Grab some popcorn, grab your iPod

Posted on December 19th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Videos, Podcasts.

I had to share these two awesome pieces of media, even though I’m technically supposed to be stoically hacking away at my 500 page burden. First of all, Wade Davis, the popular anthropologist, spoke recently at U.B.C. Do yourself a huge favour and take a listen to his beautiful lecture. Put it on your iPod. Listen on the bus. Listen while you work.

Secondly, somebody recommended this documentary to me a short while ago: The Yes Men. About some internet savvy activists who set up spoof sites, such as this one, a spoof site of the official World Trade Organization home page. Check them out. See any differences?

Here is the documentary in it’s entirety. Break out the popcorn, this is a good one.

Well, back to work.

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Longest place name in the world

Posted on December 17th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Toponyms.

Welcome to another instalment of Toponym of The Day. Today’s toponym is the longest place name in the world:

Llandfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrudrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

This is the name of a town in North Wales. It translates as “The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the red cave” in Welsh (Source: Web of Linguistic Fun).

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Toponym of the day

Posted on December 15th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Writing, Anecdotes, Toponyms.

I’m currently writing a TOEFL textbook for Transglobal Prep school for some extra cash. Ironically I’ll be using the money I make to buy more overpriced textbooks for next semester in Print Futures (It’s going to be an awesome semester, I’m especially looking forward to the tech writing and document design courses).

Anyway, I’ve been hashing away at this 500 page book due next week and came up with some insights. First of all, let me give you some of the unobvious pros and cons of freelancing:

Pros:

• You can write all day in your pajamas
• You never have to shave any part of your body…ever
• You can take as many showers as you want
• There is no commute
• You can sleep in

Cons:

• There’s no gossiping around the watercooler
• You have to be so self disciplined that…
• you’ll realize that you’re the worst boss you’ve ever had
• If you like leaving the house now and again you’re out of luck
• When you’re done for the day you can’t leave

One slightly interesting thing I discovered while researching the civil war, the American revolution and the tourist attractions of Illinois and Kentucky (don’t ask) was…toponymy. If you don’t know what that is, go to Wikipedia. Also on the Wiki, here is a real example (WARNING: offensive language) of an unusual place name.

I thought I’d start a toponym of the day, where I present the origins of a placename that I’ve come across in my research. Geeky, but what else can I do with all the useless facts that I’m learning?

So, without further ado, today’s placename is…

Winnipeg:

Winnipeg, in Canada, owes its name to the Algonquins. Winnipig was the Algonquin word meaning dirty water, a possible non tribute to the Red River, which flows near Winnipeg (Source: Turnip Smith).

I checked this out, and according to the official Winnipeg website, “the name WINNIPEG has its origin in the Indian Cree name given to the lake 64kms north, meaning “Win”, muddy, “nipee”, water”.

Either way, Winnipeg means dirty water. Sorry guys.

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With thunder in his voice

Posted on December 6th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Videos, Politics.

This topic interests me because I lived for a year in South Korea in a little town close to the border. I went up to the border on more than one occasion and even have a piece of the barbed wire fence dividing North and South Korea. I’m waiting for re-unification. That piece of wire could be as momentous as having a piece of the Berlin wall. Anyway, if you have a minute to spare, check out this hilarious example of North Korean propaganda. In North Korea, legend has it that Kim Jong Il was born on top of a sacred mountain. The clouds opened up, and he came down from heaven…

In reality, Kim Jong Il was born in a Russian military camp. I should point out that the above video would be taken quite seriously in North Korea. If you have more time, then be sure to watch this fascinating documentary on Kim Jong Il and the Nuclear arms conflict. What I found especially fascinating is the way he infuses spiritual determinism into his political platform. He has set himself up as a sort of deity who is a father figure to the North Korean people. This representation is entirely congruent with Confucian ideology on hierarchical family structures where the nation is equal to a family and the father must always be obeyed.

Kim Jong Il started out in the communist party making propaganda movies and musicals and was said to have a lot of “girlfriends” in the industry. It’s incredible that there are still dictators like this in the world.

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How to foil telemarketers…

Posted on December 1st, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Technology.

…by using the power of social networking. Most of us living in today’s low-trust world have call display on our phones. Yet, what do you do if the number is unrecognized? If you’re like me, you just let unidentified numbers go through to your voicemail. But what if they don’t leave a message? Doesn’t the curiosity eat you up inside? What if it was your long lost uncle from Barbados? What if you finally won one of those quick getaway competitions you keep filling out entries for at your local grocery store?

The answer can be found at an unobtrusive little website called Who Called Us. I’ve been using it for a while with excellent results. All you do is type in the suspicious number. Chances are, they’ve bugged other people who have recorded it here. I’ve done this to avoid calls from unscrupulous insurance companies and credit card companies who will call relentlessly for weeks until they give up. Unsurprisingly, most of the numbers in the database are from U.S. based companies (they are ruthless down there, especially if your number’s listed), but it works for Canadian numbers too.

But what do you do if your call display doesn’t even provide you with a number? If all you have is an unavailable to go on, you may want to pick up. Imagine your disappointment when you here the dreaded “Good evening Mr/Mrs [insert mangled pronunciation of name here]”. In that case, have this direct marketing counterscript form ready and give the telemarketer a taste of their own medicine. I haven’t resorted to using this yet, but I imagine it would be great fun!

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It ‘aint over till the fat lady sings

Posted on December 1st, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Anecdotes, The Arts.

This phrase now resonates with new meaning after watching tonight’s performance of Verdi’s Macbeth at the Vancouver opera. There’s nothing like the tortured soul of Macbeth as he struts about the stage moaning in Italian and secretly wishing he’d never married Lady Macbeth. Seriously though, this was a solid opera, even although Carmen is still my favourite, it was my first time seeing an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare. I quite enjoyed it. One of our classmates was Witch No. 3. I didn’t recognize him in tights though.

Here’s the promotional poster, but who these people are is a mystery, because they weren’t in the show. I don’t think the actual actors are as photogenic as these sombre folks.

2 comments.

The ice cage

Posted on November 30th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Pictures.

Well, here’s my contribution to the let’s - take - a - picture - of - the - scene - from - my - bedroom - window collection of Vancouver weather pictures. Not many people are willing to actually go outside and take a few shots. I don’t blame them. Heck, I can’t even go outside without jumping over the fence because the front gate is frozen shut. It’s no joke. Do you have any idea how dodgy it looks when I have to scramble over the fence everyday to get to school?

Here’s a view of my lonely car from my icicle prison:

And here’s another view of the street:

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Art, science, or just plain twisted?

Posted on November 28th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Pictures, Anecdotes, Science.

It’s been a wild weekend for us. Record snowfalls hit the western seaboard, burying the lower mainland under two feet of snow. It’s all anyone’s talking about, and rightly so, Vancouver usually gets a light dusting, if that. I attribute these strange weather patterns to climate change, but that’s probably because I also watched An Inconvenient Truth this weekend, which everybody must see. It just came out on DVD, so you have no excuses.

I also got to see the Body Worlds 3 display at Science World. I can’t say that it was my cup of tea. Can somebody please explain what is so artistic or scientific about a real corpse holding up his own skin? Or for that matter, an unfortunate body that has been neatly cut into three pieces from head to toe. Or a dead guy doing the splits while balancing his own innards and internal organs in one hand? Or a skeleton kneeling at a cross while cradling her own heart in her hands?

It’s almost as if the scientist who did this is saying “See what modern man can do. Severe the skin so cleanly from a man that people will actually pay $30 to see it.” The look of pride on the skinless man is palpable, but it is the arrogance of Guther von Hagens that shines through the dead man’s plastinated eyes. In my opinion, the whole display was designed to shock, not to educate.

Yes, you can argue that these folks donated their bodies to science, but nowhere on the consent form does it say mention what weird position your body is going to be contorted into. You can argue that it teaches people about the human body. I certainly didn’t learn anything. I don’t remember any of the Latin names for the various muscles that were printed on the little plaque next to the corpse. In fact, I don’t recall anyone at the exhibition reading them. There is just no justification for putting corpses on display except for self-edification. Would you want to be immortalized as the skinless man?

2 comments.

Stanley Milgram’s unethical experiments on human torture

Posted on November 24th, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Videos, Science.

We watched this video in our research course today. I managed to track down the original 1962 video and am posting it here because it is absolutely fascinating. Ever wonder wonder how much pain somebody will afflict on another merely because they were told to do so by an authority figure? Stanley Milgram, observed the Nuremberg Trials and wondered the same thing. How could so many Nazis, seemingly decent, ordinary people, justify the slaughter of others. They said that they were “just following orders”. Stanley Milgram conducted the following experiment in the United States, confident that the results would show that Americans were vastly more humane than Europeans.

That wasn’t the case.

The results are startling and a grim reminder that people will do just about anything, just because they are told to do so. Even more disturbing is that this kind of research was allowed to take place back then.

0 comments.

problem solved

Posted on November 23rd, 2006 by Antoine.
Categories: Site Meta.

OK, I’ve fixed the trackback issue, thanks to a fellow little vistered user. Trackbacks are now organized by date and name and is supremely cool.

And I’ve also written another 50 words on my 500,000 word paper.

And I got sucked into photoshop TV

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