Why Consistency in Ideals is Important

Ghost in the Shell manga (comic book).

The labeling of "whitewashing" for the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a futuristic robot character from the comic book, Ghost in the Shell, is very troubling to me. To be clear, "whitewashing" IS an apt term for something like the film Gods of Egypt where a bunch of white actors were cast as Egyptian gods (while all the normal humans were Egyptian actors). This not only passed over Egyptian actors in favor of white actors, but exploited the culture and religion of a specific group of (non-white) people. In the case the of Ghost in the Shell however the character is not a historical or culturally Japanese so when adapting it for live action it doesn't matter what race the actor is.

Major Motoko Kusanagi (anime) VS The Major (Johansson)

Would you be upset if a Japanese adaptation of Batman starred a Japanese actor as Bruce Wayne? Probably not. Who cares, right? How about a Japanese actor as William Wallace in a Braveheart remake? Ehhhh... Why does that feel weird? Because William Wallace was a Scottish historical figure that is a part in the cultural identity of Scottish people. 

Johansson has proven she can be an action movie star in movies like Lucy and The Avengers

I was just as indignant when people got angry about a black actor cast as Nick Fury, or that a Latino kid (Miles Morales) was the new Spider-man, as I am about people being upset at Ms. Johansson's casting. She has done many action films and is perfect for the role - just as Samuel L. Jackson was perfect to play Nick Fury. 

So by now you are probably asking yourself, "Why do you care so much about this? The producers of the Ghost in the Shell movie ARE jerks for other reasons (maybe even racist) so why defend the casting decision?" Good question!

The problem with this misuse of the term "whitewashing" is that this sort of of misplaced labeling of things as racist marginalizes the real issues at stake, specifically the lack of roles for minorities in film. (Much as the hair-trigger mislabeling of ALL criticism of last year's Ghostbusters as "sexist" served more to marginalize the real issues of equality of women in the media. Women can star in garbage films just as much as men!)

Words like "racist" or "sexist" used simply as insults diminishes their impact. If they are used to attack decisions we are disappointed about or to dismiss people who we disagree with the words loose credibility. Is is absolutely okay for someone to be disappointed their favorite manga character is not being played by Japanese person? Of course it is! Is it racist to cast a white lady in the role for a live-action version of the story? No, it simply is not. 

"Whitewashing" is not simply casting a white person in a role a Japanese actor could have played. (That would include almost every role!) "Whitewashing" is exploiting culture, history, or religion of a non-white people and injecting Caucasian actors into a setting where it makes no historical sense for them to be there. This is important stuff! It deserves to be respected and playing too loose with those terms leads to them losing their meaning. 

Just like the story of little boy who cried "wolf," applying these sort of incendiary labels where they aren't warranted can cause unintended disaster. The watering down of the term "sexist" by well-meaning and intelligent feminists (as well as exploitative movie executives trying to shift blame for their poorly thought out and cynical cash-grab of a film) made it easier for Donald Trump to shrug off shockingly chauvinistic behavior and push forward his anti-feminist ideas. Labeling every movie with a white actor that also had any non-Western cultural influence as "racist" made it that much easier for Donald Trump to laugh at the accusation of racism after making many clearly racially disparaging remarks and horrifically xenophobic plans to ban Muslim immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border.

It all comes down to the fact that false accusations don't hurt the accused, they hurt other accusers. In most cases this is obvious, but in the pre-Trump era many liberals in America lost our understanding about this when it comes to accusations of sexism and racism. (Ultimately this could just as well have been for good reasons: optimistically less and less serious incidents made the more serious issues more theoretical and the smaller issues less precisely defined.)

Unfortunately as Trump has taken office more serious and contemporary threats against women, minorities, education, the lower class, immigrants, and even to the Constitution itself  have arisen than we ever thought possible just months ago. Now more than ever it is important to stand up for diversity and equality because this is what truly makes America so great.

The 2016 Presidential Election Has Exposed the Fatal Flaws of the Electoral College

The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election did not happen on November 8th, it will be on December 19th, 2016. No, this is not Democrat voter's dream come true, it is how U.S. presidents are always elected - the Electoral College.

After the uproar of the election this year I have been researching the Electoral College process quite a bit. While previously not something I paid much attention to it has risen to the top of many people minds in the wake of a very close election. After much research it has become obvious that this relic of America's political past only causes confusion and removes power from the voters and needs to be done away with.

What happened on Nov 8th?

The American people do not vote for president of the United States - a select group of 538 Republican and Democratic party insiders meet across the country in December to hold the actual election for president. This small group of people make up the Electoral College. While some states try to bind these electors to vote for a certain candidate, the constitutionality of these laws has never been challenged and would likely be struck down in court if contested.

If a national election for president had occurred on November 8th the American people would have elected Hillary Clinton, however this is was not the case. Obscured under layers of technicalities (starting with the ballots themselves) is the fact that when citizens cast their votes on November 8th they actually were voting in state elections to appoint Electoral College members - not an election to vote for specific presidential candidates. If that makes you angry then you are probably starting to see the problems here.

Not a Democratic Election 

The Electoral College system dictates that each state gets a number of super-voters (called "electors" because their only purpose is to vote to elect the president) who are allocated by local elections. The winner in each of these state contests get to appoint members of their party to vote for them. So despite the fact that most people in the country - by over a million voters - checked the box next to Hillary Clinton's name on their ballots, most of the electoral college seats were given to Republican party insiders who are expected to vote for Donald Trump.

This map represents the electors chosen by each state - not the votes for U.S. President.

These electoral college members can vote however they please. In fact, the very reason they are appointed (instead of actually having a national election) is for the sole purpose of them being able to vote for whomever they want. This is in case the party insiders disagree with voters, or if they decide voters don't appoint a qualified candidate. So not only did American citizens not vote for their president in the election on November 8th, they voted to appoint people who have the specific job of voting against them if they feel so inclined.

Most of the facts and details of how the college work are obscured from the general public. Firstly in the fact that on most ballots it just lists the name of the presidential candidate - not the names of the electoral college members whom voters are actually appointing. Also, this is because party insiders are appointed to the elector positions to attempt to insure a vote along party lines.

These electoral college members have immense amount of political pressure to vote for their party's candidate. Many of them are the staffers of local Republican and Democratic party offices. These people would risk their careers if they don't vote for their party's candidate. Others are former politicians and party leaders, such as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Jr. in New York, and the co-chair of the Republican Party, Sharon Day. This political pressure - not any laws or regulations - is what causes most electors to vote along party lines. This means there is no legal recourse if a group of electors decided to vote for any candidate they please.

Population by 2016 State Electoral College allocation. (Not by popular vote.)

Disproportionate Representation

The Electoral College doesn't just take away the vote for president from the general voting population of the nation, but it also give powers to individual states. Some states have huge influences over the vote while other states have much less. This is for two main reasons:

1.) The way the votes are calculated has given rise to the "swing state" - a state that has a large influence over the outcome of an election. This is because although there may be a large percentage of voters who vote for the loosing candidate ALL of the states voting power is given to the winner instead of granted on percentage basis. So a candidate that had 51% of the vote would get all 10 of Wisconsin's electoral college seats, rather than awarding just 5 to that candidate and 5 to the other candidate with 49% of the vote.

• This means that presidential candidates only give attention to some states while ignoring the "unimportant" ones. It turns the race into a game instead of about the issues. Politics in general already does this and doesn't need any more help from the Electoral College.
• This also means that on a national level the popular vote is not taken into account when allocating electoral seats. This is why states choose to award them like this - so they have more sway with presidential candidates.

2.) The way electoral college seats are given is based on not only population but be statehood. Specifically this means that each state gets not only the number of electoral college seats that it has congressional delegates in the House of Representatives (which is based on population) but they also get and additional number of delegates (two) based on the senators from each state. 

• This means to smaller population states get more voting power in the presidential election. For instance Wyoming gets three electoral college seats which represent 586,107 people while California gets 55 seats which represent 39,144,818 people. This breaks down to seats per voter 5.12E-6 in Wyoming while only 1.41E-6 seats per voter in California. That is a difference of over 3X more voting power for Wyoming voters!

 

What Happens on December 19th?

Certificate of Vote - Maryland 2012

The real election of the president will happen in local state capital buildings across the country on December 19th. Here the electors will cast the only votes for president, and vice-president, that actually elect a candidate. Some of them use pre-printed ballots with the candidates of their party already on them, others are able to write in whomever they wish. After they cast their votes they all sign a "Certificate of Vote." One copy of this is sent to be read in the joint session of Congress in January where the President is officially chosen.

It would take 37 of the Republican members of the Electoral College to either abstain from voting or voting for another (non-Trump) candidate of their choosing. An alternate candidate does not need to be Clinton, it could be some other person such as Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan if they so desire. 

If no candidate receives the absolute majority (more than half) of the available votes (which is 270 out of the available 538) then Congress must vote on which of the three candidates with the top three votes they wish to appoint as president. This vote is made by the House of Representatives, with each state's representatives given one vote (for a total of 50 - D.C. gets no vote here). The candidate with an absolute majority of votes (here it would be 26 out of 50) is president. A similar vote is taken of the Senate for vice-president.

If no candidate (for President or Vice-President) receives 26 votes by Jan. 20th then the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, becomes president until Congress can vote for a president and vice-president. If the Senate decides on a vice-president before the House can decide on president then the Vice President becomes acting President on Jan. 20 until they can decide.

President Ryan 2017?

Most likely the Electoral College members will simply vote as they are instructed and the 306 GOP electors will choose Trump. If somehow the EC fails to give either candidate 270 votes then Congress will most likely also elect Trump, but a President Trump who has been both rejected by the popular vote and the Electoral College will be much easier to keep in check.

The Bottom Line

The only benefit of even having the Electoral College is that if we have a national crisis where an unqualified candidate happens to get  the majority vote that the members of the Electoral College will step in and deny such a person the presidency. We now find our nation in just such a predicament, except it is not the popular vote which is putting our nation in danger of placing an unqualified candidate in office - it is the very organization that was set up to save us from such a predicament which is causing the crisis itself. It's like having a fire department that not only doesn't put out fires but ignites fires themselves.

The vote this December 19th will be a historic one. The Electoral College will finally prove their worth to the nation by denying Donald Trump the presidency or they will again prove their uselessness beyond any reasonable doubt. Either way this election will probably lead to an amendment to abolish the Electoral College for good, so it just might be the last time they ever convene.

Book Review: The Jovian Run by James Wilks

The Jovian Run is the first novel from author James Wilks*. Set in the near future and dealing with realistic space travel,The Jovian Run is a fun tale of mystery and adventure.

The plot begins simply enough - a crew on a cargo ship has to make a delivery from Mars to the outer solar system (a "Jovian run"). "Jovian planets" is another name for the gas giant planets. They don't go to Jupiter though so I guess it's like traveling on the Oregon Trail, even if you just go from Nebraska to Idaho. Soon an encounter with space pirates reveals this is not just a routine haul and Captain Clea Staples and her crew have to deal with the fallout.

In this future traveling between planets in the solar system (or "Sol" system as it is called in the book) is common place - at least for professional space fairers. This reminds me the Age of Discovery period in history when international sailing was common but most normal people didn't do it very often. 

The setting of  a Mars colony is not my favorite. (There is nothing there that supports human life and the gravity well makes mining impractical.) Of course Wilks is far from the only one who likes the idea of humans one day living on Mars. Also, the prologue is a bit confusing and slows down the beginning, but makes sense after the story ends.

The cast of characters in the book are great and feel like a family of people who has to live in close quarters with each other. The captain is especially great as well as Dinah - she'll probably be your favorite character too by the end. A weekly show with this crew running missions around the solar system would be great.

One thing I particularly liked was that Wilks tried to keep the fiction part to a minimum in his sci-fi. The crew actually has to deal with the realities of zero gravity in deep space. Also the artificial gravity used by the ship was a clever, and realistic, solution I had never heard of before. How the crew has to deal with this solution is also fun.

If you like television science fiction shows with strong characters and slower paced intellectual stories (such as Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Trek DS9) you will enjoy The Jovian Run.

I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Score:
   B
Positives: Great and grounded sci-fi with engaging characters
Negatives: Takes awhile before the plot really gets moving


*NOTE: Full disclosure: Mr. Wilks is a friend of mine. I also have a pet peeve with human colonization of Mars. I have attempted  to keep both of these facts from affecting my review.

Quantum Break: Best Sci-Fi Time Travel Tech Ever?

 

 

"Time is the fire in which we burn" - Delmore Schwartz

Quantum Break is a new video game on PC and XBox One. It is a sci-fi third-person shooter that also incorporates four live-action "episodes" of a TV show in between the five chapters. Some things you do in the game affect what you see in the episode, and what happens in the episodes also effect what you see in the game. While it is mostly successful in what it is trying to be, the most interesting thing about it is the time-travel ideas introduced.

One of my favorite tropes in science-fiction is time-travel. Actually, one of my favorite concepts in SCIENCE is time travel. Often science-fiction either doesn't take the science part seriously or the there are so many plot holes it's impossible to enjoy the story. Despite some general story, character, and game-play issues, the time travel part of the game is not only scientifically sound and logical but also based on recent discoveries and technologies such as black holes, the Higgs boson, and the Large Hadron Collider.

Quantum Break main cast

The main question the game asks (and mostly answers) is "Can we change the past?" This is also the big philosophical difference between the protagonist and antagonist in the game. (You actually play the role of each in various parts of the game's story.) The protagonist, Jack, believes he can change the future while the antagonist, Paul (played by Game of Thrones's Aidan Gillen), believes there is nothing that can be done to change the past (or future in his case having traveled into the past). The end of the game cleverly addresses this question in a way that, in a way, allows you to choose who you think was ultimately right.

Large Hadron Colider  Geneva, Switzerland

One of the best parts about the time travel science in the game is the idea of a "chronon particle." It is the time-force carrying particle of a fictional "Joyce-Wilder field" that permeates the universe. Similar to how the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles the Joyce-Wilder field controls how particles move through time. If time really is a "thing" that exists (and isn't an artifact of how we experience the universe) it makes sense there could be some sort of time field and a boson associated with that field. The fact that the writers obviously gave this so much thought to this portion of the plot is great fun and should be admired.

Time machine design - The core creates a small black hole then a time traveler walks around inside the circular corridor

The time travel in the game also relates to one of the few things in the known universe that can truly warp time - a black hole. The core of the time machine creates a small black hole that warps space. The visual effect when the time machine core is activated is very cool and it is great that they give black holes a mention as part of their time machine. In the real world I'm sure if the mass of the black hole was large enough to create the space distortion shown the gravity of it would certainly be enough to overcome the Earth's in the small area around the machine. Papers, pens, and other light objects near the machine should be falling towards the time machine's core, if not the characters themselves. Still the coolness factor overcomes any nitpick that the physics doesn't quite make sense.

Your time powers have this very cool broken glass/faceted crystal look.

The time powers you have in the game are also very cool. During one of the uses of the time machine there is an accident which bathes the hero and villain in chronon particles and gives them time-altering powers. The powers you have are awesome but unfortunately there isn't as many opportunities to use your powers as I would have liked. There are only a couple dozen small areas where you actually engage in combat, but the times you ARE able to use your full powers are some of the most visually impressive fights I have seen in any medium.

Cool things you can do:

• Make a bubble of stopped time around a bad guy and then shoot at his time-frozen person over and over and then when the time-bubble collapses all of the bullets you shot at him hit all at once resulting in a huge explosion. So sweet.
• Shoot a sort of time-field bolt into the middle of a group of guys and watch them fly across the room when it explodes.
• Dash with time-assisted super-speed towards a guy and hit him backwards. After you do this time freezes briefly and you can shoot him while he is frozen.
• Make a shield around you that stops all bullets. When the bad guys shoot at you it sends cracks through your shield until it breaks.  While inside it you are free to shoot guys in front of you without getting hurt.

Your time-shield power protects you from enemy bullets while you are free to shoot them

Some of the most impressive battles are when you chain together these powers. Some of my favorites combos were to freeze one guy then quickly shield yourself and blast away at him over and over until the time bubble and/or your shield collapse then dash away into another guy and shoot him as well.

Another cool part about the battles is that the bad guys also have some time powers and can do similar things like dash around the battle zones. When you kill these guys they loose their time-altering powers and become frozen in space like the rest of the environment. When this happens their time-contolling backpacks spark and send out beams of energy which also freeze and float in the air in front of you.

When you disable an enemy's time-power suit they become frozen

The "tv show" live-action segments of the game are well produced and ambitious, but ultimately fail to add much to the game. I admire the desire to make a "show" that directly ties into the game but in the end it was mostly pretty boring. The last (of four) episodes was actually pretty good but one out of four is not a great success rate. Hopefully next time someone does this (and I hope someone does try this again) they should think it through a bit more. I would have much preferred if there were some episodes you could just watch as soon as you buy the game and then others you unlock doing things in the game. It would have been cool to have more episodes showing the things and places from the game (but from a different perspective).

The show part would have been more enjoyable if I could just watch the show when I was in the mood for a TV show and not have to sit through it when I was itching to play more of the video game. (It may actually work that way okay, but there is nothing in the game to indicate that you don't really need to watch the show if you want to skip it. It is presented as just the next part of the story.)


-----------------  S * P * O * I * L * E * R * S   ----------   S * E * C * T * I * O * N  -----------------

Don't read this until you have played the game or don't care about having at least part of the story ruined for you.

It is fairly unique for me to have played a game all the way through that is this new. Usually by the time I play a game the whole internet has already played it and written everything they can about it. There are not many write ups of the plot but I have also yet to finish my second go through of the game so I am also trying to avoid too many spoilers right now.

As in most time-travel stories the plot can be pretty complicated. A few questions I have, and things that stood out to me, from the story at the end:

• It's ultimately not clear who was "correct" about if time can be changed. At first blush it seems like you changed the future and were able to avert the "End of Time," but thinking about it afterwards it is not so straight forward for a few reasons:
• The original End of Time event happened in 2021. The villain assumed it was caused by the malfunction to the time machine that sent him to the End of Time but the scientists in the game tell him that something has accelerated it to make it happen sooner causing him to have to accelerate his plan.
• After fixing the stutters in time caused by the malfunction of the time machine the hero asks if the villain may have been right all along. 
• Mr Hatch, the CEO of the villain's company, turns out to be a time traveler from deep in the past who lived during the End of Time and may have some motive to make sure it comes to pass. 
• In other words, the disaster you avoided at the end of the game is probably a DIFFERENT disaster than the one that caused the "End of Time" that the villain witnessed. Very cool.
• We find out (only through a long bit of text on a tablet near the end of the game) that Martain Hatch is also a time traveler. He entered a "natural" time machine (a time "hatch" *eye-roll*) in a cave thousands of years ago and lived in the End of Time. He also may have become a time-zombie-type creature, called a "shifter" that all people exposed to chronon particles seem destined to turn into. I hope this story is explored a bit more. I like the idea of a "natural time machine" somewhere.
• The idea that you can't travel back in time any farther back than when the time machine was created is based on science (I wish I could find a reference for this). I heard a physicist mention it on an episode of The Universe but I can't find anything in a cursory online search.
• It's pretty cool that the villain is your friend from college who get sent back in time by an accident and was actually funding his own time machine via a huge corporation he created by using his knowledge of the future to get rich in the stock market. 
• The idea that you cannot change the future is central to the conflict of the game. This is the easiest way to get around paradoxes - such as going into the past and killing your own father - because there is no way to do that as you didn't do it in the first place. This is actually also a real scientific principal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle I have the same opinion that IF time travel was possible you wouldn't be able to change the past at all. Any time travel that has happened to the past has ALREADY happened. I think this mostly is because of the repulsiveness of the idea of multiple universes that is the other way out of paradoxes.
• Another really cool part is the "Back to the Future II" moment where you go back to the beginning of the game and witness events from another perspective. It is really fun to play the game a second time and see the things that you did when you came back to the past actually happened the first time you played the game as well. It reinforces the rule of time travel that you can't alter the past.
• I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fact that there is never any dumb lines about there being some sort of paradox that could result because of a choice you make. It is such a silly idea in so many time travel stories that humans could do something, like meeting themselves in the past, and somehow cause the universe to explode or something. It was cool that the villain goes back in time and says hi to himself the very first time you see time travel in the game.
• On the other hand it was also really stupid that the villain thought that some time machine made on Earth could "end time." The cool part is that, looking back, it is probably the case that the time machine malfunction in the game DIDN'T actually cause the End of Time. Still, it was dumb to hear characters convinced that it was true. That is just dumb to think that anything we could do would have consequences on a universal scale. The dumb idea that the LHC could have turned the Earth into a black hole is a less silly idea and it would have been fun if they referenced that "sky is falling" moment before the LHC turned on a few years ago in the game. The universe is vast and full of forces beyond our comprehension, let alone control. There is nothing we could do to destroy it.

--------- E * N * D  ------  S * P * O * I * L * E * R * S  ------  S * E * C * T * I * O * N ---------

The bad guys colors remind me a lot of Infamous Second Son baddies (below).

Infamous Second Son - Do all evil private armies buy their yellow accented outfits from the same place?

So I've rambled a lot about this game but let me sum up my thoughts here:

• The time travel science fiction is great. One of the most scientifically realistic depictions of time travel I have ever heard of.
• The "time powers" you get are some of the most stylish powers I've ever seen in a game. I wish they weren't reliant on you having a gun. I am tired of using normal guns in games where you have super powers. I would have preferred if you have more energy projectile powers like Infamous Second Son. (To be fair, Second Son is my favorite game of all time so obviously I would prefer if other games were more like it).
• The combat was very cool but took up too little of the time I spent with the game. I spent about 1/4 of the game playing the "game" part and rest was walking around or watching cut-scenes.
• The story is VERY linear. I had forgotten how limiting linear storylines really are. I haven't played a game that has this little choice in a long time. It is very stifling how boxed in every environment is and the movement when not in a firefight is very slow.
• There is a surprising amount of platforming in this game and none of it is any fun. It is very pretty to look at, but the clunky jumping controls feel very dated and were very frustrating.
• The obnoxious amount of emails available everywhere are the worst story-telling elements in the game. Much of the plot is told through them and having to sit and read long emails brought the game to a screeching halt every time. It would have been much better to have the emails be read by the actors while you walk around the environments.
• The "End of Time" is set up early on as the big disaster that both the hero and villain are trying to avoid. During most of the game we are not giving any idea what the "end of time" actually means so it comes off as extremely cliched and lazy. When we finally find out what it really means (in the final chapter) it is actually a pretty cool concept but we are only TOLD what it is and never SHOWN. This is a huge disappointment. If we ever got to actually see the End of Time (and some of the dangers present) it could have elevated the whole story to another level.

Shawn Ashmore, Iceman from the X-Men movies, plays the protagonist, Jack Joyce

Despite having a lot of negatives this game it is a very unique experience. There are some great ideas in the time travel science and the time controlling powers are a blast. At times it is a slow, and even boring, but the second play-through has been much more fun skipping the long cut scenes and live-action parts and focusing on the dynamic and fun shootouts.

Anyone with an interest in time travel, sci-fi tv shows, or stylish third-person shooters should give this a chance; just wait until it goes on sale for $30 or less.

Overall Score:

B-

Positives:

• Cool plot
• Unique story telling
• Beautiful graphics
• Stylish game-play

Negatives:

• Very linear story
• Clunky platforming sections
• Too much story in long boring emails
• Uneven acting in live-action sections

Junk Food Review - Oreo Thins

What is it?
Oreos but THIN.

What is different about it?

The new Oreo thins stack up nicely to their thicker forebearers.

While the frosting seems to be the same, the cookie parts are completely redesigned. The crispiness of the original cookie has been increased so that the structural stability and crunch is preserved with the thinner cookie. If they had kept the original recipe of the cookie it wouldn't be enough be satisfied with and by the time you got it home it would be a box of crumbs.



Is it good? 

Yes. Yes they are.

While it is not quite the same Oreos we grew up dipping in milk, it is a good approximation and a very good cookie in it's own right. The cookie parts really have more of a cracker consistency but their thinness masks this almost completely.

Thought the cookie is different in texture the frosting is the same.

The taste does a great job of mimicking the original Oreos. One thing you may notice is that when biting into the cookie the crispness of it makes the shards of cookie slightly sharper against your tongue. There is none of the exploding into a million chocolate cookie crumbs immediately upon impact with your teeth like the original. The crunch of the new cookies is also a very satisfying sound and contributes to the overall munchie satiation power of the cookie.

The cookies break apart more cleanly than the originals and leave behind less crumbs

 Unfortunately I did not have any original Oreos on hand to check HOW thin the new cookies are but I would guess that the cookie parts themselves are at least half as thin with the frosting just a little thinner. Overall the cookie is probably about 60% the size of original cookie. (I also didn't get a chance to dunk these guys in milk but that's because 1- I don't have milk, 2- I don't like milk with cookies, and 3 - I don't like milk.)



Comparing the nutrition facts to the originals we now have 140 calories per 4 cookies making each cookie about 35 calories each. Compare this to the approx 53 calories in the originals* for about a 34% reduction in calories. The thins also have about 0.5g of fat each, compared to 2.33g of fat each for the original giving us a whopping 79% decrease in fat. Nice!

Whatever group of food scientists worked on these new cookies should be congratulated on their concoction. Oreo thins do a very good job of being satisfying as well as legitimately thinner.

Overall junk score:  A-

Good: Tasty and satisfying reproduction of Oreo flavor with less bulk and calories. If you like Oreos you will probably like these as well.

Bad: More crackery than I was expecting. If the gritty cookie crumb feel of an original Oreo is your favorite part of this treat you may want to stick to your old-school Oreos.


* - Original Oreo calorie info: http://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/oreo/chocolate-sandwich-cookies

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Jeff Udall. I'm a geek/nerd.

I have two boxes full of Marvel comics on my bookcase where the rest of the shelves are full of Transformers. I don't think I have to say anything else to prove my geekness (but the rest of this blog will strive to bring it home).

I have been thinking about making various blogs and websites about the multiple things I am interested in but none of them really stuck. I think the answer is to make a blog about ALL the things I like. They tend to have one thing in common: they are geeky things or I talk about them in a nerdy way.

The fun thing about being a nerd these days is that it's pretty cool. All the biggest box office blockbusters were based on comics (Deadpool/Spider-man/Xmen) or toys (Transformers) I own or I have toys of the other big movies (Star Wars) on my shelves. Video games are so popular that it's silly to even think of people who play them as nerds (but my favorite game - Infamous Second Son is about a super hero so that's a bit more than average geeky).

I hope that this blog will be worth reading. If not for the just keeping up on all the geek knowledge at least for entertainment value. I also will be including reviews of geeky things or things that I am interested in a nerd-level like candy and junk food (such as my first review - Oreo Thins).

Of course the most important part about sharing my love of geek culture is hearing what other people think. So if you have also read/seen/eaten/etc some of the things I talk about let me know what you think. If you have something geeky you love let me know about it. One of the beautiful things about living in a world with so much technology that was science fiction only just a short while ago is that we can all communicate so much faster, so leave a comment about what you think.

Excelsior!

-Jeff