Category: Video

Three Things Make A Blog

That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. And I think I can scrape up that many. First, some good news: my story “Husbandry” was given an honorable mention by Ellen Datlow for her anthology Best Horror of the Year Vol. 2. Thanks so much, Ellen, I’m thrilled to make your longlist.

Next, a digital version of the April/May double issue of Asimov’s, containing my story “Adrift,” is now available from Fictionwise. If you wanted to read “Adrift” but were unable to find a physical copy of the magazine, you can now download it here for about $5.

I need a third thing. How about a weird Turkish knockoff of Star Trek? It is based on the first episode of the show, “The Man Trap,” and has English subtitles. It steals footage from the original for effects shots and when the opening credits run too long for the Star Trek theme, they cleverly borrowed music from other science fiction shows to make up the difference. And the description says that it features once popular Turkish character called Omer the Tourist.

Come On Baby, Put the Rock in the House

Now that the Winter Olympics are here and people in America, briefly, care somewhat about curling again, I am suddenly reminded of the great good fortune we all had that the last Winter Olympics happened in a year when Jonathan Coulton was forcing himself to write a new song every week.  And one week he wrote about curling, giving us what may remain for all time the greatest song about that particular sport.

(The video is of the “splash a literal picture of the lyrics” variety, and tries to be a little too cute, but it’s the music that matters.)

It’s even better now that the games are in Vancouver than it was when they were in Turin.

Hunting Strategies of Aquatic Mammals

There’s a neat video going around of a hunting strategy pursued by bottle-nosed dolphins in shallow waters.  They swim in tightening circles and use their tails to make fences of cloudy water to trap schools of fish:

Very cool.  But at the end of it good Mr. Attenborough pronounces that dolphins are the only known species to pursue this fishing technique.  Yet right there in the related videos panel is an even more dramatic video of humpback whales using air bubbles to do essentially the same thing in deep water.

I wonder how widely known the “schooling fish are afraid to swim through churned up water” behavior is among ocean mammals.

More Molly

Because I miss her, I wish I’d learned of her work years earlier than I did, and because Molly Ivins’s insights in 2004 are still more relevant than what most commentators who are actually alive have to say.

(Video is about half prepared talk, half Q&A, and filled with both the brilliantly funny and the stunningly prescient.  Her comments about how the internet will change the political system speak directly to the events of the 2008 election.)

Texas Is For Lovers. Spouses, Not So Much.

So way back in 2005 the Texas legislature, in its alarmingly finite wisdom, passed an amendment to the state constitution to outlaw gay marriage.  So eager were our elected representatives to protect us from the loathsome evil of same sex unions, it seems they may have overshot the mark somewhat and protected us from all marriage. The Democratic candidate for attorney general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, has pointed out that a clause in the amendment seems to ban marriage entirely.

This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

This sentence is now a part of the state’s constitution.  So it is to be supposed that, for any existing marriages to be legal under Texas law, one must somehow make the argument that traditional marriage is neither similar nor identical to itself.

How I dearly wish Molly Ivins was around for this one.

EDITED TO ADD: For a sense of who Molly Ivins was, and for how absurd things sometimes get on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives, I recommend this nine minute excerpt from the documentary Dildo Diaries about the bizarre doublethink nonsense that underlies our state’s sex toy laws.  Which actually seem comparatively sane in light of this marriage thing. (Probably NSFW.)

A Sober Discussion of God’s Definition of Man -or- Gee Whiz!

“A man is he who pisses against a wall!

“That’s where we’re heading in this country, my friends…. We got a buncha pastors who pee sitting down.  We got a president of the United States who probably pees sitting down.  We got a buncha preachers and leaders who don’t stand up and piss against a wall like a man!

I particularly enjoy the Hunting-of-the-Snark-esque numerology subtext.  5 = death.  6 = man.  7 = completion.  He doesn’t mention it, but I think 8 = effeminate democrats who let their dicks dangle and elect Nancy Pelosi; 9 = homosexuality is a sin;  10 = good old-fashioned god-fearing MEN who hold their penises firmly in strong calloused hands as they piss against the goshdarned wall! Yes!

Sick Day

I’m been sick in bed all day, and the pressure in my sinuses seems to be pushing directly on the being-vaguely-pissy center of my brain.  But as many of my friends are sick too, we can all goof off on twitter together.

KatWithSword Have just learned that I am being nominated for a postdoc fellowship. Feeling very overwhelmed and honored.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword Woo! You are totally fellow material. I have always thought of you as a fine fellow.

glorioushubris Tomorrow I see the doctor. Today I stay in bed and practice trashcan basketball with sneeze-shredded tissues.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris Sympathy and empathy. Can we form a club?

glorioushubris @gralinnaea Let’s form a suicide pact, suicide pacts are way sexier than clubs. How about if we’re still sick come World Fantasy, we off it.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris Ok, check. I feel that this should be done in a dramatic and literary way. Hmmm …

ferretthimself @glorioushubris Not to horn in, but can I off myself, too? I think my body needs a deadline.

glorioushubris @ferretthimself @gralinnaea We need Gra’s ruling, but I think you’re welcome Ferrett. I conceive of this as a very egalitarian suicide pact.

gralinnaea @glorioushubris @ferretthimself Absolutely. Hmmm … how many people do we need before we can call ourselves a suicide cult?

glorioushubris Last night Facebook offers to make everything French for me. I decline. Today Facebook decides it knows what’s best, and I NEED French. Why?

glorioushubris In the preferences tab my language is still set to English, but everything is in French just the same. Why do you suck so hard, facebook?

ferretthimself @glorioushubris Dude, Facebook is frenching you. Don’t you know what that means when the most popular kid in town likes you that way?

glorioushubris @ferretthimself Shit! And here I thought I’d gotten less oblivious since high school!

KatWithSword @glorioushubris I don’t know whether I’m flattered, or full of the need to confirm you mean fellow in a nice, gender-neutral sort of sense.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword It’s no good desiring not to go among the fellows, for we are all fellows here.

gralinnaea @KatWithSword You’ll always be my favorite gender-neutral fellow … wait, that’s what you meant, right?

KatWithSword @glorioushubris @gralinnaea I just want to make sure that one can be a fellow, and still wear a bright pink breast protector while fencing.

glorioushubris @KatWithSword It would take some convincing to make me believe that anything says fellowship more forcefully than a barbie-pink breastplate.

Additionally, today’s being-vaguely-pissy music comes to us from The Kills.


CreatureCast Episode One: Squid Colors

Some clever people have gotten themselves a grant from the National Science foundation to make awesome hand-drawn cartoons of animals to pair with conversational interviews with scientists explaining their research.  It’s kind of like if This American Life was a charmingly low budget biology vlog.  It’s called Creature Cast, it’s creative commons attribution-noncommercial-share alike, and you can follow along with the episodes and related postings on the Creature Cast blog.  The first episode is about the colors of the squid loligo opalescens, which you’ve probably eaten if you’ve ever had restaurant calamari.  The concepts are communicated clearly and the drawings are delightful.

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

And here is the best video I was able to find of some of the actual behavior discussed by the interviewed scientist.  It is a different species of squid, but I think the same principles are in evidence.

Worldcon 2009: Mostly Ties

Bobby McFerrin Performs an Experiment

This is popping up everywhere.  Deservedly.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.