Geeks, I have some good news and some bad news.
Let’s start with the bad. Cinephiles and LGBT folks everywhere should be very displeased with the unfortunate news that some jerk(s) in South Africa have torn down posters for the 16th annual Out In Africa Film Festival. Featuring funky illustrations of happy, same-sex lip locking, over 700 were ripped from lampposts around Cape Town.
From the festival’s site:
An outraged Out in Africa South African Gay and Lesbian Film Festival director Nodi Murphy has lodged a complaint with police. Some stupid twits with more time on their hands than brains trashed our gorgeous posters. And for what?
Murphy also expressed hopes that the perpetrator(s) get served with community service for their boneheaded deeds.
As a motion of support, I’m going to plaster those images everywhere I (legally) can. Anything this beautifully designed — and this wonderfully queer — deserves to be seen everywhere. Perhaps we can even start a small movement on Twitter and Facebook — use these posters as your avatar, and viola — solidarity! Who’s with me?
On a much lighter note, boing boing has posted one of the cutest, most danceable science lessons you’ll ever sing along to. It’s called “Meet The Elements,” and it’s a gorgeous 2D animated video starring the periodic elements. Note that the music comes from geek heroes They Might Be Giants (who also brought the bouncy, semi-scientific “Particle Man” to the world), and the graphic style is oh-so-8-bit 1980s. I am enamored.
While my aptitude for the hard sciences begins and ends with my owning (and enjoying) a periodic table of elements shower curtain, I’ve always had a very dorky soft spot for everything empirical — specifically physics and chemistry. This may have to do with how good Dr. Scully looked in a lab coat during my more impressionable years, but it’s still true.
Now, if only someone could translate the complex mysteries of superstring theory into a neon-colored cartoon, I’d be in business.
