Quark Cognition: Movies in 2009 so far.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Movies in 2009 so far.

     I've seen the following 2009 movies so far:

     Watchmen - This is based on a graphic novel I had naturally never heard of, since I have no interest in those things. However, the superhero antagonist (or protagonist, depending on the POV) is the most powerful I'm aware of, as he, Dr. Manhattan, can control the electromagnetic force.

     X-Men Origins: Wolverine - This movie partly explains the origins of Wolverine. I mention 'partly' because the actual mutation is not explained. Actually, there are two mutations. Wolverine has the extending claws and accelerated healing abilities, like an advanced amphibian. A possible explanation for the healing abilities can come about through pluripotent, or stem, cells. Amphibians revert the cells in a damaged area to stem cells.

     Star Trek - One can think of this in similar terms to X-Men Origins, since it focuses on the incipient days of our familiar friends in Starfleet. My only complaint was the lack of explanation for the red matter.

     The Uninvited - This is a remake of the Korean movie, A Tale of Two Sisters:

     Both the Uninvited and A Tale of Two Sisters are exceptional horror films, but I feel the Korean original is superior.

     Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - Goodness, this was a load of crap. The computer graphics were amazing, but the story left me annoyed. Even the original cartoon from 1984 provided one with more cerebral material.

     District 9 - Wow! Finally! Something to blow my ass away! I loved the hyperviolence, along with the original story. I liked the way the origin of the aliens was not explained, leaving the viewer to speculate.

   Pandorum - I would not want to be stuck on The Elysium, the spaceship. While this movie hasn't given me a nightmare yet, it has given me numerous uncomfortable thoughts. Based on sheer terror, Pandorum ranks right with Alien. While people are calling the ending a 'shocker', I feel other parts of the story were more shocking. This is also similar to Event Horizon, Sphere, The Descent, and Sunshine. Except Pandorum is more terrifying and more realistic. In other words, the events that transpire in Pandorum are more likely to actually happen than the events in the other movies I mentioned. This movie is not 'far-fetched', and that's what adds to the terror.

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About Me

I am made of particles, known as quarks and electrons, that are at least 13.72 billion years old. Although my body is very young, the constituents are very old and come and go as they please. It's astonishing that individuality exists when each one of us are made of the same basic parts. It's even more astonishing that self-awareness exists, since even objects as simple as paper clips are made of the same parts as human beings.

My body was here before I was born and it will be here after I die.

So while I am in this brief configuration known as life I try to learn as much as possible, since my personality enjoys it. My first fascination in this short life was dinosaurs; I won a Dinosaur Expert Award in kindergarten. For most of my childhood, I read about the Animal Kingdom. I also read more than 100 Choose Your Own Adventure books and numerous other young adult fiction from my school library. Since age 5, I have been reading at a sometimes voracious pace. I didn't start seriously reading science fiction until age 19, though.

My interest in politics is as great as my interest in professional sports and I drink alcohol as often as I get lung surgery. I am heterosexual, but I rarely date women and prefer to read a tale, rather than chase some tail.

Qool Quotes

"The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction."
-Philip Jose Farmer (1977)

"Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born."
-Lawrence M. Krauss (2009)

"When you ask what are protons and electrons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave - how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to a game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what a chessmen is, the answer would be that it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on a paper, or anything whatever. It does not matter. Each chessmen has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen."
-Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

"You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid! What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! What a wonderful change of carbon must take place under these circumstances of combustion or respiration! A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in this way, by the conversion of carbon, not in a free state, but in a state of combination. And what an extraordinary notion this gives us of the alterations going on in our atmosphere. As much as 5,000,000 pounds, or 548 tons, of carbonic acid is formed by respiration in London alone in twenty-four hours. And where does all this go? Up into the air."
-Michael Faraday (1860)

"In modern war, one individual can cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. He could do so by pushing a button; he may not feel the emotional impact of what he is doing, since he does not see, does not know the people whom he kills; it is almost as if his act of pushing the button and their death had no real connection. The same man would probably be incapable of even slapping, not to speak of killing, a helpless person."
-Eric Fromm (1955)

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that people don’t have to experience it."
-Max Frisch

Quark Cognition

I may not seem like it, but I am a human.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Movies in 2009 so far.

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