March 21, 2011
Multivac is the name of a fictional supercomputer in many stories by Isaac Asimov. Like most of the technologies Asimov describes in his fiction, Multivac’s exact specifications vary among appearances. In all cases, it is a government-run computer that answers questions, usually buried deep underground for security purposes. However, Asimov never settles on a particular size for the computer except for mentioning it is very large.
Unlike the artificial intelligences portrayed in his ‘Robot’ Series, Multivac’s interface is mechanized and impersonal, consisting of complex command consoles few humans can operate. Though the technology depended on bulky vacuum tubes, the concept – that all information could be contained on computer(s) and accessed from a domestic terminal – constitutes an early reference to the possibility of the Internet.
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February 24, 2011
Green Lantern is the name of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first (Alan Scott) was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 (July 1940). Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and power lantern that gives the user great control over the physical world as long as the wielder has sufficient willpower and strength to wield it. The power ring can generate a variety of effects, sustained purely by the ring wearer’s imagination and strength of will. The greater the user’s willpower, the more effective the ring.
Stories in 2006 retconned the ring’s long-established ineffectiveness on yellow objects, stating that the ring-wielder need only feel fear, understand it and overcome it in order to affect yellow objects (however, it is a learned and practiced ability, making it a weakness to some Green Lanterns), giving retroactive credence to the explanation of the ring’s real but surmountable weakness to yellow.
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February 11, 2011
Karl Pilkington (b. 1972) is an English author and former radio producer. He is best known for producing and co-presenting The Ricky Gervais Show on Xfm London between 2001 and 2005; and for the subsequent podcast series and HBO animated television series. He was also the subject of the Sky1 travel series, An Idiot Abroad, which was also presented in the United States on the Science Channel. The New York Times ran an article about The Ricky Gervais Show describing Pilkington’s behaviour as a well-executed deadpan routine.
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February 10, 2011
In American cinema, the magical negro is a supporting stock character who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist. The word negro, now considered by many as archaic and sometimes offensive, is used intentionally to suggest that the archetype is a racial throwback, an update of the ‘Sambo’ and ‘Noble savage’ stereotypes.
African-American filmmaker Spike Lee popularized the term in 2001 while discussing films with students at Washington State University and at Yale University. The magical negro is a subset of the more generic ‘numinous negro,’ a term coined by Richard Brookhiser in National Review for saintly, respected or heroic black protagonists or mentors.
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February 8, 2011
Joe Cool could refer to: Snoopy of Peanuts fame, whose aliases included Joe Cool, generally while wearing dark sunglasses and hanging around the student union. Joe Montana, a former NFL quarterback who earned the nickname for his undaunted poise in adverse, high-pressure game situations. Or, a New-York-based jazz-fusion band of the 1980’s featuring Rob Mounsey, Jeff Mironov, Will Lee, and Christopher Parker.
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January 31, 2011
Omar Little is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, portrayed by Michael K. Williams.
Omar is a renowned stick-up man who lives by a strict moral code and never deviates from his rules, foremost of which is that he never robs or menaces people who are not involved in ‘the game.’ Omar is gay, and the only major character on the series who claims to make a point of not using profanity.
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January 29, 2011
In Norse mythology, Sleipnir [sleyp-nir] (Old Norse for ‘the slipper’) is a gray colored, eight-legged horse that serves as Odin’s steed.
He is the child of the Trickster God Loki and a famed stallion named Svaðilfari, is described as the best of all horses, and is sometimes ridden to the location of Hel (the Norse underworld).
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January 26, 2011
Henry Charles ‘Hank’ Chinaski is a semi-autobiographical protagonist of several works by the American writer Charles Bukowski. He appears in five of Bukowski’s novels, a number of his short stories and poems, the 1987 film ‘Barfly’ (played by Mickey Rourke and featuring a script written by Bukowski), and the 2005 film ‘Factotum’ (portrayed by Matt Dillon).
The works featuring him are ‘Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With the Beasts’ (1965), ‘Post Office’ (1971), ‘South of No North’ (1973), ‘Factotum’ (1975), ‘Women’ (1978), ‘Ham on Rye’ (1982), ‘Hot Water Music’ (1983), ‘Hollywood’ (1989), and ‘Septuagenarian Stew’ (1990). He is also mentioned briefly in the beginning of Bukowski’s last novel, ‘Pulp.’
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January 20, 2011
Cthulhu [kuh-thool-hoo] is a fictional cosmic entity created by horror author H. P. Lovecraft in 1926. Cthulhu is the high priest to the Great Old Ones and one of the central figures of the Lovecraft Mythos. It is often cited for the extreme descriptions given of its hideous appearance, its gargantuan size, and the abject terror that it evokes. Cthulhu is depicted as having a worldwide doomsday cult centered in Arabia, with followers in regions as far-flung as Greenland and Louisiana.
Posted in Art, Death |
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January 18, 2011
Richard Parker is the name of a person and a fictional character who were shipwrecked and subsequently cannibalised by their fellow seamen. In Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, published in 1838, Richard Parker is a mutinous sailor on the whaling ship Grampus. After the ship capsizes in a storm, he and three other survivors draw lots upon Parker’s suggestion to kill one of them to sustain the others. Parker then gets cannibalized.
In 1884, an actual yacht named Mignonette sank. Four people survived, drifted in a life boat, and finally killed one of them, the cabin boy Richard Parker, for food. the survivors were criminally tried in the case of ‘R v Dudley and Stephens (which established a precedent, throughout the common law world, that necessity is no defence against a charge of murder).
Posted in Death, Food, Politics |
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January 11, 2011
Tux is a penguin character and the official mascot of the Linux operating system originally created as an entry to a Linux logo competition. The concept of the Linux mascot being a penguin came from Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Tux was created by Larry Ewing in 1996 after an initial suggestion made by Alan Cox and further refined by Linus Torvalds on the Linux kernel mailing list.
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January 6, 2011
Místico (b. 1982) is a Mexican Luchador enmascarado, or masked professional wrestler currently working for the lucha libre promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL). Since 2006 Místico has been the main tecnico (good guy) in CMLL and the biggest box office draw in all of Mexico. Místico is Spanish for ‘Mystic,’ a religious ring character who is the storyline protege of the wrestling priest Fray Tormenta.
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