I remember when zefrank first did the pankegg. It was a cool concept, but someone improved on it: Savory Pankeggs (of Awesomeness).

Finally, I realized that these are all just variations of the Japanese disk okonomiyaki. Now I'm hungry. As long as it doesn't have the mayonnaise sauce, I'll be happy.

I dislike dualities like this: Is Mathematics Discovered or Invented?. I certainly don't mean to detract from the author's article. It's a good one, and well worth reading, especially for people that haven't given much thought to the philosophy of mathematics.

I don't really think there is a right answer in this case. In my mind, however, mathematics is both invented and discovered. We invent mathematical models that we find useful; sometimes we just look for beautiful structures. Then, mathematicians combine these structures in different ways thereby discovering new features. This, at least, is my understanding after reading What Is Mathematics, Really? many years ago. If you found the above article interesting, it may be worth your while to check out this book.

It was only a matter of time before someone created a wireless TV. Gizmodo talks about Sharp's new ultra-thin LCD that needs no cables. Imagine being able to hang your TV on any wall you want without ugly cables or having your walls custom wired! Very cool.

Stolen from barbarafett

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.



Total number of books on this list I have read: 32.

Sam at Slice of SciFi posted a great teaser for the first episode of season 4. But Movie Mania has a great spoiler-free review of the episode. Key points in common are 1) WOW! and 2) What the Frak?!

Mania calls Starbuck a "potential messiah figure". Does anyone else remember the warning about Starbuck at the end of "Razor"? False prophet, perhaps? Or another misdirection? Maybe season 4 will be Moore's version of Revelations.

That actually got me thinking of BSG season 4 as an allegory for Revelations? It's not so crazy when you think about it:

• Armageddon is the final battle. From Wikipedia's article on Revelations:

  These events are foreseen: the Great Tribulation, the Campaign of Armageddon, the Second Coming of the Messiah with the restoration of peace to the world and His 1,000 year reign, the imprisonment of Satan until he is 'loosed' for the final rebellion, God's final judgment over Satan, the Great White throne judgment, and the ushering in of the New Heavens and New Earth.

  
  
• Baltar as Satan? Kinda fitting.
• The Temple of Jupiter could be where "the seven seals" were broken. The second part of the season 3 ending was called "Rapture".
• The 4 revealed cylons could be the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
• Starbuck? I hate to say it, but she could be the whore of Babylon.
• The number 7 plays a prominent role in Revelations and there are 7 known models of Cylons.
• Athena (aka good Boomer) could also be the woman purused by the dragon:

  Revelation 12 introduces a woman clothed in the sun, a crown of twelve stars, and the moon under her feet. She is pursued by a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. It wants to devour her unborn child. However, the child was born and He will rule with an iron rod. The Child was snatched up to God. Then there was a great battle in Heaven.

It's food for thought. Anyone else have more to add?

Plus:
Will the final Cylon be the second coming of the Messiah?
We haven't seen the beast yet, but that may be coming soon.

skzbrust has linked to a great thought-provoking post over at Words Words Words.

"Does an author have a responsibility to do anything for their readers, other than tell an entertaining story?"

The article is called An author’s responsibility. Make sure you read the comments as well.

I saw this over on zefrank's blog: classic movies as done by the SpongeBob voice actors.

Been busy, but I thought I'd jump into the recent iTunes meme:

How many songs total: 10494
How many hours or days of music: 30 days 3 Hours 8 Minutes and 42 Seconds (39.67GB)

Most recently played:
Most played: Americana, The Offspring
Most recently added: Heavy Heart, Ghostland Observatory

Sort by song title:
First Song: A, Barenaked Ladies
Last Song: !＠#*, Rusted Root

Sort by time:
Shortest Song: Four Seconds of Silence, George Hrab, 0:04
Longest Song: Mountain Jam, The Allman Brothers Band, 33:59

Sort by album:
First album: Above Around Behind Below, Brollywacker
Last album: 30 Hour Famine, Various

First song that comes up on Shuffle: Burn, The Cure

Search the following and state how many songs come up:
Death - 35
Life - 186
Love - 392
Hate – 56
You - 1068
Sex – 26

Top Chef is the only reality show I watch. I'd prefer to watch none, but I have to admit that Top Chef is a good show. Plus, I love cooking.

I've known for a while that the new season has been filmed in Chicago. Other than that, details have been hard to come by. Bravo's website has provided little until now. Unfortunately, there is not much other than the bios for the new contestant chefs. You'd think Bravo would provide the air date for the first show on the same page as the show. They don't. The Dish provided it: March 12th.

In the process of searching, I found another couple of interesting sites. The first is a site devoted to Blogging Top Chef. It looks interesting. Apparently we missed Casey's and Hung's birthdays.

The second is an older article from the Chicago Tribune that provides some behind the scenes details on the filming of Top Chef.

From the bio pics, it looks like Bravo focused on the cute factor this season. Richard--what's with the hair?--reminds me of Steven, Spike reminds me of Sam, and Ryan... I hope he's not like Tom Cruise. Regardless, I'm sure they are all talented. It should be a good season.

ZDNet reports on two "new" Apple products: The 16GB iPhone--meh--and... the 32GB iPod Touch! Still too small, but like the author said, it's tempting. :)

John Scalzi, author of Old Man's War, has finished writing his next book: Zoe's Tale. And yesterday, he posted some very interesting thoughts on his goals and writing process for Zoe's Tale.

"I wanted to be sure that Zoe reacted to her situation in ways that make sense — i.e., she can’t just be a Heinleinian “Competent Man” in cutesy gender camouflage. Think this is easy? Try it."

I'm really looking forward to it, but of course, I have to catch up on the other books in the series. It's not like I'm totally behind on my reading as it is. Nope, clearly not.

I read an article yesterday about the formation of a new Russian Hockey league. Unlike other leagues, this goal of this one is to be a direct competitor to the NHL. Vyacheslav Fetisov, a hockey legend and hall-of-famer, seems to be the man making this happen; a perfect choice, given his history.

I really hope Fetisov is successful. The yearly world tournaments are nice, but they don't do much to promote or improve the sport. If the NHL has more competition, it would open up the possibilities for a true World Cup where real, instead of ad hoc, teams compete. Canadians still dominate the NHL talent pool, and while I like that, it would be great if more opportunities were available for young Europeans. A bigger, more diverse talent pool will only improve the game.

I also love the picture of the polar bears with hockey sticks in the article. :)

I don't know who comes up with new food ideas. The two latest just leave me speechless:

• Cheeseburger in a Can
• and Pickle Sickle.

The only thing I can think of is that the fans of SPAM won't be lonely.

Update: The picture in this review says it all: Cheeseburger in a Can Reviewed.

I came across a great term yesterday. It's SoFaDE or the SOFAD Effect:

ask any Depeche Mode fan what they thought of Songs of Faith and Devotion and the first thing would be “It wasn’t as good as Violator.” The trouble is, nothing they’ve done is as good as Violator, which detracts from the fact that SoFaD is not half bad in its own right.

In other words, Violator set expectations so high that is it was impossible for Depeche Mode to live up to them.

The creator(?) of the SoFaDE term used it to describe the disappointment most fans are feeling about the new season of Gunslinger Girl. I've watched, and own, the first series, so I understand why expectations were high.

But, back to SoFaDE... I think bands struggle with this all the time, though it may be true for any artist. What do you do after you've made your "masterpiece"? How do you top it?

There are plenty of bands that fade away--pun intended--after their big hit. Everyone can think of at least one "one-hit wonder". Some bands, however, manage to re-invent themselves and create something new. Green Day did it with American Idiot. The Barenaked Ladies have never quite recaptured the fun of Gordon but broke into the American audience with the success of Stunt.

So, what other examples of SoFaDE can you think of? And which ones have beaten it?

Last week, I mentioned how EA started fighting against Fox News' branding of "Mass Effect" as pornography. One of Fox's "experts" is the self-help author Cooper Lawrence. In response to her poorly researched remarks, angry gamers review spammed her latest book on Amazon. Childish, I know, but she got the message: research matters. Ms. Lawrence has now admitted her mistake.

It's progress, though I doubt Fox will ever retract their statements. I would also like to believe that this sends a message to people that claim an "expert" status on such Infotainment programs such as Fox News. A vain hope, I know, since many people are willing to say anything for a few minutes in the limelight.

I can't believe it's been about a year and a half since I first wrote about the Tesla Roadster. I still think it is awesomely cool, even if it is impractical. Well, now Gizmodo reports that after being smashed to bits and pieces the Tesla Roadster is now street legal.

There is no mention of how rear and side impacts affect the batteries. I might have to look into that a bit more closely.

Still on the anime kick.

ANN is reporting that Bandai has released the English trailer for 2006's The Girl Who Leapt through Time (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo). I loved this movie. Funny, beautiful, and sad, the movie follows the time-traveling exploits of a girl that tries to improve her bad day by correcting it.

I knew the movie was based on a book. I didn't realize, however, that the author, Yasutaka Tsutsui, also wrote the book that Paprika was based on.

I really want to read his novels now. Too bad they haven't been translated into English. But, I think my Japanese might be good enough to read the original Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo.

I haven't seen 5 cm per Second, but I have heard good things about it. It's a story about two close friends that drift apart over the years; something I'm sure everyone has experienced.

The title is very interesting, as the movie's Wiki entry explains:

Makoto's film gives a realistic view of the struggles many face against, time, space, people, and love. The movie is named 5 Centimeters Per Second for the speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways.

And, in good news for the movie, it has won best animated movie at Italy's Future Film Festival.

I'm looking forward to it's DVD release in March.

The gaming industry, like NASA, has long been a pet punching bag of the popular media. Some of the criticism has been justified. Some has not.

In recent weeks, Fox News has been claiming that last year's "Mass Effect", a popular Science Fiction Role Playing Game made by BioWare, contains porn. Electronic Arts, BioWare's parent company, is fighting back.

I salute EA for the attempt. But, appealing to Fox's better nature is probably futile.

Take a look at this article: NASA Moon Rocket Could Shake Apart, Experts Say. What is wrong with it? I find that the title, and most of the article, overstates the seriousness of the problem.

The Ares I isn't due to launch until 2015. That's seven years from now! Even though proven technology is being used in the design, the Ares is a brand new system. There are always hurdles when you build something new, especially early in a project. What does the AP do? They get outside experts to check the design. Of course a problem is found! Problems would be found on any project at this stage.

Does anyone really believe that NASA will ignore the shaking problem and build the rocket anyway?

The reporter was nice enough to quote the NASA administrator as saying, "I hope no one was so ill-informed as to believe that we would be able to develop a system to replace the shuttle without facing any challenges in doing so." The reporter even acknowledges that NASA is fixing the shaking problem.

Despite that, the rest of the article pretends as if the problem won't be fixed. At the end of the article, we get this gem about the shaking problem: "It's highly likely to happen, and if it does, it's a disaster."

This smacks of sensationalism and poor reporting in my opinion. But, I guess it's more fun to beat up on NASA nowadays than to properly report the situation.