Why are the Transformer movies so cool and yet so dumb? Or is that how coolness works? Is there an inverse ratio between coolness and smartness? No, that’s not right. Perhaps the formula is that the probability of dumbness increases 2x the coolness, so the more fun, cool ideas you have, the more likely you are to say, “Who cares how it happens? It’s cool!”

Two self-professed Transformer experts are talking about the latest movie (spoilers aplenty) and not understanding what they saw.

Swansburg: ‪Let’s talk about how Cade Yeager and his leggy daughter meet our old friends the Autobots.

Wickman: ‪Right. They find a truck inside a movie theater, of course.

Swansburg: ‪Obviously. The movie theater scene was really weird. There were several possibly meta jokes about the movies that didn’t really land. Could you distill a message from those musings?

Wickman: ‪I could not. There was definitely a part where someone complained about how all the movies these days were sequels and remakes, but it didn’t seem like the makers of Transformers 4 were the butt of the joke. It felt more like we were the butt of the joke, for watching.

Here’s a helpful review of a previous Transformer movie from Steven Greydanus in which he describes how Michael Bay makes disaster films in contrast with Roland Emmerich (2012, Armeggedon, etc.)

On a loosely related note, Alan Jacobs just posted this question: why should we expect intelligent alien life would want to explore and/or colonize other planets?

Lemmings don’t run in herds, following their leaders off a cliff if so directed. Do you know how that myth got started? Disney filmmakers thought it would make good television, so they staged it for their 1958 documentary White Wilderness. Tossed the little buggers right off the cliff, they did. That’s cold.

Here are 15 images of cities from The Middle Ages.

A friend on Facebook shared this article from Page F30, explaining why, in the opinion of the author, Norwegian is the easiest foreign language for an English speaker to learn:

Since it’s a Germanic language that means you will have a fun time realizing that words that originally don’t seem similar to English actually are. One example is the word selvstendighet. Looks like a completely foreign word at first, but each part has an equivalent English word: rewrite it as self-standy-hood and suddenly it looks more familiar. It means independence, which is a state of being able to stand by oneself. Another example is snikskytter. That means assassin, or a ‘sneakshooter’. Norwegian is full of these words. It also has words that aren’t exact English equivalents, but are similar. I’ve always thought that a lot of Norwegian words seem like those words you will sometimes wake up with in your head from a dream that seem so real in the dream but then turn out to be words that don’t actually exist. A translator for example is an oversetter, to exaggerate is overdrive, to accept is godta (goodtake), abroad (as in another country) is utland, and so on.

Which just leaves me, personally, fairly embarrassed to recall how long it took me to “master” the language–and such mastery as I have is only with the written word. My conversational Norwegian is still from hunger.

(Blogger’s note: Phil suggested I share this, and I told him I was too tired and had studying to do. But a massive power outage in Milwaukee has rendered my grad school web site incommunicado tonight, so here it is.)

“Menswear designer for J. Crew? Interesting. Have you tried selling your clothes yourself on Etsy instead? I hear people are making millions self-designing on the internet these days.”

“Huh. A chef. Do people still eat food?”

Lincoln Michel imagines how people would talk to other professionals like they talk to writers. I’m sure I can speak for Lars on this. We’ve never had anything odd like this when people talk to us. The most common response is, “Whoa! Where are all the chicks?”

The L.A. Times has this uberhelpful board game activity for the little writer in you, giving you all the thrills and spills of a real writing career without the heartache, personal rejection, and despair. Roll the dice; move your mice. Fun for the whole family.

Colleges have serious revenue problems, possibly because they don’t see themselves as businesses in a flexible market. They act as if they are a national necessity. Tyler Cowen writes, “The marketing pitch of many colleges, were it to be honest, would run something like: ‘If you don’t pay us money for our product, your decline will be all the more precipitous.’ That is hardly an inspiring motto.”

He goes on: “A lot of colleges and universities have revenue plans based on the expectation of big tuition hikes stretching into the indefinite future.” Too much money is spent on administration without clear benefits. Too little attention is paid to high-rocketing student debts.

He offers a few recommendations, like focusing on offer fewer great courses to make the college distinct and helping students learn how to teach themselves in the long run.

Why are storytellers often bad preachers and preachers often bad storytellers? Smith writes, “This isn’t going to be another missive from an artistic apostle of Doubt-as-Creed, hammering his 95 thesis of why Theology is, like, so dumb and stuff, to the wall of the Witlessburg Cathedral for Zeitgeist Studies and Hugs.”

“We were told nothing ahead of time.”