Helen Fields » tv

science of superheroes

Helen — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 08:46:13 +0000

I started the AAAS meeting right Friday morning by going to a session on the science of superheroes. A couple of scientists were joined by two writers from the TV show Heroes and one of the screenwriters on the movie Watchmen. I was really interested in what they had to say about their work, both as a person who likes science and as a writer. They talked about scientific accuracy and how they do what they do. The upshot was: They care about science, but ultimately the character and the narrative are what they care about most.

I wrote about the science of superheroes for ScienceNOW and also did an interview for their podcast with a scientist who has written about physics in comic books.

I’d watched season 1 of Heroes, so I was able to give a little background about the show in my blog post. But then I had a great quote about Watchmen, but no idea what the guy was talking about. So I put out a call on facebook for any friend who knew Watchmen really well. I had five or six offers of help within 10 minutes. Thanks for the help, crowd!

train ride in real time

Helen — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:23:20 +0000

Last Friday evening, one of Norway’s national broadcast stations showed a documentary called “Bergensbanen minutt for minutt” – “Bergen Line, Minute for Minute.” It was a seven-hour-long documentary showing, in real time, the train trip from Bergen to Oslo. Seven hours. And 16 minutes. Of train. According to NRK, 176,000 people sat in front of the TV for the whole thing and another 1.2 million dropped in for part of it. (That’s about one in four Norwegians.) The train goes through 182 tunnels on the way; during those bits, they edited in historic clips from the railway.

Missing out on the Bergensbane was the great disappointment of my last trip to Norway. I was so excited to take this train. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the world; it goes from sea level in Bergen to sea level in Oslo, passing over the highlands on the way. The high point is 4,060 feet above sea level. But a couple of days before my ride I saw a picture on the front of the Bergen paper showing a derailed train lying in the snow. Uh-oh, I thought. I read the article and, yep. That was the Bergensbane, and it would be closed until they got those cars out of there.

So instead of a scenic seven-hour train ride over mountains and snow, I had a one-hour train ride – mostly through tunnels – to Voss, then a 5,000,000-hour bus ride to Oslo. The bus was full. The guy next to me wasn’t friendly. It was about the least pleasant transportation experience I’ve ever had in Norway, and I’m including the month in 1998 when the Trondheim city buses went on strike and I had to walk several miles to work.

The train documentary was such a big hit that they’re scrambling to get a DVD out in time for Christmas. I think they could sell that to train buffs all over the world, don’t you? Heck, I would watch it. I’m trying to get part 1 of the documentary to load on the NRK website right now.

Here are the articles from NRK: An Orgy for Train Lovers and A DVD of the Bergen Line is Coming!

photo: SRS scandiline

speaking of crime

Helen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:20:37 +0000

My mother forwarded me a link today to a New York Times story about Tatort, a German police drama that’s been running since 1970. 1970! Almost 40 years! My parents watch the Cologne version at home, with subtitles, but I now know – thank you, NYT – that they produce versions of it all over the country, it’s on every Sunday evening, and by not watching it, I am clearly missing out on something BIG. Don’t worry; it’s on my calendar for the rest of the time I’m here.

UPDATE (8/28): My mom points out that the link originally came from her friend Judy.