Who Themes

All of the Doctor Who themes and openings mixed together.

Space Diving

Mentioned previously.

Sixty miles up, you sit in a chair on the open deck of a small rocket, admiring the stars above, the Earth far, far below. The vacuum beyond your visor is cold, but it would boil your blood if your pressure suit failed. You give your parachute straps a reassuring pat. It’s utterly silent. Just you and your fragile body, hovering alone above the Earth. “Space Diver One, you are go,” crackles a voice in your ear, and you undo your harness and stand up. There’s nothing for it now: You paid a lot of money for this.

You breathe deeply and leap, somersaulting into the void. The mother planet is gorgeous from up here. You barely perceive that it’s rushing up toward you, and your body relaxes. You streak into the atmosphere at 2,500 miles an hour, faster than anyone’s ever gone without a vehicle. The sky lightens, the stars disappear behind the blue, and a violent buffeting begins. You deploy your drogue chute for stability; an uncontrolled spin in this thin air would rip you apart. The thick lower atmosphere slows you to 120 mph—terminal velocity. After a thrilling seven-minute plummet, you pull your main chute at 3,000 feet, hands shaking, and glide in for landing. A mile away, your rocket retro-thrusts its way gently to the ground.

They are aiming higher: full orbital reentry

If all goes well, they’ll reach even higher. “Our ultimate goal,” Tumlinson says, “is to have individual human beings return from orbit alive.” That’s a drop from 150 miles—or more—involving increased heat and near-deadly Gs, essentially turning their divers into human meteorites.

Even that’s survivable, says NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Robert Manning, who designs reentry systems for unmanned craft. Given the right protection—including thermal protection, oxygen, an aerodynamic heat shield and a control system—Manning says, a human being could, theoretically, fall to Earth from any height and survive. The question is whether Tumlinson and Clark can turn theory into fact, and whether anybody would be crazy enough to give their thrill ride a try.

Humans traveling at transonic speeds is possible

t is very likely, he thinks, that a suited human will survive the transonic shocks. His optimism is based in part on the second precedent he can name—one in which a person survived. In 1966 an SR-71 Blackbird broke up at 78,000 feet while traveling at Mach 3.18. The pilot, Bill Weaver, survived. He left the plane at three times the speed of sound but, because he was unconscious, he can’t describe any shock waves he might have experienced. He sustained no lasting damage.

War Propaganda

Interesting

But recently, the troops have been passing around an interesting discovery. Namely, that the Japanese psychological warfare effort during World War II included radio broadcasts that could be picked up by American troops. Popular music was played, but the commentary (by one of several English speaking Japanese women) always hammered away on the same points;

1 Your President (Franklin D Roosevelt) is lying to you.

2 This war is illegal.

3 You cannot win the war.

The troops are perplexed and somewhat amused that their own media is now sending out this message. Fighting the enemy in Iraq is simple, compared to figuring out what news editors are thinking back home. A few times, the mass media has been bold, or foolish, enough to confront the troops about this divergence of perceptions. The result is usually a surreal exchange, with the troops giving the journalist a "what planet are YOU from" look.

The secret of the Matrix

Is that it is a simulation.

"The US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised propaganda. Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence."

Are we a simulation? If done right, there is no way to know.

iPhone Reviews

The hype is over.

From Boing Boing

I'm in a cafe in Los Angeles right now with Sean Bonner, kicking the tires on the iPhone we just brought back from the Apple store at the Grove. In two words: totally sweet.

It lives up to the hype. All the rules just changed.

From Dave Winer

This is my fifth iPod, and it works differently from the last one. I like to use my iPod with manual synchronization, but that doesn't appear to be possible with this one. I'm not happy about that! I have my iPod act down, and I want to use this relatively small one (it has just a 4GB capacity) the same way I use my larger, 60GB video iPod. It doesn't seem possible.

Look, all the other people reviewing the iPhone are gushing. I just don't have that in me, at least at the beginning.

From Robert Scoble

I want to be snarky. Write a horrible review of the iPhone and tell you how it’s all a bad joke.

I want to tell you how the keyboard sucks. I want to tell you all about how the camera sucks. How it sucks for not coming with any video games. How the activation process was too difficult. How horrible it is that there isn’t a replaceable battery. That the device is already getting tons of finger prints and smudges on it. That the fonts on the browser are too small to read on many Web sites. That it wasn’t worth the time waiting in line (although you could have walked right into the Palo Alto store last night and picked one up).

Oh, this snarky review would continue to discuss what a tragedy it is that it doesn’t have 3G. That it doesn’t have Flash, or the .NET Framework, or the Java runtimes on it. That it’s not available to people in most of the world.

But then I start playing with the device and I find I overlook all these faults. My Nokia N95 doesn’t have any of these faults but it just isn’t as easy to use. Nor as fun. And the screen! Whenever I look back at my Nokia I feel like I’m using Windows 3.11 on a 640×480 screen again after I’ve gotten Windows 95 and am running it at 1024×768.

From James Lileks on the wait before buying.

I still want one, but I'll wait. I will probably end up with a new iPod when the inevitable new design comes out. It will be a big change as I still a 1st gen 10GB iPod.

Six Things I Learned About Programming

From Boston Diaries:

This is an interesting meme: Three Things I Learned About Software While Not In College (via reddit). And a lot of the comments are centering on three things learned in college and out of college.

For me:

In college

1. Programming is not just a skill, it's a talent.
2. Some people just don't have that talent.
3. Compared to the editor on the mainframe for COBOL and RPG, vi really isn't that bad of an editor.

Out of college

1. Almost every program is a database application.
2. Database design is as important as code design.
3. The more work put into design upfront, the fewer surprises during coding.

Pot, meet Kettle

Who's calling who a terrorist?

Hamas TV on Friday broadcast what it said was the last episode of a weekly children's show featuring "Farfour," a Mickey Mouse lookalike who had made worldwide headlines for preaching Islamic domination and armed struggle to youngsters.

In the final skit, Farfour was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, Farfour called the Israeli a "terrorist."

"Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.

I'm not surprised.

Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us - Golda Meir

Watching evolution in action

Getting a ringside seat to watch changes in bacteria due to natural selection.

From time to time Dr. Lenski also froze some of the bacteria from each of the 12 lines. It became what he likes to call a “frozen fossil record.” By thawing them out later, Dr. Lenski could directly compare them with younger bacteria.

Within a few hundred generations, Dr. Lenski was seeing changes, and the bacteria have been changing ever since. The microbes have adapted to their environment, reproducing faster and faster over the years. One striking lesson of the experiment is that evolution often follows the same path. “We’ve found a lot of parallel changes,” Dr. Lenski said.

In all 12 lines the speed of adaptation was greatest in the first few months of the experiment and has since been tapering off. The bacteria have all become larger as well, although Dr. Lenski is not sure what kind of adaptation this represents. When other scientists saw these sorts of results begin to emerge, they set up their own experiments with microbes. Today they are observing bacteria, viruses and even yeast as they adapt to challenges as diverse as infections, antibiotics and cold and heat.

Albert F. Bennett, a physiologist at the University of California, Irvine, is an expert on temperature adaptation. He started out studying animals like reptiles and fish, but he seized on bacteria after hearing about Dr. Lenski’s experiments. “It was one of those ‘Star Trek’ moments,” he said. “I was looking out the window, and for about 10 minutes my mind was going into hyperdrive.”

State of the art security

When a security door is installed, how do you notify authorized people of the passcode?

UFO themed stamps

This is cool. Space/UFO themed stamps.

Autism symptoms reversed in lab

This is cool. Some symptoms of autism have been reversed in mice. Whether this works in people or not is another story.

The researchers, based at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, targeted an enzyme called PAK which affects the number, size and shape of connection between brain cells.

They found that inhibiting the enzyme stopped mice with Fragile X Syndrome behaving in erratic ways.

Prior to treatment they showed signs of hyperactivity, purposeless and repetitive movements.

Abnormalities corrected

Further analysis showed that not only were structural abnormalities in connections between brain cells righted, proper electrical communication was restored between the cells.

In the brain small protrusions called dendritic spines are responsible for communication between cells.

People with Fragile X Syndrome have more dendritic spines than usual, but each is longer and thinner, and transmits weaker electric signals.

Blocking PAK activity in the lab mice corrected these abnormalities.

Boom Camp

A summer camp for future demolitions experts.

"I figure here, learning how to do it properly is better than messing around with it at home, right?" Meadows is one of 20 teenage campers enrolled in a weeklong explosion camp in the Missouri Ozarks. At the camp, high school students from as far away as Egypt and Hawaii shoot dynamite, TNT and plastic explosives. The camp's leader, Paul Worsey, a professor at the University of Missouri, Rolla, uses the camp as a way to attract new recruits into the unglamorous field of mine engineering.

High School students photograph ISS

This is cool. Go look at this picture

Astronomers at a Boston-area high school snapped this stunning picture of the space shuttle Atlantis docking with the International Space Station, 190 nautical miles up. The folks at the Clay Center Observatory did it with a 25-inch diameter telescope in combination with a digital video camera -- and nothing but the simplest "adaptive optics" (bendable mirrors, which correct for how the atmosphere warps the light). "Makes one wonder what certain military/government instruments can do in similar situations," one observer quips.

Surprisingly sharp image.

Hey Kids! Diabetes Straws!

This is just sick. How much sugar do you need?

Kellogg's Cereal Straws are straws lined with powdered sugar-cereal dust that kids can drink milk through. It makes the milk taste like the sludge left at the bottom of a cereal bowl.

Comic Day

Amazons Attack 3
Washington DC, Vandenberg AFB, and central Kansas have been attacked by the Amazons, under the increasingly insane leadership of Hippolyta, Wonder Woman's mother. Martial law has been declared, and the superheroes are overwhelmed. But someone else is involved in the war who is attacking with technology instead of Amazon magic. Supergirl and Wonder Girl sort of join the Amazons for a task that will bite them later. This is ok, not great.

Black Panther 28
T'challa and Storm continue to sub for the vacationing Reed and Sue. The team is traveling uncontrollably by means of magic frogs. They have been transported to the Marvel Zombie universe and have to fight undead versions of the Avengers who have already eaten Galactus.

Blue Beetle 16
Eclipso seeks a pure body to possess and sees a perfect baby to take. Jaime has to stop her with the help of Traci Thirteen. This is a fun book. This is the kind of book I wish there were more of.

Countdown 44
More Silver Age powers for Jimmy Olsen. The Monarch makes an appearance. Mary Marvel sees the former Captain Marvel, now Shazam. I am hoping Mary goes back to being the fun, light character she was during the bwa-ha-ha league.

Fantastic Four 547
Reed takes a short break from his vacation with Sue to investigate an alien artifact. He gets assistance from Hank Pym. Sue is attacked by the Frightful Four.

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special 1
Holy crap! This rocked. Sinestro has his corps, dedicated to fear vs the Green Lantern corps dedication to willpower. There is a war coming and the Sinestro Corps has the upper hand. They attacked the GLC headquarters and freed their two most dangerous prisoners, Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman and Superboy Prime last survivor of a destroyed universe, driven mad by loss and Alexander Luthor. Kyle Rayner, the Green Lantern known as Ion, is captured by Sinestro and possessed by Parallax, fear personified. They are all heralds of their master, the Anti-Monitor. Oh yeah! He's back! This is like I'm reading Crisis on Infinite Earths all over again.

Hellboy Darkness Calls 3
Hellboy continues to wander mythic Russia, which is leading up to another confrontation with Baba Yaga. I love the art style in Hellboy, all grays and browns except for the bright, primary red of Hellboy.

She-Hulk 19
Jen is still depowered after her fight with Iron Man. She is currently suing SHIELD and Tony Stark to get her powers back. Mallory Book, an evil lawyer at Jen's firm, calls Jen as a hostile witness on the personality effects of Gamma powers in the trial of the Leader. Jen's past behavior, including trying to sleep with almost every man in the Marvel Universe is broguht to her attention.

Teen Titans 48
Supergirl and Wonder Girl are upset that any woman who has previously encountered Amazons have been interned in camps, including WWonder Girl's mother, and have decided to break her out. The rest of the Teen Titans fight them, and Wonder Girl's mom gets hurt. Miss Martian gets to shine in a fight with Supergirl. After Supergirl and Wonder Girl leave, the army tries to arrest the Titans.

World War Hulk: Front line 1
A view of World War Hulk from the point of view of normal people. Ben Urich, former Daily Bugle writer has started a newspaper with Sally Floyd to publish stories that wouldn't be published otherwise. They were going out of business until an unnamed benefactor gave them the resources to continue. That will be an obvious subplot for later. Not bad, but I don't know if I'll keep getting this.

World War Hulk: X-Men 1
Not bad, mostly a fight scene between the Hulk and various X-Men, culminating in the appearance of the Astonishing X-Men.

X-Factor 20
The former mutant terrorists who have been led to believe that the US government caused M-Day. They were led to believe this by Pietro Maximoff, while it was actually caused by his sister, Wanda. Pietro can give mutants back their powers, but it usually kills them quickly. Big fight scene and Layla Miller, who knows stuff, sets the record straight about M-Day. Rictor may or may not be dead after forcing the Terrigen crystals out of Pietro who doesn't look so good himself.

At least they meant well

I can understand not liking the president. I'm not overly fond of him, either. However, I don't get the vitriol and hyperbole. When this descends far enough, there is no rational discourse possible.

You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc.

When you argue that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other loathed dictators are better because at least they meant well, I know I can discount anything that person says on this subject and probably most others because they are not rational.

I find this worrying as there seems to be more of this on both sides. A pox on both their houses.

Freedoms advancing in China

Socialism is not as popular

It isn't easy teaching Marxism in China these days.

"It's a big challenge," acknowledged Tao, a likable man who demonstrates remarkable patience in the face of students more interested in capitalism than "Das Kapital." The students say he isn't the problem.

"It's not the teacher," said sophomore Liu Di, a finance major whose shaggy auburn hair hangs, John Lennon-style, along either side of his wire-rim glasses. "No matter who teaches this class, it's always boring. Philosophy is useful and interesting, but I think that in philosophy education in China, they just teach the boring parts."

Classes in Marxist philosophy have been compulsory in Chinese schools since not long after the 1949 communist revolution. They remain enshrined in the national education law, Article 3 of which states: "In developing the socialist educational undertakings, the state shall uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung Thought and the theories of constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics as directives and comply with the basic principles of the Constitution."

But today's China is, in some respects, less socialistic than much of Western Europe, with a moth-eaten social safety net and a wild free-market economy. Students in almost any urban Chinese school can look out their classroom windows and see just about everything but socialism being constructed: high-rise office buildings, shopping malls, movie theaters, luxury apartment buildings, fast-food restaurants, hotels, factories — the whole capitalist panorama.

The Middle Class is stretching it's muscles

For Communist Party officials, their worst nightmare is becoming reality. The new middle class often own their homes, and when property values are threatened by some government policy, these middle class Chinese organize and show their displeasure. There have been several recent mass demonstrations by middle class Chinese, usually protesting efforts to put factories, or other property value destroying facilities, in the middle of newly built middle class communities. Local government officials, who control the local police, find that they cannot just use force to disperse the middle class demonstrators, as they do farmers, or poor, working class protestors. The middle class crowd is better organized, and have useful connections themselves. The middle class have cell phones and Internet access. The middle class also has access to the upper reaches of the Communist Party, which relies on middle class administrators and technocrats, to make things happen. If the middle class turns on the Communist Party, the communists will lose. The revenge of the bourgeoisies, so to speak. So far, the Communist Party has a deal with the growing Chinese middle class. The latter can get rich, as long as the communists remain in power. But when that power, now corrupted by all that money, interferes with property values, who prevails? Historically, the protectors of property values prevail.

Censorship isn't working as well as it used to

In the strictly controlled media world of communist China, "citizen journalism" is beating a way through censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve for social tensions.

In one striking example this month, the Internet was largely responsible for breaking open a slave scandal in two Chinese provinces that some local authorities had been complicit in.

A letter posted on the Internet by 400 parents of children working as slaves in brickyards was the trigger for the national press to finally report on the scandal that some rights groups say had been going on for years.

The parents' Internet posting was part of a growing phenomenon for marginalised people in China who can not otherwise have their complaints addressed by the traditional, government-controlled press.

Christopher Hitchens on appeasment

Wise words

Over the last few years, there have been innumerable opportunities for him to demonstrate his piety and his pissed-offness. And the cameras have been there for him every time. Is it a fatwah? Is it a copy of the Quran allegedly down the gurgler at Guantanamo? Is it some cartoon in Denmark? Time for Rage Boy to step in and for his visage to impress the rest of the world with the depth and strength of Islamist emotion.

Conan Animated Movie - Red Nails

Ron Perlman is Conan. That is great casting. He's got a great voice.

Extreme Reentry

This sounds like fun. Also great from an RPG point of view.

A group of space scientists who aren't actually insane aim to give it a try by 2009, jumping from 120,000 feet in a specially designed space suit that looks like a buggy-rollin' getup, but without those silly roller skates. The daredevils hope to develop the technique not only as a sport, but also as a possible escape route for astronauts in low Earth orbit.

After they've mastered the 120,000-foot jump, their ultimate goal is to engineer survivable jumps from 150 miles or even higher above the earth. In a controlled dive, the jumpers would reach blistering speeds of more than 2500 mph, and as they begin to enter the earth's outer atmosphere, a special drogue shoot opens, stabilizing their descent and preventing uncontrolled tumbling which could be fatal.

As soon as they get closer to the Earth's dense atmosphere, their freefall slows to escape velocity, a mere 120 mph. At 3000 feet, a conventional chute opens, lowering the intrepid adventurer to terra firma.

First iPhone reviews in

The reviews are starting. The consensus: good, but not perfect. The touchscreen keyboard is apparently a non-issue. The only real complaints are Cingular's network and 3G connection.

NY Times
All Things Digital
USA Today

Vista Transformation Pack

This is pretty amazing looking. It transforms your XP to appear more Vista like. When installed, it changes many Windows resources and includes some standalone apps for other functionality like the sidebar and the Vista start menu.

Good advice for comics writers & fans

Good advice

1. Super-Heroes referring to each other on a first-name basis while in costume.
-- Unless someone is apparently about to die, and their lover is screeching their name in terror. That's cool.
2. A major character die purely to clear the editorial decks for something that might sell better. (Lookin' at you, Flash #13.)
3. Men in super-villain costumes doing cocaine. Do you know how ridiculous that looks? At least have them take off their masks. Christ.
4. A female character getting mauled/mutilated just to piss off another male character. Alan Moore did it once, and it was okay. Everyone else has to stop now. It's getting kind of creepy.
5. "Realistic" dialogue that results in a lot of tedious panels where nothing happens. Lookin' at you, Bendis.
-- Don't give me "it's characterization" bullshit. It's not characterization unless it establishes something meaningful about the character. Bendis's dialogue frequently establishes very little due to its clipped nature. It would be fine with actors who could communicate with expressions and body language, but Bendis is rarely paired with artists able to draw on that level.
6. A scene or plotline missing from the title where it would make sense to be explored, instead shunted into a third-tier book with poor writing/art that you would only even know existed if you memorize the contents of Previews every month.
-- Bonus hate points for a scene being inserted in a comic where it makes no sense, with no editorial footnotes to explain the comic it's tying in with.
7. Weak, boring plotlines you're supposed to care about because Something Important is happening in them. Y'know, it's easier to just not read the comic and catch the inevitable synopsis to find about the Important Thing.
8. Major artists making big bucks when they can draw exactly two body types and roughly four expressions.
-- The four expressions are: :) >:O :( >:)
--- The body types are "hot woman" and "powerful guy".

Phone Stalker

This is a horror film cliche.

Somehow, the callers have gained control of the family cell phones, Price and Kuykendall say. Messages received by the sisters include snatches of conversation overheard on cell-phone mikes, replayed and transmitted via voice mail. Phone records show many of the messages coming from Courtney’s phone, even when she’s not using it – even when it’s turned off.

Price and Kuykendall say the stalkers knew when they visited Fircrest police and sent a voice-mail message that included a portion of their conversation with a detective.

The harassment seems to center on Courtney, but it extends to her parents, her aunt Darcy and Courtney’s friends, including Taylor McKay, who lives across the street in Fircrest. Her mother, Andrea McKay, has received messages similar to those left at the Kuykendall household and cell phone bills approaching $1,000 for one month. She described one recent call: She was slicing limes in the kitchen. The stalkers left a message, saying they preferred lemons.

snip

Fircrest Police Chief John Cheesman is familiar with the case and knows the families. His department is working the case with the Tacoma Police Department and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, he said. The agencies filed a search warrant for the phone records, but they didn’t reveal much. Many of the calls and text messages trace back to Courtney’s phone, which the family believes has been electronically hijacked.

Cell phone technology allows remote monitoring of calls, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Known as a “roving bug,” it works whether a phone is on or off. FBI agents tracking organized crime have used it to monitor meetings among mobsters. Global positioning systems, installed in many cell phones, also make it possible to pinpoint a phone’s location within a few feet.

According to James M. Atkinson, a Massachusetts-based expert in counterintelligence who has advised the U.S. Congress on security issues, it’s not that hard to take remote control of a wireless phone. “You do not have to have a strong technical background for someone to do this,” he said Tuesday. “They probably have a technically gifted kid who probably is in their neighborhood.”

This is Ponderous man, really ponderous

Back before I had a CD player in my car, I had a tape deck. One of my favorite tapes was This is Ponderous by 2NU. You've probably heard their one hit, This is Ponderous.
I lost track until a few years ago when mp3.com was in it's heyday and they had an artist's page. I ordered their album and have really enjoyed it. It's just the right kind of surreal, spoken word, rock I like. Many of their songs are stories. Others remember them fondly

2nu appeared on the music scene at this time, releasing their only album, Ponderous, on Atlantic. The album was filled with pop-hooks, witticism, out-there references, surrealistic story-telling, and, most distinctly, far more sound effects and spoken-word passages than most other music that had broken the top 100 before that time. This explains why they weren't lumped and packaged with their successful Seattle brethren, who, ironically, were seen as more "alternative." Since then, one-hit-wonder King Missile and superstar artist Beck have made these styles and practices a bit more common. As with many other unsuccessful bands, it seemed a matter of being a bit ahead of their time (at least if you believe me...).

However, 2nu was a bit different than Beck and King Missile, and far different from Lou Reed or Frank Zappa, others that the above description may have evoked. The music was more accessible than Frank's, less somber and lighter than Lou's, not quite as deadpan as King Missile's, and, as for Beck, I love him, but let's remember who came first. And even he didn't use quite as many sounds and voices which left you wondering where they came from. (As a side note: the They Might Be Giants FAQ suggests 2nu, and the bands are comparable in imagination.)

---

They scored a small hit (number 46 on the pop charts) with the single, "This Is Ponderous," a song about a strange dream in which the narrator runs into his boss while skipping work (who happily doesn't recognize him) and into a strange assortment of other people, including a girl who talks with her eyes. This song did get limited top 40 radio airplay, at least enough that some people actually know what I'm saying when I talk about the band.

They eventually had a second song with radio airplay (albeit less), just before promptly disappearing of the face of the earth, leaving only their now-discontinued album as a reminder of their presence. It shows up now and then, usually in clearance bins since no one knows what the hell it is. IF YOU SEE IT PICK IT UP!! It is well worth the pocket change you'll pay, and, if you want something different, it with certainly provide that. (Hey, even if you don't, I know quite a few people still looking for a copy to call their own, so contact me if you've got a spare. From the bittersweet adventure of "Frank's Chair" to the involving mystery of "Her Name" to the all-out wise-cranking humor of "DDS Blues," this is an album worth having. Also look for the single, "This Is Ponderous," with the haunting, "She." These songs are also available at fellow 2nu fan Chris Robertson's site. .

My favorite songs of their's are Crossroads, Frank's Chair, and This is Ponderous.

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

The trailer for The Lost Tales has been posted. The effects look better, but with the same overall feel. It will be released on 7/31.

Gigantor monument

The first giant robot gets his own memorial. It also commemorates the birthplace of his creator, Mitsuteru Yokoyama and the rebuilding after the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

The 18 meter high, 70 ton Ironman-28 will carry the price tag of 135 million yen. The project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2008.

Former "Secrets" of the CIA

Many former classified documents are online at the FOIA Electronic Reading Room. Lots of interesting documents.

Juggling, Dublin, and Sci-Fi

While browsing Metafilter, I ran across this on the Flying Karamozov Brothers. I used to love watching them. I like juggling and wordplay. One I remember well was their adaptation of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. When we were on our honeymoon, we saw an adaptation in a park in Dublin, Ireland. That was a lot of fun also, but no juggling.

A favorite sci-fi book of mine is Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg with inspiration coming from the Flying Karamozov Brothers. The main character travels with a troupe made up of 4 armed alien jugglers.

Here it is on Google video. Part 1. Part 2.

Inappropriate Iconography

So, media figures and trendy people like wearing Che Guevara shirts and other communist iconography. I think it is generally in poor taste, plus you may run into people who have first hand experience with their handiwork. Like Cameron Diaz carrying a handbag with a quote from Mao in Peru. They don't like Maoists there.

While she explored the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in Peru's Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words 'Serve the People' printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao's most famous political slogan.

While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world capitals, the phrase has particular resonance in Peru.

The Maoist Shining Path insurgency took Peru to the edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency.

Sort of like wearing a shirt with a picture of a Klan hood into an African-American neighborhood.

If you wear or display a symbol, make sure you know what it represents.

Hidden costs of the Ethanol fuel fad

It's not a panacea

"Rapid development of the corn-based ethanol industry is already having adverse impacts on food supplies and prices." That's the claim in a letter from leading food companies to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Headlines earlier this year blamed a tortilla shortage in Mexico on high U.S. corn prices and margarita drinkers must now worry about a future tequila shortfall because Mexican farmers are ripping up their agave fields to plant corn.

Making us more independent of oil may make people starve.

In the best case, IFPRI projects that corn prices will go up 23 percent, wheat, 16 percent, cassava, 54 percent, and sugar cane, 43 percent. If there is no cellulosic ethanol breakthrough and crop productivity increases at the current rate, the price of corn would increase 41 percent, wheat, 30 percent, cassava, 135 percent, and sugar cane, 66 percent. What would this mean for the world's poor?

In an article entitled, "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor," in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, two University of Minnesota professors of agricultural policy, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, argue that "the number of food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods." They calculate that would mean that would be 600 million additional hungry people by 2025, rising to a total of 1.2 billion.

Another way to look at it is that it takes 450 pounds of corn to make enough ethanol to fill a 25-gallon gas tank. Four hundred and fifty pounds of corn supplies enough calories to feed a person for one year. The USDA projects that in 2010 the ethanol industry will consume 2.6 billion bushels of corn. A bushel weighs 56 pounds, so a quick calculation yields the result that 2.6 billion bushels of corn could supply enough calories to feed nearly 325 million people for a year.

But those people would be in the third world, and they don't get to vote.

"Famine," observes Dennis Avery, the director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, "is a human society's ultimate failure. Tightening the world's food supply by diverting major quantities of its grain stocks into fuels will drive up the prices of all food. This will inevitably hit hardest at the poorest people in the world's food-shortage regions. This would not be ethical even if there were no other sources of energy."

But then, the world's poor do not participate in Iowa's presidential caucuses.

Theremin version of Crazy

This theremin cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy is cool.

Raise Shields

We really are living in sci-fi:

Darpa, the Pentagon's wide-eyed research arm, is betting big on "metamaterials" -- composites that can seemingly-impossible new properties, thanks to their molecular structure. But even for Darpa, and even for metamaterials, this seems like a long shot: a $15 million program to build shoot-through, one-way-invisible, self-healing shields for soldiers in urban battlefields.

Metamaterials are already showing promise, as the building blocks to real-life invisibility cloaks; that's because the composites let electromagnetic waves flow around them, instead of reflecting 'em back. Darpa's "Asymmetric Materials for the Urban Battlespace" program goes way, way beyond mere invisibility, however.

"Asymmetric, or 'one-way,' materials will support basic unit operations such as raids, cordon and search activities, snap checkpoints, and fire fights," according to military budget documents. "Friendly forces will be able to see through [one of these new materials] and shoot through it, but hostile forces will not." Such shields will also have "the ability to 'self-heal' if necessary. The materials must be lightweight, respond instantly, and be easy to deploy and retract in confined spaces."

Legion of Doom strikes Tulsa

A diabolical ring of super-thieves has been terrorizing the good people of Tulsa, OK., by conducting elaborate burglaries of stores like Best Buy and Office Depot. In their most recent exploit, the robbers cut two holes in the roof of a Best Buy, rappelled into the store, disabled the alarm system, and then stole more than 40 laptops, a number of plasma TVs and the store's safe. A local crime reporter claims they "leave behind no fingerprints, no witnesses and no surveillance tapes". They also reportedly have super-human strength, psionic powers, and can all fly at nearly supersonic speeds.

iPhone Guided Tour

A video tour of the iPhone. See the iPhone in action. Very cool, but still too expensive for me.

Top 100 Movies

From Corsair

black - haven't seen it
red - I didn't like it
purple - It was okay
blue - I liked it/loved it
green = I loved it so much I have rented it more than once, or it's in my permanent DVD collection.

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.
2. "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "Casablanca," 1942
4. "Raging Bull," 1980.
5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.
6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
8. "Schindler's List," 1993.
9. "Vertigo," 1958.
10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
11. "City Lights," 1931.
12. "The Searchers," 1956.
13. "Star Wars," 1977.
14. "Psycho," 1960.
15. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968.
16. "Sunset Blvd.", 1950.
17. "The Graduate," 1967.
18. "The General," 1927.
19. "On the Waterfront," 1954.
20. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946.
21. "Chinatown," 1974.
22. "Some Like It Hot," 1959.
23. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940.
24. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," 1982.
25. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962.
26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939.
27. "High Noon," 1952.
28. "All About Eve," 1950.
29. "Double Indemnity," 1944.
30. "Apocalypse Now," 1979.
31. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941.
32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974.
33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975.
34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937.
35. "Annie Hall," 1977.
36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957.
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946.
38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948.
39. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964.
40. "The Sound of Music," 1965.
41. "King Kong," 1933.
42. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967.
43. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969.
44. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.
45. "Shane," 1953.
46. "It Happened One Night," 1934.
47. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951.
48. "Rear Window," 1954.
49. "Intolerance," 1916.
50. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.
51. "West Side Story," 1961.
52. "Taxi Driver," 1976.
53. "The Deer Hunter," 1978.
54. "M-A-S-H," 1970.
55. "North by Northwest," 1959.
56. "Jaws," 1975.
57. "Rocky," 1976.
58. "The Gold Rush," 1925.
59. "Nashville," 1975.
60. "Duck Soup," 1933.
61. "Sullivan's Travels," 1941.
62. "American Graffiti," 1973.
63. "Cabaret," 1972.
64. "Network," 1976.
65. "The African Queen," 1951.
66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.
67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 1966.
68. "Unforgiven," 1992.
69. "Tootsie," 1982.
70. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.
71. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.
72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.
73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.
74. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991.
75. "In the Heat of the Night," 1967.
76. "Forrest Gump," 1994.
77. "All the President's Men," 1976.
78. "Modern Times," 1936.
79. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.
80. "The Apartment, 1960.
81. "Spartacus," 1960.
82. "Sunrise," 1927.
83. "Titanic," 1997.
84. "Easy Rider," 1969.
85. "A Night at the Opera," 1935.
86. "Platoon," 1986.
87. "12 Angry Men," 1957.
88. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938.
89. "The Sixth Sense," 1999.
90. "Swing Time," 1936.
91. "Sophie's Choice," 1982.
92. "Goodfellas," 1990.
93. "The French Connection," 1971.
94. "Pulp Fiction," 1994.
95. "The Last Picture Show," 1971.
96. "Do the Right Thing," 1989.
97. "Blade Runner," 1982.
98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942.
99. "Toy Story," 1995.
100. "Ben-Hur," 1959.

Victorian TARDIS Interior

The Victorian interior is tied with the renovated white interior. I agree that the Fox movie interior was sub-optimal. The new one is ok, but not great. It does have the advantage that they have a budget this time. They could really do some cool things with green screens and 3d. Have the interior like an MC Escher picture with different gravitational planes.

Secrets of Magic

Top 20 magic tricks, shown, then explained.

Living in Sci-Fi

Every day, we move closer to living in science fiction.

The new waterproof bot, shown showering, walking on a floor scattered with sand, and using a screwdriver as a human would, is meant to take on typical jobs at construction sites, such as driving (?) vehicles. Kawada hopes to court contractor clients by 2010 with the attractive introductory price of $120,000 per robot.

Read - Translated Robot Watch story
Read - Physorg article

Man bursts into flames after being shot by a taser gun

When people don't think...

Police are investigating the firey death of a man who burst into flames after dousing himself in petrol and then being shot with a taser gun.

Officers used the gun after the man had poured gasoline over himself.

Juan Flores Lopez, 47, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Texas.

Police initially used pepper spray when they tried to take Lopez into custody. Then they used the Taser. Some stun guns emit an electric spark when they deliver the jolt of electricity.

The Texas Rangers were also investigating whether a lighter that was on the porch could have contributed to the fire.

"We don't know what ignited the fire," police said.

Let me repeat:

"We don't know what ignited the fire," police said.

Really? Are you sure? I can make a few guesses.

Reasons why we don't have more wind power

Wind power could be significant to reducing our energy needs, but most people only want it if it is in someone else's backyard.

In My Own Backyard

I have no problem with windmills. I think they're beautiful to look at as they turn majestically in the wind. I first saw large-scale wind farms when I lived in Southern California, and whenever I drive by a wind farm in Southwest Kansas, I can't help but marvel at how far we've come in harnessing free energy. Hydropower is now 90% efficient, wind energy is soon to surpass 60%, and new solar panels are close to 40% efficient in generating electricity to power all the electronic doodads and geegaws I use in my everyday life. Compared to the 1,200 pounds of coal I use each year to power my computer fetish alone, alternative fuels sound like the way to go. Imagine my surprise when half of the community revolted saying they didn't want the wind farm built.

"My Truth"

Those that are most vocal about wind farms tend to be those that live closest to the turbines. This isn't just a local problem; it's the same all over the world whenever wind farms begin to encroach into residential areas. Complaints range from wind turbines kill birds (less than 1 out of every 10,000 birds, compared to 800 of every 10,000 killed by high-tension wires), turbines are too noisy (new turbines generate less noise than the wind turning them), shadow flicker (only a problem for those living in Alaska), they are ugly (eye of the beholder) and lowering property values. The list goes on and on, but it's this final complaint that has most home owners in a tizzy. Surveys have shown property values decrease between the time of the initial proposal to two years after completion, but once the wind farm has been established, values rebound. So we're talking about roughly four years of inconvenience — bad if you are trying to sell your home right now, not so bad in the long term.

What I find really amusing is 100 years ago, windmills were vital to pump water for local farms and communities. What's worse is that those same people complaining about their property values being lowered have no problem with coal-fired power plants being built 100 miles away. When I lived in SoCal, my friends and I would often step outside during our work breaks and jokingly comment about the smog we could see in the distance. "Glad it's over there," when we knew full well we were breathing in the very same brown air. Out of sight, out of mind.

Comic Day

The Amazing Spider-Man 541
Peter Parker is angry. Aunt May got hit by a bullet meant for him and is now in a coma. He has found the man behind the hit, Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, currently in prison. Peter plans to kill Fisk. Confrontation to come next issue.

The Brave and the Bold 4
This is a great team up book that moves at a fast pace, reminiscent of the Silver Age. Supergirl and Lobo are teamed up, with Kara trying to get to Rann to meet up with Green Lantern Hal Jordan. Batman and Blue Beetle are teamed up, fighting the future villains the Fatal Five. Batman and Tharok, the cyborg have been merged by a weapon that can do the impossible.

Countdown 45
Jason Todd and Donna Troy vs a purple alien servant of the Monitors. Jimmy Olsen exposits about what has come before. A brief appearance by Captain Atom, now in the Monarch armor. Plus, the History of the Multiverse.

Captain America 27
The Winter Soldier, formerly Bucky, sidekick of Captain America during WWII, has decided to kill Tony Stark since he holds him responsible for Cap's death. He also stole Cap's shield as he doesn't want Stark making a new Captain America. Sharon Carter is still filled with guilt over having fired the shots that killed Cap while she was under mind control by Dr Faustus. She is also prevented from telling anyone or committing suicide. I am really enjoying this. I wasn't a regular reader, but Cap's death brought me on and I plan to stay on for his eventual, inevitable return.

The Flash 13
Feh. I used to read a great book called Impulse about Bart Allen, the grandson of Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash. It was eventually canceled, but he continued on in Young Justice. That was canceled and Bart became Kid Flash in Teen Titans. Bart changed, but I liked him just the same. Then came Infinite Crisis and Bart was aged and became The Flash in a big relaunch of the book. It was given to tv writers who had no comic experience. They turned a fun, happy go lucky character into a humorless clone of Barry Allen. This was a disaster. Sales dropped off a cliff and so a relaunch is in order. Bart is not a good Flash and needs to be replaced, so he had to die to make way for a relaunch. Again, feh.

Fallen Son The Death of Captain America Spider-Man
Fallen Son covers the five stages of Grief. This issue, starring Spider-Man issue is Depression.

The Incredible Hulk 107
Amadeus Cho is smart. Too smart for his own good. He is assembling help for the Hulk since the Hulk helped him once and they share SHIELD as an enemy. Hercules and Angel are ensnared in Amadeus' machinations. The Hulk has a following among some people who go to Manhattan to watch or help the Hulk against the authorities.

Iron Man 19
The lead up to the Iron Man Hulk fight in World War Hulk 1. There is some dissension in the ranks of SHIELD about Stark's leadership.

Justice League of America 10
The Lightning Saga concludes. The Legion outsmarts the JLA and JSA, but the blow is softened with the return of at least one Flash. Wally West along with Linda and the twins appear, and the Legion returns home with their prize, which appears to be the essence of Barry Allen. Only two more issues with Brad Meltzer and them Dwayne McDuffie takes over writing.

Marvel Adventures The Avengers vol 2 Digest
Marvel Adventures The Avengers vol 3 Digest
These are fun, light reads, digested from the All-ages Marvel Adventures The Avengers book. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but the art and writing is good enough for a regular book. This features the Hulk the way I prefer him, dumb, but friendly, like a giant green golden retriever. Crazy stuff happens like the whole team getting turned into MODOKs or Ego the Living Planet putting the moves on Earth like a real player. the Hulk yells at the planet "You hear Hulk, stupid planet?! Earth not interested in you!!! Earth just want to be friends!"

SR-72?

An unmanned replacement for the retired SR-71.

Ten years after the Air Force retired the SR-71 spy plane, Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works appears to be back at work developing a new Mach-6 reconnaissance plane, sources said.

The Air Force has awarded Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects arm a top-secret contract to develop a stealthy 4,000-mph plane capable of flying to altitudes of about 100,000 feet, with transcontinental range. The plan is to debut the craft around 2020.

The new jet — being referred to by some as the SR-72 — is likely to be unmanned and, while intended for reconnaissance, could eventually trade its sensors for weapons.

snip

“An aircraft with these characteristics could prove a potent response to anti-satellite weapons,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. “If U.S. reconnaissance satellites were lost, an SR-72 could get to areas of interest quickly and provide persistent surveillance in place of the satellite.”

Star Wars AT-AT Stroller

Here. For Russ and Marla. Time to make a pair for assaulting Hoth.

Sweet Christmas!

Some of the first comics I got as a kid was a bunch of Power Man and Iron Fist issues. I liked the idea of characters for whom being a hero was a job. They were the original Heroes for Hire. Luke Cage was one of the first black heroes with his own book. Now there is a movie on the way.

Tyrese Gibson (Transformers) told SCI FI Wire that it's looking increasingly likely that he will star in a big-screen movie featuring the Marvel Comics hero Luke Cage. If everything goes according to plan, Gibson will play Cage, the first black comic-book superhero, in a film to be directed by John Singleton, who previously directed Gibson in the drama Baby Boy.

"They're doing rewrites on it now, and we actually have a meeting coming up on it soon, from what I hear, just to see where we are with the whole thing," Gibson said in an interview while promoting Transformers. "Right now they're in the process of getting the rewrites done, and then they'll, I guess, do kind of a formal presentation to see if it's going to be a go."

Asked what interests Gibson most about the super-strong and hard-to-hurt Cage character, he replied: "I just love his presence, and I love the fact that he's one of the first black comic-book characters. I'd like to make the comic-book world proud with what I'm looking to do with Luke Cage.

4400 Premiere

This is a great show. Sort of like Heroes, with a smaller budget, but the heroes are out in the open, and more can be made.

The official Web site of USA Network's SF drama The 4400 is currently streaming the finale from last season and the fourth-season premiere, "The Wrath of Graham," which debuted June 17.

The site has been drawing fans to its multimedia "Battle Over Promicin" experience. The 4400 airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Vinyl as Digital Media?

Apparently so. During the seventies, some records had programs encoded as audio that you could record to cassette and then run on a computer.

One strategy that major record companies have been employing lately to deter downloading is adding bonus computer content to new CD releases. I recently discovered that this technique is not unique to CD's, but had in fact been practiced in the vinyl era as well. That's right: there were a handful of records released in the late 70's and early 80's that contained computer programs as part of the audio. This is totally insane, and totally great.

Most of these programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum home computer series. The Sinclair Spectrum was a relatively cheap home computer system that used a television set as a monitor and loaded programs from tapes. It thrived in England in the early 80's:

"If the PC is the great electronic product of the 1990's, the Sinclair Spectrum was the great electronic product of the 1980's. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum (nicknamed the Speccy) was invented by Sir Clive Sinclair, a British Inventor. "

In the case of these programs on vinyl, the user would have to play back the proper portion of the record, record the resultant chatter to tape, and load the tape into the spectrum. Some users have mentioned playing certain games so much that they could recognise the loading sounds.

Good Samaritan fired

I don't think I'd want to live, or work there.

When a neighbor screamed she'd been shot, Colin Bruley grabbed his shotgun, found the victim and began treating her bloodied right leg. Tonnetta Lee survived Tuesday's pre-dawn shooting at her Jacksonville apartment, and her sister and a neighbor praised Bruley's actions. But his employers, the same people who own the Arlington complex where Bruley lives, reacted differently. They fired him.

Conversion Story

Now this is a complicated past.

Bernd Wollschlaeger has two stories to tell.

First, he's a former officer in the Israel Defense Forces, a physician who developed expertise in biological warfare. He lives in Miramar, runs a family practice in North Miami Beach, has become a legislative leader of the American Medical Association and is active in local Jewish causes.

Now, at 49, he has decided to tell ``my coming-out story.''

It is this: He was born the Christian son of a World War II German tank commander -- a third-generation warrior who received Deutschland's highest military honor, the Iron Cross, which was pinned on his uniform by Adolf Hitler himself.

As a teenager, Bernd studied the Nazis and the Holocaust and was repelled by what he learned. Ultimately, he converted to Judaism and moved to Israel.

''This was, and is, very difficult to deal with,'' he said. ``I never saw my father again.''

But recently, after telling his children about his father, he started talking -- first at Hillel Community Day School, where his two eldest children attend. Now, he has created a website -- AGer manLife.com -- and plans to publish a book under that name.

''He is an amazing individual,'' said Brian Siegal, executive director of the American Jewish Committee's local chapter, where Wollschlaeger was elected to the regional board. ``He's gone through an amazing self-reflection and contributes greatly to the work we are doing.''

For years, he kept his past secret, not even telling his first wife, a Jew he met in Israel -- an omission that, when revealed, seriously damaged the marriage.

''I lied, plain and simple,'' he said. 'I was ashamed of my past, and it wasn't something that you could work easily into a conversation in Israel. `My father was a Wehrmacht officer.' That's definitely a party pooper.''

Concert violinist attacked by cops for riding a bicycle

The problem is that cops can harass you for no reason, treat any response except complete submission as resisting arrest, and their word carries more weight than yours, even if you have video evidence to the contrary.

I then heard him yell an order to Officer Bryant- 'Shoot him!'. Officer Bryant then shot me with the taser. I fell uncontrolled to the pavement for the second time, experiencing the full force of a weapon that can only be considered barbaric. (There are many documented deaths by taser. For this reason police departments do not consider it a 'non' lethal weapon, but a 'less' lethal weapon. It was developed to be used in lieu of a gun, as a weapon of last resort when a person is seriously threatened. Needless to say, I did not give permission for this to be used on me as part of the exercise, nor was I asked in advance if I had any medical history that could have led to my death. Only after the fact, in the hospital, was I asked my medical history.)

As I lay still on the pavement, Officer Wingate walked over to my glasses and smashed them into the ground with his boot. I was handcuffed, body searched and baggage searched. Reinforcements were called in, a total of (4) squad cars and a paramedic unit.

Officer Wingate said, 'Well, you wanted to speak to my supervisor, here he is'. I then asked Sergeant Karsnia 'What in the world is going on here?' He also wanted to know from me what had happened but said 'first, I'd like to speak to my officer, and then I'll get back to you'. He had a private conversation with Officer Wingate, came back, asked what had happened but immediately interrupted me and said 'Look, I'll do the talking here because you tried to take a swing at my officer'. At this point the collusion was clear. I then had no reason to believe that the brutality was over. As I stood on Outbound Rd next to the squad car, handcuffed, I called out 'Help!' to all passing traffic, hoping to draw attention to the situation, and in hope of a witness. No cars would stop. When ironically asked to 'calm down' I explained to Sergeant Karsnia that I wanted a third party present, as I no longer had reason to trust the police.

Clinton Campaign Song & Sopranos Finale

This is weird. Filmed in an homage the Sopranos finale, this video by Hillary Clinton's campaign places Bill & Hillary as Tony and Carmela. They're announcing the song chosen to be the campaign song. It seems a bit surreal.

Superman - Doomsday Trailer

Trailer here.

Additional behind the scenes here.

Looks pretty good. An adaptation of the original Death of Superman.

Apple IIe Graphics

Time lapse rendered graphics done on an Apple IIe.

Comic Covers

Very cool cover site with hundreds, if not thousands of covers scanned in.

Schwarzenegger doesn't understand immigrants

Since he immigrated here and didn't speak English very well, he can't possibly understand what Spanish speaking immigrants have gone through.

"You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Schwarzenegger said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in San Jose, Calif. "You're just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster."

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., called the governor's advice a "typical sound bite solution to an important issue," said Jim Dau, a spokesman for Sanchez.

Sanchez said immigrants face the challenge of taking an ESL course because of long lines and up to a three-year wait to get into a class.

A Hispanic advocacy group said Schwarzenegger's comments show his "ignorance on immigration issues."

snip

Schwarzenegger answered a question about how Hispanic students can improve academic performance, saying he was about to make a politically-incorrect statement.

"I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say and I'm going to get myself in trouble," Schwarzenegger said. "But I know that when I came to this country, I very rarely spoke German to anyone."

But the governor's comments didn't sit too well with audience members.

"I'm sitting shaking my head not believing that someone would be so naive and out of it that he would say something like that," Alex Nogales, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

Rafael Olmeda, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said most NAHJ members would agree with the governor's statements.

"Most people I've spoken to walked away believing that he was trying to say that we must learn English to succeed in American society," Olmeda said.

Deep Fried Pizza?

I like pizza. I like deep fried stuff, though I try not to eat that stuff now, but deep fried pizza?

NOAA tries to muzzle hurricane center director

Just what we need.

In recent interviews with The Miami Herald and other media, Proenza has strongly criticized leaders of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for spending millions of dollars on a public-relations campaign while hurricane forecasters deal with budget shortfalls.

One of his main concerns has been the imminent demise of a key weather satellite called QuikScat, launched in 1999 and long past its designed lifetime.

No replacement currently is in development and the loss of QuikScat could diminish the accuracy of some hurricane forecasts by up to 16 percent, Proenza and other experts have said.

He's been reprimanded, but is standing firm.

Honor deaths on rise in England

It sucks to be a woman in a tribal, Islamic culture, even in the west. Become too corrupted and sully the family name, and you have to die to restore your family's honor.

Home Office statistics suggest that there are 12 such murders each year. However, according to research, the true figure is much higher. At a conference in Southampton last week, police chiefs revealed that they are re-examining 2,000 deaths and-murders between 1996 and 2006 to establish whether they involve honour killings. So far, 19 have now been found to be honour killings. A further 20 involved some element of "honour violence".

The string of deaths is likely to include some that were previously deemed suicides but have been found to be forced suicides and murder disguised as suicide.

snip

"It's very significant that the numbers of young Asian women between the ages of 16 and 24 who take their own lives is three times higher than the national average.

"But since the jailing of Banaz Mahmod's father and uncle for murder we are facing a major problem in that it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince Asian women that British police will take them seriously."

In court, it was disclosed that Banaz, who was Kurdish, had told police on four occasions that her family was trying to kill her. However, instead of protecting her, they dismissed her claims as melodramatic and even told her family, in clear breach of police guidelines that state that the families of women threatened with death for "dishonouring" them should not be approached.

snip

One senior police source admitted to The Sunday Telegraph that, if the scheme had been in place, Banaz might have been alive today. "We started to learn lessons," he said, "and then stopped learning them as a result of political correctness."

One young woman, too scared to be identified, tells a shocking tale of brutality at the hands of her family. When she refused a forced marriage her three elder brothers lured her to a relative's home and beat her for an hour. "I was bleeding and my nose was broken," she says, "but even so my brother handed me lighter fuel and a box of matches and said, 'You know what you have to do. Do it or we will do it for you'." She was rescued by friends but knows that if her family ever find her she will be killed.

I don't think it'll start; it's flooded

Calling it "our King Tut's tomb," thousands of people watched as a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere was pulled from the ground where it had been buried for 50 years as a time capsule of American Midwest culture.

The concrete vault encasing the car may have been built to withstand a nuclear attack, but it couldn't keep away water.

At Friday's ceremony, protective wrapping was removed to show the mud-caked vintage vehicle covered in rust. Shiny chrome was still visible around the doors and front fender, and workers were able to put air in the tires.

"I'll tell you what, she's a mess. Look at her," said legendary car builder Boyd Coddington, who was unable to start the car as planned.

New Star Trek film to begin filming this fall

From what I've read, this is a reboot like Galactica.

Roberto Orci, who with writing partner Alex Kurtzman is scripting the new Star Trek movie, told SCI FI Wire that they have finished the script are in preproduction on the movie, which will go into production in November under director J.J. Abrams. "We're still casting," Orci said while promoting his next film, Michael Bay's Transformers. "We're in preproduction, actually, this month."

While revealing little about the 11th Trek film's top-secret plot, Orci offered a few tidbits. "Kirk is in the movie," he said. "Some kind of Kirk. ... We literally haven't cast them yet. It's actually one of the challenges, and so we're hoping to have something by Comic-Con [in San Diego in July], but we'll see."

Orci added that producers are wrestling with whom to cast. "That's one of the debates, you know?" he said. "Like, how much does a familiar face hurt or not?" As for rumors that Matt Damon is in line for Kirk or Adrien Brody for Spock, Orci would only smile. "I've read all those rumors, too."

Is the Trek movie being eyed as the kickoff of a possible TV series? "I'm sure CBS is thinking about that," he said. "That's not [something] we're thinking about. We're just thinking about the movie. Certainly, I don't know how they could not think about that."

Marvel takes control of movie making

More control, more money.

Until now, Hollywood’s major studios have paid to license Marvel characters to create blockbuster franchises — including the three “Spider-Man” hits, which have raked in close to $2.5 billion at the global box office for Sony Pictures — and 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” movies. The latest, “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” took in an estimated $57 million in its opening this weekend.

But Marvel makes relatively little money from these box-office bonanzas, because of unfavorable deals struck in the 1990s. A Lehman Brothers analysis calculated that Marvel made just $62 million from the first two “Spider-Man” films.

By making his own movies based on other Marvel characters, Mr. Maisel hopes to transform his division of Marvel Entertainment into a true filmmaking brand, maintaining control from script to release, keeping all the profits for the company and building a film library, while using someone else’s capital.

Paramount Pictures will market and distribute the movies, for a fee. (Universal Pictures, which made 2003’s “Hulk” by the director Ang Lee but sold back the rights to Marvel after its poor box-office performance, will handle that sequel.)

The financial model seems unusually favorable. Because most of the financing raised by Merrill Lynch (the $465 million revolving credit facility) is insured by Ambac Assurance, Marvel is not liable to repay its senior creditors if the movies tank. The Ambac deal uses the comic characters as collateral and thus requires no capital outlay by Marvel.

The Year 2000 as seen from 1882

The pictures are cool. It is always interesting to see what doesn't get updated for the future in these kind of things. In this, it's the clothing. Aircars fill the skies, but everyone is dressed contemporary to 1882.

This lithograph from 1882 depicts the fanciful world of 2000; flying buses, towering restaurants, and of course, 1880's French attire. Albert Robida is less well-known than Jules Verne but contributed just as much to the collective imagination through his amazing illustrations.

Jetpacks now for sale

Although, until flight time is increased past the current 30 seconds, it's not very useful. Better models are on the way.

Mexican start-up Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (TAM) offers its custom-built TAM Rocket Belt for $250,000, which includes flight and maintenance training. On a full tank of hydrogen peroxide the belt weighs 124 to 139 pounds (the bigger the pilot, the bigger the belt), and provides 30 seconds of flight. TAM's sole competitor is Jetpack Inter­national, a Colorado-based company that sells what it calls "the world's longest-flying jet pack." Technically speaking, it's true — the hydrogen-peroxide-burning Jet Pack H202 can stay in the air for 33 seconds, 3 seconds longer than TAM's model. The H202 weighs 139 pounds, and is competitively priced at $155,000, flight classes and all.

Jetpack International founder Troy Widgery is the first to point out the drawbacks of current short-flight rocket belts. "If something goes wrong, you can get killed," Widgery says. "Thirty-three seconds of fuel makes an inexperienced pilot twitchy." The solution? Ditch the rocket belt, and build a bona fide jet pack (okay, jet belt). Widgery plans to release the T73 Turbine by the end of the year; it's a $200,000 model that will burn jet fuel, allowing it to stay airborne for 19 minutes. Not to be outdone, TAM is working on a propane-burning jet belt, though it hasn't said when it will be available. While swapping inert hydrogen peroxide for propane or Jet-A fuel has obvious drawbacks, jet belts would be, for many, a childhood dream come true. "With 19 minutes you can take things slower," Widgery says. "You aren't spending the whole flight thinking about where to land." We'll take his word for it.

Robot Chicken Star Wars

If you missed it last night, it's available to watch here (for now).

New Batcycle for movie - The Batpod

The Batpod

… it's tricked out with grappling hooks, cannons and machine guns. The front and rear tires are both a monstrously huge 508 millimeters, and the engines are in the hubs of each wheel. Steering isn't by hand but by shoulder, since there aren't handlebars. Instead, there are shields that fit each arm like sleeves and have the ability to rotate around the bike's frame. The two foot pegs are set 3 1/2 feet apart on either side of the tank, which the rider lies on, belly down.

It's a practical model. It really works. There were 6 made for the film.
 

Father's Day

It's almost midnight. but it's still Father's Day. I just wanted to say, that without you I would not be the man I am today. I owe you a lot, you were, and are a good dad.

I love you.

Peter David takes over She Hulk

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is ending, and Peter David is taking over writing She Hulk.

I'm sorry to see FNSM go away. I liked what he did with it. She Hulk should be fun as well.

The Flash is dead, long live the Flash

The current Flash book is ending next week at issue #13, and will restart with the previous volume's numbering at #231. Plus, Mark Waid is returning as writer.

As announced by Dan Didio and Bob Wayne in Philly and Heroes Con, respectively, next week's Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 will be the last issue of the young series, which was just launched last year. Although DC is keeping mum about what happens in that pivotal issue, its story will act as a precursor to the announced return of Mark Waid to The Flash beginning in the fall with penciler Daniel Acuna (Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters).

And before the Waid-penned series officially starts with new (or, technically, old) numbering -- picking up at #231 where it left off when The Flash series ended with #230 in January 2006 -- DC will release a special issue called All Flash #1 in September. Written by Waid, the issue will feature work by a slew of DC artists, including Acuna, Karl Kershl, Shane Davis and Joe Bennett.

If all this sounds like a huge surprise, you're not the only one whose head is spinning. In the age of Internet rumors and spoilers, somehow DC kept a lid on this one until today's announcement. And although Newsarama caught up with Waid to talk about his work on the series, he isn't saying much about the story, won't tell us anything about what is going to happen between now and the beginning of his run, and can't even confirm which Flash he's writing about.

But he is issuing a warning: That storm is going to be a big one.

This could be cool. I really like Bart Allen, but not as Flash. Maybe we can put him back to being himself and not a bad Barry Allen impersonation.

Mini micro itsy bitsi phone camera

This is tiny.

A company called Tessera has developed the first wafer-level camera for phones, and it's a fraction of the size of current cameras.

You could easily put more than one camera in it, one for self portraits/video and one for taking photos/video.
 

Make Windows Mobile look like an iPhone

Here.

Whether we admit it or not, we're all at least a little in love with the iPhone. However, a lot fewer of us are $500-in-love with the iPhone. If your clunky old Windows Mobile phone is just sitting around collecting iPhone jealousy dust, you can either scrounge together 500 leafy Sacagaweas, or you can customize your Windows Mobile phone to emulate several of the iPhone's more interesting features, like the iPhone's home screen, flick-scroll contacts, and the fancy slide-to-unlock.

Today I'll highlight a couple of methods for skinning your Windows Mobile phone to look and feel like an iPhone.* Hit the jump to see some videos of the Windows Mobile iPhone's in action and to find out how to achieve the same results.

* NOTE: No, no matter what you do, it still won't be an iPhone, and I agree, you shouldn't try to make an orange into an Apple (har har). But some of the iPhone's features as implemented using the methods described below are, frankly, are either better or more intuitive than the Windows Mobile default, and I'm thrilled to bring even an ounce of that usability to my smartphone.

Fantastic Four reviews

General assessment: Not as bad as the first.

"A slight but enjoyable bit of sci-fi popcorn that's mostly Marvelous just for being watchable, considering it's the sequel to one of the more irritating films of the 21st century." — E! Online

"It all makes for a film that's marginally better than the first one, but since that set the bar so low, that's like saying having a broken arm is better than a broken leg." — The Scotsman

"If you have children, if you feel the need to switch off, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is terrific. By almost every other criterion, it is a tragically bad film." — The Telegraph

"The target audience appears to be Cartoon Network fans. Anyone outside that category is likely to find Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer a dull slog that no avalanche of razzle-dazzle digital hooey can camouflage. It's not even entertaining camp." — The Dallas Morning News

"SS is obviously bound for his own franchise if this flick hits big, and that could be cool if the series is able to maintain the kid-friendly, but action-stuffed tone Rise achieves." — The Detroit News

"… it's something of a relief to confront a comic-book movie that is neither hip nor wised up. Earnest, gee-whiz and foursquare, this simple and intentionally inoffensive sequel gets points for being easy to take and scrupulously avoiding obvious sources of irritation." — The Los Angeles Times

"Maybe it has something to do with seriously diminished expectations, but Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is an improvement of sorts over the lifeless 2005 edition." — The Hollywood Reporter

"As summer franchise superhero flicks go, it's tolerable." — The Christian Science Monitor

"To its credit, Silver Surfer flows by quickly, if brainlessly. The dialogue from screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost is so shallow it provokes unintended laughs ("Your encounter with the Surfer has affected your molecules," Reed informs Johnny, proving that not all eggheads have a way with big words). — MSNBC.com

"It's not funny enough to be a spoof, and it's not deep enough to hold any intrigue. Even the special effects have a ho-hum, TV-style quality." — San Jose Mercury News