The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Yes, we’re all excited that we’re finally at the year when Back to the Future 2 takes place. But watch out, because another movie happens just two years later…

For old times’ sake, here’s the original trailer for The Running Man:

Here’s the film’s — and Arnie’s — worst one-liner. My guess is that Arnie ad-libbed it on an off day, and the people in the editing suite said, “Oh, what the hell, let’s keep it”:

“Here is Sub-Zero…now, plain zero!” Mathematically speaking, plain zero is greater than sub-zero. It would’ve been more scientifically and mathematically correct — and (ahem) cooler — if he said “now, ABSOLUTE zero!”

This fact was not lost on the Cinema Sins people when they put The Running Man under their microscope:

And finally, a gem from 2013 — the Running Man/Hunger Games Musical Spectacular. Be warned, there’s swearing galore and Arnie-style singing that’ll stick in your head:

Posting cat pictures on Saturday (“Caturday”) has been done. Let’s post videos of men doing Sailor Moon-style transformations instead!

Here are the originals, for reference:

I’ll start with Iron Moon, which has Tony Stark putting on the Iron Man armor Sailor Moon-style!

If your Saturday isn’t weird enough, let me point you to Evan MacIsaac, hard-core Sailor Moon fan, who’s made a whole series of videos of him transforming into various Sailor scouts. Here’s one of his videos, titled Moon Crystal Power, Make Up! It’s amazing what you can do with video editing software, construction paper, and the power of Just Not Giving a Fuck:

He’s even made a music video, titled Sailor Amazing:

If you like your male Sailor scouts a little chunkier, here’s Rainbow Princess Kasumi Transformation Sequence by the comedy band The Axis of Awesome:

And finally, my favorite of the bunch: a Sheridan College animation school project titled Laundry Day:

If someone walked up to you on the street and asked you what your password was, would you say?

The TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live sent an interviewer out on the street to ask (presumably) random people on Hollywood Boulevard what their passwords were. As you might expect, they showed only those people who gave away their passwords (and of that group, only those who signed a release form to appear on the show), but the fact that anyone did so shows that we’ve got a big security problem, and it’s us. A couple of them simply gave them away without question, while a couple of others has to be conned — very easily — into divulging.

This is the technologist’s nightmare. For all the security measures we put into our applications and devices, they can easily be undone by the users. That’s why I often make use of this cartoon when talking about security:

The article also appears in my tech blog, Global Nerdy.

Click the photo to see it at full size.

After seeing the tweet below, I had to put together the graphics in this post. The crowded, dirty Los Angeles of 2019 featured in the 1982 film Blade Runner looks rather pristine compared to the real-life Beijing of 2015.

Blade Runner? No! Beijing, today. pic.twitter.com/JB6lUGLzg0

— Puño (@punodraws) January 14, 2015

If you’ve heard the aphorism “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team'”, you may be surprised to discover that it’s not true:

I’ve got no argument with the “never be afraid to try” part, but…

• What little evidence there is of Noah’s Ark’s existence is a bit sketchy and not trustworthy, what with it being based on the mistranslated hand-me-down propaganda of biased bronze age “47 percenters” who ended up waging class war on Egypt’s job creators.
• The written account says that Noah built the Ark with help from God. If you’ve ever worked on a group project, you know that there’s always a star player who does 90% of the work. Who better than the guy who engineered the crisis in the first place to design the thing that would get you through it?
• The Titanic’s sinking can partially be blamed on construction (substandard materials), but operator error played a large role.
• If you need folksy-sounding wisdom like this to get motivated, even the most minor of obstacles is likely to discourage you.