Categories
Uncategorized

Interview Video of the Day: Bruce Lee Interviewed by Pierre Berton

Here’s a real gem: one of my heroes, Bruce Lee, being interviewed by Canadian television personality, journalist and author Pierre Berton in December 1971. It was Lee’s one and only TV interview. Bruce is great in this interview: he’s got some interesting stories to tell, and he does so with the confidence, charisma and focus that were his stock in trade.

One of the interesting things about the interview is that certain terms they brought up in conversation — kung fu and tai chi — are common terms in North America today, but completely foreign back in 1971.

When asked which Hollywood stars were his best students, he named two: Steve McQueen (“That son of a gun got the toughness in him!” says Bruce in the interview) as the one who best understood the fighting aspects of kung fu, and James Coburn (in the interview, Bruce describes him as “A peace-loving man…really nice, super mellow”) as the one who best grasped the philosophy of kung fu. He also taught Roman Polanski; I always thought that a Lee/Polanski kung fu lesson would make a great comedy skit.

The video is just under 25 minutes long, but it’s well worth watching.

Categories
Geek Music Uncategorized

Music Video of the Day: “New Math”

Here’s Bo Burnham singing his nerd-folk/filk song, New Math:

In case you were wondering what the lyrics were, here they are:

What’s a pirate minus the ship? Just a creative homeless guy
And an anteater plus a large hungry mutant ant? An ironic way to die
And what’s domain, domain, range (x, x, y) — a kid with too much in his pants
and two balls minus one, six titles at the tour de france.

Split a decision with long division,
Take the circumference of your circumcision
Live like your data and when you’re all “set”
Put it all together and whatever you get…

Is new math

What’s a bag of chips divided by five? That’s a Nike worker’s meal
And Santa Claus mutliplied by i? Well, I guess that makes him real
And the square root of the NBA is Africa in a box
How do you trace a scatter plot? Give the pencil to Michael J. Fox

Take the approximate moral proportion of the probable problem of a pro-life abortion
Live like your data, and when you’re all “set”
Put it all together and whatever you get…

Is new math

And if you made a factor tree of the factors that caused my girl to leave me you’d have a tree
…full of Asian porn.
C-A-L-C-U-LATOR (see you later) mathematical minds make industrial smog
and whats the opposite of ln(x): Duraflame, the unnatural log

Support the farmers with a pro-tractor
Link Kennedy and Lincoln with a common factor (fact, or)
Live like your data…blah blah

Word problems

If there’s a fat guy in a pastry shop with a twenty dollar bill and he’s ready to buy
In order to predict his volume change you need to know the value of pi (pie)
And theres a metal train that’s a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her
How long ’til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he’s a good conductor
And if ten percent of men are gay and twenty percent of men are Chinese
What are the odds that a man chosen at random spends his free time and mealtime while on his knees
And if Kim is half as old as Bobby who is two years older than twelve year old Tori
For how many more 30 day months will their threesomes be considered statutory rape

Cause havin’ sex is like quadratic expansion: if it can’t be split then it’s time to stop
and havin’ sex is like doing fractions, it’s improper for the larger one to be on top
And havin’ sex is like math homework, I do it best when I’m alone in my bed
And squarin numbers’ are just like women, if they’re under thirteen just do them in your head

And new math

Categories
Uncategorized

McCain: “Global Warming for Bombs…Do We Have a Deal?”

John McCain in front of the word \"WAR\" in large letters: \"I\'m John McCain and I approve this message.\"

The blog Craptocracy sums up John McCain’s unexpected stance on climate change very nicely:

When McCain talks about ‘climate change’ he seems desperate and grasping, like he doesn’t really care about it one way or the other. It’s as if he’s saying, “I’ll give you your global warming, just let me get my hands on some bombs. Just let me get my hands on some bombs and I will agree to whatever you want that doesn’t involve not bombing.”

Categories
Uncategorized

Personally, I Would Have Gone with Post-It Notes Instead [Updated]

Dr. Wei Sheng sticks 2008 needles in his head to commemorate the Olympics
Photo credit: Maxppp/Barcroft Media

The bad-at-real-news, decent-at-amusing-trivial-stories UK paper The Telegraph reports that “In a bizarre publicity stunt, Dr Wei Sheng pierced the decorative needles in his head, face, hands and chest in the five colours of the Olympic rings.”

Next to him, “Pinhead” from the Hellraiser movies doesn’t seem like he’s trying:

\"Pinhead\" from the \"Hellraiser\" movies.

Categories
Uncategorized

As Long as I’m Writing About “End Times” Humour…

…I might as well dig up the classic Eschatron 9000 photo (originally posted in this blog entry):

Cute girl in a bikini pushing the 'Immanentize' button on a machine labelled 'ESCHATRON 9000'.
If there truly is a God and He is merciful and kind, the end of the world will involve hot chicks in bikinis. Who dig accordions.

Be sure to check out my blog entry about Apocalypse How, willya?

Categories
Uncategorized

Apocalypse How

A couple of days ago, I got email from Rob Kutner, who is a writer for my 11 p.m. weekday ritual, The Daily Show. He sent his thanks for my (unsolicited) plug for Jewno and asked if I could plug his new book, Apocalypse How, which he describes as “my new book about how much better things are going to be after the end of the world”.

Cover of \"Apocalypse How\", by Rob Kutner.
Click the photo of the book to visit its official site.

I wrote him back, saying:

  • Sure!
  • You know what you need for an apocalypse? Canned bacon, yo! (To which he replied: “Are there any words more delicious than shelf stable?“)

Here’s Apocalyptic Exercises, the first of two animated promos for the book:

That’s Daily Show correspondent (and actual Marine Corps Reserve Major) Rob Riggle doing the voiceover.

Here’s the second promo, Catastrophic Careers:

Here’s a sample of the book: the Opportunities page, a glass-half-full laundry list of the many options available to you once everything goes to Hell (there are more samples at the book’s site):

\"Opportunities\" page from \"Apocalypse How\"

Finally, a little Canadian content: here’s Rob Kutner’s podcast interview by Moxy Fruvous’ Jian Gomeshi for the CBC.

Flaming iPod

Categories
Uncategorized

Gary Coleman, Shilling for the Loan Sharks (or: Cashcall.com’s 99.25% APR Loans)

While clicking through the “Related Videos” on the YouTube page for Checkmate, the video about check-cashing services featured in the previous post, I stumbled into this ad for Cashcall.com featuring Gary Coleman. Take a look; it’s a mere 10 seconds:

I vaguely recall seeing this ad on TV, and according to this article in Canadian-Money-Advisor.ca, they were running ads that you could see here in Canada on A&E back in February of this year. I didn’t pay much attention to the ad on TV, but noticed the “fine print” at the end when watching it on YouTube. Here’s a still frame from the end of the ad, enlarged for legibility with the really interesting stuff highlighted:

\"Fine print\" at the end of a Cashcall.com TV ad mentioning a 99.25% APR.

Let me repeat the most important part of the fine print:

The APR for a typical loan of $2,600 is 99.25% with 42 monthly payments of $216.55.

There’s a term that describes interest rates like this: usury. There’s also a term for people who charge interest rates like this: mobsters.

For those of you who are math-phobic, 42 monthly payments of $216.55 means that when Cashcall.com gives you a loan of $2,600:

  • You will pay it back over three and a half years…
  • …during which time you’ll pay them back 42 times $216.55, which comes out to $9,095.10. This is just a shade under three and a half times the money you borrowed.

(By the bye, you should become familiar with APR, as it’s supposed to reflect the true cost of a loan, and under the right conditions can make it easier to compare lenders. In addition to the Wikipedia article, consult this page and this page to find out more about it.)

If you want to find out more about their rates, here’s their Rates page. To calculate how much you’d end up paying for a loan, multiply the figure in the “Number of Payments” column by the figure in the corresponding “Payment Amount” column. For example, if you live in California and wanted to borrow $10,000 (a loan available to “Exceptionally qualified applicants only”), you would spend almost $31,000 paying it back over 10 years.

“Loans that fit your lifestyle” is Cashcall.com’s slogan. If that slogan applies to you, you might want to put your lifestyle (and financial planning skills) under review.