Batman: Everything Old Is New Again

The only thing wrong with this remade trailer for The Dark Knight Rises is that, by using footage from Batman: The Animated Series, it tells me what the movies have been lacking.

For some people, Batman will always be Adam West. For others, maybe George Clooney. For me, it’s Kevin Conroy the whole way. Batman shouldn’t have to whisper to sound like a badass.

Continue reading “Batman: Everything Old Is New Again”

Batman: Everything Old Is New Again
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Atheists Talk: David Bonney of the Meaningful Shoe Company

Once upon a time, a shoemaker had the fun idea of creating a line of shoes that would allow a person to declare themselves an atheist. So the shoemaker put his idea up on Kickstarter. Lots of people loved the idea, supported the Kickstarter, and got the fun shoes. Everyone lived happily ever after.

If the idea of a successful, openly atheist businessman selling blatantly atheist products sounds a bit like a fairy tale, that may be because you live in the United States. David Bonney, who created the Meaningful Shoe Company, lives in Germany. Join us this Sunday as we talk to him about his business and what it’s like being an atheist in a country where religion has much less political sway.

Related Links

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

Atheists Talk: David Bonney of the Meaningful Shoe Company

Who's Going to Women in Secularism?

Tomorrow morning at far, far too early, I hop on a plane headed for DC. I’m going to rely on Brianne to keep me awake long enough to get on the flight. She is certainly enthusiastic enough for it.

I am too, even if I’m not morning person enough to enjoy getting all my stuff together for it. I want to hear all the speakers, of course, but the best parts of a conference like this are the hallcon and the barcon, the conversations where everyone gets to meet and chat. They were awesome at Freethought Festival. I strongly suspect they’re going to be epic here.

So if you’re there and you happen to see me, please introduce yourself. It’s a big part of why I’m going.

Who's Going to Women in Secularism?

Temple Talk

While in Madison a couple weeks ago for Freethought Festival, I got to meet James Croft, of Temple of the Future fame/infamy. You know, one of those humanists at Harvard who insist we need organized communities of nonbelievers to replace church congregations. When he gave his speech that Sunday, he introduced himself as one of those super-accommodationists, the faithiest of faitheists.

In reality, James seems to like messing with people, particularly if it can shake up their preconceptions. (You should have heard him calling to the students wandering past the windows who thought they were making light fun of us old people inside. Some of those boys might have fainted if there’d been an open window. Others probably would have been delighted, but that’s not getting this story any further forward. Unlike James. Ahem.) He is also passionate about changing the world to make it a more just place, and he thinks these communities are a way to make this happen.

James and I agree strongly on the first point. We don’t necessarily disagree about the second point, but I’m not sure we agree either, despite having put in a good bit of discussion on the matter Saturday night. Continue reading “Temple Talk”

Temple Talk

Battle Scars

There is no content here this afternoon. If you want content, go read Lyz Liddel’s hugely heartening post on the Secular Student Alliance and the work of all these wonderful student groups. It hews very closely to her speech at the Freethought Festival, but it gets me every time nonetheless. It heartens me to no end to see people organizing this way at an age when I had all I could do to sort myself out.

Read it. It will make you happy.

Now, the reason I don’t have content of my own for today is not for the squeamish. Thus, it’s tucked below the fold. Continue reading “Battle Scars”

Battle Scars

Mock the Movie: Night of the Demon

It’s been a little while since we’ve had a Mock the Movie victim subject that was freely available to everyone. Tomorrow night, we fix that.

Night of the Demon (1980)

Night of the Demon DVD cover

Presented in flashback, the film tells the story of an anthropology class’s all-too-successful expedition into the American wilderness to find the truth behind the Sasquatch legend. Along the way, the team learns about the creature’s previous victims, uncover the squalid story of a hermit (Crazy Wanda) who gave birth to a mutation after being raped by the monster, and finally come face to face with the beast himself.

This is clearly going to be a horrid movie, requiring mocking. The only question is whether those of us watching will be in too much pain to be funny. (We add suspense even if the movie doesn’t.)

If you want to join us in our pain, the movie is available in full on YouTube. The instructions for playing along:

  1. Start following @MockTM on twitter.
  2. Start watching the moie this Thursday at 9PM EST.
  3. Once you’ve got the movie going, tweet your snarky comments to @MockTM.  Directing our tweets to @MockTM will keep our followers from being overwhelmed with our snark!
Mock the Movie: Night of the Demon

But It's Satire!

Or, The Stephen Colbert Defense

Yesterday, I covered Dell’s gross miscalculation on entertainment for one of their big company meetings. A reminder:

He continued the streak that day. Vejlo live-tweeted the event and Christensen’s comments as they unfolded: for example, his opening line, roughly translated as, “There are almost no girls in this room, and I am happy. Why are you here at all?” “Gender quotas are still fairly healthy in your industry,” he went on.

On innovation, the emcee who directly followed Michael Dell on-stage commented that “All the great inventions are from men; we can thank women for the rolling pin.” And he ended his comments by saying IT was the last bastion for men, and that they should let the mantra “shut up, b–ch” hiss out from between their teeth.

I’m happy to say it didn’t happen here, but in the comments on BoingBoing, on Dell’s apology on Google+, and on Reddit (interestingly, in the technology subreddit but not the business subreddit, if that tells you anything) people have shown up desperate for us to understand that this is an act. It’s satire, as we should all be able to tell. Really, we’d know this if we didn’t react to every little thing, like being told to get out of the room because it belongs to the boys.

Since this claim that something is satire and, thus, not objectionable keeps coming up, let’s take a good look at it, shall we? Yes. Yes, we shall. Continue reading “But It's Satire!”

But It's Satire!

"The Gravity of the Situation"

Bora is trying something new on Saturdays at the Scientific American Guest Blog. This Saturday, I took part in that experiment with a reprint of an old post. A very few of you may have read it a long time ago, but it will be new to the rest.

Daria had insisted on taking this job. Now she had to finish it, even though the serenity she’d faked for the tests was gone. Eoin was counting on her. The success of the mission, his experiments, even her control of her project, hinged on her doing this right.

She made herself loosen her grip. She shifted from rung to rung, not letting go of one until she was holding securely onto the next. It was progress, but it was slow.

Finally, resting her forehead against the cool metal wall, Daria knew it wasn’t working. She was no more than halfway to her lab and still further from the generator. The fluctuations in the field were coming more frequently, and they were starting to ripple, turning the corridor into a shifting hillside.

Each heave left her shaking, weaker and closer to panic. The babbling doom in her head was louder. She had to do something while she and the field were still experiencing stable periods. She waited where she was through three more cycles, trying to shut it all out. She looked for a calm inside of her she wasn’t sure existed.

She let go and ran, using the adrenaline from her fear to power her legs. The corridor flashed by unseen as she concentrated on her goal.

Daria could see the door to her lab when the world heaved again. The floor tilted away and she was falling downhill. She knew she should let herself go, tuck up and concentrate on landing, but her panic-laced body had its own ideas.

Her outstretched arms, braced against the fall, hit first. Her left wrist gave with a stab of pain. She would have screamed if her chin hadn’t landed next. Then she was too busy trying to stay conscious.

Head on over to the SciAm Guest Blog to read the whole thing.

"The Gravity of the Situation"

Dude, You Can Keep Your Dell (Updated)

Dell Computers recently held a company event in Denmark. It was a large and important enough event that Michael Dell himself spoke.

Dell’s Danish arm hired, as emcee and entertainer for the day, a performer named Mads Christensen, who is a well-known provocateur in Danish media circles. According to Vejlo and a few English-language Danish blogs, he’s primarily known for making racist, sexist, and other inflammatory comments in public.

He continued the streak that day. Vejlo live-tweeted the event and Christensen’s comments as they unfolded: for example, his opening line, roughly translated as, “There are almost no girls in this room, and I am happy. Why are you here at all?” “Gender quotas are still fairly healthy in your industry,” he went on.

On innovation, the emcee who directly followed Michael Dell on-stage commented that “All the great inventions are from men; we can thank women for the rolling pin.” And he ended his comments by saying IT was the last bastion for men, and that they should let the mantra “shut up, b–ch” hiss out from between their teeth. All to laughter and applause from that collection of some 800 IT professionals, overwhelmingly male. Dell’s Danish director, Nicolai Moresco, reportedly praised Christensen’s performance onstage as he thanked the emcee for his comments.

But there is totally no hostile atmosphere pushing women out of the computer industry. You can tell because of Dell’s reaction. Continue reading “Dude, You Can Keep Your Dell (Updated)”

Dude, You Can Keep Your Dell (Updated)