From the 1994 Hong Kong Classic Undefeatable.
PANDEMIC Q&A: Do facemasks and handwashing prevent the flu?
04/30/2009 By Leave a Comment
I hate to say it, but the so-called “Swine Flu” (which actually isn’t the Swine Flu, but a modification of several types of pre-existing human, avian and pig strains) is getting radically overblown.
Properly reffered to as H1N1, the risk of contracting the disease is still, despite reports, extraordinarily low. While no vaccine is currently available, experts are confident one will be developed within a few months. Should one contract the virus, most cases can be solved by simple bed rest, and in extreme cases, antiviral medications.
Still, getting the flu sucks. So prevention is key. But when it comes to prevention, what works? Here we address two of the most commonly trumpeted techniques: handwashing and facemasks.
Question: Does washing your hands kill flu germs?
Answer: No. The flu is a virus. Soap does not kill viruses. In fact, soap doesn’t kill bacteria either, unless, of course, the soap is laced with antibacteiral agents, which most soaps are nowadays. Even those soaps aren’t 100% foolproof, however.
Soap’s primary function is as an emulsification agent, which is a fancy way of saying soap allows the not soluble ingredients of oil and grease to mix more readily with water. This mixture allows grime to flow more easily off the hands when run under water. Bottom line: While washing your hands won’t kill the flu, it can prevent other bacterial infections and thus boost your overall resilience to contracting the flu virus.
Question: Do face masks help prevent flu infection?
Answer: No. Surgical masks are designed primarily to prevent the spread of germs contained in spit and sneezes from the wearer to others, not the other way around. While a well-fitting mask can undoubtedly prevent against certain infectious agents entering into the mouth and nose, face masks have a huge shortcoming — they can’t protect against smaller, airborne agents. Bottom line: Face masks aren’t very effective at keeping the flu at bay. Respirators, which are made for filtering out the small air particles (and which happen to cover your face and nose as well) would be a better alternative, but let’s be real here, there’s only been 156 reported cases worldwide as of April 30. If you are prancing around Main Street wearing a gas mask you’re taking this whole “Level 5 Pandemic” thing way too seriously, man.
LOST: The Variable
04/29/2009 By Leave a Comment
Lost (ABC 9/8c) will make history tonight with its 100th episode, but will the escalating tensions between Dharmaville, “Jack n’ his crue” and the uppity others finally be resolved?
There’s just sooo many variables, man. How’s it all gonna shake out?
Luckily, we’ve got zany genius Daniel Faraday to help us out!
Some hopes for tonight:
1. Daniel explains how to get out of the 70s and back to Locke and Ben’s time.
2. Someone says “No, we can die in the past” at least once.
3. Jack cries (although that’s pretty much a given).
4. Richard “Manscara” Albert unleashes hell on Horace’s camp. Bonus points for using Smokey.
5. They explain more about this “What Lies in the Shadow of the Statue” business.
6. Lots of explosions! LOST has been sorely lacking these lately.
7. LONGBALL PREDICTION: A major character dies. I want to say that it’s going to be Desmond, but I’ll be seriously distraught if that’s the case. Why can’t they just kill off Kate and finally put the whole Sawyer/Juliet/Jack/Kate love quadrangle to rest?
In the meantime, check out Ryan McGee’s “100 Things I Love about Lost” essay, TV Overmind’s “Top 100 Scenes from 5 Seasons of Lost,” and these snazzy pictures from the 100th anniversary cast party in Hawaii.
Video Games: Star Wars Mea Culpa on GLBT Filters
04/28/2009 By Leave a Comment
Well this is interesting. Seems the honchos over at Bioware are apologizing for their lockdown of a thread discussing homosexuality in their upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The company’s original reasoning for locking the thread pretty much falls in line with what I said earlier today (trying to limit hate speech), but I’m happy they decided to re-open discussions on homosexuality on their forums. Cutting it off was just, well, stupid.
Writes Star Wars: The Old Republic community manager Sean Dahlberg:
I would like to personally apologize to “Elikal” and anyone I may have offended. My intention was not to demean anyone but simply to help promote a community that could discuss topics in a mature fashion. When I first built the word filter list, I added a variety of terms to the word filter that have been used numerous times in derogatory messaging. There were some words added to the filter that should not have been – we corrected this today.
I apologize for the confusion that this has created but I would like to be clear that there was never any intent to limit discussion. That said, I have overstepped my boundaries in my original statement and I sincerely apologize for doing so.
Kudos to Bioware for doing the right thing.
Video Games: No Gays in Star Wars
04/28/2009 By Leave a Comment
Kotaku reports that BioWare won’t allow any LGBT characters in their upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The stated reason: “these are terms that don’t exist in Star Wars,” according to Bioware’s Community Manager Sean Dahlberg, who posted the response on the game’s forum, before locking a thread discussing the issue.
Uh … okay.
As Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett writes — they know that the people buying and playing the game don’t actually exist in Star Wars either, right?
That being said, I can see Dahlberg’s point of view (however much I may disagree with it).
Star Wars always prided itself on not making light of “controversial” social issues and was always gun shy about dragging out a token LGBT character just to appease the masses screaming for political correctness.
That’s all well-and-good in a movie, I guess, but SWTOR isn’t a movie. It’s a MMO. Ideally, it should be open to reflecting the tastes and lifestyles of people in the real world, right? I mean it is an online community after all …
Still, Star Wars likes it’s squeaky clean image. Filtering out LBGT terms is nothing new for them. For years they’ve filtered out terms like “gay,” “homosexual” and “lesbian” on their community boards.
Is that a little nuts? Well, yeah it is. But you have to look at the opposite side of the coin too. Words like “gay” and “homo” are pretty powerful and, unfortunately, that power can be used negatively. Just jump to any unmoderated forum on the net and it becomes clear in seconds how often these terms are brandished as weapons of hate.
So it’s a sticky question of censorship/free speech that a family-oriented piece of media like Star Wars faces. From that perspective, I can kind of see where Dahlberg’s coming from – why not just clamp down the whole thing and avoid the whole shitstorm altogether?
Plus — as I think BioWare is acutely aware — when SWTOR comes out it’s not going to ignore the gay community. The users won’t let it. (Remember the whole World of Warcraft gay pride parade in 2006?) Just let the users deal with the whole LGBT issue when the game comes out. Bioware is a company of designers, not social commentators. They are focused on making a game. Whatever people want to do with it from there is their own damn business.
And that’s fine.
BOOKS: 2009 Locus Award Finalists Announced
04/27/2009 By Leave a Comment
Courtesy of Locus SF/F News:
Science Fiction Novel- Matter, Iain M. Banks (Orbit UK); City at the End of Time, Greg Bear (Gollancz, Del Rey); Marsbound, Joe Haldeman (Ace); Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow); Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross (Orbit, Ace).
Fantasy Novel- The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow); Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt); The Bell at Sealey Head, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace); The Dragons of Babel, Michael Swanwick (Tor); An Evil Guest, Gene Wolfe (Tor).
First Novel- Thunderer, Felix Gilman (Bantam Spectra); Black Ships, Jo Graham (Orbit US); Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Ballantine Del Rey); The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann, Knopf); Singularity’s Ring, Paul Melko (Tor).
Young-Adult Novel- Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor); The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins, Bloomsbury); Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf); Nation, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK, HarperCollins); Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi (Tor).
Novella- “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress (Asimov’s 10-11/08); “Pretty Monsters”, Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters); “The Tear”, Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires); Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman (Knopf); “True Names”, Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2).
Novelette- “Pump Six”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and Other Stories); “The Ice War”, Stephen Baxter (Asimov’s 9/08); “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s 3/08); “The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away”, Cory Doctorow (Tor.com 8/08); “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF 1/08).
Short Story- “King Pelles the Sure”, Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads); “Boojum”, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette (Fast Ships, Black Sails); “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two); “The Kindness of Strangers”, Nancy Kress (Fast Forward 2); “After the Coup”, John Scalzi (Tor.com 7/08).
Magazine- Analog; Asimov’s, F&SF; Realms of Fantasy; Subterranean.
Publisher- Ace; Baen; Night Shade Books; Subterranean Press; Tor.
Anthology- The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, eds. (St. Martin’s Griffin); Galactic Empires, Gardner Dozois, ed. (SFBC); The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s); Eclipse Two, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade Books); The Starry Rift, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Viking).
Collection- Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books); The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial); Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (Viking); The Best of Lucius Shepard, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean Press); The Best of Michael Swanwick, Michael Swanwick (Subterranean Press).
Editor- Ellen Datlow; Gardner Dozois; David G. Hartwell; Jonathan Strahan; Gordon Van Gelder.
Artist- Bob Eggleton; John Picacio; Shaun Tan; Charles Vess; Michael Whelan.
Non-Fiction/Art Book- Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books); What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction, Paul Kincaid (Beccon); Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan University Press); P. Craig Russell, Coraline: The Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins); Shaun Tan, Tales From Outer Suburbia (Allen & Unwin; Scholastic ’09).
For more information on the June awards ceremony, check out the official site.
Music: Daft Punk in Little Big Planet …
04/27/2009 By Leave a Comment
Well, sort of. The Internet’s mad geniuses are have officially taken LBP videos to the next level, pumping out this fantastically well done mock up of several Daft Punk hits.
Prediction: While I still don’t think any LBP music video can top this classic World of Warcraft vid, LBP videos are probably gonna be the next big thing on YouTube, just sayin’.
BOOKS: 2009 Nebula Winners
04/26/2009 By Leave a Comment
Courtesy Locus SF/F News:
Novel: Powers, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
Novella: “The Spacetime Pool”, Catherine Asaro (Analog Mar ’08)
Novelette: “Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF Jan ’08)
Short Story: “Trophy Wives”, Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic)
Script: WALL-E, Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon. Original story by Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter (Pixar)
Andre Norton Award: Flora’s Dare, Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt)
Congrats to all the winners!