An uber knuckle-gnawer

Darragh McManus is thinking about the cliches used in describing movies:

Growing up in the 1980s in a small village – the sort of place where everyone knows your name because almost everyone has the same name – there wasn’t a whole lot in the way of entertainment. So I wasted a lot of time watching a lot of bad movies on video. They were all terrible, but there was some fun to be had with the review quotes on the sleeves. “A rollercoaster ride of thrills!” “A heartwarming romp!” “A laugh riot!”

I think I’ve written about the the Antikythera mechanism before. James Randerson thought there was no more knock-out excitement remaining about this ancient device, but he was wrong. Check out the video to learn more about the amazing invention.

I haven’t yet watched “Food, Inc.” I’m waiting for it to reach the Rex Theatre. And failing that, Netflix. Go here to watch the trailer, or preview, as we used to say before we knew better.

A slight correction: A New York Times article about Walter Conkrite needed a little bit of correcting. Just a smidge:

An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar.

Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

There’s something about the image at this link that makes me want to vomit. Kottke gives an interesting overview of child beauty pageants.

Why do some migrants from east Asia develop an allergy to jackfruit when they move to northern Europe? Good question, ay? Something that’s been on your mind. New Scientist has really interesting report on research into food allergies.

Posted in It's life.