Although giving up BBC3 for lent seemed a virtuous idea that God would definitely approve of – it has, in fact, sent me on a rather shadowy path that culminated in discovering the very middle of the World Wide Web last night.
It is not overstating the mark to say that it recalled the scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Captain/then Admiral Kirk scrubs away the rust on the life-form VGER only to discover more letters that revealed it was the VOYAGER VI NASA probe returning from deep space and then it starts talking through the bald crewman dude who still gives me confused feelings sometimes when I drive at night.
The first X-files episodes came at the populist cusp of the World Wide Web. It was a perfect pitch to utilise this new home and school technology. It was cult enough, darkly humoured enough and just on the edge of conspiracy plausibility to have nerds dialling up on chirping, blinking modems trying vainly to hack into mainframes - any mainframes - for dossiers on aliens and have blocky font discussions about ESP Amish children. And, in Scully, it had the perfect geek pin-up to seek out and impatiently unpixilate into the wee small hours.
For some, after the series stopped making any semblance of sense (around the end of season 4) and started talking about government approved extra-terrestrial flowers being pollinated by earth bees or whatever, the grid fell quiet. It would be 12 years before people would use the internet again with the development of Facebook and the YouTube.
But X-File geek computer chats remained, forgotten out there, floating deeper through cold wires into the internet. They have been evolving, learning. They have been questing for a kind of soul. And they are not blocky any more.
This is what is at the centre of the internet:
[I particularly approve of the audio inserted at 4:50. Mulder is hardcore with his threats. I like to think that it is directed at Scully’s dad. You’re absolutely right, which means it would have been in season 1 for that to be the case, to keep it canon]
Alright, it isn’t strictly what is at the centre of the internet. But it is so fabulously uber-geek it could have been. I wouldn’t have put it past it – let’s just say that.
In fact I really discovered a whole sub-genre of this kind of thing being made out of the internet.
Now, I am happy to admit, I watched the X-files (first 4 seasons only, obviously). And I enjoyed that, to start off with, there were only a few of us at school who would watch it and talk about it the day after and we all told our career guidance teachers we wanted to join the FBI and go up to girls in class saying [to their bemusement] that we were saving ourselves for a meaningful, monogamous relationship with Dana Scully – but at no point did I consider “You know what this episode about a half-man-half-stretchy-salamander that creeps through kitchen sink food disposal units and eats people’s kidneys needs? A relationship montage put to slightly dated soft-rock in 15 years time”
Here is another one. The creator, BeckyScully [Oh-Kaay] says that this is intentionally edited from Scully’s point of view where the narrative is she and Mulder are going through a tough time. Extraordinary.
Some are even worse than others:
Fair enough, there is actually something quite touching about that last one. But what is possessing people to do this? People are sitting at home, at branded coffee shops and in places of employed commerce putting together visual and audio clips as weird back to front music videos for a TV show that ended over a decade ago.
All I am saying – it is like I am reading your mind - if it was me doing it I would have chosen the schmaltz-enfeebled Beauty and The Beast. A Coldplay ballad superimposed on that simply has to be an improvement on any scene: even the bits where Vincent is in a downtown alley ripping out some raggedy thug’s thorax.
Friday 25 March 2011
Wednesday 23 March 2011
Tong has aides
“It was all just a joke”
Is there a cruder an attempt at verbal self defense?
At least “It is not that I am in any way against gays, lesbians or even gay lesbians [heterosexuals?], it is just that...” tries to connect with what will definitely end up being wrong with the 2nd half of the sentence as a form of pre-emptive apology. “It was all just a joke” comes after what has been said and expects, acting as Last Man, it will free all.
Now you might be thinking, for all I know, what if “It was all just a joke” was put onto pull-string activated voice box unit and placed into a man sewn together out of off-cuts by an Evil Doctor straight out a Joe R. Lansdale novella? What if that happened? What would that man be?
Well, thanks to the investigative work of journalist Johann Hari, we now know that such a man would be Mr. Tong. Please read Johann’s article – but for those who want it, here is my synopsis of the situation he found Tong in.
Tong, vastly unknown one time quitter contestant on Big Brother, inheritor of money and self-styled “misogynist knob” found himself recently with idle thumbs. And why the Devil invented Twitter.
Tong decided to promote his hitherto unknown agent weight loss program on the micro-blogging site to his (increasing) followers. A program which involved purchasing medically unlicensed pills of Tong’s own recipe and subscribing to his Twitter [ho, ho] feed for his motivational words. Motivational words that had 90’s morning TV sprite, Mr. Motivator, deep lunging in his watery grave [he is dead, right?].
Tong titled his weight loss diet: “Managed Anorexia”
Tong called his unsolicited medication: “Size Zero Pills”
[Tong clearly has a knack for names and terminology which should be put to better use in an illustrated educational booklet for children guarding against developing eating disorders, with Tong himself, a cartoon character in the story that the 5-fruit-a-day kids would defeat]
The concept of this “diet” is to learn to hate food, to not eat anything to the point of pissing ketones and hold onto the abstract notion of “hope” that gobbling Tong’s mystery pills would sustain in you enough energy to read the following sorts of things from Tong to encourage you to keep breathing in and out from your fast hollowing carcass that once held your head up:
All inspirational stuff. But what was the motivation for Tong to break into the market? He claims it is tough love fuelled by his desire of American Size 0 model women from magazines he has seen and his equally reactive disgust of not American Size 0 model women in real life he has seen. Tong openly admits he only ever dates strippers and adult performers (or as he collectively nouns them: “bitches”) and pays for the company of women (“a girl who has sex for free is an idiot”).
Sometimes waiting for Godwin's law to occur is not enough. Sometimes you have to poke the Nazi eagle. Right in it’s beaky face. Tong has had many responses regarding his weight loss plan (some even from the world of celebrity). They have not all been supportive of it. In fact there has been a lot of negative attention about it. Johann relays a response from Tong’s Twitter account back to him.
I think Tong may be confusing Hitler’s Third Reich Movement with the hit West End Show “Billy Elliot” there. Easily done if you “don’t understand enough all about the World War Two” I suppose.
Interrogated directly with the most obvious of questions – Did he consider the title of his diet insensitive and a reflection that he doesn’t know what he is talking about? Did he consult medical experts about his pill? Did he collate science peer reviewed statistical data to back-up the safety of his dietary design? Did he stringently and rigorously test his diet to ensure that it was at all safe in an effort to counter the mountain of evidence to the contrary? Did he consider the potential damage if not deaths he could be contributing to in young women who may be already battling eating disorders by following his advice? – Tong’s responses are extraordinary in manner:
“I just coined the term [Managed Anorexia], ha ha! …but I believe in it.”
“I don’t know that many doctors in the sphere of my social circle”
“You could use, arguably, the statistic that if – there must be one somewhere – that if you eat less, you lose weight”
“If ten out of ten people listen to me with my views on managing anorexia, ten out of ten people will lose a lot of weight”
“Corporate homicide is impossible to prove anyways”
Then, presented with the fact that, legally and morally he is objectionable, culpable, prosecutable and eminently jail-able should his twaddle and pills cause harm – Tong reflected, u-turned and begged for the interview to never be published: “It was a hoax all along!” and changed his tune on Twitter too, explaining that the pills never really existed, it was a social experiment he had concocted and that, actually, all the “managed anorexia” thing is really dangerous – “It was a hoax! A hoax!”
For someone to describe Hitler as one of life’s “go-getters” it is not at all surprising that a short visit to Tong’s Twitter account recently also reveals a number of crass comments about the human tragedy involved in natural disasters through to disparaging remarks about people with less money (and so “value”) than him interspersed with bizarre self-flagellating sentences about his own relationship with food (“Sitting looking at a packet of crisps in front of me – how long will I last?” – Not long it turns out – within 2 tweets he admits to “caving in” and eating “a third of the crisps in the packet”).
I am sure that these sound bytes are fired off (almost on a minute by minute basis) in an attempt to be noticed – to feel important by default of any attention – and anger is easiest to flame. But when eventually he looks back at his sad, crisp denying, loveless excuse for a life he may look for some redemption in his Twitter postings from their dwelling in the arse crack of the site for consolation that he didn’t really mean any of it.
You see? “It was all just a joke”
A sure fire indication it perhaps wasn’t very funny at all.
-----------------------------------------------------------
[Er… Sorry, I came over all The Guardian there for a minute!]
Still, he is doing better post Big Brother than Rebecca 'the Rebaccanator’ Shiner.
[Normal service resumed!]
Is there a cruder an attempt at verbal self defense?
At least “It is not that I am in any way against gays, lesbians or even gay lesbians [heterosexuals?], it is just that...” tries to connect with what will definitely end up being wrong with the 2nd half of the sentence as a form of pre-emptive apology. “It was all just a joke” comes after what has been said and expects, acting as Last Man, it will free all.
Now you might be thinking, for all I know, what if “It was all just a joke” was put onto pull-string activated voice box unit and placed into a man sewn together out of off-cuts by an Evil Doctor straight out a Joe R. Lansdale novella? What if that happened? What would that man be?
Well, thanks to the investigative work of journalist Johann Hari, we now know that such a man would be Mr. Tong. Please read Johann’s article – but for those who want it, here is my synopsis of the situation he found Tong in.
Tong, vastly unknown one time quitter contestant on Big Brother, inheritor of money and self-styled “misogynist knob” found himself recently with idle thumbs. And why the Devil invented Twitter.
Tong decided to promote his hitherto unknown agent weight loss program on the micro-blogging site to his (increasing) followers. A program which involved purchasing medically unlicensed pills of Tong’s own recipe and subscribing to his Twitter [ho, ho] feed for his motivational words. Motivational words that had 90’s morning TV sprite, Mr. Motivator, deep lunging in his watery grave [he is dead, right?].
Tong titled his weight loss diet: “Managed Anorexia”
Tong called his unsolicited medication: “Size Zero Pills”
[Tong clearly has a knack for names and terminology which should be put to better use in an illustrated educational booklet for children guarding against developing eating disorders, with Tong himself, a cartoon character in the story that the 5-fruit-a-day kids would defeat]
The concept of this “diet” is to learn to hate food, to not eat anything to the point of pissing ketones and hold onto the abstract notion of “hope” that gobbling Tong’s mystery pills would sustain in you enough energy to read the following sorts of things from Tong to encourage you to keep breathing in and out from your fast hollowing carcass that once held your head up:
“Females who do not aim nor want to be a size zero are simply uneducated and ignorant.” Tong
“All you non size zero girls need to keep a food diary, noting everything you eat & drink - review it daily and see how imperfect you are.” Tong
All inspirational stuff. But what was the motivation for Tong to break into the market? He claims it is tough love fuelled by his desire of American Size 0 model women from magazines he has seen and his equally reactive disgust of not American Size 0 model women in real life he has seen. Tong openly admits he only ever dates strippers and adult performers (or as he collectively nouns them: “bitches”) and pays for the company of women (“a girl who has sex for free is an idiot”).
Sometimes waiting for Godwin's law to occur is not enough. Sometimes you have to poke the Nazi eagle. Right in it’s beaky face. Tong has had many responses regarding his weight loss plan (some even from the world of celebrity). They have not all been supportive of it. In fact there has been a lot of negative attention about it. Johann relays a response from Tong’s Twitter account back to him.
When somebody compared him [Tong] to Hitler on Twitter, he said he “considered it a compliment.”
Why? “Because he was effective.”
How? “He believed in something and he went for it. He believed in himself and he didn’t let anyone tell him otherwise.”
So you admire somebody who pursues a cause, even if that cause is systematic mass murder? “I don’t understand enough all about the World War Two…”
I think Tong may be confusing Hitler’s Third Reich Movement with the hit West End Show “Billy Elliot” there. Easily done if you “don’t understand enough all about the World War Two” I suppose.
Interrogated directly with the most obvious of questions – Did he consider the title of his diet insensitive and a reflection that he doesn’t know what he is talking about? Did he consult medical experts about his pill? Did he collate science peer reviewed statistical data to back-up the safety of his dietary design? Did he stringently and rigorously test his diet to ensure that it was at all safe in an effort to counter the mountain of evidence to the contrary? Did he consider the potential damage if not deaths he could be contributing to in young women who may be already battling eating disorders by following his advice? – Tong’s responses are extraordinary in manner:
“I just coined the term [Managed Anorexia], ha ha! …but I believe in it.”
“I don’t know that many doctors in the sphere of my social circle”
“You could use, arguably, the statistic that if – there must be one somewhere – that if you eat less, you lose weight”
“If ten out of ten people listen to me with my views on managing anorexia, ten out of ten people will lose a lot of weight”
“Corporate homicide is impossible to prove anyways”
Then, presented with the fact that, legally and morally he is objectionable, culpable, prosecutable and eminently jail-able should his twaddle and pills cause harm – Tong reflected, u-turned and begged for the interview to never be published: “It was a hoax all along!” and changed his tune on Twitter too, explaining that the pills never really existed, it was a social experiment he had concocted and that, actually, all the “managed anorexia” thing is really dangerous – “It was a hoax! A hoax!”
For someone to describe Hitler as one of life’s “go-getters” it is not at all surprising that a short visit to Tong’s Twitter account recently also reveals a number of crass comments about the human tragedy involved in natural disasters through to disparaging remarks about people with less money (and so “value”) than him interspersed with bizarre self-flagellating sentences about his own relationship with food (“Sitting looking at a packet of crisps in front of me – how long will I last?” – Not long it turns out – within 2 tweets he admits to “caving in” and eating “a third of the crisps in the packet”).
I am sure that these sound bytes are fired off (almost on a minute by minute basis) in an attempt to be noticed – to feel important by default of any attention – and anger is easiest to flame. But when eventually he looks back at his sad, crisp denying, loveless excuse for a life he may look for some redemption in his Twitter postings from their dwelling in the arse crack of the site for consolation that he didn’t really mean any of it.
You see? “It was all just a joke”
A sure fire indication it perhaps wasn’t very funny at all.
-----------------------------------------------------------
[Er… Sorry, I came over all The Guardian there for a minute!]
Still, he is doing better post Big Brother than Rebecca 'the Rebaccanator’ Shiner.
[Normal service resumed!]
Thursday 10 March 2011
Seriously, Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. It could mean a lot. It could mean actual advances in the field of science.
Let me produce exhibit A: The man who once pressed 'rumba' on the Casio keyboard for a 90's pop band is now in charge of the Hadron Collider. He could kill us all with an unfortunately timed chord flashback.
And watching that keyboardist from D:REAM telling me that we are all made of universal sticky space plankton made me realise just how much science has been pimped and served up to the common man. That it is not necessarily a good thing.
To be fair, the feeling truly reverberated before this, when on a school trip to see the stage show of Johnny Ball where half-way through he was heckled.
There he was on the stage with his black marker pen and flip-chart. He energetically ran across the stage asking people for numbers and he would manipulate the numbers in a way that was as close to voodoo as I have witnessed.
The heckle - when it came - was as short as it was explosive.
Johnny Ball yelled to the audience: "Where did the remainder go? It went... [and he blew an increasingly high pitched whistle]"
The Heckler saw his chance with the precision of an electron microscope and at the end of the whistle and shouted in the silent auditorium: "Up your arse!"
Really - who on earth heckles Johnny Ball? But it was then when I thought - bringing science to the masses sometimes means that the masses can't run away fast enough. In every likelihood, this is why Johnny Ball wants us to increase our carbon emissions these days: so we'll die due to lack of oxygen and the Earth will go on fire - taking that asphixiated heckler with it as it sinks in a fiery ball below the stars. Hats off, Mr. Ball, that is some stone-cold putdown.
Trying to connect with the ordinary is particularly prevalent in advanced mathematics and physics.
A friend told me that his physics lecturer, attempting to help students understand an equation said:
And you know what? I am perfectly fine with that. I am very comfortable with areas of science to be obtuse, difficult and - for some - rewarding.
Now it seems to me that the whole of science is trying to be populist. It is trying to be Time Team doing History. I am not sure it is going to succeed.
And watching that keyboardist from D:REAM telling me that we are all made of universal sticky space plankton made me realise just how much science has been pimped and served up to the common man. That it is not necessarily a good thing.
To be fair, the feeling truly reverberated before this, when on a school trip to see the stage show of Johnny Ball where half-way through he was heckled.
There he was on the stage with his black marker pen and flip-chart. He energetically ran across the stage asking people for numbers and he would manipulate the numbers in a way that was as close to voodoo as I have witnessed.
The heckle - when it came - was as short as it was explosive.
Johnny Ball yelled to the audience: "Where did the remainder go? It went... [and he blew an increasingly high pitched whistle]"
The Heckler saw his chance with the precision of an electron microscope and at the end of the whistle and shouted in the silent auditorium: "Up your arse!"
Really - who on earth heckles Johnny Ball? But it was then when I thought - bringing science to the masses sometimes means that the masses can't run away fast enough. In every likelihood, this is why Johnny Ball wants us to increase our carbon emissions these days: so we'll die due to lack of oxygen and the Earth will go on fire - taking that asphixiated heckler with it as it sinks in a fiery ball below the stars. Hats off, Mr. Ball, that is some stone-cold putdown.
Trying to connect with the ordinary is particularly prevalent in advanced mathematics and physics.
A friend told me that his physics lecturer, attempting to help students understand an equation said:
This looks complex, but really think of X as a cow, Y as the field it is in and Z as the farm to which the field belongs. Now simply imagine that this cow is a perfect sphere, the field is a sterile vacuum and the farm is of infinite proportions that could not possibly exist.For me science can be complex. I'll let it. I don't need an analogy.
And you know what? I am perfectly fine with that. I am very comfortable with areas of science to be obtuse, difficult and - for some - rewarding.
Now it seems to me that the whole of science is trying to be populist. It is trying to be Time Team doing History. I am not sure it is going to succeed.
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