Diet, Health & Food-myths Part III (Red Bull)

Red Bull doesn't give you wings, except if you're an F1 driver. 

Myth - Red Bull gives you wings (and angel-wings if mixed with Vodka)

Truth - Red Bull contains one ingredient that will make you a bit less tired, and that is caffeine. That's it! The rest is just sugar, B-vitamins, Glucuronolactone and Taurine. And while Taurine have many biological functions none of these will prevent sleepiness in any degree.
Well the caffeine then, I hear you ask. It's got so much caffeine it's like drinking 10 cups of coffee!
Well no, unsurprisingly it doesn't contain more caffeine than coffee. It's about the same or a little less (around 32 mg/100ml) than a normal cup of black gold. And we're not real clear on when your caffeine intake stops having this effect anyway, perhaps the fourth cup doesn't do anything to help with  keeping you up.

But, I now hear you ask in unison, we've all heard that mixing energy drinks with alcohol is a deadly mix. Surely than can't be a myth.
But of course it is, it's an absolutely ridiculous myth. Even if there was one chance in a thousand that you'd die I would have died at least ten times. And I haven't...I think.



I did sleep in a coffin once, but that was during the Interview with the Vampire years. 

So why do people think it's so dangerous to drink a RBV? Probably it's a mix of what everyone thought Red Bull was in the beginning, that it was borderline cocaine and had lot's of different magic elf-dust that made you smell unicorns




It tastes like purple 




and some reports in the media about people who has died after a night of drinking Red Bull cocktails.
What we fail to take into account is the sheer number of people drinking RedBullVodka every night all around the world, and the few people dying. It's tragic but it's unrelated to RB. One story in the Telegraph was about a 21-year old woman who died after a night out drinking RBV. Turned out she had a heart-condition, was on epilepsy meds and had an abnormally large heart. She had an autopsy and the coroner ruled natural causes.
There maybe a slight risk of drinking a bit more alcohol than usual when you mix with RB due to the caffeine but then again, there is a slight risk of drinking a bit too much beer sometimes too...



                                                                                              passedoutphotos.com


You know you are just above the perfect amount of drunk when you make the toilet pass out

Diet, Health & Food-myths Part IV

Now we all know that we can eat chocolate, drink Red-Bull, use normal salt, have some sugar and not to spend all our money on protein bars and amusing shake-bottles. But there are many many myths left out there that will limit the possibility of an easy and wonderful life with the overflow and variation that even Kings couldn't enjoy just a couple of centuries ago. Here are some short facts you can take with you:

• Microwave your food doesn't contaminate it with radiation
• Eating late at night doesn't make you fatter than eating at any other time. It's the total calorie intake that counts.
• Cravings aren't your body telling you what it is missing, it's your mind craving something.
• Raw-food isn't unequivocally better for you, a lot of vegetables need cooking to loose some bad substances or make nutrients accessible. 
• Fasting isn't needed to cleanse your body from toxins, it doesn't work like that. 
• Enemas have no advantages and many perils (unless given by doctors for medical reasons)
• Muscles doesn't turn into fat if you stop working out, it's different tissue. 
• Coca-Cola will not dissolve a tooth in a night or melt your stomach
• Glucuronolactone is not dangerous and has not been banned in relation to brain-tumors
• Cold water after a meal will not solidify the fat in your stomach
• Margarine isn't made of plastic
• Synthetic vitamins have the same effect as natural. It's the same molecule. 
• No one has ever caught a cold by being cold, the name is misleading. 
• Absinthe was never hallucinogenic, just cheap and strong. 

Diet, Health & Food-myths Part II

                                                                                                   Photo by: Alexander Butler

Prepare your cells to be redoxed

Myth - ASEA water is magic potion


Truth - ASEA is salt water.
This is not so much a myth as it is formula 1A snake oil. You might not even have heard of it, since it's not really sold in normal hippie-stores but rather is part of an elaborate pyramid scheme to make a couple of ruthless scoundrels rich while easily fooled, innocent and naive people tries to sell their useless, nicely boxed, aggressively marketed crap. They use a lot of nonsensical taglines like they always do.
Since it's not really a myth it might not fit this subject but I think it's close enough.
So what do they claim ASEA water does? Oh what doesn't it do, let your eyes feast on these claims:

- ASEA is the first and only stable, perfectly balanced mixture of Redox Signaling reactive molecules that exists outside the body
- ASEA is trillions of stable, perfectly balanced Redox Signaling Molecules suspended in a pristine saline solution—the same molecules that exist in the cells of the human body.
- Boosts efficiency of the body's own antioxidants by up to 500%
- Completely native to the body.

Basically it transforms your whole body, and the future.... of everything. I can't believe how mankind has survived for so long without Redox signalling molecules.
Well, we haven't. We have loads of the little buggers. As Science-Based Medicine puts it:
"Redox signaling is a process whereby free radicals, reactive oxygen species, and other compounds act as biological messengers. Nitric oxide, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon monoxide can be classified as redox signaling molecules"- Basically electron Reduction/Oxidation communication.


Bask in the glory of my magnificence as I insert a sciency picture from Wikipedia. You are welcome.


The ASEA makers claims that we humans stops producing these molecules early on in life and will benefit by getting more of their signalling goodness. They also say that they have found a way to transform the salt into new chemicals. In their own words:
"ASEA is a mixture of 16 chemically recombined products of salt and water with completely new chemical properties. It is no longer salt or water just like table salt is no longer chlorine gas or sodium metal."
So what you are really drinking according to them is....who knows? "Completely new chemical properties" doesn't really fill me with confidence. If a Vodka-maker have recombined the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to have new chemical properties of unknown effect I'd steer clear.
But don't worry, ASEA is expensive salt water and if your wallet is bigger than your confidence you should be okay to drink it and feel "excited about the new paradigm and awareness we now have with ASEA and its ability to transform human health" Link


But if they actually have found a way to change salt to biological signaling molecules, would it work?
I'm not a doctor, a chemist or a Medical Atomic Physicist (as Gary L Samuleson on ASEA:s payroll is being marketed as) but it sounds pretty daft doesn't it? If you drink brain-cells they wouldn't travel through your body up to your brain and get to work, high-fiveing their new colleagues. They would be dissolved by your stomach acid and whatever nutrients salvageable would be transported to your liver and then onwards to your cells and tissue.
If it would work like they claim I'd be two thirds wine by now and by testicles would look like grapes.



                                                                                                Photo: 123rf.com
That explains a lot


links:
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/asea-another-expensive-way-to-buy-water/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox_signaling


Myth - Hyperactive children during a sugar-rush
Truth - There are no sugar-rushes. At all.
This is one of the myths scientists themselves are become a bit fed up with, the myth has become so lodged into our society nobody believes you when you are trying to tell them.
So why won't people just drop this nonsense? Well, it's actually a bit of bad parenthood (uh-uh, now I'm in trouble), some parents judge their kids more harshly, criticize them for smaller offences and gets generally annoyed by them when they play very much like every other kid play. In one study the asked a bunch of parents if they had noticed a difference in behavior with their children after having consumed a high amount of sugar. Those who said yes got put into two groups, one where their kids was said to be given drinks with extra sugar in, and one where they would get sugar-free drinks.
After playing together the parents where told to fill out a survey on how their children behaved.
Those who where told their children got the high-dose sugar drinks said the kids where hyper.




                                                                                                      Photo:1979rock.blogspot.com 

Guess the control-group


In reality they all got the same sugar-free drink. This was also videotaped and what was apparent was that the mothers in the group that thought their kids was very sugar-sensitive shadowed their kids, criticized them and generally got along badly. The other group had a much more harmonious time. 


So what's the deal? Probably just parents who fulfill their own erroneous fears. And kids that pick up on their parents anxiety and act up a little more. This is probably even more common among control-freak parents who interprets every little detail with the preconceived image of a hyperactive, sugar-doped little demon. Confirmation Bias in effect.


Oh and since there is no Sugar Rush, there is no Sugar Crash either. So next time you see the worst of the American sit-coms with canned-laughter and old tired jokes (more often than no starring Charlie Sheen or Jim Belushi) there will be an episode with sugar-rush jokes. Don't laugh, it's not funny. It's boring, uninspired and scientifically inaccurate (except for when Peter Griffin drinks Red Bull, milks a cow and the friction from his hyperactive hands sets the udders on fire. That shit is hilarious!)

Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay H6

                                                                                           design by Jakob Wagner

What gorgeous classic retro-futurism

Made from anodized aluminium and cowhides from New Zealand B&O has created another

classic piece of beautifully crafted engineering.

Available from May 2013 from around 400 Euro 

Diet, Health & Food-myths Part I

Photo by: Bevan Goldswain

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, the dentist on the other hand... 




This area is one of the most treacherous you can choose when you wanna bust myths. People have a lot of strong opinions and feeling about food, and many want that placebo feeling when they stuffing Asian kelp into their faces or spending half their salary at a little scruffy farm-shop filled to the brim with organic roots and manned by a wild-haired nature-woman dressed in a linen curtain. There are several reasons it's a touchy subject, often due to contradictory information and a massive market selling you a lifestyle. We also have a lot of old myths we have inherited from our parents from the time people genuinely thought that you'd get cramps if you'd do anything physically straining after dinner.





Myth - Chocolate gives you acne.


Truth - Acne Vulgaris is a condition which most teens gets. It's natures way of trying to stop teen pregnancy's by making you look like a zombie thrown up in your face at the exact moment you develop sexual feelings without the experience to not put a baby in everything that says yes. When your testosterone levels go up (on both boy dudes and girl dudes) your sebaceous glands start to produce more sebum (skin grease) than they used to do. That'll leave you one sexually frustrated, physically unappealing chaotic mess. Chocolate may be your only joy in life, might aswell enjoy it.


*





Myth - Bro', do you even lift?  Well you're gonna need protein supplement

Truth - Protein is important, 10-35% of your daily intake of food should be protein. When we discovered meat some 2.3 million years ago our brains took a giant leap in size and complexity and our bodies changed from vegetable-digesting processor to ripped warriors.



My food craps on your food.

But, do we really need to spend a lot of money on protein-shakes when we lift some heavy object three times a week?
As long as you get an adequate amount of proteins you don't need expensive powder drinks in special containers with cool logos on. Eat well and all that extra protein won't change anything but the mood of those selling it.





But without this, who will know that I attack ? They may think I'm a body sneaker!




*

Myth - Himalaya rock salt is magic

Truth - Sodium Chloride (NaCl) is salt and salt is good for us. We need it to function, fries tastes rather bland without it and Salt'n'Pepa would just be Sandra Denton. The salt we buy in little containers are either "Sea Salt",  which is simply evaporated sea water, or "Rock Salt" which is mined by one of these little monsters:










BBC


Bro', do you even mine?




There are a lot of claims made my both sides that their preferred salt is the best, but the wildest claims comes undoubtedly from the people selling Himalayan Salt. Google it and there are almost no limits to the magic:
- Balances acidity in brain-cells (sounds very fishy)
- Works as a strong antihistamine (can't find any support of this anywhere)
- Help you sleep
- Stabilize irregular heartbeats (if you have that, go see a doctor)
- Reduce signs of aging
- Protect you from cancer, asthma, rheumatism (sure it does)
- Maintain your libido (tent pitched all night)
- It contains 84-92 minerals in exactly the same proportion as your body (it doesn't and it doesn't)
- The salt is hand-mined from underground caves (that sounds like the worst job ever)
and many other fantastically imaginative things.

And it doesn't even stop with all the wonders it does to you when you eat it, you can also buy Himalayan Salt-lamps that apparently (I kid you not) balance electromagnetic radiation, create healthy ions and oxygenate the air. I'm not even gonna bother with debunking those claims, if you believe that you are at the wrong place and nothing I say will change your mind.

What I will explain is why Himalayan Rock Salt (HRS) is just salt, nothing more but actually something less. Even though they claim to contain a lot of stuff you need it doesn't contain Iodine (which is added to refined table-salt for a reason) and you do want that. And all those other "minerals" HRS contains, do you really want them?
Every time you put some salt on your potatoes you'll get Uranium, Wolfram, Strontium & Cadmium. The only way that could be good for you is if you're aiming to be a cartoon super-hero





I am Salt-Boy, I'm here to stabilize your heart irregularities and make your boners rock-hard






Oh, and it's not hand-mined from underground caves, it's industrially mined in Khewra Salt Mines, the worlds second largest salt mine in the world with an annual output of around 385 000 tons. It's likely that the salt your city is using on the streets during winter is from Khewra. 


There is no reason to change from your iodine-enriched table salt unless your friends are pretentious douche-bags that only eat hand-mined salt from the untouched ancient caves high in the Himalayas. If that's the case you should really get new friends. 

Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night, 

Old age should burn and rage at close of day; 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 

Because their words had forked no lightning they 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 

Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

- Dylan Thomas

Brain Myths

                                                                                                                         http://www.fastcoexist.com/

Can you hear Zombies drooling? 

While thinking about more myths most people believe (or choose to believe cause it sound cool, is comfortable to believe or is uncomfortable with to question said belief) my mind wandered to my mind. Brains are the target of many myths, partly because it's still quite a lot of mysteries left to solve, partly because we want to live in a world where our brains are super-genius computers just a command from being unlocked to their fullest glory. And this is not entirely untrue, but some of it is and some of it need further clarification.
Some stuff you've heard is wrong though, listening to Mozart doesn't make you smarter, you won't buy more Coke if an image is spliced into a movie and you will not kill yourself if somebody tells you to do it backwards on a heavy-metal album. When we choose to believe these things we forget how we work.

What I'm gonna address here though are clear myths (or misunderstandings that is applicable as myths here today)

Myth 5 - Alcohol kills brain-cells en masse

Truth - Alcohol doesn't actually kills brain-cells no, it damages dendrites.

                                                                                                                http://fusionanomaly.net

That's how cells communicate. After dendrite breakdown it's all family therapy and trust leaps. 

Dendrites are the tips of the neurons that sends the nerve-signals so without them it's a bit of an echo-chamber, the thing is that this damage is reversible. So while being an alcoholic is pretty bad for you, there are no reason to not shape up and have a vitamin-shake (because most of the damage your get while being alcoholic is actually a lack of nutrition and thinking Jackass is comedy gold )

Myth 6 - You only use 10% of your brain

Truth - I hesitated about doing this myth, since it's so old and dumb hardly anybody believes it anymore. But perhaps we can put it to death in a couple of more people. This myth survives because it's a vehicle for people believing in the supernatural, they can make bold claims about tapping into the other 90% and that is allegedly where nature has chosen to store our telekinesis, ESP and savant-skills (without the social hassle of being autistic or having brain-damage).
This one of the myths common sense should have triumphed over a long time ago, nature doesn't design a brain as big and complex as ours and then use a tenth of it. The reason we are total idiots as children is because if we'd been born as ready as most animals women would have needed a uterus like a sleeping bag and the childbearing hips of an elephant. Our brain consumes 20% of our total energy despite having only about 2% of our total mass.
To add to the stupidity of the myth, do you really think you could function with only 10% of you brain working?

Myth 7 - Left handed people use the right part of their brain and are therefore more creative

Truth - This is not entirely true, and not entirely untrue. The basic premise is false though, because first of all creativity isn't something isolated. To write a book, compose a song or invent a machine you will need a lot of brainpower and many different centers that are spread around both hemispheres of the brain. You can, if you will, simplify the brain into a left logical and right creative hemisphere but it doesn't really work. Most of us use our Corpus Callosum (the highway between west-coast and east-coast brain-gangs) all the time to solve stuff. One study published in Scientific America (Found here) mentions something called the Interpreter Phenomenon which states that the left hemisphere made up stories about what the right hemisphere where doing. That's pretty creative of boring old logical lefty, eh!
Besides this there is not a clear definition of left-handed or right-handed. We usually mean which hand we prefer to use while writing, but that can differ from how we eat, use an ice-hockey stick and throw a ball (called mixed-handedness, about 30% have this).
Also there is no scientific solid correlation between left-handed and right-brained or vice versa, so there is that. 

Myths part II

Sorry dudes, not gonna happen. Probably. Unless you are loaded. Or if it's hipster-glasses by some unfathomable reason. 
(http://futurederm.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com)

Myth 4 - Humans communicate with each other subconsciously by chemicals called Pheromones and if you spray a bunch of them on you you're gonna get lucky with all the women within a noseshot (it's a word, damn you red squiggly line)

Truth - First things first; pheromones exist. A lot of non-human animals and even plants use them all the time to tell one another what's up. And even if it ruins my own game I must confess that there may even be pheromones floating around between humans, it would explain some strange choices (i.e some beautiful women choosing me), we'll get to that later.
The myth I have in mind is the one that there are clearly defined chemical compounds that we can replicate and use for a specific task. That just doesn't hold any scientific validity.

Pheromones are simply a chemical emitted by one individual that triggers a response on another individual. It can be sexual, but can also be something as simple as leaving a trail to food or sounding an alarm. But that can't be directly transferred to us
Most animals are stupid, ants for example hardly have brains, so they are not that attentive to subtle nuances in social behavior and cutting edge fashion. That's where the pheromones come in, it's natures traffic signs.

The type of pheromones we are talking about in the myth is the Releaser and Primer. The Releaser is the one changing the sniffers behavior (exact scientific description), and the Primer has to do with slow psychological changes. We probably have Primer-pheromones, babies that find lactating breasts and women synchronizing their menstrual cycles suggest that. What has never been found & identified though is a chemical released by a human that trigger any responses (besides a fart triggering panic in an elevator, we know that is mostly H2S but it's not considered a pheromone).

So why don't we use pheromones? The answer is probably that we lost our gene for VNO receptors at the same time we gained color vision. Vision became more important than smell and enter grills:

"No need to use your nose, I can hear your uterus screaming for my ink and sparkly teeth."

(picture depicting an individual called Lil' Wayne who may or may not be alive)

New Series - Myths debunked

Buzz Buzz, says the little Bumblebees vibrating flight-muscles

Myth 1 - Bumblebees burn instead of sting (also they can't really fly, but do it anyway because they don't know that they can't)

Truth - Let's start with the basics; bees are insects with about 20 000 species among them. And like Hippies they are everywhere (except Antarctica because there are no flowers there, same reason for Hippies). 

They have a long "tongue" that they suck nectar with and they produce honey (some of them, those that count. The rest can sod off, our tea have no use for you). 

According to myth Bumblebees doesn't have a stinger, but instead burn their victims (mostly stupid dogs, stupid cats and stupid kids) with some sort of heat or acid. The truth is that not only do they sting, they lack the barbs on the stingers honey-bees have so they can sting repeatedly. Thankfully they are quite restrictive and sting only in defense of their nest or their body.

Also they can fly, obviously. They are just very clumsy and ineffective flyers.

Angry Bird wants you! (to marry someone)

Myth 2 - Birds that eat uncooked rice from the street at a wedding explodes (and dies, presumably)

Truth - They just don't, trust me on this. It doesn't even make sense. Birds eat rice in the wild and are very rarely found to have pots and pans in their kitchen to cook said rice. They are also capable of digesting food, like most animals (and some scary ass flowers) are.

"The Five Senses" by Hans Makart, missing the puke sensor

Myth 3 - People have 5 senses

Truth - This one is pretty surprising. I was surprised when I learned this, people I talk to are surprised when i tell them ("what? more than 5 senses? what are you doing in my bedroom?") and I have a sneeking suspicion that you are surprised right now, dear reader.
So what's the deal? Everyone except Hippies knows that we have 5 senses, Hippies knows we have 6 (the sixths sense is doing pretty much everything apparently). Well I am sad to say that all you know is a lie (all you know about us having 5 senses that is, the rest is probably solid information), I'm sadder to say that Hippies are actually closer to the real answer. So what is the real answer, and will I ever shut up about Hippies?
The real, definitive answer to the question "how many senses does a human being have" is....unknown. Or at least undecided. The problem is that there is now definitive definition of sense.
The basic 5 senses we can all agree on; it's sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. But that doesn't cover all the perceptions we get. We must add things like balance, sense of time, pain and the kinesthetic sense (basically where your arms and legs are in relation to your body). Besides this there are a lot of internal senses that regulate your body, like bloodpressure, stretch receptors in the lungs and all the nasty (but sensationally important) sensors that tell you to puke, poop and pee.

12-12-12 12:12

Death of plant, dwelling for spider

Oscars 2012 - Part II - Best Director

Best Director is naturally one of the biggest categories and a personal favorite because that's what differs a good movie from a great movie. A genius director can use a fantastic story and make a fantastic film. 


But it's hard to win, Hitchcock never won, neither did Kurosawa, Fellini or Robert Altman. Tim Burton hasn't yet. 


The nominees this year are:

• Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris
• Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
• Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life
• Alexander Payne – The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese – Hugo

Woody Allen (or Allen Stewart Konigsberg, did you know that?) already has two Oscars and I don't think he's due for another, even if Midnight.. is well received. 
Michel is the new star, the writer/director/actor that finally got a break in Hollywood and made a black-white silent movie that had taken everyone by storm. He has a real chance of bagging the prize, depending on if the jury award The Tree of Life the Best Picture award. 
Hugo is a wonderful film but it lacks that last percent that I would expect from Scorsese, I think that movie will win Oscars but not in this category. There are too many scenes that he could have made that little better. He also won in 2006 for The Departed, and rightfully so. It was brilliantly directed. 


History


The first years this award the eligibility period spanned two calendar years, but in 1935 they changed it to the format we are familiar with still, films from the last calendar year. They also gave out two Oscars for best director, one for drama and one for comedy. 


Last year Tom Hooper won for King's Speech (a real Oscar bait movie, well played but a bit of a yawn if I'm honest and Darren should have easily won for Black Swan) and so far 88 directors have been nominated more than once (with John Ford leading with 4 but dwarfed by William Wyler with 12 nominations in total, hands up everyone that can even name 12 movies by him. I know Ben-Hur and that's about it)

Pictured above: Celluloid history in tweed and total lack of empathy for human life

Sorry, catch you next time

The problem I have with the Oscars (besides them giving it to Michael Moore for best documentary when it has very little to do with reality, and to Al Gore for the very same reason) is that they skip worthy winners because another worthy winner was skipped last time so they have to give the prize to a person, not their creation. 

Let me give you a couple of examples; in 1975 Al Pacino was nominated for The Godfather part II but lost to Art Carney because Art was due. Never mind that Pacino put in the performance of his (and therefore everybodys) life. 

In 1992 he was nominated again for Scent of a Woman (yeah he drives a Ferrari blind, that's pretty much everything I also remember from that heaping pile of manure) but won because he was due. 

In 2000 Ang Lee was nominated for THE movie that brought Asia to Hollywood for real and for ever; Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. But lost to Soderberghs Traffic, so in 2005 Ang Lee was nominated again with an extremely boring movie about two cowboys that was more than just friends and won over Munich, Capote, Crash and Good Night and Good Luck. 

Because he was due....

Conclusion

Michel will win, because those none are due this year. Not in this category anyway. 

Oscars 2012 - Part I - Best Visual Effects

So the Academy Awards (or "Oscars" after Bette Davis named it) are upon us again this Sunday 26/2. This will be the 84th ceremony after starting in 1929.
I will write a little about who the nominees are and who I think should win, and who I think will win. There will also be a follow-up post afterwards with opinions about the show, the winners, the losers and why I was wrong in every category. So everything but the clothes, basically (cause frankly I don't care).

I don't know how to feel about the Oscars anymore, there have been some really weird winners (hello Al Gore and Eminem) and some films you just can't believe lost (Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love back in 1999, Forrest Gump won over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption in -95) but it's still the biggest thing in film so what can you do but watch.


I'm gonna start my predictions with the category Best Visual Effects. And the nominees are:


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon


Many very impressive effects in these, I haven't seen Hugo yet though but from the clips I've seen it's up there with the rest of them. Planet of the apes is really good, especially the transformation between FX shots and film. But I don't think it will win. Reel Steel is a bit like Transformers but so much smaller in scale, so I don't think it would be logical to choose that. The Harry Potter movies has always had fantastic Visual Effects, they have never tried to make them the point of the scene, they have just helped telling the story.
I still think Transformers will win though, and why shouldn't it?! It's not a movie at all, it's just an expose of how brilliant ILM is at making visual effects, just take a look at this video showing some of the magic being made:

The only real threat to Transformers would be Hugo (because it's a better movie and could get this prize instead of Best Picture or Best Director, or Harry Potter because it's the last movie in the epic.

We'll see on Sunday night.


More:
Cracked about the Oscars
Oscar Etiquette with Sir Cecil Worthington
Hugo Trailer

Happy Valentines Day

Library of Dust

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

This is a canister filled with human. Crazy human.
Sounds strange, looks strange = is strange. And somehow beautiful and disgusting. 

The backstory is this; before WWI an Oregon state psychiatric institution (where they filmed Cuckoos Nest no less) cremated the corpses of patients that died but that nobody came to collect. They decided to store the ashes in copper canisters, one per patient, so they still had something to present to what ever relative that decided to show up. Or maybe just because even those deemed mad by society deserved some (although somewhat twisted) dignity in death.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

What photographer David Maisel really has captured transcends merely moldy metal cans. What he has done, is to bring these terribly sad human stories to light. They have a chance one final time to be beautiful in a way. The chemicals in their ashes reacting with the copper and surrounding air, drawing maps of their instanity.

[Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books]

More: Bldgblog, David Maisel, David Maisel Library of Dust, Amazon.com Book link, Wikipedia for Oregon State Hospital

SOPA PIPA (blackout wednesday)

R.I.P mr Jobs

Climate update - Co2 rising, temp not following

Despite what we hear from the scientific political camp the increase of Co2 in our atmosphere still doesn't raise the temperature to dangerous levels. The August reading at Mauna Lau reads Co2 at 391.7ppm but temperature second coldest this century. Enter graphs:

So from what we have learned from the press, the "scientists" that are getting their breads baked by IPCC and the politicians too lazy to read something longer than 18 pages, more Co2 means more Celsius.
So when more Co2 doesn't mean more Celsius? What do we do? More science?

Call me cynical but I think not, not yet anyway. This craze will die down soon enough. There isn't enough scientific data to support it but there are so many powerful men and women that has promised us to save the world by taking our money, and they will have to be able to save face and back gracefully out of this malarkey to make it a quick death.

Additional Links:
Monckton on Paul Nurses AntiScience
http://cei.org/news-releases/govt-fu...l-climate-data
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...ick-j-michaels
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/27...ver-climate-st
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-ipcc-hoax-dissent-nobel-prize-winner-physicist-re.htm

Calm Before the Storm

So it seems that the east coast of the US is gonna get hit by a severe storm. The subway is closing down for the first time ever, the largest evacuation ever and so on and so forth. This has gotta be extreme weather right? And you don't need a Nobel Prize or Academy Award to draw the line between the Man Made Global Warming Climate Change Climate Chaos and this new super-storm, eh! It's just that easy, isn't it?

More Co2 = death to all! I have the Power Point to prove it. PS I'll take checks, they absolves you from guilt

Believe it or not, but it turns out that the complex, chaotic system that changes temperature, moves water and creates clouds is more sophisticated than:
if add co2
  disp fire earth
else
  disp voodoo science

If we slowly backs away from the madness and take a sober look around into what the real scientist are saying, we may learn that we have less storms now than for over 2000 years, and that a little bit warmer global mean temperatures may yield less and less severe storms, hurricanes, typhoons and mistrals.

Also, there have been pretty funky weather in the past also, and that was before Co2 taxation made Al Gore a Billionaire

I absolutely believe there is a perfect storm here, and it's been blowing since 1988 when IPCC was formed to try to convince the world newspapers and politicians that the recent warming it had (probably) experienced since the last mini-Ice Age (really? The world warmed after a low period? And also, that's a bad thing? Like the year without summer was a good year for people, crops and everything?) was all down to the modern society's emission of carbon-dioxide by the burning of fossil fuels in power-plants and cars, trucks and boats.

The Perfect Storm
What can be better than a great threat to humanity which you can do something about by increasing taxes and government? It's the Perfect Storm, it's the wet dream for politicians to make them seem concerned and able. It's the wet dream for whatever passes for journalists these days, the have fodder for years and years writing about all the terrible things that are happening, will happen, can happen and what you (always you, not they. They are far too important to take the train, cycle or walk) can do to make that terrible threat go away.
And finally, it's the wettest of wet dreams for the scare mongers that lives on selling crises and themselves as the crusaders against everything evil; the fucking Marxist enviromentalists! Greenpeace, WWF, PATT, SocEnv and so on forever and ever.

Maybe the weather is affecting more people because we are more people? 
In 1874 there where 946,000 people living in Cambodia, a country notorious for it's tropical monsoons and disastrous floodings. Today they are 15 million.
In 1870 the US had 38 million people, today it's close to 310 million. 


140 years may seem like a long time for us, and that's what they want you to believe. Remember that mother Earth is 4.54 Billion years old (unless you take all your knowledge from one collection of badly written, loosely connected short stories called The Bible, but then again if you believe in that, what are you doing on the internet?) so it's just a blink of an eye. Should we stop society and bring back the dark ages because of this? I by "society" I mean Europe because India has always been excepted (oh the irony, I'm naturally referring to the railway engineer Pachauri who is also head of the IPCC), China wasn't bothered, Japan got sick of it, and the US have revised their standing since Mr Hope Obama "saved" the COP15 last minute somehow. Saved faces maybe...


Until scientists will be able to research further into this complex matter I will regard climate as a very complex and sophisticated chaotic system that we know very little about. Maybe CLOUD will tell us more? 
Until we know, they can take their goddamn taxes and attitude and fuck off. Socialism never won, it just cost millions upon millions of lives and countless misery to lose.

Dizzy Moon