Phil Plait, the new James Randi

Phil Plait is taking over as President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, or JREF. Let me start by saying that James "The Amazing" Randi is awesome. He is actually the subject of an Isaac Asimov Black Widower's story, known as "The Amazing Larri". The JREF is everything I stand for, better science and critical thinking education. Still, he is getting on in years, and this will allow him to finish working on a couple of books, as well as probably performing more magic, and possibly relaxing (though knowing him, that may not happen). Phil Plait is the Bad Astronomer. Now, you'd think James Randi could find a good astronomer to take over, but you have to take what you can get. Anyway, Phil Plait could be my long lost twin, we are so much alike in many ways, the major difference being that he is a big Doctor Who fan. This is exciting for science and skepticism. Hopefully this will mark the advent of a new age in reason.

Deep Geeking

A cool new website Deep Geeking has grown out of the cool old (internet years) Babylon Podcast. I've submitted my first deep geek, and it's very deep. It's about the new X-Files movies, titled I Don't Want to Believe, I want the Truth. Please leave any comments about the post on the Deep Geeking forum.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a musical supervillian epic created by Joss Whedon, and starring Neil Patrick-Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day. It is available for free until midnight on Sunday July 20, and for purchase after that. Having just viewed it for free, I have to say it would be worth purchasing. Joss is attempting to change how movies and shows are distributed, and this is an admirable attempt. I will purchase the DVD for the extras.

The show is a pretty standard plot for supervillian shows, the main supervillain (Harris) has a blog, where he talks about his villainy. There is lots of singing, helping the homeless, laundry, and other insanity. Of course, I predicted the ending about 27 seconds into the third chapter, but then by the end I'd forgotten about it! I laughed out loud quite a few times, and some of the lines are instant classics. "The Hammer is my ...", for one. The ending is classic Joss, building up to it and then stripping everything away for a quite ending. If you enjoyed "Once More With Feeling", then this may just make your year.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I just watched the new Indiana Jones movie, and I have to say, going in I was pretty excited. I recently rewatched Last Crusade, which is not just my favorite Indiana Jones movie, it is one of my favorite movies. Like Star Trek VI, it transcended the level of the other films and was a classic. Alas, Crystal Skull was not such. The whole thing with the groundhogs (?) immediately through me off. Sure, Indiana Jones survived some crazy scrapes, but this one took it too far. Shia TheBeef is a pretty good actor, but you could tell he was constrained by the stereotype he had to play. Denholm Elliot passed away, and Sean Connery declined to participate, so neither Marcus Brody nor Dr. Henry Jones Sr. were in the movie, though there was a brief but touching tribute to them. A particularly poetic line was "You reach a point where life stops giving and starts taking away". Still, most of the dialogue was inane and formulaic, as was most of the film. It felt more like National Treasure than Indiana Jones. Cate Blanchett was much stiffer and one-dimensional than the fabulous and beautiful Alison Doody, who wove a complex and alluring portrait of a scientist who happened to be a Nazi. Finally, the ending was completely insane, crazy magic powers are not what I expect from Indiana Jones. Still, it was an enjoyable two hours.

Rob Neyer at ESPN wrote a great piece about the errency of human memory and the statistical processes we can use to correct them, all cleverly disguised as a sports story. You see, there is a story, urban legend almost, about late catcher Thurman Munson. When Munson heard he was 2 assists between Hall of Fame Carlton Fisk ( most known for his time on the Red Sox, though I remember his White Sox tenure), he decided to do something about it. He purposefully dropped several third strikes, and threw to first, utilizing the little known dropped third strike rule, and gaining an assist for himself. He did this three times, earning himself three assists, passing Fisk. Of course, this is all bunk.

The author researched several versions of the story, tracing it all the way to Marty Appel, the reporter who brought the assist statistic to Munson's attention. Appel describes the detail of the event in flashbulb detail, which as research shows, is no more reliable than any other memory, which is not at all. Neyer went through exhaustive efforts to search through the statistical record to track down this story. He permutes all of the variables, to count for possible misrememberings, but in the end, concludes that this story is entirely faulty. Skepticism in sports, amazing!

Love of Words

As part of my usual stream of consciousness on Wordie, I made a simple comment on this term. Someone took it too far, with hilarious, if linguistical adult, results.

Words: Epicaricacy

As evidenced by the Wordie 100 list, the S-Word is quite popular, and as Uselessness says, never use it in my presence. I don't understand it. Looking at that list, I'm not sure why #16 "Love" is so popular as a word, as a concept it's fine. I have similar dislike of #20 Zeitgeist. Why?

Is it the sound? Is it the concept? Is it the forces of the internet conspiring against me? I had a conversation where I asked, "Why do you repeatedly do that? It annoys me", to which my colleague responded, "That's why I do it, I like the annoyed look you get on your face". Perhaps the internet is similar. The concept is not alien, it goes back at least to the Greeks, who have a similar word.

Epicaricacy, Wordie Link, is defined as "the act of taking pleasure in the misfortune of others". We can look deeper into the meaning of this word, by examining the excellent discussion on WordCraft. In that discussion, Kalleh provides the Greek roots "epi (upon) + chara (joy) + kakon (evil)"

So there is a perfectly legitimate English word to describe a concept not unique to the Germans, we can banish the S-Word forever, possibly confining those who use it to dark prison and live forever in an Epicaricistic paradise.