Our sister blog Pumpkin Publog just hit on my party trick: figuring out what a fraction is based on the first few places of the decimal version. It can be done pretty quickly with a bit of spare paper and a calculator that supports x->1/x (or if you&[…]

A definitive list of things that are wrong with Zatoichi

At no point does the protagonist carve a Z in someone’s torso. There are a lot of two-slice shots, but never the elusive three.[…]

Great Words In Science Number Two: Winding (number)
A lot of people’s view of topology stops short at “a cup of coffee is a doughnut”, and that’s a perfect place to stop, because it seems like nonsense/obvious to pretty much e[…]

A Weekend Out

Tokyo Story
The 50s Tokyo = 30s America theme extends to the pastoral music, all strings and harps. I hadn’t thought about the harp as such a classic “domestic bliss” signifier, but that it is.
Lost in Translation
Bil[…]

On Paycheck

Paycheck exists entirely in ActionMovieWorld, where software engineers have martial arts training as part of their job, and CEOs pack guns.
It’s a little unsettling to watch Paul Giamatti in this directly after seeing him inhabit H[…]

I hope Magnus is being straight-up in professing joy about Paul W.S. Anderson, but whether or not, there’s an angle worth noting here. Before Aliens Vs. Predator was a film (but after it was a comic and a fan-joke) it was a video game. And Paul[…]

The blessed teeny brings to out attention that science has finally caught up to the Simpsons, with the creation of Tomacco (with potentially fatal results!).
(The link also bring up one of the strengths/weaknesses of the Internet: references to news […]

New robots can perform somersaults, complex martial arts moves.
“There are challenges in terms of mechanics still, but the biggest gap would be in intelligence,” he told New Scientist. “One of the key things we are looking at now is[…]

I saw Insomnia recently on DVD, and it’s a well-made film that manages to quieten both Robin Williams and Al Pacino. The Christopher Nolan connection becomes obvious after you’re told about it: To Pacino’s insomniac detective, awake[…]

The British Film Industry (aka Richard Curtis) has been doing pretty well by knocking out “Hugh Grant vs a Pretty American” films for ten years now. The new one, Love Actually, looks a bit different, partly due to the decision to do witho[…]