warren (331) 2 SFW Posts | 208 Space Comments | Favorites | RSS Feed Registered 2007-05-03 03:52:53 Comment Karma: 9 Featured Comments: 0 Member of :

Recent Comments from warren

Comment on Neo-Geo Hot Dog Advertisement (2007-10-10 13:20:46)
And wow, Neo-Geo sure as hell did shut down Nintendo, huh? Me, I've always preferred the taste of squirrel anyway.
Comment on Creationist's Theory Wallpaper (2007-10-08 15:06:27)
Ah'tuin forgive the heretical comparison of His (or Her) factual majesty to the cretinous drivelings of Moses et. al. The Turle Moves!
Comment on The GOP Bus (2007-10-06 00:09:23)
mAgnUS BUTTfoorson: No, that's a slanted account. What led to the assault on the white student was this. Some black kids on the high school (teenaged years) campus wanted to sit under a shade tree more commonly preferred by white students. The next day, several nooses were found hanging from limbs of the tree. Black history in the American southeast is unbelievably painful. The bigotry and ignorance that fed into slavery -- and the US Civil War -- are still very much present today, so much so that it's not at all uncommon to hear white people refer to blacks, openly, as "niggers", with full pejorative intent. Lynchings were common into the 1960s and possibly beyond, and the Ku Klux Klan is still quite active in many Southern communities. Therefore, the presence of nooses in a tree was egregiously provocative. Tensions mounted further, racism simmered, and eventually there were enough threats made against black students by whites that several of them decided they'd had enough. While that doesn't excuse an attack by six on one, hopefully it puts it into context. It should be noted too that in recent protests in favor of freeing the "Jena 6", a pair of white men were arrested after driving around outside one protest area with nooses trailing behind their pickup truck. The charges included inciting to riot. While the attack on the student was certainly terrible, the provocation endured by black students is far deeper than just a few taunts. The nooses in the tree alone were not simply oblique death threats, but deliberately insulting and offensive on an almost incomprehensible level to the black kids at which they were targeted. Long and short: Yes, we will always have stupidity and oppression, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should tolerate it. The best response to stupidity is to expose it, mock it, and shame it into the respectful silence it should have when those who bear that stupidity are in the presence of their betters.
Comment on Odds of dying (2007-10-05 21:56:57)
reboot: The missing percentage is made up for in the 100% certainty terminus. Though I'm sure you're right that a lot of statistically insignificant or otherwise dull causes of death (such as being mauled by a polar bear, or succumbing to the flu) got left out. Mindless101: The burden of proof is actually on you to prove there is less than a 100% certainty of dying.
Comment on Odds of dying (2007-10-05 18:06:59)
What's interesting to me is how many of the chance factors are at least partially controllable. Legal execution, for instance, or suicide, are pretty unlikely for most; and heart disease is in many cases essentially elective.
Comment on How to speak english (2007-10-05 15:07:51)
reboot:
Americans say “Fuck” the way that old telegrams used to say STOP.
Yeah, but the sentence "Come over to my house and stop my sister" doesn't make any damn sense.
Comment on Awesome Gamer's Monitor (2007-10-05 13:19:54)
Those dark circles and dead eyes say more about the desirability of a monitor like that than any number of words possibly can.
Comment on The Thing (Norris' Head) (2007-10-04 12:37:47)
Q-delta: It's from John Carpenter's The Thing. 1980s-era horror camp cheese, but pretty damned good.
Comment on God Hates D&D (2007-10-04 12:11:36)
I had forgotten about that tract. Now I see why. If you look at the whole publication, isn't it funny how the "preacher" looks like a 1970s porn star?
Comment on The Thing (Norris' Head) (2007-10-04 11:55:17)
The only good John Carpenter film in history.
Comment on Hello, my name is Bob (2007-10-03 06:36:57)
D'you think he got lipo, and then they made soap out of it? Mmm, that's a man's scent, here in the shower ... wait ... whut?
Comment on Rusty Truck by lake (2007-10-03 02:20:12)
This is not a CGI or computer render, I think; it's a photo that's been reworked. The light and shadow are too natural to be CGI. But it has been heavily shopped to enhance the rust tones in the sky, echoing the ground and blown-out truck. Not hard to do, just applying the right tint in the right way as a filter layer. It's likely the truck was unremarkable, as was the sky and landscape (faded paint and steel against a blue-grey horizon), but then — that's why we have Photoshop: To make the originally dull something worthy of note. Well-used in the hands of the capable, we get pictures like this one. It's quite lovely. Why under "Science" I can't guess.
Comment on Avatar's Wind (2007-10-03 00:10:09)
Okay, I was probably unfair in bashing Andy Griffith. That was, and remains, a damn good show. Not real-world relevant at all; things have changed in the last half century. But it's definitely a high-water mark in truly good "values" based TV, not at all overworking the "god" idea but certainly a valuable and well-grounded series. I am a committed atheist, but if I learned my kid loved Andy Griffith, I'd be okay with that.
Comment on Avatar's Wind (2007-10-03 00:04:05)
colin: Thanks. You asked a fair question. Avatar is pure fantasy, absolutely, and it's silly to think some hundred-year-old-or-not kid could shake the political structure of his world by jumping on the back of his flying bison (!), shouting, "Appa! Yip yip!" and waving his hands in the air. The deeper questions come not from the facile plot elements of the Avatar series; they come from seeing how a group of kids can learn to deal with one another and the larger state of world affairs around them; they come from seeing how a blind girl can be seen to have a deep power that is belied by her superficial disability; they come from watching the interplay of small-group dynamics and understanding how the miniature society they create amongst themselves can have a real, large effect on their respective societies. There is genuine depth to be seen in how Aang and Katara explore their nascent attraction to one another; there is growth present in how Sokka stops being a teen kid with something to prove and struggles toward manhood; there is reality in seeing how they all accept the strength and independence of Toph. There is intensity in finding and sharing their frustrations, annoyances and values. On the surface Avatar is a goofy adventure story. But underneath it carries a deep set of good, solid values; it promotes friendship, loyalty and commitment; and it lets its characters become confronted by temptation while letting the audience see what they have to face. It's more fearless and honest than most adult-oriented TV fare in that regard, and for that reason alone I think it's worth watching. Without doubt it's more grounded in meaningful dialogue and circumstance than any "reality" show on Fox; and even though it's scripted front-to-back in each episode, I think it bears more meaning and value in reality than any ten dozen of other series might present, be they "reality TV" or not. Suck down the first season on BitTorrent and watch it, if you don't want to actually rent the DVDs or pick it up in repeat on cable. There's some real merit to the series, far better than the fare presented to kids just a few decades ago a la The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island; and the series is far more grounded in real-world dilemmas, despite its fantasy element, than Andy Griffith or Leave it to Beaver. The intelligent comments don't come from asking your kids if a five-ton bison could fly. They come, instead, from asking if Aang was doing the right thing in riding Appa away from an embattled island while the Fire Nation was busily destroying it — in the name of finding him. Was he a coward? Or did he realize, instead, that he had to get stronger before facing the Fire Nation — and, in the next episode, what do you think he'll do … and why? Hey, son or daughter: What would you do? That's dialogue. As an aside, you're not the first to call me to task about my apparent depth of knowledge of kids' TV series. One woman I know was stunned when I was able to name, at a glance, every show her seven-year-old son was watching on the TV. She wondered how I could know that; I wondered how she could not know it, given that the shows were being poured into her kid's head, six hours solid, all day every day. If you aren't paying attention to what your kids are watching, who is? And if you don't talk to them about what they've seen, who will? TV is not passive entertainment; it is a powerful and subtle tool of social indoctrination, and should be monitored and questioned at least as intensely as internet channels — or the cloaked stranger on the corner, offering candy to any child who will climb into his windowless van for half an hour.
Comment on Avatar's Wind (2007-10-02 21:34:01)
colin: Saying no to TV is too broad; it's a kind of censorship (as well as totally unrealistic). It makes more sense, I think, to actively pay attention to what they like, talk to them about it, find out why they like it, encourage their intelligent or insightful comments and so on. That way you engage with them, and can even add to their comprehension of either the story in question or the world in general by discussion, insight, etc. You don't have to be "immersed" in the show; you just have to be aware of it, and be able to respond intelligently to it. By doing so, you model behavior that you would like to see in your kids as well. If that's not parenting, I'm not sure what is.