this blog post on Heidi McDonalds’ The Beat are so, well, let’s be honest, uncharacteristically eloquent considering the average comic book reader stereotype’s social skill set, I’m not even going to try to cover this subject in detail. Minx, DC comics’ imprint targetting teenage girls has gone poof. Beat commenters analyze why, including marketing (bookstore placement and such), content matter (stories seemed to target a niche within the target niche) and much more. Good stuff.
Because a lot of people ask me “if I’m a citizen yet”…
Because a lot of people ask me “if I’m a citizen yet”, a clear outline of how doable/how much of a bitch it is to make it into the US as a resident. Citizenship comes years after that.
Choice quotes
“I miss Russell’s writing… Shakespeare’s all right, but he’s lacking in spaceships.”
People that name languages…shouldn’t.
REIA, a new pythonesque/rubyesque language running on the Erlang VM. Why? Because Erlang is a scarier language to read/write than… German. Via Simon Willison.
Just an excuse to say “Hadron Hate-on” one more time
The BBC Radio 4 Torchwood Radio play about the Hadron Supercollider — that io9 so graciously tried to tear a new one in my list post about this — is available as an MP3.
I catch fish! (…and I’m a PC)
A new colaboration between myself and Mr. Essl. Go submit your cleverness.
Deja vu!
I’ll be taking bets on how long it will take for someone to write an article that point by point points out all the simularities between The 4400 and the premiere of Heroes Season 3.
I, however, will not be that author. Bets, however, welcome.
The Heroes premiere definitely makes up for a lackluster season 2; I just hope that they put a spin on it that avoids dr. Suresh becoming a carbon copy of Kevin Burkhoff. Although, let’s face it, if all TV was this nerd-gasm-entertaining as this single premiere, they can Xerox their asses for all I care.
Little Nemo in Slumberland titles
Examples of Winsor McCay’s amazing Little Nemo in Slumberland titles, along with an interesting conversation on why McCay, as a master draftsman, used such sloppy lettering for his main character’s speech bubbles.
I always liked Donald better anyway.
A Saudi Arabian cleric has issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, saying the much loved Disney character must die. Sheikh Muhammad Munajid claimed that Mickey is “one of Satan’s soldiers” and that he makes everything he touches impure.
Sounds like someone’s been reading too much Adbusters.
Jason Santa Maria versus Adobe Photoshop.
Jason Santa Maria versus Adobe Photoshop. The things twitter messages can lead to. Crazy.
P.S. Can I just point out that my efforts to combine my interests are getting kind of disturbingly effective?
Meta-rebranding: The Dharma Initiative rebrands.
Today is in fact ‘drag up old topics day’. With Lost hitting the airwaves in February, the grandaddy of TV show …virality… struck again this past summer with a Comicon-based Dharma Initiative recruitment drive. Please note that it’s Dharma, not DHARMA, now. This is not your daddy’s DHARMA Iniatitive. By the way, condolances in case your dad got gassed by Ben.
Painful branding excercises: Siemen’s Zyklon line.
an oldy but goody (or horrible-y) from 2002:
The German conglomerate Siemens has issued an apology and dropped plans to brand a range of gas cookers and other home products “Zyklon” – the same name as the Zyklon B gas used to murder millions of people in Nazi Germany’s concentration camps.
The recipe for branding always involves at least one part research and/or Googling. Seriously, Siemens?
To run (punny!) with the recent barrage of irrg.org comic-related posts, clearly it’s no big that Marvel and DC both had a villain named Zyklon, DC’s being a speedster and Marvel’s being a ressurected Heinrich Himmler. I think Marvel wins the “classy award” for this one.
New Documentary Rolls Dice With Gamer Girls
Interesting article in the sports (!) section of Gapers Block: New Documentary Rolls Dice With Gamer Girls. While the documentary ‘teaser’ itself teased me to both sleep and a little bit of annoyance with the younger girl’s brilliant (cough) idea to disown her kids if they’re not gamers…aaanyhow. The article looks interesting and this is probably going to become a more relevant subject as nerd pop culture continues to morph.
Marvel Migraine
A quick thought: While an amazing story, calling Jonathan Lethem’s Omega The Unknown complex would be quite an understatement. Ow. My brain.
Open mouth, insert green arrow.
DC Editorial decides to run with the worst idea since the Jump To Conclusions mat: DC Universe: Descisions #1 (of 4). While accurately portraying Green Arrow as the tree-hugging commie-book pinko he is, Lois Lane is portrayed as a staunch old-skool Republican (thanks to her army brat heritage) and Wonder Woman questions a candidate because of his lack of warrior skills. Yup, that’s right, these last two get the natives fairly upset (IGN: “A shallow and aggravating look at politics in the DCU”, DC Comics Boards: “Does poor WW know that we don’t actually have a “warrior” political party? Poor thing- still trying to figure out how to pump gas.*”) . I myself would have pegged Lois as a Libertarian — and definitely not pro-army after uncovering a government conspiracy every other issue of Superman. Bruce Wayne? He’d be a goddamn Republican, and the Green Party would get as many votes as Aquaman sellsissues. Oh snap. Leave the politics to your cable news network, Warner.
* = Note for the uninitiated: Known novelist Jodi Picoult wrote Wonder Woman for a few issues and got many a pair of Spider-man underoos in a bunch over portraying La Wonder as someone unable to operate a gas pump.
UI interpretation: Designer versus writer
Interesting observation that came in during testing of our soft launched auction preview…
As a code/visual person, I’d decided that ↓ meant ascending; A→Z to me sounded like it’d be a down arrow when used in a
select field. However, to the writer types in our organization, ↑ meand ascending, ↓ meant descending. The other designerly types in my department sided with me. We looked at the arrow and decided what meaning went with it — the writers took the meaning and decided what arrow reflected that. Since using those arrows in a design is clearly ambiguous, we’re in the process of unambiguifying them out of sight. Still, an interesting situation where both sides have valid points. You know, versus all the other situations where we visual folks clearly are right and them writer types are clearly wrong. Cough.
It’s a good time to like JavaScript.
V8! Squirrelfish Extreme! Why are all these names so silly!? Why do they sound so awesome!? Why am I typing everything with exclamation points!?
Microsoft’s failing Seinfeld campaign in a nutshell.
Microsoft’s failing Seinfeld campaign in a nutshell.
What’s your favorite programmer cartoon?
StackOverflow.com is quickly turning into something very awesome. Keep an eye on it.
Ofcourse, everybody knows the clear winner is this one.
