How to make the deranged Easter bunny costume from A Christmas Story
Category Archives: Movies
Name That Movie
I started a series of drawings in my sketchbook, it’s a kind of visual quiz of great movies. Each series is a sequence of six drawings of shots from classic films (in the order they appear on screen.) No portraits of movie stars, just iconic images from the film. When I finish 100 movies, I’ll see about getting them published as a book.
A book like this could sell dozens.
We're Going to Need a Bigger Boat
Fishing Boat Sunk by Giant Jellyfish
If they make this into a movie, they won’t be able to use the line “Smile, you SOB”
OMG, We're All Going to Die!
Someday.
But not because of this.
Movie Theaters Will Fry Us All with Infrared to Stop Pirates
Fry us all? Oh, please.
Sharp, at the request of Japan’s National Institute of Informatics, has developed a method to ruin the camcorder footage shot by pirates in movie theaters. By placing mega IR lights behind the screen (which are invisible to the human eye, of course), the light can tunnel through tiny holes that are already in screens for the passage of sound.
CCDs are sensitive to IR, which is why there is usually a filter in place (unless you remove it). But the filter isn’t perfect, so adding more IR should screw up the picture. Until someone figures out that they can put another (perhaps better) IR filter on the lens. Oh, crap, did I say that out loud?
Bonus picture (I know Matt did this already, but I finally had my camera at a place with an electric stove). The burner was still black to the naked eye when this image was recorded.
Math Goes to the Movies
The mysterious equilibrium of zombies
In any decade there are really only a handful of movies about math (“Proof” comes to mind, as well as “A Beautiful Mind”), but a surprising number of movies that end up embodying math, even if it’s accidental. “Six Degrees of Separation” is based on the math of social networks. Thrillers have a special propensity for edgy twists on game theory. And what is a disease-outbreak movie if not an illustration of mathematical epidemiology, with puffy suits? To see movies through their math, sometimes, is to watch a whole different drama.
Is Degrees Squared a Unit?
Physics Buzz: Six degrees of Paul Erdős
Some famous names have low Erdős numbers— Bill Gates has an Erdős number of 4, Steven Chu’s is 7, and Albert Einstein is 2.
If Chu’s is 7, mine is no greater than 10; I can trivially trace a path through my thesis advisor to his, to Chu.
And I’ve already mentioned that I sort of have a Bacon number of 3. Consequently, I’d like to popularize the notion of combining the two by adding them, making my Bacon-Erdős number, or Berdős number, 13 (or perhaps adding in quadrature, making my Berdős number 10.44)
Meanwhile, Chad asks Who Is the Erdos of Physics? Maybe we can make this three dimensional.
(Update: I’ve found that my Erdős number is no larger than 9, and I may be able to bring it down to 6 fairly easily)
Reverse the Polarity!
Swish and Flick
Movie Trivia: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Daniel Radcliffe’s voice changed while they were filming, but the movie was shot in sequence so it just gradually gets deeper throughout the film instead of being at different octaves here and there.
I'd Call that a Big Yes
Sorry Star Wars fans, but Ghostbusters is the best film ever made
On the other hand, what human beings do need is “Things to say”. They need a huge supply of them. Amusing, essentially inconsequential things, which will make as many people in the room as possible feel relaxed and cordial. In this respect, Ghostbusters reveals itself, once again, as the greatest film ever made. When I mentioned this column on Twitter, I had more than 50 suggestions as to what the best line in the film is — nearly all of them useful in everyday life.
The only movie I can think of (this early in the morning) that comes close in quotability is The Blues Brothers
Asps. Very Dangerous. You Go First.
Movie Trivia: Raiders of the Lost Ark
The movie was filmed in Tunisia because it was a lot cheaper to shoot there than Egypt, and since the script never called for shots of the Sphinx or the pyramids, so they were able to get away with it. In fact, one of the scenes was shot in the exact same canyon where R2-D2 was stolen by Jawas in Star Wars.