Category: Not-politics

Hoax paper causes hoax journal editor to resign.

This is somewhere between ‘practical joke’ and ‘proving a point’:

The editor-in-chief of a journal is to resign after claiming that the publisher, Bentham Science Publishing, accepted a hoax article for publication without his knowledge.

The fake, computer-generated manuscript was submitted to The Open Information Science Journal by Philip Davis, a graduate student in communication sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Kent Anderson, executive director of international business and product development at The New England Journal of Medicine. They produced the paper using software that generates grammatically correct but nonsensical text, and submitted the manuscript under pseudonyms in late January.

Davis says he decided to submit the fake manuscript after receiving several unsolicited invitations by e-mail to submit papers to open-access journals published by Bentham under the author-pays-for-publication model.

…either way, it’s funny. Particularly the fact that the article in question purported to be from the Center for Research in Applied Phrenology, which has at least three layers of funny there to unpack, from the aesthetic to the scatological.  Almost as funny is that the verification procedure apparently involved getting the author’s credit card number. Continue reading Hoax paper causes hoax journal editor to resign.

Arlington rap song.

We’ll start today with something that should be of local interest only:

…only, local in this case is “inside the Beltway,” which means that it’ll get infinitely more play than a rap song about say, New Hope, PA*. A shame, in its way: it’s hysterical in its own right. But I say it as a guy who has always been Straight Outta Green Line.

Well, since I moved down here, at least.

Moe Lane

*But not Lynwood, CA.

“Solisbury Hill.”


Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel

…it’s not really as deep as I remember it being. Mind you, this song is firmly from my Sit on my buddy’s couch and help him and a bunch of other people drink a lot of actually very good homemade mead period of my life.  Then we all got respectable, not to mention reliably sober on weekends.

Moe Lane

PS: I only partially miss those days; the truth of the matter is, most of us were pretty much always strapped for cash.

Spielberg threatening to make an Indiana Jones V?

(H/T: @baseballcrank) Dear sweet merciful Jeebus no.

Shia Says Spielberg Has “Cracked” Indy 5

[snip]

In the UK to promote Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, LaBeouf talked to the BBC and revealed that he had spoken recently with Spielberg about another Indiana Jones movie: “Steven just said he cracked a story on it before I left. I think they’re gearing that up.”

Now, I admit freely that both my wife and I enjoyed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull… well enough. We had low expectations – “Do not do to this franchise what Lucas did to Star Wars” (i.e., murder it and prop up the corpse on the front porch) – and Lucas managed to exceed them, more or less.  There were aliens.  Commies were punched.  They brought back Marion.  LaBeouf’s character didn’t even offend me.  I did not declare kanly against Lucas.  Everything was… acceptable.

So that’s where it should end.  Before Lucas drags down Spielberg with him.

Moe Lane

‘You don’t want any more than that on marble.’

[UPDATE, April 25, 2010]: They made the video private on YT, but you can watch it here.

Trust me, you’ll get it if you watch for long enough.  You want to let it tell its story in its own time*.

My only problem with pointing out Top Gear 10: The Complete Season 10 is that I can’t quite believe that the other episodes can measure up to that clip, which is made up of crystalline awesome suspended in an energetic liquid-dude solution. Really, the only way that they could have improved it was to have a cameo by Iron Man.

Moe Lane

Continue reading ‘You don’t want any more than that on marble.’

Letterman apology, take two.

[UPDATE] Welcome, Big Hollywood and Instapundit readers.  If you’d like some lighter fare after this, try this.

Compare this:

…to this:

A certain attitude adjustment can be detected there; amazing what a spot of actual activism will do, yes? Particularly when it’s directed at advertisers.  The general reaction elsewhere to this one is ‘kinda real‘; see also Cynthia Yockey, Michelle Malkin, Little Miss Attila, the Rhetorician, The Other McCain, Ace of Spades, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Big Hollywood, Wizbang, & Dan Collins.  Also, Governor Palin has already accepted the apology:

“Of course it’s accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who ‘joke’ about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve,” she said.

“Letterman certainly has the right to ‘joke’ about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction,” Palin said. “This is all thanks to our U.S. Military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America’s Right to Free Speech – in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect.”

And I don’t think that these guys are going to stop.  Given that Letterman should have started with a “Sorry you were offended” last week, instead of smirking it off, well: I can see why they wouldn’t.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

OK, this is kind of funny, if you’re a gamer.

There are apparently two R. Borgstroms in the gaming world: there’s Rebecca Borgstrom, who wrote Nobilis*…

…$150?  Excuse me while I get my copy out of the reach of children and into an inert nitrogen atmosphere.

…and then there’s Rolfe Borgstrom, who got mentioned in this article about gaming out Land of the Lost.  The main site (Transitive Property of Gaming) looks interesting, too.  As for the article… true enough, as far as it goes; but you should also try GURPS Dinosaurs & Cadillacs & Dinosaurs: there was also one involving an alien planet, dinosaurs, and cowboys, but the title has slipped my mind.

What? No, actually, I know plenty of women who game. My wife’s a GM, in fact. Why do you ask?

Moe Lane

*Which I personally feel would be just crying out for a d20 version, if only I had any morally justifiable reason to be that nihilistic and cruel.