The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Opinion

  • Atlanta City Council wants to Ban Saggy Pants

    According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the city council is contemplating an amendment of the city code which is targeted to ban saggy pants (reg. required).

    To summarize: Someone on the council considers the style of droopy drawers with boxer shorts showing to be indecent and inappropriate. Therefore, an ordinace with fines attached. The ACLU is stepping up to combat this stereotypically stupid measure by demonstrating that it could not be enforced in a non-discriminatory way. Despite its wording, which would eliminate jog bras, bra straps, thong straps, and running shorts from public view, it is intended to be a blow against a primarily african-american clothing style.

    Usually, I’m happy to live in the Atlanta Metro area. It’s a cosmopolitan place, with very little “deep south” vibe, excepting some blue laws and the traditional southern hospitality and friendliness. This sort of thing, though, makes me wonder what goes on at council meetings. I can just hear some old geezer during the meeting shouting, “Dang whipper snappers! Don’t they know how to dress!”

    Very very silly.

  • The Children of Men

    I finally slogged my way through The Children of Men by P.D. James. You may recall that there was a movie out last spring which was much hyped. It came to my attention through science fiction circles that this was based off of a science fiction book. I am opposed to seeing movies without first reading the book, so I picked it up.

    Slow-forward about 5 months. I tried twice to read this thing. The third time I finally finished it. Summary: I did not like the book. Blah blah blah blah blah, and so forth for 250 pages. The ideas are interesting such as: the psychological impact of having the entire human race unable to conceive children; the necessary preparations for the last people on Earth; the eventual breakdown of law and order. However, there was an overriding Goddidit theme in this book that annoyed the hell out of me. Warning, spoilers follow (more…)

  • Stardust

    We went to see the movie Stardust last night, starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert DeNiro, among others. It was written by Neil Gaiman, and is possible the best movie I’ve seen in the last five years. Way better than the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or any other of the big-budget fantasy movies that have come out recently. It has a complicated but tightly written plot with excellent storytelling and character development. There are comedic moments that don’t feel like they’ve been injected just to get the audience to laugh, but instead flow with the narrative. It’s all quite good, and if you don’t go see it while it’s in the theaters, you’ll regret it.

    Go. Tonight. See the movie!

  • Pluto, We Hardly Knew Thee

    A year ago, Pluto was declassified as Planet and shunted into the category of Dwarf Planet by the International Astronomical Union. This was accomplished through a series of three qualities that a ‘planet’ must possess, according to the IAU:

    1. A planet must orbit its star, not another body
    2. A planet must have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium, i.e. be a sphere
    3. A planet must have “cleared its neighborhood” of other bodies or debris

    In case you’ve forgotten the ruckus from last year, Pluto fails the third item. In addition to its moon, Charon, there are several other small bodies that are orbiting Charon, and in the same basic orbit as Pluto. Therefore, it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood.

    There are several discussions concerning this topic over at Bad Astronomy, but I’d like to reiterate my opinion that this whole thing was, and still is, very silly. Whether or not Pluto is considered a Planet, or a Dwarf Planet, or a Plutino, or a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), is entirely immaterial to Pluto. It will continue to orbit the sun, most of the time at a distance greater than Neptune, and be the 9th Planet in the minds of a whole lot of people. The definitions of planet are arbitrary and difficult to quantify. For example, how spherical does a body really need to be to be in hydrostatic equilibrium? Saturn has a large ellipsoidal eccentricity caused by its fast rotation (although I’m not arguing that it’s not in hydrostatic equilbirum). If we find a star with one lone pile of rocks orbiting it, with a shape close to spherical, is that a planet?

    I continue to paraphrase the opinion that “I don’t know what a planet is, but I know one when I see one.” I think that Pluto should have been grand-planeted into the family of planets, and all other KBO’s arbitrarily excluded. It has come to light since last year that Eris, formerly known as 2003 UB313 and/or Xena, is actually larger than Pluto, which would have made it a better candidate for Planethood. Again, my feeling is, “too bad, Eris. You’re too late,” and allowed Pluto to maintain its title.

    So long, poor Pluto. It’s too bad you were demoted, but we won’t forget you.

  • Escape Pod Podcast

    I am a huge fan of Escape Pod, a Science Fiction podcast published by Steve Eley. Its intent is to deliver an audio version of a science fiction short story every week. It is one of my favorite podcasts, and I listen religiously.

    Give it a try, and if you like it well enough, donate to it!

  • Barry Bonds Surpasses Hank Aaron

    Thanks be that Barry Bonds didn’t go through a drought like last week. If he had, he might not have hit his 756th home run untill next week when San Francisco would have been here, in Atlanta, home of Hank Aaron, and previous holder of the Career Home Run record. That would have depressed me. Especially because Hank Aaron beat the previous record here, at Fulton County Stadium. The stadium is gone, but the wall section where his ball went over exists, still.

    Do I care that Barry Bonds probably did steroids? Yes. Do I think it matters? No. The culture in baseball has allowed it to happen, so it boils down to an institutional fault. What this means is that the next time the record is broken, it will be much more exciting.

  • Atomic Vacation

    Today is the anniversary of the first combat use of a nuclear weapon. Hiroshima, Japan was destroyed by “Little Boy”, a gun-method uranium weapon with an approximate yield of 12 kilotons of TNT (for comparison, the largest weapon ever detonated was a 50 megaton hydrogen fusion weapon, 4,000 times greater). As an event to remember, it’s definitely of mixed emotion. On the one hand, it helped to end World War II quicker, and with fewer casualties; on the other hand, it was a horrific incident that caused humongous suffering amongst the population. It can be (and has been) argued that although the use of two atomic weapons on Japan was devastating in their individual explosive yields and lasting after-effects, the suffering and devastation caused by all of the conventional bombing and fire-bombing during the war was much higher. I’m not going to choose a side on this one. I’d have to study it a lot more.

    One of the things I regret not doing while I lived in Texas was to visit the Trinity Site, the location of the first test of an atomic weapon. It is located on the grounds of White Sands Missile Range, and is therefore not open to the public except for two days a year: the first Saturdays of October and April. Whatever your opinions regarding nuclear weapons, the location is significant historically, militarily, and from an engineering standpoint.

    A while back, a person from League City, Texas, chronicled his radioactive vacation. It’s worth the read.

  • Reshelving Non-Scientific Books

    gacked from Pharyngula

    Biologist Helping Bookstores has a quest. He reshelves books without a science theme to parts of the book store he feels appropriate.

    I’m of two minds about this. My first mind thinks that he’s right; Michael Behe does not belong in the science section any more than Harry Potter does. My other mind thinks that he’s making the bookstore employees’ life a lot more difficult. It’s not up to them (in the chain stores, mind) where the books are shelved. It all comes out of the computer. Thusly, A Brave New World is in Literature, while Laurel K. Hamilton’s books are in Fantasy (Science Fiction and Pornography are more appropriate, respectively).

    This is discussed in detail in the comments on BhB’s site. Especially this posting about reshelving in Barnes and Noble.

  • Pesky Harry Potter Peeves

    This article talks about Amazon.com preorders of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (11.5 Days!).

    It pissed me off for two reasons.

    One: At the top of the article is a picture of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. Now, I realize that he is HP of the movies, but he is most decidedly not Harry Potter of the books. The hair is wrong, the scar is wrong, and frankly, there’s a huge difference between the books and the movies. Let’s keep it that way.

    Two: This quote. “…the concluding novel is generating much excitement because Rowling has indicated that one or more major characters will be killed off.” Really? That’s the only reason why there’s much excitement? That’s the best reason? Not the fact that this is the last book? Not the fact that all the mysteries of the last two books will be laid to rest? Come on, at least let someone write the copy who has read the books.

    Crazy people…

  • Braves vs. Red Sox

    I have been an Atlanta Braves fan since childhood. My family lived in Florida for nine years, before there were any Florida teams, so we were Braves fans. We then moved to New Hampshire and started rooting for the Red Sox. Then I went to college, bounced around various places, and now am in Atlanta. Go Braves!

    Unfortunately, I married a born and bred Maine-iac who is a die-hard Red Sox fans. This causes issues when they play their interleague games (little issues). I dread the day that the Braves and Red Sox match up in the World Series.

    Thankfully that day seems far away. While the Red Sox are crushing the American League East beneath the weight of the Monster, the Braves have gone rather lackluster since an excellent start. We’re above 0.500 but not by much and if we don’t pick up the pace, we’ll need to win our division because the wildcard isn’t looking too good from this side of the All Star Game.

    However, a Braves/Red Sox series would be pretty cool.