Daito Manabe attaches electrodes to his face and triggers contortions in time with techno music. As you do. 

An earlier experiment.

Robert Bluey offers an experiment in wealth redistribution: 

In a local restaurant my server had on an Obama 08 tie; again I laughed as he had given away his political preference – just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need – the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

One might, I think, quibble about the distinction between “deserved” and “needed,” but still, it’s worth some reflection. 

(h/t, The Thin Man)

The Guardian’s Theo Hobson tells us why he doesn’t approve of James Bond: 

It feels like breaking rank with modern heterosexual British malehood, to which I more or less belong, but here goes. I hate James Bond. The continuation of his cult disgusts me, embarrasses me, depresses me.

Poor lamb.

Call me Licensed to Killjoy, but it has to be said: this cult hero is a deeply malign cultural presence. He represents a nasty, cowardly part of us that ought to have been killed off long ago.

Er, killed off by whom, and how? A hail of bullets? Laser beams? Or just the weight of tutting and pretentious disapproval?

Of course there is a very serious case to be made against 007 on strictly feminist grounds. The women in the books and films are silly, naughty, flimsy things who need hard male mastery.

It seems Mr Hobson hasn’t seen recent Bond outings – say, any made in the last fifteen years – in which female characters are spies, assassins and fighter pilots and typically portrayed as tenacious, resourceful and absurdly competent, no less so than Bond himself. Hence, perhaps, the continuing popularity of this “malign cultural presence.”

I don’t know how offensive this is to women, but it’s offensive to me. Indeed I think the real victims of the Bond cult are men, who are impelled by a vile peer-pressure to worship at the shrine of this lethal lothario… The fact is that James Bond’s sexual career does real harm to the male psyche… I seriously believe that Bond is a big factor in the sexual malfunction of our times; the difficulty we have finding life-long partners, and the normalisation of pornography.

As so often, Guardian commentators are singularly immune to the “vile peer pressure” which presumably controls all other sentient beings. Still, at least we can count on them to direct us in our tastes, i.e. away from amusingly hyperbolical cinema and towards socio-political righteousness. I’m sure it will be good for us, if not exactly fun.

Large gentleman retains dignity in difficult circumstances. (h/t, Metrolander) // Bacon gumballs. // Fluorescent fish. // The shoe-fitting fluoroscope. (h/t, Coudal) // Curta calculators. // Garrett Lisi on particles and symmetries. // Atomic pen writes with individual atoms, slowly. // Photomicrographs. // A short film about the London Underground map. // Robert Hughes on skyscrapers, from American Visions. // Does your studio have a rubber exterior? // More concept cars. // Jet engine tests. // The Battlestar Galactica PC upgrade. Flashes, hums, doesn’t jump. // H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. // The innards of Godzilla. // A short summary of socialism. And another. // The Communist fever of William Ayers. (h/t, TDK) // SDA Late Nite Radio Archive. Crime thrillers, music, a feast of oddments. // Ghost towns. // More Watchmen footage. // “It’s the stickiest dry glue yet.” // The eyeballing game. // Cancer-fighting beer. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Louis Armstrong.

In a recent post on political bias in the classroom, I pointed out the insatiable nature of academic radicalism:

Several, rather vivid, examples were given, but if another illustration is needed, here’s Martin Kramer on Rashid Khalidi, a terribly oppressed radical now anointed as Edward Said Professor at Columbia University:

Yes, of course. That poor besieged minority of left-leaning educators who huddle in corners furtively and whisper their utopian dreams.