Suicide bombers are in it for the sex

One of several fascinating statements that will get you in fights at parties, in Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Wouldn't want to be answering their phone this week.

Soused at the South Pole

Our main purpose is as caretakers of an expensive American facility, just like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but with more geopolitical significance and fewer axe murders.

Overdone but nevertheless interesting tale of boozing at the South Pole. I'm intrigued to note that the drink of choice is Bailey's and coffee and there's a vast pit of human faeces just to add a little bit of extra dread to global warming.

Round up the usual suspects

Too often I forget that the entertainment industry is genuinely beyond parody. Behold, Casablanca: The TV Series:

Another series, briefly broadcast on NBC in 1983, starred David Soul as Rick, Ray Liotta as Sacha and Scatman Crothers as a somewhat elderly Sam.

Casablanca popped into my head after playing The Darkness. Which is good, by the way - complete nonsense, wildly inconsistent, and not as good as previous Starbreeze effort Chronicles of Riddick, but it does engage you in the telling of a not uninteresting story. Although it would have done a lot better had it felt the need to actually comment on your sudden sprouting of demonic tentacles, rather than immediately relegating them to the status of slightly disfiguring scar - something that people occasionally comment on but don't see as particularly outlandish.

One of the many touches I did like, however, is the TVs in the game, which have been loaded up with royalty-free footage black-and-white footage: The Man With The Golden Arm, old episodes of Flash Gordon, some terrible rock band I suspect are related to the developers. It's a really small, pointless detail that has no bearing on the plot, but I really like it: it's far more convincing than the hoary aren't-we-funny nonsense in the background of Max Payne (which this reminded me of quite a lot, unfortunately) or Vice City, and it's such a cheap, obvious thing to do I'm surprised nobody else has done it before.

Anyway, Sinatra in black and white reminded me of Casablanca, which I want to watch but can't - I'm pretty sure I threw the VHS tape away when I moved and in any case the VCR is still at work, left over from a photoshoot recreating an awesomely primitive tableau of The Way We Were. Sad story. Richard, always well-stocked with really terrible cultural artifacts, pointed out that Barb Wire is a transparent remake but tragically I don't have that either. I'm reduced to reading the Wikipedia entry, which brings me back once again to little details that make me smile:

The version shown in the Republic of Ireland at the time of release had all references to adultery cut, rendering the plot incomprehensible.

Yup.

From Dylan Tweney: Your Computer Is Training You

Getting even simple things done with a slightly underpowered computer and a bunch of web-based applications means you spend a lot of time waiting. Waiting for TypePad to publish a post, waiting for Gmail to populate the screen with a list of the latest messages, waiting for an image to download so you can start editing it in Photoshop, waiting for Photoshop to launch.

Each of these delays is tiny, maybe on the order of five to twenty seconds, or a minute at the most: Delays which, taken individually, are negligible. But over the course of a day, they accumulate, not literally but psychologically, so you start thinking: What else can I do while I wait for this Ajax-ified web page to load? So you flip to another tab, or jump over to your email program, or respond to someone’s IM.

The result: A five-minute task (writing and publishing a blog post, for instance) gets spread out over half an hour, interleaved with a bunch of other micro tasks, because that five minute task contains half a dozen annoying little delays that you’d rather avoid.

Your computer has trained you to become a task-switcher. It has trained you to spread your attention out across multiple tasks simultaneously, devoting only a little time to each one in turn.

This is a major design flaw in all modern computers, because the computers are designed to provide beautiful, translucent, animated interfaces, not to respond instantaneously to human commands. And, I’m afraid, Web 2.0 style applications are only making it worse.

Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", played on the theramin

It's a metaphor for life

Interesting tip on How To Interview Rock Bands When They're Both Desperately Hungover And Too Cool To Care About The Interview:

I would always pay attention to the drummer. I practically sat in his lap, and I would roar with laughter at every mild joke that he made, like wah-hah-hah-hah! You know, and I would ask him about his drumming philosophies. They often have one or two.

DEVIL TRICKERY. Just one part of a really quite interesting (if unsurprising) interview.

Electricity

This is amazing: working on electrical lines, by hand, with the aid of helicopters. I love how serene the whole thing is.

Supreme silence

Supreme Court justices: not all pulling their weight.

Justice Clarence Thomas sat through 68 hours of oral arguments in the Supreme Court‘s current term without uttering a word... the last time Thomas asked a question in court was Feb. 22, 2006.

Moments in WoW General Chat

Verbatium: You Legionaire?

Brem: Hello
Brem: old friend

Verbatium: I was once a Legionaire

Brem: i know
Brem: hows your new guild?

Verbatium: Good to be seeing you my friend
Verbatium: Silent

Brem: hehe

Verbatium: We just started it

Brem: how is Djenta?

Verbatium: Good, I think
Verbatium: She's not around much

Brem: where r u going now?

Verbatium: Were dating
Verbatium: I will ask her to marry me, I think soon

Brem: nice

Verbatium: I was heading to here called on map wetlands
Verbatium: Try to see what can be done about my lvl
Verbatium: I have been 22 for the past 3 months

Brem: man u are slow

Verbatium: I didnt play much
Verbatium: No phones or power during the winter
Verbatium: haha

Brem: where r u from

[Your auction of Bolt of Woolen Cloth sold.]

Verbatium: Now summer, Water goes unfreez
Verbatium: Waterpowerplant work again

Brem: hehe, where do u live?

Verbatium: Normalyia we gave Nucleer plant, But was unstabil
[Zatura eyes Verbatim up and down]
Verbatium: Eastern Europe/USSR
[Verbatim eyes Zatura up and down]
[verbatim smiles at Zatura]
Verbatium: Well, I be off then
Verbatium: Seeing you

Brem: who will be the godfather on the wedding

Verbatium: Not know yet
Verbatium: Godfather is when Child is born
Verbatium: Best man, is wedding

Brem: sry for my english!

Verbatium: I do not know if Djenta is expecting

Brem: hehe, i got to see that

Verbatium: WHere you from?

Brem: Serbia

Verbatium: Privetstvuyu!
Verbatium: Poidem Vipyem!

Brem: Zbogom
Brem: prijatelju

Verbatium: Da
Verbatium: haha

Brem: hehe

Fundead

Can't remember if I knew this already, but: some TV shows cling to the laughter of the dead, re-using laughter tracks recorded from studio audiences now at least partially deceased.

a few all-time classic tracks recorded in the late 1950s and early 1960s were never retired, and can still be heard on 'Frasier'

Even more unsettling is the existence of the "laugh machine" and the "laugh men."

Slide 1 of many

I actually had to create my first proper PowerPoint presentations not so long ago. The experience was one of partially committed craftsmanship tinged with the certaint knowledge that this is one of the lowest forms of human expression. But now Indexed gives some hope.

Sing-a-long-a-Shatner

There's so much to like here. Personal favourites:

"...The LP has been critically acclaimed for its unique "pop-driven" style. Its sole cover, a version of Pulp's "Common People" performed with Joe Jackson, has received good notices, often to the surprise of the reviewers."

"On June 9, 2005, Shatner performed a reworked rendition of "My Way" at the presentation of George Lucas's AFI Life Achievement Award, backed by a chorus line of dancers in Imperial Stormtrooper costumes who ultimately picked up Shatner and carried him offstage."

Day of the Jonty

Stefan sent this through, and it was the end of the day so I did it. Much to my surprise, it's not hugely humiliating - I was expecting a marmoset.



EDIT: Gril, slightly worryingly, joins me in Jackaldom. And points out, as I forgot to, that you the reader (if you exist) can modify the result if you think I'm something more suitable for using as a car logo.

Where is my mind

Randomly discovered while researching for my Microsoft trip next week: Frank Black is doing music for GRAW 2. What the hell, people.

[Aside: God, I wish they didn't have music playing over the back of the video. LET THE MAN SPEAK.]

Medical breakthrough

Email:

Dear Jonty,
World Community Grid is pleased to announce that the Help Defeat Cancer (HDC) project is finished.

I thought it'd hold out longer than this, to be honest.

Model of diplomacy

“It’s that same one you get when you’re traveling and you tell people you’re from America, and they’re like, ‘I’m sorry,’” she said. “But it’s like, ‘Hey, I control all the money and all the power, so sorry for you.’”

Depressing times at the model UN, which looks to be remarkably similar to the real UN. The biggest downer amid this crowd of precocious and often despisable adolescents comes from one of the staff:

Eric Kardas, a teaching assistant assigned to the U.S. delegation, explained that America is necessarily the 800-pound gorilla at the model U.N. “The United States needs to command every committee,” he said. “If there’s a weak American delegation, committees fall apart.”

The choice appears to be "America wins" or "Everybody loses". What a hugely positive outlook.

Silent Contemplation

Silent Contemplation
Originally uploaded by Mr Jonty.

Long day in London on Friday. Train at 7, working breakfast at 9, briefing at 10, interview at 12, afternoon spent on the phone and on email trying to chase up stuff that was sufficiently urgent that I couldn't leave it for the two hours required to get back to Bath. I went out with Gril & chums in the evening, missed all the trains, and discovered he had a new tenant in his block of flats when we returned. I felt the pose should be recorded.

Coursework

Helping my sister with an essay.

Debbie says:
the other bit i really hate is 'whilst Fowles can afford to take more liberties with criticising society in the twentieth century as the modern reader is encouraged to embrace multiculturalism and differing religious ideas

Debbie says:
originally i just said we're all secular humanists and christianity was dead

Jonty says:
Haha.

Debbie says:
apparently i have to be more 'subtle'

Pretty

nature_HIV_small2
Originally uploaded by Mr Jonty.

An atomic-level picture of a key portion of an HIV surface protein as it looks when bound to an infection-fighting antibody. Unlike much of the constantly mutating virus, this protein component is stable and—more importantly, say the researchers—appears vulnerable to attack from this specific antibody, known as b12, that can broadly neutralize HIV.

More here.

Youthful enterprise

Because I've been working on a launch for the last year or so, I - and the rest of the team - haven't had much contact with readers, for the good and sufficient reason we didn't have any beyond the focus groups. Now, the magazine is on the shelves - with our Live Messenger addresses in it. And so it begins.