Month: May 2012

by liberal japonicus

While the main action probably centers around the observations of Chris Hayes, (google news here), I was in the wikipedia page about Memorial Day and thinking about some questions of national culture, which are below the fold

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by Doctor Science

In my previous post about reviews of “The Avengers”, I said Black Widow seemed to be “The Superhero Men Don’t See”. I’ve now done some more research and am pretty sure the cognitive problem isn’t with men, it’s with mundanes — non-fans or Muggles, that is. It’s an instance of the Invisible Gorilla problem; sexism comes in only as the easiest way for the reviewer’s brain to patch the hole in hir perceptions.

I was already thinking about the Invisible Gorilla when Porlock Junior brought it up in the comments to the previous post, because I had just finished reading Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, which is about all sorts of cognitive biases or illusions.

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment is one of the best-known such illusions. The subjects were told to count the number of times the basketball is passed between black-shirted players in the following video:

YouTube link

A truly astounding number of the subjects never noticed the guy in the gorilla suit, because they were concentrating so hard on the basketball.

I’m cutting for length, and because I’m going to be spoiling the heck out of “The Avengers”.

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by Doctor Science

Ever make a connection between two ideas, and now you’re not sure they’re *really* connected, but you can’t unconnect them in your brain? And part of you thinks, “brain, you are weird and disturbing, it’s just a coincidence, shut up”, and another part thinks “but look at how they match! disturbingly!”

And the third part says, Let’s post it to the Internet!

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by liberal japonicus

This is perhaps not really open thread material, but this Forbes article about the Harvard bookstore and how they are fighting Amazon was interesting and perhaps related to Dr. Science’s recent posts on the publishing industry.

The centerpiece of the efforts is the espresso book making machine, which I have put a youtube video below the fold. 

I remember seeing one of these machines in a Japanese book store in Jimbocho, Tokyo, which is the bookstore quarter of the city, but I didn’t realize what it was until I read about it. 

Anyway, enjoy the video and write about what you want in the comments.

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by Doctor Science

As I said in my Avengers reaction post, I was surprised and pleased by how the character of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow was treated: she has a major role, not-particularly-exploitive clothing, and lots of action both physical and psychological. This is what my many friends in fandom see, too: I’ve seen a lot of reaction posts, and they all talk about how impressed they are with Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk, and also about how much they like Natasha.

But when I started looking at reviews outside my corner of fandom, I found something Ian Grey of PressPlay also noticed:

Two parallel realities! Men who see nobody at all and women who see the next Faith (without the crazy, I mean). Don’t tell Disney, or they’ll be marketing the film as 4-D.

Being me, I decided to gather data, not just examples.

Cut because the rest will be chock-a-block with spoilers.

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by Doctor Science

Our story so far:

Part I: 50 Shades of Publishing
Part IIa: 50 Shades of Fandom: Writing.

The process of taking a piece of fanfic and re-purposing it for professional sale is known as filing off the serial numbers. Obviously you first have to change the names — unless the source you’re working from is something like Arthurian legend (it’s fanfic all the way down) or Sherlock Holmes, which is now largely public domain.

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by Doctor Science

Today in nature, we are waiting for Wood Duck eggs to hatch in North Carolina:

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