|
|
| Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:20 AM |
| Recyclotron |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Hey, another illustration for The Hobbit! It's one of my favorite scenes, too.
- Horrifying rumors about the casting of Captain America continue: he could be played by Dane Cook! Or one of the Jonas Brothers! No wait, that guy from The Office has a lock on the role! Thankfully that last rumor has been debunked, but... man. This is disheartening.
- Another odd casting rumor: Sacha Baron Cohen or Jemaine Clement could show up in Men in Black 3.
- This headline sounds ridiculous, but apparently it is literally true: "Gold Nanoparticles and Lasers Kill the Brain Parasite That Causes 'Crazy Cat Lady' Syndrome."
- A still photo and a really intriguing video clip from a film called Monsters, which is being described as "The Latin District 9."
- Pretty clever editing turns The Fellowship of the Ring into a Wes Anderson film. (Via)
- An expertly and hilariously altered street sign. Hadouken!!
- Awesome new versions of the music video for the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," one using footage from Battlestar Galactica, and another using footage from The Empire Strikes Back. Some really brilliant marrying of visuals and music in these.
- Sci Fi Wire gives us a roundup of upcoming sci-fi TV pilots. There are tons! Woo hoo!
- I almost passed this article by, until I noticed the accompanying image featured curling. Turns out indie developer Blackish Games has got a new curling game for the PC, and you can play an online version right here, right now. I suck at it, but maybe I can refine my technique with practice.
- I love this fantastic sci-fi ray gun version of the Jesus fish symbol.
- The story of MythBuster Adam Savage's pretty much lifelong quest to make a kick-ass replica of the gun from Blade Runner, and pictures of the amazing final product. Well, mostly final; apparently he's still tinkering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Books (Not), Captain America (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Curling (Not), Links (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Sports (Not), Tolkien (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not) |
|
|
|
| Friday, March 5, 2010 02:48 PM |
| Curling: An Appreciation |
 by Fëanor |
I've been meaning to say, I love curling now. I'd heard of the sport before, but never actually watched it or learned anything about it until the Winter Olympics this year. I was hooked after watching my first match. I immediately went online and started researching the rules, the terminology, the strategy. And that's one of the things that impressed me right away - how much strategy and tactics are involved in the game. It's sometimes called "chess on ice," and that is really a pretty apt way to describe it.
Part of the attraction for me, I think, is that curling has certain things in common with my favorite game ever, Diceland, as well as with certain German boardgames. Each team works together to determine the optimum move - the best place they can put the stone on their turn - and once that's decided, they have to use their physical skill and dexterity to make that move, and put that stone where they want it to be, possibly knocking other stones out of the way in the process. It's a collaborative sport, and a sport that involves both mind and body - both tactical planning and physical coordination. Everyone and everything must be working in concert for you to play well. There's also a strong sense of fair play and good sportsmanship that's surrounded the sport from its very beginnings, which is nice. And how about all the yelling? "HARD! HARD! HAAAARD!" That cracks me up.
One of the things that it took me a long time to get my head around, and that I find particularly fascinating about curling, is that sometimes it makes better strategic sense to not score points, or even to allow your opponent to score a point, than it does to score one yourself. This is completely unlike pretty much every other sport I know of.
I really enjoyed the various curling matches I was able to watch during the Olympics (although the team I was rooting for won only once, when Canada's men's team took Gold in the final match), and I'm hoping I won't have to wait another four years to watch more. |
|
|
|
|
| Tuesday, February 23, 2010 10:12 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- BBC Worldwide and PBS' Masterpiece Theatre will co-produce a new TV series called Sherlock which will feature a 21st century spin on the famous detective, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. (Via)
- Fascinating story about a temple discovered in Turkey that rewrites what we know about the history of humanity. It's 7,000 years older than the Great Pyramid and 6,000 years older than Stonehenge. The archaeologist in charge of the dig thinks it's proof that religion came first, then civilization. Also fascinating: a scientist discovered the site years ago, but walked away from it when he simply couldn't fit it into his view of the world. Cognitive dissonance to the extreme! (Via)
- Incredible papercraft recreation of Howl's Moving Castle. Oddly similar: a gigantic walking city made out of LEGO.
- Nic Cage as the Norwegian curling team. Have I mentioned that I'm obsessed with curling now? Because I'm obsessed with curling now.
- io9 lists 18 upcoming TV shows that could save small-screen sci-fi. I hope they're right, because all the good TV shows seem to be going away. Anyway, a lot of these sound neat.
- io9 gives a good review to the new DC animated movie, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths. Looking forward to it!
- Mark Strong is officially Sinestro.
- They're making Missile Command into a 3D action/adventure film. Will it end the way the game always did: with a huge explosion and the words "THE END?"
- One of my favorite entries on Covered in a while.
- Potato chips with real bacon! I'd buy that for a dollar!
- John Carpenter returned to directing after a ten year absence to make The Ward, a horror flick about a bunch of young women disappearing one by one in an insane asylum. Sounds pretty cliche, but maybe it'll have something new going on that's not obvious from a plot summary.
- Yet more fun toys from the Toy Fair, including Bubo and Lord of the Rings bobbleheads (seriously - a Sauron bobblehead), and a Klingon disruptor.
- A used car (and droid) dealership. (Via)
- Hilarious Mola Ram valentine.
- Here's an amusing online app which you can use to make it look like you're updating your Facebook status via various outrageous methods, including mental telepathy, toilet, and your mom. (Via)
- Dude figured out how to control a whole band's worth of percussion instruments using a couple of Wii Remotes. Pretty amazing stuff.
- Ian McShane as Blackbeard? YES. I would totally watch the next Pirates movie if they do this.
- B-Side is a company that helps run film festivals, providing various handy online scheduling gadgets. I kind of liked some of the stuff they had to offer when I used it during the Philadelphia Film Festival. Sadly, B-Side is now no more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Tagged (?): 3D (Not), Art (Not), Business (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Curling (Not), Facebook (Not), Food (Not), Gadgets (Not), Green Lantern (Not), Hacking (Not), Hayao Miyazaki (Not), History (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Philadelphia Film Festival (Not), Photography (Not), Pirates (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Sherlock Holmes (Not), Sports (Not), Star Trek (Not), Star Wars (Not), Technology (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), TV (Not), Video games (Not), Wii (Not) |
|
|
|
|
|
