Movies
drorzel | August 28, 2013I've been revising a chapter on collaboration in science for the book-in-progress, making an analogy to team sports. And it occurred to me as I was trying to find a way to procrastinate, that while science is a highly collaborative endeavor, most of the popular stories that get told about science are not. There's no Hoosiers of science out there.
Now, admittedly, the sample of great pop-culture stories about science period is pretty small. But what does exist mostly concerns individual struggles-- the lone genius who can revolutionize science by just thinking about it in isolation, but who…
drorzel | July 29, 2013Over at Galileo's Pendulum, Matthew Francis expresses an opinion that's sure to get him in trouble with the Inquisition and placed under house arrest: Carl Sagan's Cosmos isn't all that:
However, even taking into account the differences in TV between 1980 and 2013, the show is very slow-paced at times. I’m not talking about the mellow oh-so-1970s Vangelis score, or Sagan’s measured style of speech: I mean the obvious stretching of material to make hour-long episodes. I have a long attention span, so I’m not saying Cosmos should be like the frenetic Star Trek reboot; I’m just saying that a…
drorzel | November 16, 2012Over at Tor.com, Kate has begun a chapter-by-chapter re-read of The Hobbit, and has some thoughts on Chapter 1. It's full of interesting commentary about characters and literary technique, but let's get right to the important bit: Physics!
Kate mentions in passing in the post that the Hobbit style round door with a knob in the middle seems a suboptimal design choice, however pretty it may look once Peter Jackson's set designers get done with it. This draws a couple of comments noting that the doorknob-in-the-middle thing is an English affectation, and pointing to the Prime Minister's…
drorzel | May 8, 2012I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining "Explosions don't make noise in space!" is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I'm generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an enjoyable story. On the other hand, though, I am a professional physicist, and it's hard to turn that off completely.
Weirdly, one thing that tends to push me toward complaining about the science is when people start doing "The Science of ______" pieces, as both MSNBC and io9 did for The Avengers, and…
drorzel | February 12, 2012We send SteelyKid to preschool at the Jewish Community Center in Schenectady, because when we looked at day care programs back in the day, they had the one we liked best. This is a mixed blessing in a number of ways-- they close for a lot of religious holidays when nothing else closes, creating some awkwardness with child care and our jobs. On the plus side, though, it's a chance to learn about another culture, and as an extra bonus, most of what we learn is filtered through SteelyKid, making it extra cute.
For example, on the way home Friday, she was chattering quietly to herself in the back…
drorzel | December 13, 2011And what happened then?
Well, in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day.
And then the true meaning
Of Christmas came through
And the Grinch found the strength
Of ten Grinches, plus two
-- Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas
It's nearly Christmas, so SteelyKid keeps demanding to watch the two classic Christmas specials we have recorded, Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Watching these over and over again, my thoughts naturally turn to physics, and what sort of physics you could do with these shows.
The…
drorzel | August 11, 2011Fred Clark has an idea for you:
Start with the housekeeping staff at a Manhattan hotel. They've just learned that their next contract includes no raise, but doubles the employee share of the cost of health benefits. The Norma Rae of this bunch -- let's say Jennifer Lopez* -- convinces them to strike, but they have little leverage and she's struggling to hold the line. These women can't afford the new contract, but they can't afford a lengthy strike either.
As it happens, this very same Manhattan hotel is the site of negotiations between the NFL Players Union and the owners. Mixed up in all…
drorzel | July 19, 2011I've been going through the manuscript for the book making up a list of glossary words (a frighteningly long list), and also noting miscellaneous pop-cultural references-- quotes, direct mentions, paraphrases, etc. I'm sure I've missed a few-- many of them occur in section titles, which my eyes tend to slide right over as I read (in the previous book, one section was titled "Clever Section Title Here" until distressingly late in the process)-- but for your amusement, here's what I have at the moment, in approximately the order in which they appear in the book:
Star Wars
The Adventures of…
drorzel | July 15, 2011Prompted by this and this, among other things, one of the critical questions of the modern age:
Harry Potter is a:
Magic is a classical phenomenon, no matter what you may have heard, so you can choose one and only one option.
drorzel | June 10, 2011If you look at the schedule of events for DAMOP next week, you will see that there is a movie showing scheduled for Tuesday night: Real Genius. This seems like an excellent excuse to run a poll:
Real Genius is:survey software
While the meeting will largely involve quantum mechanics, this is a purely classical poll, so you can choose only one answer, not a superposition of multiple answers.
drorzel | March 16, 2011I got home very late last night after my talk in New Paltz, the cold that I've been developing for the last week has hit full strength, and I'm giving an exam this morning. So here's something completely silly:
Which sister do you prefer?Market Research
For bonus points, guess which of these songs I have on my iPod.
drorzel | March 4, 2011As has been mentioned numerous other places, ESPN is backing a new Bill Simmons project, which basically sounds like a pop-culture blog network kind of thing, headlined by Simmons and Chuck Klosterman. I saw this a while ago (I think I may have tagged a press release for a Links Dump), but was reminded of it yesterday when listening to Simmons's podcast fro ESPN, which was a monster two-part thing with Klosterman as the guest (part 1, part 2).
I'm not much of a podcast guy-- I listen to Simmons and Klosterman, and that's about it-- but this is right in my wheelhouse. It's two guys, both of…
drorzel | December 11, 2010It's time now to talk about two of the greatest mentor figures in the literature of the fantastic. You know their stories well, I'm sure, but the parallels between them are eerie:
Both are gruff but kindly mentor figures who provide crucial guidance for the young and naive protagonist of the story as he moves out into a scary world to complete an important quest.
Both fall into a chasm while battling a fearsome monster to allow the protagonist time to flee.
Both return from their apparent death when least expected, just in time to save the day.
Both have awesomely impressive beards.
I am…
drorzel | November 22, 2010I don't think this one requires any explanation:
Hello:customer surveys
Staying up watching the Giants game last night was not conducive to getting anything useful done this morning.
drorzel | August 28, 2010Over at Torque Control, Niall Harrison is doing a Short Story Club, hosting discussions of SF short fiction. As I always vaguely regret not reading enough short fiction to make sensible nominations for the Hugos, this seemed like a good opportunity to read a selection of stories that a smart person with pretty good taste thought were worth discussing. As a bonus, these all appear to be available online for free, so it doesn't require me to buy, let alone subscribe to, one of the big magazines.
The first story up in this year's edition is "The Things" by Peter Watts. It's a fast read, if you…
drorzel | August 17, 2010So, I blew off stuff I should've been doing, and went to see a matinee of the Scott Pilgrim movie this morning (it's very much not Kate's sort of thing, and I would feel guilty ditching her with SteelyKid to see it during the evening or on a weekend). Actually, first I went to Borders for half an hour to read the last volume of the comic, so I could compare the two endings-- I should probably buy these, because I really like the story, but I balk at shelling out that much money for something that I can read in half an hour in a bookstore.
I liked it a lot, but then, I'm a sucker for this sort…
drorzel | August 6, 2010In comments to yesterday's post about my favorite Many-Worlds story, a couple of people mention "All the Myriad Ways," a Larry Niven short story. I don't think I've ever actually read the story, but it gets brought up all the time, so I'm familiar with the concept. It's an angle on Many-Worlds that I don't like, and has something in common with the central conceit of Inception, which is also not high on my list of literary tropes, though my reaction isn't anywhere near as negative as Scott's.
If you're not familiar with it, here's the summary from Wikipedia:
A police detective, pondering a…
drorzel | August 6, 2010I was going to write something serious about physics, but it's my student's last day, so we're taking him to lunch. So here's a silly poll to entertain you until I get back:
If I suspected I might be living in a dream, but couldn't be sure, I would:survey software
You can only choose one answer... Unless it's all a dream! In which case, you should slap yourself repeatedly for dreaming about blog polls, because, really.
drorzel | August 6, 2010We haven't yet gotten to the point where we're comfortable leaving SteelyKid with a babysitter, so seeing the movie everybody's talking about took a while. Since she's off at Gammy's, though, we got a rare night to ourselves and went to the movies.
My immediate reaction is that it's great to see a movie that's kind of smart and not based on anything dominating the box office. If this helps break us out of the endless cycle of re-makes and comic-book movies, I'll be as happy as anyone.
This is an extremely well-done movie, with everything shot, acted, and choreographed very well. There was…
drorzel | May 8, 2010While it's not aprt of the official LaserFest package of stuff, Physics World is marking the 50th anniversary of the laser with a couple of really nice pieces on lasers in science and popular culture:
Where next for the laser interviews six laser experts-- Claire Max of UCSC, Bill Phillips of NIST, Steven Block of Stanford, science writer Jeff Hecht, John Madey of Hawaii's FEL lab, and Eric Gustafson of Caltech and LIGO.-- about the current status of lasers in their areas of science, and the future prospects.
From ray-gun to Blu-Ray is a very nice survey of lasers and laser-like devices in…