Tyson Adams's Blog, page 61
May 22, 2016
Book to Movie: Winter Solider – What’s the Difference?
This month’s CineFix edition of What’s the Difference cover the Ed Brubaker comic that inspired the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie.
Unlike Civil War, I managed to read the Ed Brubaker series of comics before watching the Winter Solider movie. Obviously there are a lot of differences, especially in terms of the expanded universe and “realism” of the movie world. The comics have decades of plots, sideplots, overlapping arcs from other parts of the Marvel Universe, characters, and general junk that is impossible to pack into a 2 hour movie. I actually find the way Marvel and DC have their stables of comics overlap and exist in the same universe to be annoying. The movies are starting to head that way as well, what with Age of Ultron essentially spending a third of its run time building the associated Thor, Ironman, Captain America, etc, movies.
One of the differences not really covered in the CineFix video is the other Captain Americas. That’s right, several other Caps wore the…. cap. Anyway, while Steve Rogers was chilling (Bucky too, but in a separate location) America didn’t want to lose its figurehead so they had some other people fill the role. From memory, at least one of them was integral to the plot, despite being no longer all there. This part of the plot also fed into the series that came immediately after Winter Soldier, with Bucky donning the costume and hefting the shield. For anyone about to complain about spoilers with that last sentence, try not to think about what could have happened to Steve Rogers to require Bucky to become Captain America.
In my original review for the Winter Soldier movie I commented that the writers had managed to capture Brubaker’s cold war spy story feel. They did this with very little similarities between the comic and movie. In some ways I think the movie is better, certainly I like the Steve Rogers of the film more, and they hadn’t quite gone overboard with the expanded universe stuff at that time, but in others the usual restrictions of the shorter format lessens the possible storytelling (Crossbones, the other Captain Americas, the relationships). Two very different stories were told but I still think this was a good adaptation.
Tagged: Adaptation, Avengers Age of Ultron, Book adaptation, Book to movie, Bucky, Captain America, Captain America Civil War, Captain America Winter Soldier, CineFix, comic book movie, DC, Ed Brubaker, Marvel, Right What You No, Steve Rogers, Tyson Adams, What's the difference
May 21, 2016
May 19, 2016
If a charismatic Aboriginal Australian with an attractive political agenda ran for office, would he ever get elected as Prime Minister?
Sure why not. We’ve elected people who can’t swim, people whose claim to fame was drinking beer fast, and people who think it is appropriate to wear these in public:
So it isn’t unreasonable to think that there are better qualified people who could rise to the top despite our casual racism. We still can’t get sexism right, but we managed to have a female Prime Minister.
It should be pointed out that while Australia has a proud history of treating Aboriginals like fauna, Indigenous Australians have been elected to state and federal seats. The big problem would be getting the support of one of the major parties to be leader, and that major party holding the balance of power.
I notice that the question implies Aussies elect the Prime Minister directly. We’re not silly here in Australia. The last thing you want in a democracy is the people getting to decide important decisions like who is preselected to run for a political seat, how their elected representative should represent them, or who is Prime Minister. Best to keep these decisions out of the hands of the people they impact and make sure only the political insiders get to make those calls.
Our Prime Minister is the leader of the political party that holds the balance of power. Thus, the party decides who is Prime Minister, and is not directly elected. For an Indigenous Aussie to become leader of the party would be no small feat, and they’d have to watch out for knives to the back.
Hopefully we will see an Indigenous Australian Prime Minister. Hell, they might even be non-male just to shake things up a bit. Just hard to tell how many old white guys we’ll see before that happens.
This post originally appeared on Quora.
Tagged: Aboriginals, Answers, Australia, Australian politics, Australian Prime Minister, Humor, Humour, Indigenous Australians, Indigenous politicians, Politics, Q and A, Q&A, Quora, Quora answers, Racism, Satire, Tyson Adams
May 17, 2016
Book Review: Abaddon’s Gate by James SA Corey
Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When most people die in space from sudden deceleration you’d think they’d install some airbags in spaceships. Safety first!
The third Expanse novel by James Corey sees Holden and his crew being manipulated into starting an interplanetary war. Since they now have a Stargate – I assume that name isn’t trademarked, or at least the Goa’uld won’t blast me for using it – the interplanetary war threatens to become an intergalactic war. Although war isn’t the correct term for advanced intelligences fighting people, the correct term would be genocide. Let’s see Holden talk his way out of this one.
Abaddon’s Gate was another great instalment in the Expanse series. The core characters are back and continuing to be grown and layered. The new viewpoint characters are also interesting, although they aren’t anywhere near as cool as Avasarala, a character that won’t be topped any time soon. The story also went in directions I wasn’t expecting, mainly due to the complex layering of plots. I’m tempted to call this the most ambitious of the Expanse novels so far, but my memory could just be on the fritz.
I’ve seen a few other reviews that suggested events and characters were a little too conveniently manoeuvred into place. I’d say the opposite is true and indicates that people will have to pay attention to the story and character developments. Some people clearly got a little lost.
Cibola Burn should be interesting now that they have the Stargate system to explore. I’m sure humans will try to make a mess of that somehow.
Tagged: Book review, Book reviews, Cibola Burn, James Holden, James SA Corey, Right What You No, Sci-fi, science fiction, Space opera, Stargate, The Expanse, The Expanse series, Tyson Adams
May 15, 2016
If there was only one piece of equipment you could have in your gym, what would it be and why?
It’s great to see that when asked what one piece of equipment people would have that they would equip a full gym. I’d love to do that too, but I’ll answer the question by naming one piece of equipment.
Of course, the one piece of equipment for me is not the same one piece that someone else would want, nor would it be what a younger or older version of me would want. A younger version of me would have vastly different needs than me now, and we’d both have much different requirements than the older version, whose idea of a workout would be shuffling from the lounge to the dinner queue at the retirement home.
Gymnastic rings
Right now my ideal piece of gym equipment would be a set of gymnastic rings. Not only can you train most of your body with them, but you get to look really cool doing exercises on them.
Alternative: Chinup bar
This is an alternative to the gymnastic rings if for some reason I couldn’t afford the rings at the current exorbitant prices. Again, you can train most of your body with a chinup bar (dips, chins, levers, muscleups, hammy curls, etc), plus all the cool kids on Youtube are doing bar training these days.
Younger me
Barbell set
Yeah, I know, a set is not a single piece of equipment. A barbell on its own isn’t much use without a bunch of weight plates, but at least I’m not listing barbell, plates, rack, and bench. A decent olympic barbell with a set of weights would cover just about everything you could think of. Ideally you’d have a solid floor (or lifting platform) to lift on with quality bumper plates so that clean & jerk and snatches are in the lifting program. But even a standard barbell – which is what I had when I first started training – can be decent.
Alternative: Sandbag or Keg
Before barbells were a thing, people lifted anything that was around: rocks, trees, bulls. The problem with those sorts of objects is that they are set weights, so progressive training is hard to accomplish, unless you start with a bull calf. So a rock might be a challenge now, but not after a few months or years of training. Sandbags and Kegs can be adjusted in weight and can be utilised for most exercises you would use a barbell for. Plus it sounds really hardcore.
Older me
Pilates sled machine thingy
Let’s face it, older me will probably be happy to not have arthritis in every joint, so the idea of doing muscle-ups, deadlifts, and that thing with the kettle-bell that looks like you’re trying to hump someone whilst throwing something in the air, is not particularly plausible at 70. As lame as this sort of workout would be for a fit and healthy younger person, it would cover all the muscles for the older more decrepit version of me.
Alternative: Comfy bed
Let’s be realistic, older me is probably going to be popping viagra and taking full advantage of all the facilities the nursing home has to offer. The bed will probably keep me in great shape to my dying days.
This post original appeared on Quora.
Tagged: Answers, Exercise, Gym equipment, Lifting, Lifting weights, Pilates, Q and A, Q&A, Quora, Quora answers, Right What You No, Satire, Tyson Adams, Weights, Working out
May 12, 2016
Totally Cereal
It only feels like three weeks ago when I last posted about Quora being Super Cereal about answers on its site. Now they are Totally Cereal!
Less than 9 hours after I posted an answer on why not everyone buys into the Crossfit cult, my answer was flagged as breaching policy. In that short window of time the post managed to become the second most viewed and third most upvoted despite being the newest answer. I mean, how dare someone criticise Crossfit, like every other answer given. How dare they use images to enhance the points being made, a common practice on the site. And once again, how dare anyone not answer the question without being completely cereal.
My working hypothesis is that my two banned answers were flagged as a result of being a trending answer. That meant the answers raised the ire of the Totally Cereal members. Quick, hit the complaint button and troll through to find something to make sure no-one else is ever offended. This will remain only a hypothesis, as I think it wouldn’t be appropriate to find other answers to flag that use images in their answers as I have done, as a means to test the system. I’d need to find other answers that were a mix of Super Cereal and Non-Cereal answers, as well as highlighted (trending) and random answers, to round out the testing.
Either way, check out my Totally Cereal answer on why not everyone wants to compete in the Washed Up Loser Olympics until they herniate their spines.
Why do people choose to NOT do Crossfit?
Crossfit is terrific, as long as you hate good technique, want a massive injury, and feel the need to strut around without a shirt on (guys) or in booty shorts (girls and guys).
I’ve been lifting long enough to remember when WODs were called circuit classes, so when a new fad comes along it is a little easier to maintain some perspective. Others have already highlighted some issues that I agree with, I’ll cover some of my own reasons.
Form
The idea that high intensity and high skill exercises are done for high reps is stupid. Nothing says broken back like skill breakdown.
So much for those gainz.
The video below is of the head of Crossfit programming, Dave Castro, doing a deadlift. It is laughably bad, but in the community this video is seen as hardcore rather than stupid.
I’m all for intensity and pushing yourself to new highs, but Crossfit all too often encourages people to utilise bad form or techniques like kipping to complete a workout. That is not smart.
It’s a bit of a cult
How can you tell if someone does Crossfit? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
If someone is a Vegan Crossfitter, what do they tell you about first?
Regular exercisers are bad enough, but Crossfitters take it to the next level. It’s great that people are enthused about getting fit, strong, and healthy, but there is a difference between encouragement and community and drinking Kool-aid.
Lack of progression/Too much variety
If you want to get good at something you need to practice it regularly. Crossfit throws that rule out the window and encourages a randomness to the programming that guarantees you get good at exercising but not at any of the exercises. Even the top level Crossfit athletes train specificity into their programs and then practice events (WODs).
Bad exercises or good exercises done badly
Let me just ask what this is meant to be and whether they have a surgeon on standby:
There is video of this event at the Crossfit games. I was cringing the entire way through. There were some athletes that managed to keep a relatively neutral spine throughout, but that sacrificed them speed and reps. Events are done for speed and reps….
Others have already mentioned the high rep clean and jerks, snatches, kipping pullups and muscleups, but that only scratches the surface. Even handstand pushups are done with kipping. Overhead presses are often turned into push-presses. Instead of doing a solid set of 10 reps on a pullup they insist that people do 30… and do several rounds of that with other exercises in between. It’s like someone looked up what the most reps ever done in one clean set for an exercise was and that became the WOD number. Take the kipping like a fish flapping around on a boat deck out and they wouldn’t get half the reps, let alone rounds.
Paleo
If the WOD is Crossfit’s cult program, then paleo is their cult diet. If you thought that kipping pullups were dumb, then you want to look away from the paleo diet. Not only is paleo largely ignorant of what our Palaeolithic ancestors ate, it also likes to pretend agriculture is bad. Without agriculture there would be no society, no gyms, no Crossfit, no people bragging about Crossfit…. Wait, I take it back, agriculture might be the root of all evil.
Actual dietary experts have nothing but disdain for the cult diet of paleo.
That all said, Crossfit isn’t all bad. Since they came along the fitness industry has had to try for the same level of appeal to appease the former cult members and those who can’t afford Box fees. I can walk into most gyms and find a lifting platform, something that was a rarity just a decade ago. I can actually buy weightlifting shoes without mail-order. And no one looks at me funny when I do muscleups anymore. Let’s just hope people don’t assume I’m a Crossfitter and are avoiding talking to me.
I’m no longer going to bother with Quora and will gradually migrate my answers there to this site. Click this tag to see them.
Tagged: Crossfit, Crossfit cult, Humor, Humour, Manbearpig, Paleo diet, Q and A, Q&A, Quora, Quora answers, Quora sucks, Right What You No, Sarcasm, Sarcastic, Satire, Super cereal, Super serial, Totally Cereal, Tyson Adams, Washup Up Loser Olympics
May 11, 2016
Why do Australians have some of the longest lifespans despite their level of obesity according to recent statistics?
Aussies have discovered the fountain of youth in the heart of the outback. From a very rare location in the heart of the Gibson Desert flows a natural spring that wells up from deep within the Earth’s mantle. This spring has regenerative properties that helps with many common diseases and ailments. 
This spring water is used to brew beverages that are part of the Aussie staple diet. As a result, the increases in food abundance and greater sedentary lifestyles of the populous have not resulted in the normal health impacts due to obesity. So if you see any of these three beverages in your country, it is worth buying them in bulk in order to ward off disease.
Of course, it could just be that life expectancy has been growing in first world nations due to improved health care (child mortality, vaccinations, disease treatment, etc) and that steady increase hasn’t been impacted by the relatively recent surge in obesity rates. I.e. too soon to have obesity impacting life expectancy.
Originally published on Quora.
Tagged: Answers, Aussie, Australia, Humor, Humour, Obesity, Q and A, Q&A, Quora, Quora answers, Right What You No, Satire, Tyson Adams
May 10, 2016
Book Review: The Promise by Robert Crais
The Promise by Robert Crais
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If a professional thief pretends to be a terrorist does that mean they blow all of their money in a public place?
Well, Elvis Cole would have found that funny. Bite me.
Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are back and this time they have been hired to investigate a missing person. Somehow that missing person leads to black market arms deals, murder investigations, Homeland Security mole hunts, thieves and terrorists. We also get to see some more of Scott James and his dog Maggie. Narration from the POV of the dog: go on, buy the book right now.
It has been a while since I’ve picked up a Robert Crais novel. I loved his early Elvis Cole novels but when he moved away from the humorous tone later in the series I lost interest. Fortunately I decided to check back in to see what was happening with Cole and Pike. This was a terrific read, with plenty of twists and turns, and is crammed full of interesting characters. The only negative I have is that the humour of the early novels is still taking a back seat. There are some Cole moments, but that aspect has been dialled right back, something I continue to miss with Crais’ writing.
Tagged: Book review, Book reviews, Cole and Pike, Crime thriller, Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, Reading, Right What You No, Robert Crais, Scott James and Maggie, Thriller, Tyson Adams
May 3, 2016
Book Review: Hell’s Super by Mark Cain
Hell’s Super by Mark Cain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hell is being surrounded by famous people, apparently.
Hell’s Super follows Steve Minion, the only non-famous person in hell as far as I can tell, as he tries to fix all the problems that come up in hell. Whether it be replacing a broken light bulb on the sign leading into hell (Abandon all hope ye who enter here), or stopping a civil uprising, Steve is tasked with fixing the problem because he sucks at fixing things: it’s hell, it’s his punishment. His sidekick is Orson Welles and he is dating Florence Nightingale: enough said.
I picked up Mark Cain’s Hell’s Super as it promised to be a novel in the vein of Terry Pratchett or Good Omens: some satire, some straight laughs, some silly fun. It had those elements but for me it rarely rose above mildly entertaining. Having recently re-read Good Omens, a book Hell’s Super is compared to in the back cover blurb, I can safely say that the Pratchett and Gaiman novel is not being knocked off the Best Novel of All Time podium any time soon. Too much of the humour and plot relies on utilising famous people and irony (especially in the punishments) to be classed as Pratchett-esque satire and humour. It also didn’t help that the plot twists were obvious given the setting.
That said, this is an entertaining novel with enough humour to amuse. I think the comparisons drawn to Good Omens, Terry Pratchett, and Douglas Adams in the blurb set up too-high an expectation for me. Knowing that, you may enjoy it more as a result.
Tagged: Book review, Book reviews, Douglas Adams, Fantasy, Good Omens, Hell's Super, Humor, Humour, Mark Cain, Neil Gaiman, Reading, Right What You No, Satire, Steve Minion, Terry Pratchett, Tyson Adams
April 24, 2016
Super Cereal!
Regular readers here will have noticed I’ve not been blogging as much lately as I’ve taken to answering the occasional question on Quora. I feel it is important to help others understand topics. We all start by asking questions, and someone needs to answer them.
Today I received a disheartening email.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED I say. It is hard to believe that my answer would be found to be unhelpful. Read for yourself and see if you don’t find my answer helpful.
Is the New Zealand accent the same as Australia’s?
The New Zealand accent is almost exactly the same as an Aussie accent. This is mainly because, like Tasmania, New Zealand is actually a state within Australia. So any differences are essentially regional dialects of the same accent, much like the difference between a Texan drawl and whatever the hell that New Jersey thing is called.
This little fact isn’t really understood outside of the ANZAC nation; the ANZACs being our military arm. So here is a little list of evidence:
Russell Crowe – renowned Aussie actor from New Zealand.
Sam Neil – renowned Aussie actor from New Zealand.
Tim and Neil Finn – renowned Aussie musicians (Crowded House) from New Zealand.
Pavlova – renowned Aussie dessert from New Zealand.
Sheep shagging – renowned Aussie practice from New Zealand.The easiest way to explain the slight regional dialects between the mainland Aussie accent and the island versions is to imagine a less evil version of the Aussie accent. That’s what the state of New Zealand inhabitants sound like. And before you ask, yes, Maoris and Aborigines are exactly the same peoples.
Clearly I was being helpful and giving the question the answer it deserved. When my answer was removed it had the second most views and had been upvoted several times. So it boggles my mind that anyone would flag the answer as unhelpful.
It is with outrage at the ignominy that I share this with you all here. My answer addressed all the points that were required. The explanation could not be any more clear as to the similarities of Aussie and New Zealander accents. Unless of course the person asking the question (and Quora) expected not to be mocked and to be treated super cereal.
Tagged: Accents, ANZAC, Australia vs New Zealand, Famous Aussies who are actually from New Zealand, Manbearpig, Mocking, Quora, Right What You No, Sarcasm, Sarcastic, Satire, Super cereal, Super serial, Tyson Adams
