I'm not as happy with our fruitcake this year as I am most years. Mother and I should have had coffee before we were allowed in the kitchen. It tastes decent enough, but it doesn't have any structural integrity.

However, we managed marzipan for the first time in ever, so there's that at least.

(Fay, I had a wedding cake, but it's sadly not the norm here. Well, you have wedding cake, but that's not at all the same thing, though I had one of them, too, out of respect for all the weirdo fruitcake haters on the US side of the invited guests.)

Consuela, any chance you're around?

Fake Narnia News Dupes Sites

Several legitimate news sites picked up a hoax press release saying that representatives of the fictional land of Narnia had walked out of the recent World Trade Organization's talks in Hong Kong, Australia's The Age newspaper reported.

The news release from "the independent state of Narnia" was picked up by the financial news agency AFX and found its way onto top business news Web sites, including Forbes.com.

The news release said that Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the United States and Europe. Narnia, of course, is the fictional realm from C.S. Lewis' fantasy book series The Chronicles of Narnia, which was recently adapted into the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The news release quoted Narnia spokeswoman Susan Aslan; Aslan is the name of the Christ-like lion featured in the books.

The agencies who picked up the phony news have since removed the reports, The Age reported.

[link]

Reminds me of '92, when Spy magazine asked a number of newly-elected congresspeople, "What's your position on the situation in Freedonia?" (Most gave answer along the lines of, "We're studying the situation carefully.)

The science of cute

It's the opposite of the Uncanny Valley.

I've had Anne's fruitcake and it is very delicious. Rumcake is my favorite though. Or bread pudding with whiskey sauce (or bourbon sauce or rum sauce). If we're sticking to the carbs soaked in alcohol food category.

The science of cute

It's the opposite of the Uncanny Valley.

I dunno - I think it's theoretically possible for some CGI creature to posess high levels of both cuteness and Uncanny Valley-ness. Who knows - perhaps such things are created from time to time, only to be immediatly lost again as their creator's brains explode, resulting in an electromagnetic pulse that erases the vile creature from its hard drive home.

I think it's theoretically possible for some CGI creature to posess high levels of both cuteness and Uncanny Valley-ness.

I don't think so. Anything that's Sorta Cute But Off is going to trigger the Uncanny Valley response.

Yeah, kat, South Mountain was the one I mentioned. Uncle Cece talked about it too: [link]

I don't think so. Anything that's Sorta Cute But Off is going to trigger the Uncanny Valley response.

Maybe you'd end up with something like the optical illusion of the vase/two faces - the brain would be able to recognize the cute or the Uncanny Valley, but never both at the same time.

thanks bon! as ever, you ROCK. I wrote a snarky email to the editors at LATimes. you've made my day.

Goslings is Bermudan rum! Never touch the stuff.

It might very well be good, but there's too much Appleton's between me and it.

I just had someone tell me to not see King Kong because she didn't like how it ended. I explained to her that's how the first one ended, but she was adamant that they should have taken the ape back to Skull Island. "The ape dies, Hamlet dies, Romeo and Juliet die. They're tragedies." She was suprisingly resistant to the idea. You know when you realise you just can't talk to someone?

I think it's theoretically possible for some CGI creature to posess high levels of both cuteness and Uncanny Valley-ness.

Totally!

I was just listening to a podcast about AI, and this really annoying woman was talking about Kismet (an MIT research project by one of the Roomba guys) where they decided to make the robot cute, because people wouldn't interact with the adult-looking robot appropriately. Thing is, Kismet is hideous.