[SPOILER] The King Is Dead. Anyone Want To Be King?

Congrats to Jack Gleeson on helping to animate a character so vividly hated by so many people. Joffrey will be missed by all of us who enjoy a good sadist/coward combo (a classic trope of Western storytelling). I do hope Jack hasn't been getting blowback from unbalanced Game of Thrones fans who can't distinguish between the actor and the role.

Bad Science

One of the biggest problems facing us today isn't anti-vaxxers, or climate deniers, or Holocaust deniers, or creationists. It's the force behind them that makes all of it possible - a deliberate rejection of knowledge, a triumphant ignorance. This kind of ignorance can only flourish when we as a society lose our "herd immunity" to nonsense; and we keep that immunity by knowing how to think. By understanding the laws of logic and evidence, of separating truth from lies, of coming to correct judgments. Here's an article that helps a little.

The Affordable Care Act

I just went through New York's ACA marketplace to change my health insurance. I'm now saving about $70 a month, with expanded coverage. Thank you, Obamacare.

Incredible Volcano Footage

Now THIS is a great way to use drones.

It Didn't Hold Water!

When I wrote The Wrong Sword I assumed, like about a million other writers of historical farce/fantasy/drama/baloney, that folks back then preferred beer and wine to water because water could be "iffy." Turns out that's not true! Our ancestors were NOT morons. And here's the blog post to prove it:

http://leslefts.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/the-great-medieval-water-myth.html

It makes sense if you actually sit down and think about it. Contaminated water is a bugaboo of human occupation, especially settled, urban-ish occupation. We have a tendency to crap where we eat (and drink), after all. And in Medieval Europe, with far fewer people and far more untended land and unpolluted watersheds, the likelihood of finding clean water - from a spring, a well, a stream or even a sufficiently clean pond - was that much greater.

And there it is!

Harold Ramis, 1944-2014

Damn it.

One of the great funnies died today - Harold Ramis...aka Dr. Egon Spengler. He collaborated as a writer on some the best comedies of the '80s, from Animal House to Caddyshack to Ghostbusters, and he directed movies like Groundhog Day. Ivan Reitman, who directed Ghostbusters, credited Ramis with adding the best parts of the story - the romance between Billy Murray and Sigourney Weaver, the irony, and "all the adult writing." He also added that Ramis was the one who was responsible for the film's story structure.



I mention this because when I, like all film students, was struggling to wrap my head around the nuances of three-act structure, Ghostbusters was my go-to script. It hums along perfectly, like a freshly lubricated electric motor, so efficient that it seems effortless and you almost don't notice the transitions from act to act, the planting, the payoff...the mechanics. And, of course, funny. FUNNY. And I know, deep in my heart, that it was Harold was responsible for the two best lines in the movie:

"Your girlfriend lives...in the corner penthouse...of Spook Central."

&

"When someone asks you if you're a god, you say...YES!"

What were your favorite Ramis lines?

Map Day - Pangea

Just found this map over at io9.com
- the supercontinent of Pangea as it looked about 200 million years ago, but drawn up with modern political borders to give us some idea of what went where. Don't know why, but for some reason the rift valley/fault line/river/inland sea separating the Americas from Africa is particularly intriguing to me.

This Makes Me Sad, for Some Reason

A Bayeux-style Star Wars tapestry. Sorry, it just does.

Snow Day

It's worse than it looks. Click on the image and see.

Some Gorgeous "Red Mars" Artwork

This is a beautiful concept-art view of a colonized Mars taken from a space elevator leading down to Pavonis Mons. The white cable is the massive elevator cable. [N.B. According to the artist, Ludovic Celle, the cable's curve is an artistic choice, not some unexpected visual artifact of an alien environment - we could expect the cable to appear straighter if we saw it in reality.]