Archive for July, 2007
The Simpsons Movie: disappointing
I wish I’d read Biffo’s blog before going to the cinema:
Ignore all these 4/5 reviews telling us not to worry that they might’ve ballsed it up - they have ballsed it up. It’s really, really, really average. And it feels hollow - unlike the series, you can almost hear the air whistling between the gags; it’s not four episodes rolled into one. It’s two, maybe two and a half episodes, stretched out to the length of four.
That’s it exactly. I think it’s maybe the Cartoon Curse: what works in quickfire episodes doesn’t stretch to an hour-plus. Same way some acts are singles bands who can’t stretch their talents to an entire album.
Mind you, I’m still in a “don’t make me think, entertain me dammit!” frame of mind, and I quite fancy seeing Transformers as a result. Is it the big, dumb, fast, noisy pile of crap it seems to be? And if so, is it a big, dumb, fast, noisy pile of crap *in a good way*?
Poptastic!
US teen-pop sensations Aly & AJ are, I’m sure, mere puppets of some sinister svengali. But who cares? Potential Breakup Song [Youtube] is fantastic, and makes me want to dance with all the sexiness you’d expect from a 34-year-old man with a bad back.
[Via popjustice]
Mobile phones and electrosensitivity, again
When I wrote about electrosensitivity for PC Plus a few months back, I mentioned that while every study to date had found no evidence that the condition was anything other than psychological, a key study at Essex University was taking place to look even more closely at the issues. The results are in, and guess what? There’s still no evidence that electrosensitivity is anything other than a psychological condition.
There’s much more here at Bad Science, and of course the newspapers are beginning to cover it too (although probably not on their front pages, I suspect).
Usual disclaimer here: I think that people who believe they are electrosensitive are indeed suffering. But while they believe that electromagnetic fields, particularly those from Wi-Fi and mobile phones, are causing their condition, there’s absolutely no evidence to support that claim. And the more scientists look at it, the more solid the “it’s got nothing to do with electromagnetic fields” case becomes. Something is making them sick, but it could be the nocebo effect: if you believe something will make you ill (mobile masts, a gypsy curse, a black cat crossing the road the wrong way) then it may well make you ill.
Aaaanyway. Comment number one on the Daily Mail’s report on the study, which notes that this is one of the largest and most detailed studies into electrosensitivity, is:
“In the short term at least.”
Note these words.
What about the long term?
*Sigh*
Update
The BBC quote from Powerwatch is interesting:
“So whilst it cannot be entirely ruled out that a small minority are truly sensitive, the proportions of any truly sensitive people are likely to be far lower than the 3% - 35% that has been quoted.”
Credit where credit’s due, that’s a decent response.
Even assuming that some people are genuinely electrosensitive (which I very much doubt), the research says the majority of ES sufferers are ill because of psychological factors. Hopefully some common sense will prevail and we can actually start treating them and making them better instead of chasing after electronic bogeymen.
Advice for anyone who’s going to be Best Man at a wedding
On the morning of your friend’s wedding, if you’re trying to calm his nerves by projecting an air of calm, unruffled “this is a piece of piss” confidence, try not to walk head-first into a door with sufficient force that your specs puncture one of your eyelids. For some reason the groom’s faith in your fundamental unflappability is dented somewhat if a river of blood is running down the side of your head.
It turns out that his confidence will be dented even further if, when you try to prevent a black eye by holding a bag of frozen veg against your eye socket, you start shouting “Aaaagh! Brain freeze! Brain freeze!”
Wii will hurt you
For all I love Nintendo’s Wii and reckon it’s a work of genius, I’m really not sure about the Wiimote from an ergonomic point of view. As someone who’s had repetitive strain injury for years I’m pretty good at keeping the symptoms at bay (so RSI-inducing games such as Rayman Raving Rabbids are a no-no), but over the last week my right hand has started doing the “hello! I’m a claw!” thing anyway. It doesn’t look great, and it’s really rather uncomfortable.
The culprit? Resident Evil 4, or rather using the Wiimote for RE4. Rather alarmingly, just 20 minutes of holding the Wiimote with fingers poised over the A and B buttons is enough to give me crab hands - whereas *hours* on the Xbox don’t cause any ill-effects at all. I’m beginning to think that what’s fine for Wii Tennis - a controller with all the ergonomics of a house brick - is a really bad idea for other games.
I know some of you have Wiis and don’t have RSI (as far as I’m aware) - are you experiencing sore hands from gaming with the Wiimote?
Yes, I am easily amused
A new blog, Jockshire, made me laugh this morning by explaining the West Lothian Question. As Mr Jock explains, it’s actually several sub-questions, one of which is:
- What on earth possessed them to allow Livingston to be built there?
FFS indeed
You probably don’t want to see a black Merc, registration N511 FFS, if you’re wandering around Glasgow at the moment. So far he’s waved hammers at people, attempted to run a bloke over and been involved in two car crashes.
Insert “sounds like a typical Merc owner” joke here.
Wii will shock you
I’ve been playing a bit of Resident Evil 4 on the Wii, and it’s amazing - not the game so much as using the Wiimote to play it. What is (so far) a pretty standard O Noes! Zombies! game becomes considerably scarier and more stressful when you’re trying to aim your gun for real or stab someone with the Wiimote.
It also freaks out the dog if you’re playing it on headphones.
We’re blogging about the wrong stuff, ladies and gentlemen
According to Business Week, Perez Hilton rakes in $111,000 a month from celebrity gossip blogging while TechCrunch’s future-of-the-web stuff brings in $200K per month.
My new blog - Paparazzi Snaps And AJAX Apps - launches tomorrow.
Set your body clock? Never mind that, how do you switch it off?
There’s a discussion on Lifehacker about training your internal alarm clock so you wake up whenever you want. Okay, but how do you turn the sodding thing off? My one’s permanently set to Stupidly Early O’Clock and if I thought smashing myself in the head with hammers would change that, I’d try it.