Tyson Adams's Blog, page 68
November 10, 2014
How to be creative
Couple of interesting videos I thought I’d share. The first is a recent video that refers to some fascinating research that looked at musical creativity with fMRI scans.
The second video is from the indomitable John Cleese.
Creativity is not an easy thing to achieve. I hope these two videos give others a few pointers.
Tagged: Brain, Brain scans, creativity, fMRI, John Cleese, Right What You No, Science, Tyson Adams, Video
November 7, 2014
Tethered Cow Caption Competition
Do you like writing stupid stuff in speech bubbles?
Do you like coming up with captions for pictures?
Do you have nothing better to do whilst chewing your lunch?
Then the Tethered Cow has a competition for you! Here is my entry:
Tagged: Caption contest, competition, Cows, Funny, Humor, Humour, Music, Right What You No, speech bubbles, stupid stuff, Tethered Cow, Tyson Adams
November 4, 2014
Book Review: Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis
Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whenever the apocalypse happens in fiction there is always a plucky band of survivors trying to make it in the post-apocalyptic world. In real life post-apocalypse waits a few million years for the next species to come along and dig up the fossils and fail to learn from history. But in both these scenarios, no-one thinks about the dogs.
In Rover Red Charlie, Garth Ennis has journeyed back to his apocalyptic world of Crossed to ask the question, “What about the dogs?” How will they cope without their “feeders”, will they still be able to bark “I’m a dog”, and are they the ones who will inherit the planet once we’re all gone?
When I read Crossed three years ago I presented a one word review: “Disturbing.” It was quite possibly the most graphic depiction and the most depraved apocalypse I’ve ever read. Yet despite being set in the same world, Rover Red Charlie is quite light and fun; exactly what you would expect from the dog’s take on the apocalypse. The usual Ennis humour and social commentary is present (“The feeders went and messed up this world, guess they had to go.”) and the three friends and their journey of discovery is enjoyable.
An original take on the apocalypse and one for fans of Ennis and the genre.
Tagged: Apocalypse, Book review, Book reviews, Crossed, Disturbing, Dog, Dogs, Garth Ennis, Reading, Right What You No, Rover Red Charlie, the apocalypse, Tyson Adams
Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
...
Rover Red Charlie by Garth Ennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Whenever the apocalypse happens in fiction there is always a plucky band of survivors trying to make it in the post-apocalyptic world. In real life post-apocalypse waits a few million years for the next species to come along and dig up the fossils and fail to learn from history. But in both these scenarios, no-one thinks about the dogs.
In Rover Red Charlie, Garth Ennis has journeyed back to his apocalyptic world of Crossed to ask the question, “What about the dogs?” How will they cope without their “feeders”, will they still be able to bark “I’m a dog”, and are they the ones who will inherit the planet once we’re all gone?
When I read Crossed three years ago I presented a one word review: “Disturbing.” It was quite possibly the most graphic depiction and the most depraved apocalypse I’ve ever read. Yet despite being set in the same world, Rover Red Charlie is quite light and fun; exactly what you would expect from the dog’s take on the apocalypse. The usual Ennis humour and social commentary is present (“The feeders went and messed up this world, guess they had to go.”) and the three friends and their journey of discovery is enjoyable.
An original take on the apocalypse and one for fans of Ennis and the genre.
Tagged: Apocalypse, Book review, Book reviews, Crossed, Disturbing, Dog, Dogs, Garth Ennis, Reading, Right What You No, Rover Red Charlie, the apocalypse, Tyson Adams
October 19, 2014
Skeptically Challenged
I’ve been quite busy recently. There is the usual writing going on, but I also have a few articles in the works, another rugrat in the works, and I’ve also been interviewed for the Skeptically Challenged Podcast.
In the podcast, Ross, Ketan and myself discuss a range of topics and try to bring the science. Ketan discusses the mythical wind turbine syndrome, I discuss a recent climate paper, and we cover the promises of fusion power from Lockhead Martin and the recent Ebola hysteria.
Consider supporting Skeptically Challenged on Patreon;
http://www.patreon.com/skepticallychallenged
Ross Balch
Tyson Adams
Ketan Joshi
Ross: https://twitter.com/skep_challenged
Ketan: https://twitter.com/KetanJ0
Discussed topics:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25043597
https://twitter.com/The_MartinL/status/522865867529265154
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/lockheed-martins-fusion-reactor/
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/10/black-eyed-child-crazy-is-for-the-extremely-gullible/
http://etwasluft.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/alan-jones-declares-at-least-219000.html
http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/pause-in-warming-debunked
New Captain Disillusion Video! – http://youtu.be/h0pIZH-W6b4?list=UUEOXxzW2vU0P-0THehuIIeg
Some links to the material I was name dropping:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/10/anthony-watts-has-found-another.html
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/10/16/rush-limbaugh-admits-causing-panic-ebola-gop-win-midterm-elections.html
Also, stay tuned until the very end and you’ll hear just one of the bits that Ross will have for subscribers, mainly jokes. Now just imagine how we managed to work rocket powered Miley Cyrus into the discussion.
Tagged: Anthropogenic climate change, climate, climate change, Ebola, Fusion, Ketan Joshi, Lockhead Martin, Podcast, Ross Balch, Sceptic, Sceptical, Science, Sciency, Skeptic, Skeptical, Skeptically Challenged, Tyson Adams, Wind turbine syndrome
October 6, 2014
Book Review: Deadpool Kills Deadpool by Cullen Bunn
Deadpool Kills Deadpool by Cullen Bunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Is there anyone Deadpool hasn’t killed? Not after Deadpool Kills Deadpool.
In the previous instalments of Deadpool Kills our titular merc with a mouth killed everyone in the Marvel Universe and then moved on to killing everyone in the Ideaverse (Killustrated). Odd that he didn’t kill the DC Universe whilst he was at it. Regardless, this time Deadpool is killing himself across the multiverse. And yes, that is just as awesome as it sounds.
Most recently I read Killustrated, also written by Cullen Bunn, which was a fantastic story but felt abridged or not fully realised. This instalment felt the most fully realised in the series. The irreverent humour, quips and quirkiness are on fully display, right next to the full tilt action. But the fun stuff is also backed up with the story being fully realised this time, instead of being glossed over as it was in the other Deadpool Kills. As if to illustrate just how quickly the previous plots were glossed over, we actually have the synopsis delivered multiple times without upsetting the pacing here (although it might feel a tad trite to some readers).
Next stop will have to be Deadpool Classic.
Also it is worth noting that in my review for Killustrated I mentioned the leaked test footage for a potential Deadpool movie. Well, that movie is now being made!! I guess someone saw how well Guardians of the Galaxy did at the box office and decided humorous comic book movies could be made after all.
Tagged: Book review, Book reviews, Book to movie, Books, Comic book, Comics, Deadpool, Deadpool Kills, Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe, Deadpool movie, Killustrated, Marvel Universe, Movie, Reading, Right What You No, Tyson Adams
October 4, 2014
Down with Reading?
An interesting table of statistics – yes I am assuming statistics are interesting, why yes, I am a huge nerd – crossed my feed today. The table, presented below, shows the household expenditure breakdowns over time (1990-2009). The highlighted lines show the amounts spent on entertainment and reading.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics (with labour spelt incorrectly)
For those of you who are blind or prefer reading my words rather than a table of numbers, the statistics show that since 1990 there has been a pretty steady increase in household expenditure on entertainment, but the amount spent on reading has been in steady decline. Clearly it is time to panic. Movies, TV and gaming have won. Time to give up reading and writing. No future in it.
Well, that would be the conclusion if you don’t go and look for the source data.
Now I am rather lazy, so I haven’t bothered to look up every year of data and tried to recreate the table. But what I have done is looked up the figures from a few of the years not included in the table: 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. The spend on reading from those years is $100, $115, $109 (no 2013 data as yet) and entertainment spend of $2,504, $2,572, $2,605 and $2,482. Seems like that trend stopped, or something.
Actually, the trend has more to do with the household demographics and income than any change in book buying. Whilst in the early 2000’s there was a drop in reading for entertainment from ~0.4% of household expenditure to ~0.2%, this has been consistent since. So readers are still buying and reading books at roughly the same proportion as always.
And who are the readers? Well, from the demographics breakdown the readers tend to be middle-aged or older, higher income, educated households, or households without kids. Apparently having kids stops you reading, can’t think why. And clearly older and more affluent people are the ones who can afford the hardcover prices, or see the value in them, or just like having something on the bookshelf surrounding their money pile – rich people have money piles in their houses, right?
To me this doesn’t say reading is a dying industry, rather that there are groups being missed by the current industry. Of course I’m biased and probably daydreaming about a magical place where books hunt down DVDs for sport. The younger people tend to have less entertainment expenditure, with the average consumer spending 5% of their income on entertainment, whilst under 25s spend between 4 and 5%. Their book buying appears to have declined and is lower than the average consumer, at 0.14% (2012). This makes them a missed market (or possibly buying cheaper e-books). The other groups spending less on books are the less educated and lower income people, and again, not just in total expenditure but in the proportion of household expenditure.
Clearly these three groups could be reading just as much but instead of buying books they are borrowing them from friends or libraries, or they might be buying cheaper books. But something tells me this isn’t the case, what with the kids these days with their hippity hop music and haircuts. To my mind the fear that the market for books is shrinking, as suggested by the above table, is not borne out by the more recent data. We see more competition for entertainment dollars yet books don’t change that much ($150 to $110 over 22 years is 3 paperbacks in the US) suggesting that the problem is in who is reading. If reading is going to be only for richer, older and more educated people then we have a problem, especially if we aren’t creating the next generation of readers.
Tagged: Book buying, Books, Demographics, entertainment, Expenditure, Household expenditure, Households, Money, Old, Poor, Reading, Rich, Right What You No, Statistics, Stats, Tyson Adams, Writing, Young
September 29, 2014
It’s banned book week again
What better way to celebrate one of my favourite weeks than with a quote from John Green about his book, The Fault In Our Stars, being banned:
I guess I am both happy and sad.
I am happy because apparently young people in Riverside, California will never witness or experience mortality since they won’t be reading my book, which is great for them.
But I am also sad because I was really hoping I would be able to introduce the idea that human beings die to the children of Riverside, California and thereby crush their dreams of immortality. (Source)
There are all sorts of weird reasons that books have been banned in the past and present. Last year I covered the topic at length with both the reasons and the recent favourites for the book banning trolls. As another year rolls round, nothing has really changed. Please, won’t somebody think of the children!!
More here:
http://tysonadams.com/2013/04/15/banning-books/
http://tysonadams.com/2013/04/18/banned-books-the-huff-post-sequel/
http://io9.com/the-12-weirdest-reasons-for-banning-science-fiction-and-1639136022
Tagged: American Library Association, Ban, Bans, Book banning, Book bans, Books, Comment, iO9, John Green, Libraries, Library, Nerd Alert, Nerdfighteria, opinion, Reading, Right What You No, The Fault In Our Stars, Tyson Adams, Video
September 16, 2014
Book Review: The Kill Room by Jeffery Deaver
The Kill Room by Jeffery Deaver
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Fishing is a strange sport. You sit around getting drunk for hours on end and hopefully catch some food. But red herrings are highly overrated, especially when they inspire novelists.
Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are back with another mystery to solve. This time a sniper has killed Robert Morano, an American citizen who doesn’t like America, whilst he was in a hotel room in the Bahamas. There are suspicions this was a government authorised hit, the local police are more concerned about a missing tourist, and Morano may be the first of many targets. The investigation is lacking in evidence and cooperation, frustrating Rhyme enough that he decides to go swimming.
Deaver is one of the most respected mystery crime writers for a reason. Rhyme and Sachs are an interesting investigative team and there are plenty of other interesting characters throughout the novel. Deaver keeps the mystery intrigue running for the entire novel. But the points that I felt counted against this novel were the overuse of red herrings (in one case a double fake). It is one thing for mysteries to have dead-ends and other points of narrative tension, but it felt like Deaver was trying to fool the reader just a little too often.
To some extent this is probably because of Deaver’s success and the mystery reader fanbase. Readers are going to find plots too obvious or recycled if a writer like Deaver doesn’t mess with them a bit. I felt there were other ways he could have kept the mystery going without such blatant red herrings, but others may not mind them. A solid effort but not quite as good as earlier books in this series.
Tagged: Amelia Sachs, Book review, Book reviews, Crime, Deaver, Jeffery Deaver, Lincoln Rhyme, Murder, murder mystery, Mystery, Reading, red herrings, Rhyme and Sachs, Right What You No, Robert Morano, Sniper, Tyson Adams
September 14, 2014
Book Review: Personal by Lee Child
Personal by Lee Child
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Jack Reacher fought a little person in 61 Hours, so definitely time he fought a giant in Personal. Oh, and some other stuff happens… like beating up a giant!
Lee Child’s continued adventures of Sherlock Homeless – Jack Reacher – have reached (boom tish) their nineteenth installment. Reacher is manipulated into searching for a former army sniper he had put away 16 years ago, a sniper who has taken a shot at the French President and is threatening to shoot some other world leaders at the G8 summit. This is the first Reacher novel that isn’t set in the US, seeing him travel to Paris and London, for his manhunt. Of course, it is never as simple as a manhunt, especially when the sniper bears a 16 year old grudge.
What I love about picking up a Lee Child novel is starting the novel and finding I’m already 50 pages into the action before I realise it. Lee effortlessly steers you through the story and keeps you entertained. He makes you appreciate just how good an author he is compared to his contemporaries. It was also refreshing to have Reacher leave behind his small town problem solving in favour of an international, high stakes, manhunt. Not that this stops Reacher beating up people and solving problems: wouldn’t be a Reacher novel without that.
Hard to find fault with the latest Reacher adventure. The only criticism would be that it feels like a “standard” Reacher adventure, despite the break in location tradition. My own observation is that since 61 Hours Lee’s writing has become taut and that he skilfully plays with the reader, making him my favourite author.
Tagged: 61 Hours, Book review, Book reviews, Crime, Crime thriller, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, London, Paris, Personal, Reacher, Reading, Right What You No, Sherlock Homeless, Sniper, Thriller, Tyson Adams
