eternal paternal god.
Don't need no reassuringly protective
good and evil in perspective god.
Don't need no imported distorted,
inflated updated,
holy roller, save your soul, or
anaesthetisingly opiate gods.
Don't need no "all creatures that on Earth do dwell"
be good or you go to Hell god.
Don't need no Hare Krishna Hare Krishna,
Hail Mary, Hail Mary god.
Got no yen for zen, Baghavad-Gita or Gurdjieff.
No Mormon, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist god,
no absolutes beyond refute,
no reverential preferential Judaic Messianic god.
No Bibles…
pharyngula | October 7, 2009This is a promotional video for CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. When I meet any Australian scientist in the future, I will be expecting them to break into song.
pharyngula | October 7, 2009Be warned, this tribute is a song in Satan's genre, that loud rock music.