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 10/10 Excellent --- feeds.wired.com http://feeds.wired.com/wired/science
| Understanding the latest research and theories. ... |
Tuesday, July 01, 2008 --- 67 days ago http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/science/~3/324586074/pl_brown
 Oh, X-Files sequel. Like your subtitle says: I want to believe. I really do. But above all, I want to want. And I don't. What gives? I hearted you monstrously in the '90s. And I like knowing a sequel is out there, the same way I like knowing my AOL account is out there: comforting, but I feel no special urge to visit. I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Why is that? Why do some beloved pop fantasies evolve into mini-religions, while others fade like an old pair of Jams? Hollywood doesn't have the answer. They'll green-light just about anything, from a live-action He-Man movie to The Smurfs in 3-D. Our only hope here is science. So I turn to a scientist — my former college roommate Noah Helman. Back in the '90s, he was our dorm's brainy, not-quite-as-hot Scully; I, its stubby Mulder, the believer. We used to watch The X-Files together, in real time, then debate it over warm Squirt. (These were the heady days before Television Without Pity .) Now he's a busy molecular biologist, but he agreed, for the sake of science, to help me determine the perfect "nostalgorithm" — a differential equation that will determine a pop object's nostalgic potential while explaining why a Thundercats movie intrigues, but the X-Files sequel leaves me cold. Let's begin with the simplest factor: Time (t). As any former Giga Pet owner knows, stuff peaks, then gets old. Thus: Popular velocity ( Δ Popularity/ Δ t) = -L x t where L = probability of lameness. Of ... |
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