morefromfreakonomics!

i love fallacies, and in the "upside of quitting" podcast, they talked about the sunk cost fallacy:  "I've got too much invested in this to quit,"  it's often the best time to quit!  they say kids and animals don't do this...sometimes knowing when to say "fuck it" is a real life skill...
   also, interestingly, in "the decline and fall of violence," they said that in hunter-gatherer societies, 15% of all deaths were from violence, as opposed to 3% in the 20th century, with includes all the wars and mechanized death we cooked up...

dark side of saturn

this is an actual picture from NASA’s Cassini orbiter

the original story here

kitty!

from yahoo sports:

San Diego Chargers nose tackle Antonio Garay...we are reasonably sure in guaranteeing that this is the only time you will see a 6-foot-4, 320-pound NFL defender driving a tiny convertible smart car … with the Hello Kitty logo on it.

  I want one!  (in pink, of course!!!)

"fuckknuckle"

http://jimandeddietalkshit.com/
ps:  x-men first class!!!

aashna and totoro

the wire, season 4

halfway through and loving it...
my favorite quote comes from the bunk:
"look at that bowlegged motherfucker...i made him walk like that..."

thor

kenneth branaugh managed to take an extremely cheesy comic book






















and give it a very classy, stylish look and feel:




some specific thoughts:

• skip the 3-D-totally pointless
• there is apparently another teaser at the end of the credits (but we get it, the avengers is coming soon!!!)
• chris hemsworth looks great and gives a surprisingly solid performance (did he look this freakishly huge is star trek?)
• thank GOD thor didn't have an american accent...
• idris elba (the wire) has some serious gravitas-wow!
• the traitor was not much of a surprise if you know the comics, and was played a little too sypathetic-i almost wanted evil to triumph...
• it's official:  natialie portman can't act!  or she has a very limited range:  she can do hysterical crying, but can't do funny, romantic, friendly, hostile, or even intelligent (a very unconvincing physicist...)  in any case, it's official-she's bad!  i thought she was miscast when i saw the posters, but all she had to do was be smart and cute and charming in a way that, say, alexis bleidel probably could pulled off with ease...
• NP's super-close-up "oh...my...god!!!"  might be in competition with devon aoki's "slap that ass!!!" (the fast and the furious) for the worst-written AND worst-delivered line in movie history!!!
• jeremy renner (hawkeye in the upcoming avengers movie) pops up for a few minutes-fanboy gold!!!  it's amazing how much tension that guy can create with a few minutes of screentime (seethe cafe scene in the town!!)
• i'd say it's worth seeing!!  story drags a little in the middle, action drags a little at the end, but overall good fun!!