SF corridors

A cute post, by Martin Anderson, in celebration of the corridor in SF movies:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/313130/in_praise_of_the_scifi_corridor.html

Anderson’s quite right that these scenes help establish the futuristic atmosphere.  We’d feel cheated if we saw cinderblock walls or white plaster.  But his word “utilitarian” is wildly off.  These environments are interesting precisely because they’re so lovingly, weirdly overbuilt.

Granted, they evoke things like submarine interiors.  But there’s little call for rows of massive pipes, inscrutable protrusions, and rows of lights in odd places, especially if the thing really is just a hallway.

I’d write more, but I just noticed the teaser at the bottom of the page: the 24 worst special effects of all time!  Got to check that out…

 

Man is His Sushi

Coming out of nowhere, Abhay Khosla takes on Dracula:

Dracula's dry cleaner must die

This stuff just bypasses all the rational centers of the brain.  I couldn’t tell you why it’s funny and wouldn’t advise trying this at home.  (Surrealism isn’t as easy as it sounds.)

Edit: It’s five parts, all of which are up now.  The first is the best.

 

Fancy Fast Food

Via Lore, the amazing Fancy Fast Food:

That’s the BK Quiche, lovingly made by tearing apart and reconstituting a Crossan’wich and Ham, Egg & Cheese Biscuit from Burger King.

The unanswered question is, how do these things taste?  Given that most of them are breaded and fried, I imagine they’re kind of greasy…

 

Fallen princesses

Amusing photos by Dina Goldstein showing Disney princesses living less than happily ever after:

A commenter points out that Jasmine is using ammo belts for a magazine-fed weapon, and not practicing proper trigger discipline.  But she’s a princess, who’s gonna tell her?  I like the camo harem top though…

 

How Mickey should talk

Blogger Hans Perk posts this invitation from a Disney party in 1932, and comments that “This is how Mickey should talk”.  Here’s a sample:

minnie an’ me’s gonna have a big shindig over t’ th’ studio on june 25th on account of we’re gonna say good-bye t’ columbia an’ hello to united artists, an’ we want you should help us… an’ this invitation’s good for two people, so’s ya can bring a guest if’ya like…

My question is… who talks this way?  Or ever talked this way?  Even given that some of the slang is outdated, is this supposed to be urban, or rural, or childish, or what?  It seems like a mishmash that says nothing about where Mickey is from (except that he evidently never went to college).

It’s linguistically interesting, though annoying, when writers reproduce supposedly substandard patterns that are actually near-universal in speech.  Who actually pronounces the d in and in “and dancing”?  I assume the apostrophe in t’ and th’ represents a shwa not an elision; again, who says [ovr æt ði studio] instead of [ovr ɘt ðɘ studio]?  Perhaps there was still a contrast in 1932, or perhaps it was a tired bit of pseudo-folksiness even then.

 

My First Dictionary, a blog by Ross Horsley:

By Ross Horsley

I’m guessing the illustrations are from ’50s children’s books; if not they are artful re-creations.  Very reminiscent of the DFC.

 

Neat animation

This is just a neat animation– a reinterpretation of Little Red Riding Hood in isometric projection.    It’s by Tomas Nilsson, using the song “Sponsored by Destiny” by Slagsmålsklubben. 

http://www.tomas-nilsson.se/

Based on (but more fun than) Röyksopp’s “Remind Me” video.

 

What managers would ask managers…

…if they interviewed them the way they interview developers:

1. What’s  ROI stand for?  Have you ever used this concept?

2. What is an MBO?  Give an example.

3. Name three ways a PERT chart differs from a Gantt chart.

4. If you had to explain it to a junior manager, how would you describe what “venture capital” does?

5. Define “delegation”.  How does it differ from “assignment”?

6. What are all the ways a company could raise capital?

The point here isn’t that the questions are easy, though many are.  It’s that they aren’t tests of managerial skill; they’re pop quizzes on management theory.  Surely what you’re really interested in isn’t whether someone can define the buzzwords the same way the books do; it’s what they’ve done and whether it worked.

 

Bullet points

A couple oddities:

• My mother has a sheet music book named 100 Giant Christmas Songs.  As a linguist, I boggle: what is giant modifying here?  Neither Christmas nor the songs are being called giant; the book is.  (Challenge for conlangers: figure out a rule that allows such NPs.)
• Sometimes it takes a kid to point out the oddity of some everyday thing.  Our Brazilian niece, seeing a common logo, asked “Why does the sign have a big 7 but it’s labelled ‘eleven’?”

As a personal note, several people have asked if I found a job, since I removed the sticky.  No, I was just tired of seeing the sticky and figured that anyone in a position to help had already seen it.  I’m still looking.  But I’m also using the time to write a book.

 

From Stinky Onion in the U.S. of Home Ruler

Neat maps replacing place names with their etymology:

http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html