Medical Horror

I can't imagine much that could be worse than to have you mind taken away from you.

The Freeman-Watts Standard Procedure was used for the first time in September 1936. Also known as "the precision method", this involved inserting a blunt spatula through holes in both sides of the skull; the instrument was moved up and down to sever the thalamo-cortical fibers (above). However, Freeman was unhappy with the new procedure. He considered it to be both time-consuming and messy, and so developed a quicker method, the so-called "ice-pick"lobotomy, which he performed for the first time on January 17th, 1945.

With the patient rendered unconscious by electroshock, an instrument was inserted above the eyeball through the orbit using a hammer. Once inside the brain, the instrument was moved back and forth; this was then repeated on the other side. (The ice-pick lobotomy, named as such because the instrument used resembled the tool with which ice is broken, is therefore also known as the transorbital lobotomy. The photograph at the top shows Freeman performing the procedure on an unidentified patient.)

Freeman's new technique could be performed in about 10 minutes. Because it did not require anaesthesia, it could be performed outside of the clinical setting, and lobotomized patients did not need hospital internment afterwards. Thus, Freeman often performed lobotomies in his Washington D.C. office, much to the horror of Watts, who would later dissociate himself from his former colleague and the procedure.

Freeman happily performed ice-pick lobotomies on anyone who was referred to him. During his career, he would perform almost 3,500 operations. Like the leucotomies performed by Moniz and Lima, those performed by Freeman were blind, and also gave mixed results. Some of his patients could return to work, while others were left in something like a vegetative state.

Thankfully it is a thing of the past.

The use of lobotomies began to decline in the mid- to late-1950s, for several reasons. Firstly, although there had always been critics of the technique, opposition to its use became very fierce. Secondly, and most importantly, phenothiazine-based neuroleptic (anti-psychotic) drugs, such as chlorpromazine, became widely available. These had much the same effect as psychosurgery gone wrong; thus, the surgical method was quickly superseded by the chemical lobotomy.

Discworld miniseries

For Spouse who is great.

The Colour of Magic is being made into a miniseries in Britain on Sky One.

RHI Entertainment, the Mob Film Co. and Sky One have teamed for The Colour of Magic, a miniseries based on Terry Pratchett's fantasy novel to star Sean Astin, Tim Curry, Christopher Lee and David Jason, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The live-action/computer-animated project, a follow-up to the trio's successful adaptation of Pratchett's Hogfather as a miniseries last year, was written by Vadim Jean (Hogfather), who also is directing.

Beyond its 2008 premiere on Sky One, RHI is looking to distribute Magic as a theatrical movie in some territories.

Deadshot

Deadshot. Crazy, badass character. He was great in Secret Six. But that's not the reason for this post. This picture is:



I've been in a lot of games that were like that. "Delivery for Manx", anyone?

Proposed flight to Near Earth Asteroid

This would be cool, paving the way for a Mars mission or to prevent a Deep Impact scenario.

Here's a video of a simulated mission

The best movie never made

The best movie never made was Zeppelin v Pterodactyls. It could only have been topped with the inclusion of gorillas in jetpacks fighting undead ninjas.

Things not to travel with

Since my spouse is traveling tomorrow, here are some things not to travel with. You too, Corsair; not so much with the purses, though.

A purse that contains a pair of brass knuckles as the handle. [Link]


A purse shaped like a sub machine gun. [Link]


A self destruct button. [Link]


A suicide bomb box. [Link]

Junkmen Needed

Junk is piling up in space and becoming a hazard.

The Chinese weapon test, on Jan. 11, shattered an aging weather satellite into hundreds of bits, in what space experts describe as the worst satellite fracture of the space age.

Soon after that, four more breakups added to the debris problem: On Feb. 2, a new Chinese navigation satellite suffered an apparent engine failure that left it in dozens and perhaps hundreds of pieces. On Feb. 14, an abandoned Russian engine broke into roughly 60 detectable pieces, apparently because residual fuel had exploded.

On Feb. 18, a retired spacecraft jointly developed by China and Brazil suddenly and mysteriously broke into dozens of pieces. American experts suspect it was the victim of a collision with other space debris.

Then on Feb. 19, a large Russian space tug exploded, apparently from residual fuel, creating a cloud of about 1,000 pieces of detectable debris.

We're going to need junkmen to clean it up.



Or more likely, the crew from Planetes

Hey Kids! Rootkits!

Here's a company selling an ActiveX control that hides folders and files from the whole system. This is exactly what got Sony in trouble with their DRMed CDs. This will be used by rootkit makers to piggyback on existing application's hidden folders. There is no way this is a good thing.

• Hide critical folders and files in your application

Ensure the failure free work of your application by hiding its critical files and folders, thus making them inaccessible. Just implement this ActiveX control in the application you are developing, choose any files or folders you want to be hidden and press Enable Hiding button. This will turn on the hiding engine and it will conceal the files and folders from viewing, accessing, searching and deleting completely.

• Hide the folder, leaving its contents visible

Hide My Folders ActiveX provides the possibility to hide any folder, leaving all of its contents accessible. This is very important when you need your information to be invisible, though accessible, having the opportunity to add, delete and do other work with files, that are located in this particular folder.

• Hide folders with all of its contents

Using profound methods of Hide My Folders ActiveX it's easy to hide any folder together with its contents just by defining full path to it. The specified folder becomes invisible, impossible to view, access, search and delete. Even when trying to access it using command line, you will get a system message saying this folder does not exist. To add some new files to this folder, or edit the existing ones, just unhide it for a short period of work, and then hide it again.

Plus, just on a philosophic level, if something is on my machine, I want to see it.

Software Imprinting

I've suffered from this. I use Windows, so Macs and Linux are strange to me. I use Delphi and have started using Visual Studio. The key combos for Visual Studio are just ... wrong. F5 is for breakpoints, not build and run. So far, it's not bad, I'm getting work done, but it's still, off a little.

It's impossible to understand the alternatives when you can't muster the energy to get past your own software imprinting. You can't rationally compare alternatives with no experience in the alternatives, and software imprinting robs you of that vital experience.

There are periodic Usenet group debates about programming editors where various people will proclaim with conviction that their preferred editor is the best. In some of these debates I've asked some of the believers of various editor faiths if they'd ever tried various other alternatives. Well, no. They had never used CodeWright or Visual Slick Edit or Multi-Edit or assorted other editors. Some claimed to have used another editor about 5 or 10 years ago, but not the latest version.

Cardreader woes

The previous post with pictures was a pain to make. My computer has a card reader. I've used it before, so I know it works. I put the card from the camera in and ... nothing. Darn. I remember having problems before, but I don't remember what I did to fix it. I shut down and opened the case, disconnected it and rebooted. The shut down, reconnected and rebooted. Drives appear. Aha! Put the card in. Nothing. Double click the drive icon. Error message and the drives disappear. Darn. Open the case again. Repeat disconnect/reconnect to get them back. Start checking properties, the event log, nothing. Then I remember to check the services. Hmm, Removable Storage. Set to manual. I must have turned it off for some reason. Turn it to Automatic and put the card in. Aha! It works.

It's always a great feeling to solve a problem, but there is still the slightly bitter taste that I caused it in the first place.

Day at Morikami

This past Sunday, my spouse, her mother and I went to Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. It is a very nice place to walk around. Very peaceful. I first remember going there with my father when I was a kid for kite making. I was interviewed by a reporter for the newspaper. He got the last name wrong, but they always do. This time, we walked around for 3 hours before the rain stopped us. We had lunch in the museum cafe, which was very good. I had a bento box which was huge.

Iron Man ComicCon footage

Iron Man exclusive Comic con Clip
Uploaded by ingy489

Heroes ComicCon panel

Interesting news.

Kevin Smith will write and direct an episode of Heroes: Origins, the six-episode anthology spinning off from the hit NBC series.

That was the biggest announcement at the San Diego Comic-Con International’s massive panel promoting the second season or “Volume 2” on Saturday, where the entire cast showing up to pay tribute to the fans.

The session, which was moderated by writer and co-executive producer Jeph Loeb, featured clips from the upcoming season, cast members bravely struggling against a malfunctioning sound system, and even a cameo by Danny Bonaduce.

Iron Man arom unveiled at ComicCon

The first armor worn by Tony Stark was unveiled. Very cool looking and true to the comic.

Joss Whedon ComicCon News!

Great news for Buffy fans. Joss is plotting out season 9 of the comic, with the return of a former scooby. And the big news:

- The most exciting news of all: Ripper is in effect! Ripper is the long-discussed story of Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) pre-Buffy. Who knows whether or not this plot will stay the same, but Head is on board as is the BBC, which is planning to film the story as one 90 minute TV movie,

I can't wait for that.

Socialized medicine losing it's appeal

It's not perfect, but it does work, most of the time.

Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall or a car accident. Such factors aren't academic — homicide rates in the U.S. are much higher than in other countries.

In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don't die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country.

And if we measure a health care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50%; the European rate is just 35%. Esophageal carcinoma: 12% in the U.S., 6% in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2% here, yet 61.7% in France and down to 44.3% in England — a striking variation.

Canada is having a budding underground of medical facilitators, to get treatment in a reasonable time frame.

Consider, too, Rick Baker. He isn't a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He's a medical broker — one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada's government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests and specialist consultations, privately and quickly.

Baker describes a man who had a seizure and received a diagnosis of epilepsy. Dissatisfied with the opinion — he had no family history of epilepsy, but he did have constant headaches and nausea, which aren't usually seen in the disorder — he requested an MRI.

The government told him that the wait would be 4 1/2 months. So he went to Baker, who arranged to have the MRI done within 24 hours — and who, after the test revealed a brain tumor, arranged surgery within a few weeks. Some services that Baker brokers almost certainly contravene Canadian law, but governments are loath to stop him.

Other private-sector health options are blossoming across Canada, and the government is increasingly turning a blind eye to them, too, despite their often uncertain legal status. Private clinics are opening at a rate of about one a week.

Canadian doctors, long silent on the health care system's problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. Day has become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center and challenging the government to shut him down.

And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80% of government-funded diagnostic testing.

Where the fight will be won or lost

In the minds of people. And back at the birthplace of modern Islamic Jihadism; an Egyptian jail cell. Most of the ideology the Al Qaeda and others follow started there in a book written in the 50's. Now it has come full circle, a jailed terrorist has repented and is writing a rebuttal to violence.

In a prison cell south of Cairo a repentant Egyptian terrorist leader is putting the finishing touches to a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with al-Qaida.

Sayid Imam al-Sharif, 57, was the founder and first emir (commander) of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, whose supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later teamed up with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet occupation.

Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of "Dr Fadl", is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists' "bible" - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden's deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.

Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Qur'anic injunction: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors." Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.

Unintended Consequences

Was this intentional or just unforeseen?

The NSA program was set up shortly after September 11, 2001. The Justice Department issued an opinion that the program was legal, and authorized it to begin. Those authorizations continued for a period of years. The Republican and Democratic leaders of both the House and the Senate, and the senior members of the intelligence committees of both chambers, were aware of the program and approved of it.

Then, in late 2005, the New York Times, acting on information leaked from intelligence sources, exposed the program to al Qaeda and our other terrorist enemies. This changed the political calculus for the Democrats. They now saw an opportunity to use the program to attack the Bush administration, and did so. They took no responsibility for their former approval of the program, nor did they acknowledge that the program was consistent with multiple Federal Court decisions and had been certified as legal by the Department of Justice.

As a concession to the Democrats, the administration agreed, at the beginning of this year, to put the program under the jurisdiction of the FISA court. (Previously, the policy had been to obtain FISA orders when possible, but to rely on the President's constitutional authority to carry out warrantless surveillance for national security purposes where time constraints or other factors made it impractical to obtain such an order.) Today, the Wall Street Journal brings us up to date on what has been happening as a result:

This has turned out to be an enormous mistake that has unilaterally disarmed one of our best intelligence weapons in the war on terror. To understand why, keep in mind that we live in a world of fiber optics and packet-switching. A wiretap today doesn't mean the FBI must install a bug on Abdul Terrorist's phone in Peshawar. Information now follows the path of least resistance, wherever that may lead. And because the U.S. has among the world's most efficient networks, hundreds of millions of foreign calls are routed through the U.S.

That's right: If an al Qaeda operative in Quetta calls a fellow jihadi in Peshawar, that call may well travel through a U.S. network. This ought to be a big U.S. advantage in our "asymmetrical" conflict with terrorists. But it also means that, for the purposes of FISA, a foreign call that is routed through U.S. networks becomes a domestic call. So thanks to the obligation to abide by an outdated FISA statute, U.S. intelligence is now struggling even to tap the communications of foreign-based terrorists. If this makes you furious, it gets worse.

The Dark Knight official teaser trailer

Not a whole lot visually, but some dialog and a laugh.

Cat reaper

Cat who lives in hospice facility predicts death more reliably than staff.

In the dementia wing at Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, the cat has foretold the deaths of over 25 patients by curling up beside them in bed within four hours of their expiring. It's gotten so that if Oscar lies down with someone, the nurses hurry to call the person's family, he's that unerring

After about six months, the staff noticed Oscar would make his own rounds, just like the doctors and nurses. He’d sniff and observe patients, then sit beside people who would wind up dying in a few hours. [...]

[Dr. David] Dosa[, a geriatrician at Rhode Island Hospital], said Oscar seems to take his work seriously and is generally aloof. “This is not a cat that’s friendly to people,” he said.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill.

And this really gets me.

Within a half hour the family starts to arrive. Chairs are brought into the room, where the relatives begin their vigil. The priest is called to deliver last rites. And still, Oscar has not budged, instead purring and gently nuzzling Mrs. K. A young grandson asks his mother, "What is the cat doing here?" The mother, fighting back tears, tells him, "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven." Thirty minutes later, Mrs. K. takes her last earthly breath. With this, Oscar sits up, looks around, then departs the room so quietly that the grieving family barely notices. [...]

Oscar has also provided companionship to those who would otherwise have died alone.

The detail I highlighted was omitted from the MSNBC story, but it seems key. It is hard to avoid the impression that Oscar feels compelled at least to try to warm, and even more so to comfort, a dying person.

This might seem more bizarre to me if I had not witnessed a cat doing it for another cat. Max and Lucky were rivals in our household, usually irritated with each other. They'd "box" often and occasionally get into a real brawl Yet when Lucky was 16, blind, deaf, emaciated and dying of kidney failure, I was amazed and touched to see Max casually but deliberately lying down in contact with him, hindquarters touching. A cat does not do that by accident, least of all with a cat he is not friendly with. It looked as if he was trying to comfort and orient Lucky, to not let him feel alone. I've actually called him Dr. Max since then.

My, what big eyes you have!

This is creepy. A model will wear an anime character facemask and pose for you, for about a hundred dollars an hour in Japan. The photos don't do it justice, the videos are required to see just how weird this is. A return to the uncanny valley.

Sabotage

Sabotage at NASA.

According to breaking news from NASA, a space program worker is alleged to have deliberately damaged a computer that was meant to fly aboard the Endeavor in less than two weeks, in an apparent act of sabotage. NASA says the unnamed individual, who works for one of the space agency's subcontractors, cut wires inside a computer that was headed to the International Space Station (ISS) on the shuttle. The alleged tampering occurred outside of NASA operations in Florida, but the agency isn't naming the subcontractor or where exactly the incident took place.

I prefer this Sabotage, myself.

Friends don't let friends rocket drunk

Amazing. Not once, but twice, astronauts with high blood alcohol levels were allowed to fly.

Apparently twice in the past, shuttle astronauts were permitted to fly, even though they had levels of alcohol in their system so high they posed a risk to the shuttle mission. What?!

Aviation Week is reporting that an independent 8-person panel was convened to study astronaut health after the arrest of former astronaut Lisa Nowak (I'm sure you remember this little incident). As part of their research, the panelists interviewed shuttle flight surgeons, and these details came to light. NASA is keeping the revelations, tight-lipped, but they have a press conference on Friday to discuss it further.

The Price of Fame

	Rehab	Arrests	Death
Lindsay Lohan	Twice	Twice
Dana Plato	Once	Twice	Suicide
Todd Bridges	Once	Once
Britney Spears	Once
Drew Barrymore	Twice
River Phoenix			Overdose
Macaulay Culkin		Once
Corey Feldman	Once	Once
Danny Bonaduce	Twice	Twice
Mary-Kate Olsen	Once
Kelly Osbourne	Twice
Jack Osbourne	Once

They did not end up like this by accident. They were all child stars. They got screwed up; where were their parents? Where were their parents when they'd come home drunk, stoned or both at 2am from clubbing with their "friends"? Where were they when the fame was gone and the calls stopped coming? Why weren't they being parents, saying no when needed? Were they too blinded by fame or money? Living vicariously through their children?

Lindsay Lohan's mother Dina has said that she is Lindsay's friend. She shouldn't be. She should be her mother and tell her no. Instead, she is riding on her daughter's coattails searching for fame. She went to visit Lindsay in rehab, along with a camera crew. What the hell? Times like these, a license for parenthood makes sense.

Does the player exist
In any human endeavour
Who's been known to resist
Sirens of fame and possessions ?
They will destroy you, not rivals, not age, not success

--Endgame from Chess

Only in Florida

Prisoner gets additional jail time for masturbation.

Terry Lee Alexander ... was sitting on his bunk alone in his cell masturbating when a female deputy, monitoring his cell from a nearby control room, took offense.

Today he's scheduled to go to trial to fight a misdemeanor indecent exposure charge and the maximum one-year jail sentence that would go with a conviction. The incident occurred in November.

Although masturbation, a common jailhouse occurrence, violates most jail and prison rules, it doesn't often result in criminal charges. It is generally dealt with internally with a disciplinary write-up and temporary loss of phone or recreation privileges, Florida jail and prison officials said....

Deputy Coryus Veal ... has brought similar charges against seven other inmates in six months.

Seems to me that this sort of restriction is guaranteed to be flouted, and is needlessly cruel. If a prison wants to limit the more visible forms of masturbation, that's fine, so long as it informs inmates what they may and may not do. But a total ban on masturbation strikes me as a very bad idea.

The story suggests that the policy in practice turns on the visibility of the masturbation — "Generally, we prosecute such cases in which the inmate exposes himself in such plain view of the detention staff or other persons," said a prosecutor's office spokesman. But there's no evidence that inmates know what is and is not allowed. And while most of us would know enough, even without being told, not to visibly masturbate in front of strangers, I take it that many inmates aren't constantly conscious of being observed by video, or aware that it's OK to masturbate if they do so under a blanket but not otherwise.

The eye watches you

The Helix Nebula - or the Eye of Sauron? You decide.

Pirates not really so romantic

It's not all Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightly.

Now the seedy romance of the golden-age legends may be supplanted by a new reality: as governments cut their navies after the cold war, as thieves have gotten hold of more powerful weapons and as more and more cargo has moved by sea, piracy has once again become a lucrative form of waterborne mugging. Attacks at sea had become rare enough to be a curiosity in the mid-20th century, but began to reappear in the 1970s. By the 1990s, maritime experts noted a sharp increase in attacks, which led the IMB to establish the Piracy Reporting Centre in 1992—and still the buccaneering continued, with a high of 469 attacks registered in 2000. Since then, improvements in reporting, ship-tracking technology and government reaction have calmed the seas somewhat—the center counted 329 attacks in 2004, down to 276 in 2005 and 239 last year—but pirates remain very much in business, making the waters off Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Somalia especially perilous. "We report hundreds of acts of piracy each year, many hundreds more go undetected," says Capt. Noel Choong, head of the Piracy Reporting Centre, in Kuala Lumpur. "Ships and their crews disappear on the high seas and coastal waters every year, never to be seen again." Even stationary targets, such as oil platforms, are at risk.

Sylar IS Spock

He really looks the part.

Trek Movie Report and E! have reported, and TV Guide has since confirmed, that Zachary Quinto of “Heroes,” fresh from his role as the supervillain Sylar, will play Spock in next year’s big-screen Star Trek. With producer/director JJ Abrams slated to appear on the Paramount panel at Comic-Con, fans expected big casting news this week, and one would have to think that Abrams would make any official announcement then. StarTrek.com reports that executive producers/writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and producers Bryan Burke and Damon Lindelof will also attend the panel, and theorizes (as much as an official site can theorize) that their announcements should be “substantial.”

Slow Hurrican Season

This is good news:

The 2007 hurricane season may be less severe than forecast due to cooler-than-expected water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, private forecaster WSI Corp said on Tuesday.

The season will bring 14 named storms, of which six will become hurricanes and three will become major hurricanes, WSI said in its revised outlook. WSI had previously expected 15 named storms of which eight would become hurricanes and four would become major hurricanes.

"Because the ocean temperatures have not yet rebounded from the significant drop in late spring, we have decided to reduce our forecast numbers slightly," said Todd Crawford, a WSI seasonal forecaster.

Union outsources picket line

This is funny, in a sad sort of way.

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

"It's about the cash," said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women's shelter and has walked the line at various sites. "We're against low wages, but I'm here for the cash."

Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across. Larry Hujo, a spokesman for the Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters, calls it a "shift in the paradigm" of picketing.

They're not getting paid union wages. I think this ends up being self defeating in the end though. If they don't care enough to actually be there, why should I care?

The Ultimates 3 #1 Cover

Pretty cool. Interesting lineup for the Ultimates Universe.

Michael returns to Lost

I wonder if we'll see him on the island or in flashback / flashforwards?

Harold Perrineau, who played Michael on ABC's Lost, will be returning to the series next season, network president Stephen McPherson reluctantly admitted on July 25 to reporters.

Pressed in a news conference at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., McPherson admitted the casting after an emergency phone call to the show's executive producer and co-creator, Damon Lindelof. The announcement will also be made July 26 at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

"We just spoke to Damon because of the fury that is going on here, and he told us we could tell you that Harold Perrineau is returning to the show," McPherson said.

Trying to snatch defeat from victory?

I would think the Democrats would be able to nominate almost any competent nominee and win the 2008 election, but if they only pander to their far left, they can't win the election. They need to appeal more to me, an Independent. The middle is where the election is won, the base comes along for the ride.

Bill Clinton will be there. So will 300 officeholders from more than 45 states. But one thing will be missing when Democrats gather in Tennessee this weekend to discuss how to appeal to moderate, independent-minded voters in 2008: the Democratic presidential field.

Not a single one of the eight presidential candidates plans to attend the Democratic Leadership Council's summer meeting, a snub that says less about the centrist DLC than it does about a nomination process that rewards candidates who pander to their parties' hardened cores while ignoring everybody else.

Democrats aren't the only ones with problems:

Democratic candidates are moving to the left, Republicans to the right, as they target partisan voters.

The Absorbascon Rocks!

Two very cool items:

1. The National Periodicals Table of Story Elements
Awesome. Just awesome.

2. The Shape of Things To Come
What is the layout of the 52 universes and why is New Earth the linchpin?

According to, well, me, the "initial point" at the rightmost part of Figure 1 represents "New Earth". On the one hand, it's a dot just like all the rest; on the other hand, it's the one dot that is found on each of the successive decagons. It represents the first degree of the decagonal figurate series; it is the first among equals. Q. E. D.!

The two dots adjacent to "New Earth" are, of course, "Earth 1" and "Earth 2". They are conceptually closest to New Earth. Together, those three earths are the basis for the "inner circle" of earths, which includes the most familiar ones.

Maybe it'll be easier if I just show it to you...

Watchmen Cast

Coming soon. Hurm.

Variety reports that Billy Crudup has been cast as Dr. Manhattan, Patrick Wilson as Night Owl, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre.

I hope they get it right. It would be so easy for them to screw it up. Alan Moore's stuff is very layered and nuanced, very difficult to distill down to 120 minutes.

Good Faith

Good points on debating in good faith.

Whenever I get into a discussion of politics, an underlying presumption lies under my thoughts and arguments -- that the other party is just as interested as I am in a serious conversation, that they are serious about the matter at hand and will engage in principled arguments and honest debate.

And I am often proven wrong in that presumption, as the discussion will often degenerate into personal attacks, diversions, and other underhanded moves.

I haven't surrendered those beliefs of mine, as I find more often than not that there are more people who can disagree without being disagreeable, who aren't so much interested in victory at any cost as finding truth, who can admit error -- and graciously accept when others make that admission.

The core of that principle was crystallized in me in that debate about the John Doe thing, when Robin Roberts actually quoted the amendment. The relevant portion:

1) IN GENERAL.-Any person who, in good faith and based on objectively reasonable suspicion, makes, or causes to be made, a voluntary report of covered activity to an authorized official shall be immune from civil liability under Federal, State, and local law for such report.

This part is the part that is so often overlooked not only in the argument about the John Doe Amendment, but in so many other things.

No Damon as Kirk

He would make a good Kirk, though.

he was asked about the rumors that he's up for the role of Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' forthcoming Star Trek reboot.

Damon's reaction was a pleasantly succinct 'no' but wasn't averse to the idea. Damon says has heard the internet rumor and Shatner's welcome response to the idea, he even asked J.J. Abrams about the talk.

Abrams responded that they're looking for someone young to play the younger Kirk, an actor in his twenties. It's expected that the official Trek announcements are to be made at Comic-Con and Zachary Quinto (Sylar on "Heroes") is still the favirite to play the young Spock.

Wasn't one 9/11 enough for them?

People who report suspicious activities should not be penalized.

Despite overwhelming support in and out of Congress, legal protection for airline passengers who report suspicious behavior is being blocked by Democratic leaders. Wasn't one 9/11 enough for them?

and

"Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity."

and

Last time we checked, there was no tenet of Islam that required them to leave their assigned seats shortly before takeoff, a violation of federal rules, and occupy the exit and entry rows of a jet aircraft, a pattern associated with the 9/11 attacks. All six moved — two to front-row first class, two in the middle on an exit row and two in the rear of the cabin.

Voldemort's Ideology

Interesting discussion of Ideology with regards to Voldemort.

I want to make three distinct arguments:

1. Voldemort does not need an ideology to succeed in the context of the wizarding world of Harry Potter.
2. Voldemort has an ideology.
3. In most cases, ideology is part of the backstory and rarely will be developed as explicitly as Somin apparently desires.

Some of these arguments may seem inconsistent, but one of the first things I learned in law school is that lawyers need to be able to make the famous kettle argument with a straight face. (In the “Case of the Kettle,” the plaintiff sought damages for a kettle that he claimed the defendant had borrowed and returned cracked. The defendant's counsel responded with three distinct defenses: (1) Defendant did not borrow the kettle. (2) The kettle is not now and never was cracked. (3) The kettle was cracked when the defendant borrowed it.)

Acer: PC Industry 'Disappointed' with Vista

This isn't good:

"The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Lanci said.

Despite the long wait between Windows XP and Vista, the latest operating system still lacks maturity, he said. "Stability is certainly a problem," he said.

Users are voting with their feet, Lanci said, so that the Vista launch has had the smallest impact on PC sales of any version of Windows in the history of PC manufacturing. He added the situation didn't look likely to change in the next six months.

Many business customers have specifically asked for Windows XP to be installed on their new machines, Lanci noted.

Flip Flops Dangerous?

They might be, if you got them from Wal*Mart.

Well, after wearing them my feet would be red and sort of tingly, but I figured that it was just because it was first flip flops of the year so my feet need to get used to them. Blabity blabity... Well I have now had what appears to be a chemical burn for 11 days, (As of July 3rd) I really thought it would just go away on it's own. It is absolutely not going away very well at all...this started on

June 22nd 2007 and has just gotten worse basically. I have only worn those shoes 15 minutes here, half an hour there, hour there...and so on, NOT enough time to burn my feet like this!

The burns look really nasty. You have been warned.

This may be another case of adulterated products from China.

Pillars of Software Development

I rarely talk about work here, but this is something that is very true. There are three essential parts that need to be there or the project is doomed to failure and working on Saturdays.

The conclusion I draw from this and my own experience having migrating my fair share of source trees is that the version control system is a first order effect on software, along with two others - the build system and the bugtracker.
Those choices impact absolutely everything else. Things like IDEs, by comparison, don't matter at all. Even choice of methodology might matter less. Although I'm betting there are plenty of software and management teams out there that see version control, build systems and bugtrackers as being incidental to the work, not mission critical tools.

Without those, you are forced to rely entirely on your brain to keep track of everything. My brain is already full of useful facts about sci-fi, comics and role playing games.
The only successful software projects that can work without those three are one off, one programmer projects made to be thrown away. As soon as you start changing existing code, it's madness not to keep track of changes on the very likely chance you may want to go back to a working version.

I find it a very sobering thought that of my last four jobs, at least two of the three items were missing and I had to implement the missing ones.

During one job interview I was horrified to discover that they had no build process. Each developer just built their program, refreshing their code from the source tree when they felt like it and then uploading it for testing.
If there is no build machine getting the latest code and building the software in a pristine environment, how...

• How do you know what you are building?
• How do you catch code that hasn't been checked in?
• How do you combat the "It works at my desk" syndrome?
• How do you make sure every developer has an identical code base?

Of course, just having these pillars does no good if they are not used correctly. If every bug is listed as "Priority One", none of them are. Build processes do no good if they aren't followed. If you just mark all your code writable, trusting to your memory to know what you've made changes to, you will miss things.

Creepy

I have always found ventriloquist dummies creepy when there is no one animating it. I think it may be a manifestation of the Uncanny Valley or the movies Magic and Poltergeist.

Again, creepy.

It all depends on the meaning of "serving size"

This is scummy. Some food companies have agreed to stop advertising junk food to children under 12. This is good. Of course, it's not out of the goodeness of their hearts, it's to show they don't need to be regulated.

Trying to persuade critics the industry does not need government regulation, 11 big food companies, including McDonald’s, Campbell Soup and PepsiCo, have agreed to stop advertising to children under 12 products that do not meet certain nutritional standards. Some of the companies, like Coca-Cola, have already withdrawn all such commercials or are in the process of doing so. Others, like General Mills, said they would withdraw them over the next year or so, while a handful agreed to expand their self-imposed bans to radio, print and Internet advertising.

Greeat! However...

According to the New York Times' original coverage, many cereal makers are already "trying to reformulate the foods to meet nutritional guidelines." Why reformulate when you can change the labels?

Much of General Mills' serving size information is arbitrary. Take their line of Total: The serving size for Total and Total Honey Nut Clusters is 3/4 cup, which fluctuates between 30 grams for the former, and 48 grams for the latter. Compare that to Total Cranberry Crunch and Total Raisin Bran, which have larger serving sizes of 1 cup, or 53 grams. Total's mass remains roughly the same mass regardless of whether it has raisins, cranberries, or honey nut clusters.

The standard USDA serving size is 30 grams. For Cocoa Puffs, General Mills uses a serving size of 27 grams. Under the USDA's serving size, Cocoa Puffs have 14 grams of sugar, which would make them subject to the advertising ban; but by using a serving size of 27 grams, the sugar content drops to 12 grams per serving, meaning that General Mills can peddle their sugar puffs to kids without restriction.

Now compare that to General Mills' treatment of Trix, which has a serving size of 32 grams. According to the both the USDA and General Mills, Trix have 13 grams of sugar, making them subject to the advertising ban. When the serving sizes are equal, Cocoa Puffs have more sugar than Trix; yet Cocoa Puffs will be advertised to children, while Trix, the cereal with less sugar, will be kept from audiences under 12.

Truth in advertising is no longer enough, now we need consistency between items. I am surprised that the serving sizes are not standardized, at least for products that have multiple servings.

Al-Qaeda Management Style

This is good news.

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

We can only hope it continues.

Farm Subsidies

Farming is a romantic career. The rugged individual making something from the earth and his sweat. The problem is that it no longer makes a lot of sense to have as many farmers as we do. Corporate farming may not be romantic, but it is efficient.

The Washington Post’s Sarah Cohen reported that federal taxpayers shelled out $1.1 billion to dead farmers between 1999 and 2005.

And unlike Pentagon purchases, a substantial number of these payments are made without review. Reported Cohen:

In a selection of 181 cases from 1999 to 2005, the Government Accountability Office found that officials approved payments without any review 40 percent of the time.

The report cited a 1,900-acre soybean and corn farm in Illinois that collected $400,000 on behalf of an owner who lived in Florida before his death in 1995. The company did not notify the government of the death but certified each year that the dead shareholder, who owned 40 percent of the company, was “actively engaged” in managing the farm.

Farm subsidies are a disaster. They artificially keep in farming people who do not need to be farming, which increases supply, which drives prices down, which increases the demand for subsidies.

Farm subsidies endanger the environment by keeping land as farms that could revert to forests and the like. The subsidies increase the use of pesticides.

Farm subsidies also hurt foreign policy, by blocking out Third World countries. Sugar and ethanol imports are damaged by subsidies and in the case of foreign ethanol a 50-cent-a-gallon tax. (Duty.)

Turn left and drive off cliff

GPS is a wonderful tool, but it does have it's limits.

In another example of the evils of computer navigation, a 37-year-old trucker followed his GPS directions to their totally illogical conclusion when he drove his truck down a pedestrian walkway and wedged the delivery vehicle into a cherry tree. The driver, who was looking for a factory to drop off his cargo, blindly followed the female voice of his navigation system, apparently ignoring several no-entry signs and turning onto the walkway in broad daylight. The motorist then attempted to reverse out, damaging two lamp posts, a hedge, and of course the cherry tree, which Swiss workers later had to take a chainsaw to. The tucker was fined 650 Swiss francs (about $540), and his GPS was given a firmware update and a copy of Google Maps.

Secret Squirrel

Where's Morocco Mole?

Iranian news agencies this week reported 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems were captured along their border. The squirrels were reportedly embedded with GPS, cameras and listening devices.

National Public Radio (listen), talked to Robert Baer, who worked for the CIA in Iran, intelligence expert James Bamford and wildlife professor John Koprowski, who co-authored the book North American Tree Squirrels, to discuss historical attempts to use animals in intelligence gathering and the likelihood that the U.S. or any other country could count on squirrels to retrieve any useful information.

Harry Potter and Bad Economics

This is a common argument in role playing games, fantasy and sci-fi. How does the economy work? If magic can do anything, why don't people use it to do everything? Star Trek and the Federation have the same problem.

But this actually presents a problem for authors. If magic is too powerful then the characters will be omnipotent gods, and there won't be a plot. Magic must have rules and limits in order to leave the author enough room to tell a story. In economic terms, there must be scarcity: magical power must be a finite resource.

JK Rowling is not, to put it mildly, known for her seamless plotting or the gripping realism of her characters, most of whom spend the latter books pointlessly withholding information from each other that, if shared, would end the installment somewhere around page ten. But for me, there is another problem with the books, one that has kept me from looking forward to the seventh volume as keenly as I might. I am an economics reporter, and the books are chock full of terrible economics.

Map of Internet Trends as a subway map

I love maps like this.

Intangible and invisible, but omnipresent: that combination of qualities used to describe only God (or the sense of dread left by His absence). Now it also applies to cyberspace. Any attempt to map the internet is bound to fall frustratingly short of its true complexity, or to be so complex as to be illegible.

This map, suggested to me by Jezza Robinson, strikes a good balance between the web’s tentacularity and its interconnectedness, by cleverly using the conceit of a subway map. The map is a modification of this Tokyo subway map.

This is actually the second such map produced by Information Architects (here; their Web Trend Map 1.0 is here). As they themselves define it, this map shows “the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective.”

The map shows 15 distinct lines, organising the top websites into categories sucs as News, Sharing, Main Sites, Music, Political Blogs, Chinese Line, etc. Obviously, there is overlap. That’s where the Junctions come in: YouTube, for example, is on the Main Sites line, but also on the Movies and Knowhow lines. WordPress sits astride the Social News, Design and Technology lines.

Female Fans Rare?

One woman's experience encountering fans.

It occurred to me on the way to the post office that I was one of three women in three different states involved in the buying and selling of Transformer toys. (It was especially interesting that I was only involved because toy companies wrote the female Transformer out of the movie, and under produced her toy.)

Man finds larva growing in his scalp

This is nasty

One doctor thought the bleeding, strange bumps on Aaron Dallas' head might have been a gnat bite. A specialist thought it was shingles, though both doctors held out the possibility that it was something far more disturbing. Then the bumps started moving.

More information on Bot Flies here.

Robot Flying Insect

Very cool. Hopefully this will eventually give us this from an old Danny Dunn book from the 60's.

A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.

"Nature makes the world's best fliers," says Robert Wood, leader of Harvard's robotic-fly project and a professor at the university's school of engineering and applied sciences.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding Wood's research in the hope that it will lead to stealth surveillance robots for the battlefield and urban environments. The robot's small size and fly-like appearance are critical to such missions. "You probably wouldn't notice a fly in the room, but you certainly would notice a hawk," Wood says.

Watch the videos One Two

Karaoke iPod

Apple has applied for a patent to display lyrics as a song is playing on an iPod.

In what could be great news for a few people and terrible news for the rest of us, Apple has applied for a patent for a karaoke iPod. Yes, an iPod that tells you the lyrics of the song you're listening to in real-time, allowing for you to, god forbid, sing along.

What would be cool as well, would be closed captioning support. But you'd need a bigger screen, like say, an iPhone size to be able to read it and watch at the same time.

Megamorphs

This is why I love comics.

Yes, Tony Stark, in an effort to stay on the cutting edge of the super-heroes’ war on crime, has created The MegaMorphs, which are giant transforming robots powered by the super-powers of the user. Thus, the Spider-Man robot can shoot webs and climb on walls and the Wolverine robot can repair damage to itself, but only when Spider-Man and Wolverine are riding around in them.

One more time, that’s a giant robot that has a healing factor powered by its driver’s own mutant abilities.

This is unquestionably one of the absolute stupidest premises in the history of comics. And it is also genius.

McKeever and Kang take the basis for the story–provided, much like our beloved ROM: Spaceknight, by a toy line consistently rated at one whole star on Amazon–and just go freakin’ nuts with it. These are guys who don’t waste time asking why the Hulk needs a giant green robot that can turn into a tank, but instead focus on all the things the Hulk could smash with a giant green robot that can turn into a tank.

I haven't read this yet, but I will someday.

Technical Challenges of Mars Landing

I didn't realize how difficult this would be.

But mention sending a human mission to land on the Red Planet, with payloads several factors larger than an unmanned spacecraft and the trepidation among that same group grows even larger. Why?

Nobody knows how to do it.

Surprised? Most people are, says Rob Manning the Chief Engineer for the Mars Exploration Directorate and presently the only person who has led teams to land three robotic spacecraft successfully on the surface of Mars.

“It turns out that most people aren’t aware of this problem and very few have worried about the details of how you get something very heavy safely to the surface of Mars,” said Manning.

He believes many people immediately come to the conclusion that landing humans on Mars should be easy. After all, humans have landed successfully on the Moon and we can land our human-carrying vehicles from space to Earth. And since Mars falls between the Earth and the Moon in size, and also in the amount of atmosphere it has then the middle ground of Mars should be easy.

Airbags are out; too many Gs for astronauts. Powered rocket landings like the lunar lander are out because they are unstable in an atmosphere. Parachutes don't work because they won't have time to work. Heat shields are out because they don't have time as the atmosphere is too thin to have enough drag. It;s the worst of all worlds.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

This almost seems like an exaggeration. Almost.

T. C. is a contractor working for the government on a systems monitoring product. As part of a migration, he needed to move his system and get a new IP address for it. To get things going, he had to follow the standard procedure.

Day 1
First, T. C. had to download the change request template, assess, and write up the change so the board can approve the request to move the computer. Then he went through a pre-submission review with his boss, making revisions as they went.

After the pre-submission review came the actual submission. T. C. met with the board members to discuss the change, and to get it granted or denied.

Day 2-8
Success! Approval for the change was granted. Now T. C. was crusing on easy street! Except that now he had to assemble a group of stakeholders, then schedule a meeting that everyone could make it to. They'd discuss everything needed for the move.

Day 9-22
Several stakeholder meetings were held before a decision was reached. Finally, a task list was assembled. The server would be moved, it'd get a new IP address, and a handful of firewall ports would be opened. Getting everyone in the stakeholder group in one room at the same time was always a challenge, so it took two weeks.

Keep Reading...

Popular

Congress now less popular than Nixon on his last day on the job.

The Democratic Party gets 14% job approval. Bush 34%.

If this were a Little League game, the 10-run rule would apply.

Congressional Democrats are spinning their wheels trying to “get” George Bush. Democrats promised not to waste their time impeaching Bush. That is what they are doing. The public disdain for Democrats is overwhelming.

It took 12 years for Republicans to drop to 23%. Dems already are down to 14%. That means even Mom is starting to wonder about you.

14% job approval. Nixon did better. On the day he left office!

Green Vandals

Ah, Saving the environment by vandalizing a car.

So he parked the seven-foot-tall behemoth on the street in front of his house and smiled politely when his eco-friendly neighbors looked on in disapproval at his "dream car."
It lasted five days on the street before two masked men took a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratched into the body: "FOR THE ENVIRON."

And

"I'd say one in five people who come by have that 'you-got-what-you-deserve' look," said his friend Andy Sexton, 27, who is visiting from Arkansas and has been helping Groves deal with fallout from the crime.

Neighbor Lucille Liem, 37, who owns a Prius hybrid, said that a common sentiment in the neighborhood is that large vehicles are impractical and a strain on the Earth -- and Hummers in particular are a symbol of consumer excess.

"The neighborhood in general is very concerned with the environment," said Liem, whose Prius gets about 48 miles a gallon compared with the Hummer's 14 miles a gallon. "It's more liberal leaning. It's ridiculous to be driving a Hummer."

Liem added quickly that she does not condone violence.

Not Everything Apple Touches Turns To Gold

The Apple Phone.

Periodic Table of the Internet

Really well thought out.

Cyber-Dog

This is cool. We'll probably start seeing something like this people soon.

What makes the false limb special is that the dog's skin can grow into the metal.

Storm, who lives in Oxshott, Surrey, had a leg removed when it became infected with an aggressive tumour earlier this year.

The operation was carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Farnham, Surrey, who specialises in repairing the damaged limbs of pets.

"The technology is not just the first time that the implant type has been used outside the human finger," Mr Fitzpatrick said.

"Because it has been implanted into the radius of the forearm of the dog, it will act as a model for human amputees in the future and provides hope for people without feet or hands."

DCs Final Crisis Teaser

The "Final" Crisis from DC. At least until the next one. I think this will connect everything from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths through Infinite Crisis, 52 and Countdown. This is Act III.

Appearance more important than reality

iPod charger made from kit looks like an IED.

Now if I was stupid I would have shut down the airport when I saw such a device. It doesn't look like *anything* they sell at Walmart.

He asks what it is. I tell him it is a battery charger for my iPod. He asks if I made it myself, to which I reply that I purchased a kit over the internet. He says that he can't let me on the plane with it. I explain to him that I have flown with it 4-6 times a month for a year now and nobody has questioned it. He says, "Not on my watch and not with my people."

He swabs the device and runs it through the calorimeter. Again, no residue.

I ask why it can't be taken on the plane and he said, "Because it looks like an IED." Now, I agree it looks suspicious, but the machine found no traces of explosives, and the device wasn't big enough to do any damage.

Next he finds my green laser pointer, shines it at his hand, and tells me I can't take that on the plane either.

At this point they shut down one of the two screening lanes. There was a request to, "get Donna down here," which means that all heck is about to break loose. I pulled out my cell phone and start typing an email to my wife to inform her what was going on. I type:

Airport security just

and the African American Man walks over and says, "I can't let you make a phone call now sir." I tap the button to send the email and he asks me to hand over my cell phone. I gave him the cell phone. He asks for my boarding pass and I hand that over too.

Potter leaked as pictures

Download and view photos of each page. Very practical.

Four days before it hits bookstores, I've got a copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I downloaded it from a link posted at the Bittorrent file-sharing site the Pirate Bay. But hold on. It's not as sweet as it sounds. What I've got is not really the book but a series of photographs of the book -- someone has meticulously snapped shots of each page. Some who've discussed leaked copies say that they've seen only Pages 1 through 495. But the copy I have includes all the pages; I could, if I wanted to, tell you the very last line of the very last Harry Potter book right now.

Island fortress

A pittance for a mastermind's headquarters.

How'd you like to own your own island? It'd be pretty sweet, right? And sure, while owning a beautiful tropical island would be nice and all, think about the logistics. You'd be pretty far from civilization, and you'd need to build your own infrastructure. You should just get an island that's a little more practical.

That's just what No Man's Land Fort is. It's a man-made island off the coast of Portsmouth, England that was built between 1861 and 1880. Initially built to house soldiers, it currently holds a luxury hotel with a pool, a couple of helipads, generators, and a fresh water supply. Sure, it might not be as picturesque as a tropical island, but it's a lot more practical. So what are you waiting for? Get $8 million together and get to buying!

What Do Teachers Really Make?

This is really awesome. For all the teachers I know. Watch the whole thing.

For the Bond Villain in your life

Luxury submarines are annoying to the authorities.

One of the largest civilian submarine yards is in Dubai, where 18 have been built so far, and over two dozen are under construction or on order. Another large operation is U.S. Submarines, in Seattle, a company that has built most of the scientific communities subs over the last two decades. These submersible pleasure craft look like streamlined yachts while on the surface. The upper deck, including the bridge, is outside the pressure hull. When submerging, everyone goes below, and the upper deck get flooded. If you get close to one of these yachts, it becomes obvious that they are built to dive. Military subs are still not used to encountering this civilian traffic underwater. The military boats have the right of way, but military boats are now warned to exercise extra care when approaching coastal areas used by civilian subs.

Owners of these luxury subs tend to be secretive, and the builders have agreed to some government oversight, especially to make sure militarized subs, that can carry torpedoes or mines, are not built. But there is no law against anyone owning one of these submarines, and it's feared that it's only a matter of time before drug dealers, gun runners, or even terrorists, get their hands on some of them. Some police officials believe this has already happened, but no one is saying much,

The civilian subs don't dive as deep as military subs, and are not built for combat. They have staterooms and large windows. But they do have carrying capacity, and that could be put to criminal uses. Already, Colombian gangs have been caught trying to build subs, using Russian advisors. And at least one submersible (a sub that travels just below the surface) was caught carrying cocaine.

Straczynski talks Thor in Oklahoma

I like the juxtaposition of Norse gods with Middle America.

“I wanted to put this somewhere fresh, somewhere in the American heartland, and for a number of reasons, including the Heavener runestones, this seemed like the perfect place,” Straczynski said in an interview with The Oklahoman.

“In traditional mythology, you could be walking across an open field and run into Thor or Hercules or Diana, and I want to go back to that notion, putting the gods of Asgard in conversational range of average people, not just superheroes. I like the contrast of that, but at the same time there’s a complementary aspect as well.”

Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, will be rebuilt in Oklahoma as the series progresses.

“The area of the Heavener Runes will eventually come into play, but for the day-to-day stuff, I put the location in a big open area well west of Oklahoma City,” Straczynski said.

The Heavener Runestone is a 10-foot by 12-foot stone that some believe was marked by ancient Vikings. Other rune-stones have been found near Poteau and Shawnee.

Straczynski said he doesn’t think Thor’s status as the “god of thunder” will cause a stir in the Bible belt.

“My experience the few times I’ve been in Oklahoma has been that folks for the most part tend to be very accepting, and courteous and neighborly,” Straczynski said. “So I see the folks near Asgard being very welcoming to their new neighbors — inviting them to town meetings and dinners and the like. Sure, a few folks might slip in some church pamphlets to leave on chairs, but I really don’t see this being a big divisive point.”

And

“The supporting cast of Asgardians will be much the same as in the past — Heimdell and Sif and Balder and the rest — but there will also be a supporting cast drawn from the neighboring town: the woman who owns the small hotel where Donald Blake is staying, the cook at a local diner and his wife, just some average folks,” he said.

Thor has had a few “secret identities” in the past but returns to his original Marvel incarnation, that of Dr. Donald Blake, in the new series.

“I came up with kind of a cool way to bring back him and Thor so that their returns are both thematically similar and links them again at the hip,” Straczynski said.

Thor has been away from the Marvel Universe for a while, and Straczynski said he won’t react well to some of the actions in his absence, including Iron Man’s creation of a Thor clone.

Still, Thor will be mostly on his own for the first six months of the new run, at the writer’s request.

Rock Star pursues PhD in Astronomy

Brian May from Queen is writing an Astronomy book and picking up where he left off in the 70's on his thesis to get his PhD.

May was studying for his doctorate at Imperial College London when Queen, which he helped co-found with Freddie Mercury in the early 1970s, hit the charts with songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen.

He gave up writing his PhD thesis, instead penning rock classics such as We Will Rock You, Fat-Bottomed Girls and Tie Your Mother Down. It was his guitar playing along with Mercury’s vocals that gave Queen its distinctive sound.

Within a few years he and Mercury, along with Roger Taylor and John Deacon, the other band members, had achieved global fame. Mercury died in 1991 from Aids but May has kept the band’s name going, promoting We Will Rock You, the hit West End musical in 2002, and touring with Taylor.

May is now making it clear that behind the facade of a rock demi-god there always lay a keen astronomer awaiting the chance to return to his unfinished thesis on the way light reflects from interplanetary dust particles.

He appears to have that chance. While working on the book, May has told senior astrophysicists he wants to complete his thesis and has persuaded them to assess it.

A major factor in that success was a research paper he published in 1974, entitled An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles, which remains a widely cited work.

An investigation of the motion of zodiacal dust particles

B5: Lost Tales CGI saved by fans

Fans supplied some of the models and textures for effects since the originals were all lost by Warner Bros.

When Babylon 5 finished production in 1998, all of the show's assets—wardrobe, props, computer-generated models, texture mattes, etc.—were turned over to Warner Brothers, and the disks containing the computer-graphic information were lost. That forced the new F/X team to start from scratch. And they turned to fans for help.

"The guys in the effects department said, 'My God, how can we get this thing done in time when we have to build everything from the scratch?'" Straczynski said. "I pointed out that a lot of fans out there over the years built their own models of our ships and the station and everything else. So they went out to all these different sites to find high-resolution models and wireframes and texture mattes and so on that they could then take and start building from. So it kind of closed the loop in the sense that Babylon 5 created these images and gave them to the fans, and now the fans have given them back to us. It's a nice bit of symmetry."

Technologically, we're at a point where amateurs can produce quality CGI with off the shelf software. Go here and see: Scifi-Meshes.com Some of the stuff there is amazing.

The Original Marvel Civil War Proposal

Interesting look at what Civil War was originally proposed to be. World War Hulk and Thor's return were all part of this. I think it's better that they were separated.

THE PLOT:

The issue opens, as discussed, with a small-scale superhero involved into a big action set-piece where all the jokes and the acrobatics get punctured by a stray bullet going right through a little kid. At the moment I’d like the hero to be Speedball and the kid in question, if such a kid exists, should be the son of Tony’s buddy Happy Hogan. [JQ - You sly BASTARD, that’s brilliant. You just made Tony’s point justified. BRILLIANT. Mark, what you do need in the opening is something that recaps the world and tells us of the building tensions so that this can have impact. Perhaps a panel by panel recap of events as a news cast only to pull out to see happy Hogan and his son at some sort of theme café in Time’s Square, perhaps the ESPN Café since they would have a thousands screens and possibly the news. They go for a cheerful father and son outing all the while you’re intercutting between them and a simple bankrobbery about to be foiled by Speedball. Cripes this kid is your Sue Dibny except his insignificance in Marvel continuity and his connection to Tony is that tiny hole in the dike that starts the flood. Did Tom B give you this, because no way you’re that smart.] [TB - It’s a nice thought, but it’s been pretty clearly established that Happy and Pepper don’t have any kids. They do feel like the right characters, though, so maybe there’s some way to do this. Having them have adopted a kid that we’re only going to kill a minute later seems crass. Would it work if we killed Happy himself, or maybe Pepper?.] Cap’s argument for civil liberties is very compelling, but I wanted to beef up Tony’s involvement on the other side and a superhero’s carelessness causing the death of his Godson seems like the perfect emotional turning point for him. The reader can absolutely empathize with why he wants his friends registered and licensed after this.

Anti-Semitism up in Europe

This is depressing

• Overall, half of those surveyed in the six countries believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country, with a majority of respondents in Austria, Belgium, Hungary and the United Kingdom saying they believe that this statement is "probably true."

• High levels of those surveyed across Europe still believe in the traditional anti-Jewish canard that "Jews have too much power in the business world." Overall, nearly 35% of all respondents believe this stereotype to be true; in Hungary it is 60%.

• Similarly, European respondents still adhere to the notion that "Jews have too much power in international financial markets." Overall, 35% of those surveyed cling to the traditional stereotype, in Hungary it is 61%.

• Large portions of the European public continue to believe that Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust. Overall, 44% of those surveyed believe it is "probably true." A majority of respondents in Austria, and Hungary believe it to be true.

• Overall, 20% of those surveyed continue to blame Jews for the death of Jesus.

• Overall, 23% of respondents say that their opinion of Jews is influenced by the actions taken by the State of Israel. Of those whose opinions are so influenced, nearly two-thirds -- 64% -- say that their opinion of Jews is worse as a result of the actions taken by Israel.