"Wii All You Can Be"?

Popular Mechanics:

Some might say that all those teenagers "wasting time" on Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 are actually the warfighters of tomorrow, training themselves at zero cost to the U.S. taxpayer. In fact, when offered the choice between the traditional airplane controls and gamepad controls, many younger soldiers pick the thumbsticks that are familiar to them. "There is an absolute age difference," says Bigham. "We call it the ‘jihad of game controllers.' You get kids that are in their low 20s that are gamers, and they go right to the game paddle. And they don't know why us old timers like using the F-16 hands-on, throttle-and-stick controllers."

There is, of course, a real concern that appropriating the game interface into the military space will also bring with it an emotional and moral disassociation from the act of fighting wars, and experts say that the answer may be to experiment with even more immersive technologies that allow soldiers to feel the full impact of the battlespace. And it may well be that game system developers will lead the way to such systems. Already, Bigham says that Raytheon has been experimenting with Wii controllers to explore the possibilities for training simulators and other applications that require physical movement. Just think, one day, the R&D that Nintendo put into Wii bowling could end up influencing basic training.

American Idol Feeds "hunger for realistic evaluation"

Christopher Ames:

We might think that Americans are eager to celebrate talented young people who can thumb their noses at the older generation and thus exorcise the lingering resentment so many harbor from being graded and evaluated in the classroom. But what American Idol reveals instead is a veritable hunger for realistic evaluation. Time and time again, contestants in the early episodes of this year's season whine obviously off key and then insist they are highly talented — in spite of the judges' protestations. Most of those kids have not learned how to sing, but they have mastered the self-esteem and "attitude" so valued in our culture. The persistent dynamic of these episodes is expertise putting down untalented braggadocio.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

Aahhhh, were that I was a bit younger......

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

The SCI FI Channel, Nash Entertainment (Meet My Folks, For Love or Money, Who Wants to Marry My Dad?), and legendary comic book creator Stan Lee (Spider-Man, Hulk, The Fantastic Four, X-Men) will produce a six-episode, one-hour weekly competition reality series that will challenge a lucky few to create their very own Superhero and reward the winner with the best reality competition prize yet: immortality! All you’ll need is an original idea for a Superhero, a killer costume, and some real Superhero mojo. The winner of this six-week competition will walk away with their Superhero immortalized in a new comic book created by Stan Lee himself. It gets better! The winning character will also appear in an original Sci Fi Channel movie!

In nationwide open casting calls, potential heroes will arrive in costume to prove their mettle – revealing the true nature of their superhuman abilities and invoking the noble credos by which they live. Make no mistake, you don’t have to love comic books to be the Superhero we’re looking for. If you have a great imagination, love adventure, and have a hero hiding inside of you, we want you on this show. Students, teachers, firemen, soccer moms, you’re all invited to try out to see if you’ve got what it takes. From thousands of hopefuls, Stan Lee will choose 11 lucky finalists to move into a secret lair and compete for the opportunity to become a real-life Superhero!

Finalists will leave their former lives behind and live as their brainchild heroes 24/7, all under Stan Lee’s watchful eye. Each week, our aspiring heroes will be challenged with competitions designed to test their true Superhero abilities. Don’t worry, no one will be leaping over tall buildings in a single bound. Our Superheroes will be tested for courage, integrity, self-sacrifice, compassion, and resourcefulness, all traits that every Superhero must possess. In the end, only one aspiring Superhero will have the inner strength and nobility to open the gates to comic book immortality forever!

Sounds like a real-life Mystery Men meets Survivor. (via Elisabeth Carnell)

Me and the Sci Fi Channel

Now that my studies are done and it's all over but getting the degree, I've enjoyed reacquanting myself with the SciFi Channel. Now, I never totally left it, the ressurection of Battlestar Galactica successfully played on my nostalgia for the classic series of my boyhood and got me hooked with it's excellent writing and plot. And then I got TiVo. Since then, I've been able to record those shows I regrettably missed. (For instance, I'm way late to the Firefly phenomenom, but agree that it's a good show and Andromeda is also pretty good....but by the same token, I can't get into the 57 varieties of Stargate that are out there). And now I see that SciFi is resurrecting another favorite from my youth: Dr. Who. I remember watching the good Doctor on my local PBS affiliate on Saturday afternoons. It was weird and had bad special effects, but it had that dry Brit "humour" and, heck, it was science fiction and there just wasn't much of that on the tube in those days. Finally, SciFi has been promoting the heck out of something called Dark Kingdom. Guess what? It appears from the promo that it is at least tangentially related to my Master's thesis topic. I'll just have to watch to find out.

Walk the Line

I hope to catch "Walk the Line" sometime, if nothing else than because one of my favorite cult-musicians has a starring role. More about him here and, further back, here (or here for a real flavor). And, by the way, he had a hand in helping this guy's career. (Yes, I'm being purposefully "mysterious," he likes it that way.)