Wednesday, 04 November 2009

• 5 Links: H1N1 Edition

  by Justin at Faith and Geekery

  After all of the media hype I would have expected to be flat on my back dictating my last will and testament to an attorney, but so far the H1N1 virus hasn’t seemed to bother me too much.

  Granted I was told I only “most likely” had this flu, but it appears that the virus got me — and that not a whole lot happened. I had a mild fever along with a bad cough and sore muscles, but all of that was gone about 48 hours later. I slept a lot (twelve hours on some days), but for the most part just felt a little drained while I stayed away from as many people as possible. I’m sure this may not be the case for everyone, but my experience was pretty mild. Nonetheless, here are a few things that caught my eye while I was listening to One Bad Pig.

  - Up is out on DVD today, and the special features keep showing why Pixar is in a class by itself. Here’s a clip of Director Pete Doctor and actor Jordan Nagai clowning around in the studio. Up is also apparently one of the few movies that is considered a shoe-in for an Original Screenplay nomination in a rather dry year for original movies.

  -  Why do stories where the hero comes in to save the day resonate so much? The more cynical have suggested that it’s because of the audience’s naivete, but theologians like G.K. Chesterton have said that it’s due to the need for stories of redemption and grace. The Thinklings have a great quote from Chesterton on the role of fairy tales and the lessons they can teach a child:

  The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it– because it is a fact. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

  It reminds me of what I’ve heard many theologians say:  people don’t need to be reminded that there’s sin in the world, but rather that there is one who takes away the sins of the world.

  - The popular and incredibly geeky (and occasionally inappropriate) webcomic XKCD has a handy, printable guide for you to figure out the interactions and timelines of characters in Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as other movies such as Star Wars and 12 Angry Men. Which reminds me, I need to watch Primer someday.

  EDIT: Here’s an interview Christianity Today’s Mark Moring did with Primer creator Shane Carruth back when the film debuted.

  - Since we’re still not exactly sure what Google Wave will do (or if it’ll change our lives as the hype told us it would), Mozilla appears to be stepping into the email 2.0 game. While it’s just source code right now, Mozilla is showing off a new program entitled “Raindrop,” which is something of an email aggregation system. According to the Firefox creators:

  What does a conversation on today’s web look like? Email used to house the bulk of the conversations that took place on the internet, but that’s no longer the case today. In today’s world people use a combination of Twitter, IM, Skype, Facebook, Google Docs, Email, etc. to communicate. For many of us this means that we have to keep an eye on an ever-growing number of places we might get new messages. As a result, we never know that we’ve actually processed all the important messages, because our email has been overwhelmed by noise which obscures the real messages from real people.

  Raindrop is an effort that starts by trying to understand today’s web of conversations, and aims to design an interface that helps people get a handle on their digital world.

  So, from what I can tell, it’ll help people sort through their numerous messages as one-stop program for all of your updates. We’ll see what happens with this, but Mozilla has a good track record with programs.

  - It’s been a few years since the first Narnia movies came out, and ever since we’ve been hearing rumors about other Lewis books getting the film treatment. I remember a suggestion that The Space Trilogy would be one, while The Screwtape Letters has been hyped as the next Lewis work for a few years. However, the C.S. Lewis movie we see next in theaters might turn out to be one of his most surreal works:

  The Great Divorce tells the story of one man’s journey–on a bus!–from the post-apocalyptic wasteland of a grey town to the outskirts of heaven…

  Beloved Pictures announced Monday that it has secured film rights to the story, and that David L. Cunningham (To End All Wars, Seeker: The Dark Is Rising) will direct. Cunningham, 38, is a Christian and the son of Youth With a Mission co-founders Loren and Darlene Cunningham.

  Remember all of the Narnia marketing tie-ins with toys and picture books? I seriously doubt we’ll be finding a Great Divorce Happy Meal if this movie gets made.

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