(G)astronomy

(G)astronomy, article by Pascal, doing what he does best and most, puncturing authority balloons. It's about pleasure and morality, but somehow he also manages to get the color of the universe mixed into it, don't ask me how. :-)

Megan Fox: Stop Comparing Me to Angelina Jolie!

Megan Fox: Stop Comparing Me to Angelina Jolie! article.

Fox even interjects when asked if she wanted to follow in Jolie's footsteps of starting out as a sex symbol before taking on serious roles.

"Angelina Jolie was always a Method actress," she says. "She'd been nominated for Golden Globes before she ever did 'Tomb Raider'."

I think Megan is being very cool here.

Celebrity-hysteria is way out of control, though. There seems to be an insatiable hunger for ever more young, pretty idols to put on pedestals, shower with gold, and then tear down and devour. I mean, Megan has been in two action movies, she is pretty, and suddenly she is a top-flight star? Come on.

It sounds like she is grounded though, for which I congratulate her. It's a good thing in any life, but the movie star business can be lethal if you're not, sometimes literally.

More on Brushes

Here's a video about the iPhone painting app I blogged recently.

Hi-rez version here.



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Here's a funny thing, for some weird reason, this video was linked as "related video" to the iPhone art one. Didn't see that one coming. But I must say I never saw the day coming when we would witness an official Gillette video on how to shave your groin!
(Note one might think an electric razor would be more gentle in that area. Not so. Now you know. :-)

Various pics

Pics collected today from various sites, several from 9gag.com.

Charlie bit me

A hundred million views on youtube! Holy frig.



Update: Read the blog, get the tee-shirt!

Fallingwater

Frank Lloyd Wright's famous house Fallingwater.
Pictures - video - article.
It's a really cool house in many ways, but the one thing I just don't get is that you can't see the waterfall from inside! That's like hiring a world-class chef and then always just ordering chinese take-out.

Reincarnation

There are many accounts about people, often children, remembering past lives. Here's one (video) of those which takes a lot of conviction to dismiss.

Since we don't seem to have the faintest clue what consciousness really is, I don't think reincarnation needs to go against any faith, not even materialism.

The Worleygig is six

My pink-haired friend Gail's blog, the Worleygig, just turned six, and it growing rapidly in popularity.
I've known Gail for ten years now, we started talking because she's a rock journalist, and I asked her questions about some of my fave bands, like Ministry and Skinny Puppy, who she'd interviewed.
(She also interviewed me years ago.)

Apple keynote (and new iPhone)

New Apple Developers Conference Keynote speech. (Sadly not by the still-recovering Steve Jobs.) The main features are a new iPhone, new 13-inch and 15-inch notebooks, and the next major version of the operating system.
Phil Schiller has slimmed down. Good for him, for a while there, he just got bigger every time we saw him.

Update: an interesting development is an upcoming e-book buying and reading app for the iPhone. I prefer bigger screens, but I admit it's a very clear screen, and the interface looks just excellent (short demo about 1.20 in the keynote). I'm sure it'll be popular.
I'm doubtful though about reading magazines on the iPhone screen (they will have lots of mags and newspapers available for subscription). I don't even like many regular web pages on my iPod touch, very often the screen is simply too small for it work well.

Update: one weak feature of the first two generations of iPhones has been the camera. It was just not very good. And now they finally updated it to a new one, 3MP. I'll be interested to see how good the results are from it, it might be the thing which makes me finally get an iPhone myself, so I finally can always have a camera on me.
Judging from the keynote (about 1.48), it seems really promising. And even has video.

Bullfight turnaround

Bull wins bullfight. You might like to see it if you like to see tables turned on what many consider a cruel "sport", but be warned: the pictures are gruesome.

A cold

Man, I have the worst cold I've had since I can remember. When I woke up this morning (after noon), and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I almost fell backwards into the bath tub. I could play 3rd Zombie in Day Of The Living Dead without make-up. [Update ten hours later: it seems to be easing off already. Zippidy.]
And I need one of these:


Well, I'm doing the basics, fluids, vitamins, rest.

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Another couple of fun Japanese inventions.
The butter stick really tickles my funny bone.



At first I thought this was for the toddler's protection, and a neat idea:

But heck, I guess they can pitch in with the housework too.

Update: Magnetic Mary points out this kind of "unuseless" invention has a name: Chindogu.

Dear Josie

From a commenter:
I would love to make a comment, but "anonymous" has found me out to be an idiot, so I won't further validate the opinion of "anonymous."

For new readers: we have an occasional commenter, usually writing as "anonymous", who can be rather direct with his/her comments. Once when pressed, he/she gave the name Josie.

Dear Josie,
I still welcome your comments. I have refrained from deleting any comments at all, ever, even those who are not comments on ideas or issues, but on people.
I can take criticism, or at least I'm trying to learn. And I let all comments remain, so people can see that I'm not editing in order to make myself look better. But it's not just me, I'm not the only one you're addressing, so I have others to consider.
How about a little more civility, huh? Personal attacks either on me or on other commenters are not all that productive, in my opinion. We're all friends here.
Respectfully yours, Eolake