Hey good folks of the interwebs. You've probably already seen the viral video regarding Joseph Kony and the pleas for donations to the Invisible Children of Uganda. What you probably haven't seen are the critical and skeptical responses to the viral movement. I'd like to share some of them here.
Kony 2012 exploded so quickly through social media like Facebook and Twitter that it became enough of a meme to grant an entry in the Know Your Meme database. It's a good place to start, but here's a little graphic meme that illustrates the problem in an absurd and yet still serves as a primer to the issue. Here's a strangely astute response to the issue from a notable YouTuber, Skweezy Jibbs, know for his colorful rants:
I also enjoyed The Juice Media's most recent Rap News feature relating to the issue. If you haven't seen any of these, I highly recommend going back through their videos and watch a few. I think this is one of the most intelligent and entertaining independent news review sources available, after The Daily Show of course.
Finally, here are some words on a page that call into the question not only the validity of the Kony 2012 movement and the Invisible Children campaign, but also the skeptical responses and casual dismissal of it.
My suggestion, if you're inclined to take any action, would be to avoid the Invisible Children charity and instead donate to a more reputable organization like one supported by GiveWell or one of my favorite secular organizations, Doctors Without Borders.
Hey there folks. I have a couple of things to share with you today.
First up, if you're not playing Realm of the Mad God right now you should be. It's fast paced, easy to play, and you'll be addicted quite easily. You can even play it in your browser. Go try it out, now!
Second, if you haven't seen the viral ad for Dollar Shave Club already, go check it out. I hate to admit it, but this kind of ad campaign works for me. I might just end up signing up, if the shipping and handling isn't too bad, but only after I work my way through my current pile of Costco blades.
Hello again folks. Hope you're all having a good Express Your Love Day, whether you're expressing it to a significant other, your family, pets, or even yourself.
If you're looking for a last minute card to give that special someone, might I recommend one of these excellent options from The Oatmeal.
XKCD's recent comic sums up most of my feelings about this time of year.
Australian songsmith Tim Minchin isn't afraid to offer his opinion on what true love is all about. Here are a couple samples. Enjoy...
We do indeed live in interesting times, if one were to judge by they subject matter of our media. In particular, here are a couple very interesting trailers for new films that I do plan on watching. That's all for now. Enjoy.
How quickly a year can go by and without a word from the egotists. If my confederates are anything like me then they got bogged down with their own daily lives and had trouble summoning the energy to do anything at the end of the day more than play video games and watch old seasons of TV shows on Netflix.
Honestly, I did think of posting on current events or random thoughts from time to time, but they just never seemed quite important or relevant enough to follow through on. So I never did. It will probably happen again, but I'm going to try and be less selective of the stuff I put up here, in an attempt to breathe some life back into the blog.
So for today I decided to post on what I've been reading lately. This last gift giving season was one of books and eBooks for me. I have joined the world of smart phones, iPads, and eReaders.
I already had a significant stack of books on my shelves that I hadn't gotten to yet, but instead of reading those I dove into new ones.
Last year George R. R. Martin finally published the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. In anticipation of its release and the premier of the HBO series based on the books I worked my way through the first four books for the second time. These were the first books I got for my iPad, mainly because the hard-backs I own are thick and heavy and impractical for travel. Once I finished them I was finally ready for "Dances with Dragons". I picked up the eBook and devoured it in a few short weeks. I was satisfied, although still longing for some resolutions which will continue to elude us for some time.
Over the summer my wife and went to The Amazing Meeting 9, a science and skepticism convention in Las Vegas, and I picked up a few books. While there and on the trip home we both read "The Physics of the Buffyverse", by Jennifer Ouellette, and "The Physics of Star Trek", by Lawrence M. Krauss. They were entertaining and interesting, but there was quite a bit of overlap in them.
The last book I completed was "The Most Human Human", by Brian Christian. This was a surprisingly good read. It blends computer science, philosophy, sociology, and poetry in a mind-expanding way. It definitely changes the way I look at human interactions.
Right now I am just starting several books at once. I haven't really settled into one in particular yet and alternate reading a chapter in each. On my nightstand are "Catch-22", by Joseph Heller, "Just a Geek", by Wil Wheaton, and "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a Work of Fiction", by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. The last one is an interesting work, in that it is self referential. The main character is an author who wrote a popular book by the same title, and had become the new face of atheism. The book's success is due to the appendix in which the author catalogs 36 typical arguments for the existence of God along with critical analysis, pointing out logical fallacies, and responses to each one. The actual book includes this very appendix, which is a great resource.
The Gregory Brothers have done it again. They've taken some unfortunate soul's ill-conceived video performance and created another pop-tune that you can't get out of your head once you've heard it. This one is a perfect mix of "oh god, gimme the eye-bleach!" and "hey, that sounds pretty good, actually". I fully expect to serve a few of these at my next party.
What brilliant honesty and courage to share her invention and inspiration with us all, complete with a heart-felt belch of satisfaction.
Have you tried it yet? Did you break into song? What concoctions inspire you to create art?
There are plenty more creepy doll themed movies out there I'm sure I've missed. I'd like to see them all at one point or another because I am strangely drawn to them. Maybe I am subconsciously suspicious of dolls because my mother made and collected so many of them while I was young. They still sit around my parents' house, watching and waiting to this day. List some of the notable creepy doll films you recommend in the comments below.
I'll leave you with one of my favorite Johnathan Coulton songs about this very topic: Creepy Doll.
Hey all. I've notice it's been slow going around the Empathetic Egotists' office these last couple weeks. I think we're all busy with our own stuff. I'm looking forward to the next installment of the "Gin Rummy", so if you're out there Mr. Nice Guy, get on it.
I've been spending my time in a nostalgia time-warp watching movies from 1985 to get ready for our Ultimate Movie Showdown '85 event. Then I got temporarily side-tracked on Netflix instant watch, as it's easy to do when you start clicking around. I ended up watching a series of Full Moon Productions schlock films, many of which were straight to video during their time.
I started with "Demonic Toys (1992)".
This is why I love Full Moon's movies. It has all the elements I want in a crappy horror film: the perfect mix creepy yet cheesy looking monsters, a thin premise and plot, characters that don't take themselves too seriously, and plenty of over the top gore. The clown-in-a-box and Baby Oopsie-daisy are by far the best characters, especially with the foul-mouthed baby doll that drops the F-bomb constantly throughout the film.
Netflix recommended I keep mining this vein of creepy toys and suggested "Dollman vs Demonic Toys (1993)" and "Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys (2004)". Before I dined on those delicacies however, I chose to go back to the source and watch "Puppet Master (1989)".
I love this movie. The Puppet Master series is Full Moon's flagship product, in my opinion. These movies were inspired largely by the recent success of "Dolls (1987)" and "Child's Play (1988)". The puppets in the Puppet Master movies are unique in that they exist in this gray area between villains and heroes. Yes, they kill people, and in horrible ways, but they are usually killing Nazis or people that have wronged their master in some way and "deserve" their deaths. If their current master goes too far or threatens the puppets, then their strong sense of self-preservation overcomes their loyalty and the puppets eventually turn on their master. The puppets' creep factor comes from their lack of speech other than grunts or other weak types of vocalization. Also, the scenes where the puppets are manually operated are usually far creepier than those where they are stop-motion animated. Because they are supposed to be puppets, the manual operation looks appropriate and life-like. Pin-head is one of my favorite puppets, due to his huge meaty human hands, which gives him his personality.
Next up was "Dollman (1991)":
This is a terrible film, with a few funny moments. The trailer tells you everything you need to know about it. The first few minutes of the film are the best, where the police-cop is on his home planet shooting up bad guys and making them explode needlessly. The best element of the movie is that the villain is a disembodied head kept alive in some sort of life preserving floating saucer. They hint at how each showdown with the hero has ended in the villain losing a body part so that eventually all that was left was his head. For some reason they go to Earth where the hero is only 13 inches tall. They get a ton of mileage out of the "13 inches" joke. After he's on Earth it turns into your basic good people in the slums fighting the drug dealers story.
Once I had the previous films out of the way I watched the cross-overs:
Both of these were terrible films, but the Puppet Master/Demonic Toys mash-up was by far the worst. Dollman vs Demonic Toys was essentially a retelling of the first Demonic Toys film with the addition of Dollman and the nurse from "Bad Channels (1992)". They save some film by reshowing several minutes from both of those movies. In fact, you could skip the first Dollman entirely since you get the gist from watching this film. The toys are back with the addition of a GI Joe like character played by a stunt-man with a creepy plastic head. Baby Oopsie-daisy now inexplicably is male and wants to have sex with the nurse. Since the toys have to interact with "tiny" human actors now, there are several scenes where the toys have to be built on a large scale and never look convincing, although the huge clown-in-the-box head is nightmare-worthy. There are plenty more "13 inch man" jokes in this film as well.
Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys is horrible. This was made for TV. If you wondered what happened to Cory Feldman, well here he is. He over-plays the quirky puppet master and affects a terrible gravely voice throughout the film. The puppets have been remade and look more plastic and worse for the wear. Pin-head's signature human hands are now fuzzy pink muppet-looking gloves. The demonic toys are even worse. They've been given the plastic treatment as well and are far less scary looking. The sets are awful in this movie. For some reason they have these iron maidens that are supposed to look like Santa with the face cut out, but instead it just looks like a frothy vagina. They should not have tried to remake these films.
I've got the rest of the Puppet Master films on their way in the mail, since only the first two are on instant. I'm looking forward to these and I'm sure they'll get me in the mood for Halloween. If these don't do the trick I'm sure the Creep Shows or "Trick 'r Treat (2008)" will do it. If you haven't seen that last one, I strongly recommend it.
Have you ever wondered how pre-cooked bacon was made? You know the stuff they put on fast-food burgers and sandwiches? Yeah, well here's the video for you:
It doesn't make me want to stop eating bacon, just the pre-cooked stuff. I mean that curing liquid looks pretty gross.
What cool bacon related things have you seen on the interwebs lately?
Over the weekend Craigslist took down their "exotic services" category and put up a "censored" image. Read more about it here. No official response as of yet, but it appears they may have had to cave to outside pressures to avoid lawsuits.
Hey readers! I'm back from foreign lands and reacclimating to the West coast timezone and rediscovering my regional allergies. Good times. Luckily, I still have a job despite a new round of fresh young hires. Because of the increased competition, however, I haven't had time to catch up on my web-slacking and my Google reader is overflowing with articles (1000+) and my podfeeder is leaking audio content (100+ podcasts)! I don't know if I can catch up, folks, and I may need to do the unthinkable and just hit reset and start over.
Before I do that though, here's something fairly recent I saw that I wish I had had on my travels. Luckily I didn't get pick-pocketed on my trip, but I was hyper vigilant about it ever since losing my wallet in Poland. If I'd had a pair of these babies on me, however, I wouldn't have had a care in the world.
Brilliant. Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I love watching this guy shove stuff in his pants. I doubt anyone would want to bum a smoke off him after they've been in there for awhile, and not just because they got bent, but would have a slight hint of man taint to them. What kind of stuff would you hide in your Stashitware shorts?
Hey all you intertube-heads! I'm out of the country right now, having some fun in London-town with my hot new wife, so I won't be around to keep your eyeballs fixed to the site. If you can't stand the wait or if you're just looking for something else to keep you occupied, then go over and check out my travelogue. It'll get updated and pics will get uploaded as I get a chance. Here's a taste:
You all know by now my irrational hatred for Facebook runs deep. Well, I should just get over it since now it is being promoted from temporal internet phenomenon to part of our shared cultural mythology via film. Yes, a movie is being made about Facebook, or more correctly, about Mark Zuckerberg. The "creator" of Facebook, and anti-hero of this film, is played by Jesse Eisenberg, of Zombieland fame. Shenanigans describes him as a more serious Michael Cera and I think that fits precisely. Here is the first trailer I was exposed to.
I also encountered a second trailer via a GeekSpeak episode, which they describe as almost thriller-esque. See here. Despite my detestation of Facebook, my curiosity is significantly piqued. I will watch this.
During the same episode of GeekSpeak I was turned on to this fake movie trailer advertising the JavaZone 2010 event. Very well done, and believable since they use all the same tropes of this genre and trailer techniques. I'd like to see this movie, even though it doesn't exist, but that's because I'm a Java programmer and it strikes close to home.
What do you think? Should we stick to posting about lolcats and nut-shots instead?
The Onion has done it again. One of their videos of fake news has been taken seriously and then shared as real news by paranoid conspiracy junkies. Here's a list of links:
My favorite part is about a minute in when "Rep. John Haller" is reading a classified section and is stunned to silence for a few seconds before just remarking "...Jesus" and then continuing.
Is satire not universally understood? Is sarcasm really that difficult of a concept?
You've probably seen some of the videos in the viral ad campaign for Old Spice, but if you haven't I will send you here before sharing this next bit. Look at the ad, now back at me, now back at the ad, now me.
Good, now that we're on the same page now look at this:
Bravo.
Actually, there are quite a few lols to be had mining the Old Spice videos on their site. I recommend checking them out. They've been whipping out new ones based on comments and questions people have been sending them.
It's not hard to be inspired by the double-rainbow guy, but if you're looking for something more cerebral, but equally entertaining I suggest checking out some of the lectures and accompanying cartoons at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers, and Commerce (RSA). Sounds like a very dry organization, but I was very inspired by the following vids:
Smile or Die
I've encountered this idea of "positive thinking" as being a destructive force in our culture before and I find it compelling. I am a realist in my outlook on the world and yet I am often confused for being a pessimist by more up-beat people. I embrace it to a certain extent, I do proudly drink coffee at work from my pessimist's mug. Most people can't grasp the concept of a continuum between optimism and pessimism, just like they can't grok he idea of a wide political spectrum, so if given a false dichotomy go ahead and file me in the pessimist category.
The Secret Powers of Time
How do you view time? I fall somewhere in the Past Negative / Present Hedonistic categories. I enjoy the slower pace of life here in Eugene, Oregon. I struggle with the feeling that I am somehow less mature than people who are future oriented or enjoy a faster pace of life, because the prevailing culture is that way. I think this talk helped me realize that about myself.
Drive
I found this talk very relevant as well. I've always wondered why I'm not more motivated by money alone. I guess I'm still striving for mastery and purpose in my life.
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