442 - Totally Unknown Movie Stars, Physonion.org, We Will Not Discriminate On The Basis Of Sense Of Orientation, and A Dam Fine Movie Idea

[11:46 AM] Mr. Brown:

http://www.looper.com/13040/actors-see-every-movie-know-nothing/s/ron-howards-little-brother/

First one is Clint Howard

[11:51 AM] Mr. Silver:

They included Danny Trejo?

[11:51 AM] Mr. Brown:

Yep

[11:53 AM] Mr. Silver:

"Actors I see in about every movie I know nothing about"

Hate to call them out, but Danny has decidedly “made it”.

So the (show) casters finally contacted me back about my big Airplane Scene. They just called Mrs. Silver.

[2:48 PM] Mr. Blue:

"We decided to get Danny Trejo instead."

[2:49 PM] Mr. Silver:

"We decided we wanted an extremely popular unknown"

I was hoping my career would move up to "guy in Bermuda shirt at bank", then "Guy with gun with hands up", and finally "Guy cringing from explosion"

[2:49 PM] Mr. Blue:

What'd they say?

[2:50 PM] Mr. Silver:

(Mrs. Silver) “She said unfortunately, they did not need you.”

[2:50 PM] Mr. Blue:

Bummer

[2:51 PM] Mr. Silver:

Well...we'll always have that 5 minutes in (Town) (sheds tear...bittersweet montage starts rolling)

[2:51 PM] Mr. Blue:

Shortest acting highlight reel in history

[2:51 PM] Mr. Silver:

I'm sure I'm still in the sucker pile

Yes... That is confirmed

[3:04 PM] Ms. Rose:

Sorry, Mr. Silver. :( You'll always be Guy Who Falls Asleep on Airplane to us.

[9:01 AM] Mr. Silver:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/sprites-pixies-or-elves-danish-astronaut-spies-a-new-weather-phenomenon/

"So-named because they are: 1. Rare, 2. Blue, 3. Flashes, and 4. look a bit like a berry Danish.  Also 5. this title fails to mention the actual name used for the phenomenon then clumps names of different phenomenon together and so is basically a failure pile."

(Sigh...)

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-invasive-species-shown-outlook-native.html

"A top international team comprising The Group to Like Study Plants and Stuff recently published the results of their funding, and the results are astonishingly intuitive."

[10:57 AM] Mr. Blue:

Obsolotely fuscinating

[10:57 AM] Mr. Silver:

(Scientist) "We're really hoping to get more funding for our next study into whether plants grow better in dirt than piles of gravel.  We're up against the Dirt and Beans in a Cup Institute on that research."

[10:59 AM] Mr. Brown:

I guess they might have been thinking that they could co exist and maybe removing them would cause more harm than good

But still seems like dumb study

[11:00 AM] Mr. Blue:

Even if they did coexist or not directly conflict with each other, removing the invasive species would give the native species more space and less competition.

Like, if you have a forest that's half native pines and half invasive pines... cut down the invasives. The natives now have twice the space and twice the nutrients

[11:01 AM] Mr. Silver:

I still think these kinds of articles are the equivalent of phys.org's "The Onion".

[9:52 AM] Mr. Brown:

“Can you tell me the options on the screen?”

"I can spell them off to ya but I can't read."

Ranger WV is where this guy is from

[9:54 AM] Mr. Silver:

How the Hell do these illiterates keep getting contracts?

"If you say the letters fast enough, sometimes they sound like the words.  That's half your battle right there!"

[9:54 AM] Mr. Blue:

Heheh

[9:55 AM] Mr. Silver:

"You're from Ranger...try it: ArrAyEnnGeeEeeArr!"

"Nah...don't wanna bother."

"Well, then Effusikay Whyo-oo."

"Huh?"

"Sorry...I meant to say Whyoyou."

"...Oh...Ok."

"Excellent!  You're getting it now!"

"I...uh... Thanks.  Bye."

[10:00 AM] Mr. Brown:

Some lady in the background said he would call back later and hung up;

I broke his brain

[10:01 AM] Mr. Silver:

"What shapes and colors do you see on the screen?"

[10:04 AM] Mr. Blue:

If you can't read... man... He must not have gotten past what, 2nd grade?

Which means he can't add or subtract? Would he even know colors and shapes?

[10:05 AM] Mr. Silver:

(Anthropologist in back of brain taps Silver's shoulder)

"You suppose the ability to differentiate these figures to create and read languages had to evolve first, or was it built in and adapted for the purpose."

"I suppose it's not impossible.  Take the isolated tribes who, when presented photographs, can identify people and objects in them but have no concept of holding them oriented the right way up and can't take instruction to learn the trick."

[10:14 AM] Mr. Blue:

I don't follow about the tribes.

[10:14 AM] Mr. Silver:

It's ok...this happens in my head all day

[10:15 AM] Mr. Blue:

It sounds interesting

[10:20 AM] Mr. Silver:

Well, during an anthropologist project in the Amazon, the team encountered groups that just couldn't do it.  They liked the whole idea of the photos but they would just hold them any old which way.  The team couldn't get the people to orient the photos right side up.  Orientation was irrelevant to them.

So, considering the earlier part of the conversation: Can someone like that learn to read?

Is it super dyslexia?

If full isolated bands of humans have that...is it a leftover that was bred out?

Or is it irrelevant - like my reading: I can read upside-down, backwards, mirror, from the side.  Some take a bit more getting used to and italics are a bitch in a mirror, but I do it.

If a team did a genetic study, would the tag (KIAA0319) show up in all of them?

Too bad I screwed up getting that Anthy degree, eh?

[10:47 AM] Mr. Blue:

How could they not know how to orient photos?

So the team took photos of the tribe, and the tribe didn't know what was in the photos?

Even a dog recognizes itself in a mirror.

[10:49 AM] Mr. Silver:

No, they knew what everything was

They just oriented everything at random

"Oh!  That's my grandmother, X!" (holding it rotated 140 degrees)

[10:50 AM] Mr. Blue:

Weird

[10:51 AM] Mr. Silver:

"Why don't you hold it like this, like you are looking at her face to face?"

"I don't get it.  Its her."

But they all did it, with everything.

It would imply that even the straight edges and angles didn't really register.

The paper itself would be like holding any other leaf, perhaps.

[10:58 AM] Mr. Blue:

Wouldn't you orient it the same direction you would when you look straight ahead?

[10:58 AM] Mr. Silver:

We would. We do. None of them did unless by chance

Final thought - I wonder if any animals besides reading humans have any sense of orientation at all.  Facing yes...but rotation?  I can't think of any useful purpose and obvious disadvantages to registering such a thing.

[11:53 AM] Mr. Brown:

Well, I mean we naturally have orientation to stand upright, but if we don't have to look at something and say this is the top this is the bottom this is the sides then we would not know how to do that.

[11:55 AM] Mr. Silver:

You know it's a lion looking at you even if you are lying on your side...and that's important.

[11:56 AM] Mr. Brown:

Right. We know up and down only because from small child age you are taught 'no you are holding that spoon the wrong way this is the top this is the bottom.'

With an uninstructed toddler, they just grab it and try to use it.

Also makes you think of some of the really ancient “writing”

Is there really a left right top bottom to the text?

Or were you supposed to just look at it and know what it was saying?

[12:16 PM] Mr. Silver:

https://news.yale.edu/sites/default/files/d6_files/05-Qurta_Antiquity_Press_Photo_8.jpg

You look at photos of cave painting and rock art details and the publication will often orient it so it is shown how we like things to look.

But, like in this case, you put a person next to it, and you get this effect a lot - Cattle doesn't walk like that

Why did some pre-Old Kingdom, pre-writing Egyptians (there's more than one artist if you look close, but the featured 3 are from someone talented) render cattle oriented like that? One could argue the stones shifted, but even turning them back, now the other ones are all all rotated funny.

(files new theories away in the dump in the back of my mind on the pile marked "Research if you ever have millions of dollars and don't need a job)

[9:38 AM] Mr. Blue:

Dam failures are badass

[9:45 AM] Mr. Silver:

Always a crowd-pleaser disaster in movies

Oh sure, you can have your flash-boom explosions, but there's nothing like a nice slow build to catastrophic failure that you get to watch as you futilely try to stop it or get away

[9:51 AM] Mr. Blue:

[movie trailer guy] "Man has always loved his dams... But what happens when the dams say, 'no more!'"

[9:54 AM] Mr. Silver:

"Final Dam Nation... Starring Jean Claude Van Damme"

[9:54 AM] Ms. Rose:

(rofl)(rofl)(rofl)

[9:56 AM] Mr. Blue:

And featuring the voice of Samuel L. Jackson as The Dam

"Yes they deserve to drown! And I hope they drown in Hell!"

[9:57 AM] Mr. Silver:

And Dam Judi Dench...

[9:58 AM] Mr. Blue:

With guest appearances by John Waters and Dick Van Dyke

[9:59 AM] Ms. Rose:

(rofl)(rofl)(rofl)

You guys... LOL

[9:59 AM] Mr. Silver:

Woo!

(At the Oscars) "And now a scene from our next Best Actress nominee: Dam Helen Mirren in 'Final Dam Nation'.”

(lights dam. Dim. Oscar Bait scene plays)

"I feel just awash with tremendous pressure, John.  It's like something is building and building behind some...barrier. And I'm afraid if I have to take much more it's all going to start spilling over! What if I crack, John?  Oh! What if it breaks me? And all those people in the valley who need me to be strong?  I can't just wash them away like they're nothing."

(lights raise, audience clapping)

441 - If The Editing Is Going Too Well Ruin The Editor's Day, Lawyer-Action Suit, "(sings) His Head Hung In Terror Gecko Scales Fell Like Rain", and "Trump-al Recall"

[9:33 AM] Mr. Silver:

Sorry to report that the "Make Ms. Rose Hate Mr. Silver" editing process is still moving along.

[9:34 AM] Ms. Rose:

GD it!

I mean...

Uhhh, great!

[1:07 PM] Mr. Silver:

So after I lengtherfixadetailize this book of mine, do you recommend experienced editing, just throwing it on the Kindle, or burning?

[1:21 PM] Ms. Rose:

Douse with gasoline, then set on fire. Best way.

I will read your entire book ONE more time. Just ONE. If you edit after that, you are on your own.

:P

[1:38 PM] Mr. Silver:

(blows out match) Oh.

[1:39 PM] Ms. Rose:

And we are not doing this whole "let's talk about it, one chapter at a time" thing again. I'll read and edit, start to finish. I will go through a few red pens. If you don't like it, then... *hands you Bic lighter* :P

[1:40 PM] Mr. Silver:

That could work

"What's all this slashing from chapter 3 through 27?"

"And the soaking in red paint til the end?"

An author's editor tale for you

One of guys in my writers group said, a week back:

"You know, it's funny.  My (historic naval epic) - I wrote 275000 words in three novels and I basically wrote it all in one go.”

“And I eventually got an editor to go through it as a freebie favor.  And we got together afterwards and she said:

"There's no plot"."

"I was stunned. 'But what about this?  And the thing that happened with that?  And these characters?  And him finally getting his revenge on X?'."

"She looked at me, and whispered: "There's no plot"."

[2:35 PM] Ms. Rose:

(rofl)(rofl)(rofl)

[2:35 PM Mr. Silver] 

“She said:

"What you have is 3 novel-sized collections of a man sailing somewhere, seeing something, a battle, and then it does that over and over until he catches up with the ship from chapter 1 and sinks it.  There's nothing tying it together except your guy."

She was right, of course

I could only ever get through one and a half of them, myself

He had all sorts of good elements, but nothing ever seemed to gel.

[2:46 PM] Ms. Rose:

Really good, non-just-technical editors could have probably fixed that. But that's like the Harry Potter realm of publishing.

[2:47 PM] Mr. Silver:

(Editor) "It's just an awkward orphan at a boarding school. What if he was hated by everyone but a couple kids, and one family that everyone thinks are bums?"

(Rowling) "I don't..."

(Editor) "And the headmaster and all the teachers should be in prison for child endangerment?"

(Rowling) "No! Look here, this is a story about-"

(Editor) "And they can all do magic."

(Rowling) "Oh! … Hmm... I like that..."

[2:48 PM] Ms. Rose:

I never bought that "wrote Harry Potter on a napkin in a coffee shop" story that J.K. Rowling tells. I mean, THAT story is more magical than the Hogwart's stuff.

[2:49 PM] Mr. Silver:

Think I should tell the press I stole my text from another dimension while I was in a coffee shop?

[2:50 PM] Ms. Rose:

After it sells a million copies? Yes!

[2:50 PM] Mr. Silver:

Wanna hear something funny?

[2:50 PM] Ms. Rose:

I bet you'll tell me, even if I don't!

[2:50 PM] Mr. Silver:

I actually did lay out the story frame and commit to writing it in (coffee shop) over a cup of Earl Gray

[2:51 PM] Ms. Rose:

>:-|

[2:52 PM] Mr. Silver:

Yes, at the one and only NanoWriMo meeting I ever went to.

They gave me the rules and suggestions and a pile of stuff as tools to keep going.  The tools might still be in a pile somewhere

[2:53 PM] Ms. Rose:

Pile of stuff, eh? Like coke?

[2:53 PM] Mr. Silver:

I kept the rules and one suggestion: "If it's going too well, ruin the heroes' day"

[2:53 PM] Ms. Rose:

Coke'll keep you going for DAYS.

[2:54 PM] Mr. Silver:

Wouldn't know. Within my means I had to commit to the 'Starving' so that I could choose between the Balzac and Hemmingway schools of chemical writing.

I decided to go for the alcoholic "type slower and slower till all starts going black and you wake up slumped over and freezing at 3am" over the caffeinated "type faster and faster til your heart starts palpitating, you start missing keys and can't stop twisting in bed"

[2:55 PM] Ms. Rose

Your book is a study in taking "ruin his day" to heart all the way to the end.

[3:21 PM] Mr. Silver:

(X) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Diabolic Paladinic Quest

[3:24 PM] Ms. Rose:

(rofl)(rofl)(rofl) BETTER title!

(X) Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Not-Really-Plot Lines

[3:31 PM] Mr. Silver:

Gasp!

I mean...I can give that title to my buddy

But are you saying my book has no plot?

"Your book needs a plot...to bury it in."

[3:33 PM] Ms. Rose:

I mean...has your friend read Moby Dick? Or Master and Commander? Does he know that the no-plot-super-lengthy-guy-with-power-complex novel is a done deal?

[3:33 PM] Mr. Silver:

Actually I pointed out that it was more like Horatio Hornblower stuff

[3:33 PM] Ms. Rose:

"Here lies (X). 19-whatever-before-editor-was-born through 2017. Beloved plot-less character."

[3:34 PM] Mr. Silver:

And his (Y) is rather a guy-with-no-power sort of hero

(Captain Ahab) "And I tell ye all!  If any man of ye sees a white flank.  If any of ye sees the ivory beast breech or sights its devil tail and calls out ye've seen Moby Dick, ye'll have this publishing contract!"  And with that, Ahab hammered the pages to the mast.

[3:37 PM] Ms. Rose:

Moby Dick is one of my faves. Also the "second perspective" novel, Ahab's Wife by what's her name. Sena something.

[3:37 PM] Mr. Silver:

Let me guess – 500 densely-written pages describing the house and neighborhood with her obsessing on how Ahab is never home?

[3:37 PM] Ms. Rose:

I have read Moby Dick like 300 times. Which is 299 times more than I read yours.

:P

[3:38 PM] Mr. Silver:

Then you know how far off that quote was.

[3:38 PM] Ms. Rose:

:-D

[3:38 PM] Mr. Silver:

I only used it once before for a garbage recovering space-harpoon satellite news story

(Day 231 – Mr. Silver)

[1:51 PM] Ms. Rose:

I'm going to be RICH! https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/02/07/143202/if-you-owned-a-pc-with-a-dvd-drive-you-might-be-able-to-claim-10

[1:52 PM] Mr. Silver:

Why, I cashed out on a class action suit only yesterday.

I seems Wells Fargo was caught doing some mortgage insurance thing and we WON!  Money Money Money!

We got the check! 

Our share was like $4.32

(Mrs. Silver) "And the lawyers got 50 million, I'm sure."

"Oh I'm sure, yes."

It was the principle of the nothing

[2:11 PM] Mr. Blue:

Who'd you rather have that money, Wells Fargo or some shyster lawyer?

[2:16 PM] Mr. Silver:

I think they should have sent it to ME so I could make an informed decision

"I've thought it over carefully and have decided on a quick name change and nice house in an undisclosed country."

[2:36 PM] Mr. Brown:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4199508/Alien-like-gecko-sheds-skin-lightest-touch.html

[2:39 PM] Ms. Rose:

Oh, BARF! (Note to self: No more looking at Brown's links on lunch.)

[2:40 PM] Mr. Silver:

"After shedding the scales, further provocation causes the gecko to apply an egg wash, followed by a heavy coat of spiced breading.  As a final defense the gecko will immerse itself in hot oil until crispy, lay on a toasted bun with a spicy mayo, lettuce and tomato, and serve itself immediately with fries."

[2:41 PM] Mr. Blue:

Heh

Was it just discovered by humans, or just discovered by Daily Mail?

[2:43 PM] Mr. Silver:

"White scientists ignored the species for years, classifying it as native legend until a team 'discovered' them this year."

(Scientist being interviewed) "We were very excited when we ran across one of these cryptids - quite by chance - in a shoebox that 'Charlie' here handed us when we asked the ingredients in our favorite lunch here in Madagascar."

[2:45 PM] Mr. Brown:

One heck of a pet, that gecko

Every time you hold it

“AWW MAN!”

[2:46 PM] Ms. Rose:

"DNA workups are being performed to determine the gecko's exact lineage to the GEICO gecko."

[2:47 PM] Mr. Silver:

Heh

[2:50 PM] Mr. Blue:

I'm glad humans don't slough off our skin when we get nervous or agitated

[3:02 PM] Mr. Silver:

The Malagasy name for it literally translates to "E-Z Peel Dinner".

[3:02 PM] Ms. Rose:

(rofl)(rofl)(rofl)

[9:44 AM] Mr. Blue:

https://media.giphy.com/media/1Kb4dPsrkgjsc/giphy.gif

[9:46 AM] Ms. Rose:

Hahaha

[9:46 AM] Mr. Brown:

“Putin Recall”

[9:54 AM] Mr. Silver:

Was expecting Bannon when it started playing on my FB this morning.

(officer) "And how long will your presidency be lasting until the whole world thinks you are ridiculous?" 

(Trump) "T-twoo  w-weeeeksssss"

[9:55 AM] Mr. Blue:

Whoever made that should make a “Kuato” Bannon

[9:55 AM] Mr. Silver:

Hehe

"Close your miiiiind....Cloooose your miiiind."

[9:56 AM] Mr. Blue:

LOL

[9:58 AM] Mr. Brown:

A puppet from a puppet

[10:00 AM] Mr. Blue:

"Donnalld.... Donnallld... Wall-off the booorder...."