Adam Frank appreciates The Avenger’s adherence to Clarke’s Law: [T]he mysterious “Tesseract” driving The Avengers plot is either a divine artifact of great power or a cube containing that most scientific of entities — Dark Energy. Likewise the portals between distant parts of this fictional universe are either the “Rainbow Bridges” of ancient myth or wormholes of modern general [...]
Forrest Wickman notices the trend in films in which implosions are replacing explosions: When the opening action set-piece of The Avengers ends with the destruction of a remote research facility, the structure goes out not with a bang but more of a cool sucking noise. Meanwhile, in the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is set not on exploding [...]
Florida State University president Eric Barron sent an email on Monday in reply to the many emails and calls he has received regarding the possibility of FSU leaving the ACC for the Big 12 Conference. Here is what Barron had to say: I want to assure you that any decision made about FSU athletics will [...]
Florida State’s status in the Atlantic Coast Conference was safe and secure on Friday and anything but on Saturday based on separate interviews with Seminoles powerbrokers. The Big 12 likely is playing close attention to all of it. Seminoles athletic director Randy Spetman told the Orlando Sentinel in a story published Friday that his programs [...]
Last month, Amir Mizroch profiled Idan Yahya, an Israeli soldier who honed his skills of shooting down missiles by playing the computer game Warcraft III. Kelsey D. Atherton sees the future of war: In Warcraft III, the player commands an army of AIs, mostly designed for combat, and maneuvers them while protecting his base and attempting to destroy his [...]
Before I wrote this post, I took a look at what I wrote last year in honor of Alan Suskey’s birthday. It’s worth remembering: As fanciful maybe-one-day-we’ll-get-married talk gets bantered about the Winter White Fortress of Solitude, one of the best daydreams is picking out who will be Best Man, who will be the Maid [...]
I really, really wanted to like The Avengers. And I actually did enjoy many of the components of this movie. It’s a spectacularly made film; in fact, some of the action sequences (an aircraft carrier that flies) are just breathtaking. My problems with The Avengers are two-fold: One, Batman; two, Loki and his alien horde, the antagonists in The [...]
Now that Michelle and I know that we are having a baby girl, and Michelle is sharing with me her plans for the nursery, it’s interesting to me that blue was once the color preferred for girls and pink was the color designated for boys. From a history of gendered colors: Pink and blue arrived, along with [...]
It only took a week. On April 23rd, the Rays sat 17th in the majors in attendance. On May 4, after a pair of mid-week series against AL West opponents, they now sit 28th…despite the best record in baseball. While the Rays (20,111) are still averaging more fans per game than the White Sox (19,911) and Indians (14,486), [...]
Just in case you were wondering, Michelle and I learned on Monday that we are having a girl! We shared the news tonight with family and friends by having Michelle’s dad cut into his birthday cake to see it was blue or pink cake. Pink cake won. Michelle already has wonderful ideas for the nursery. [...]
