Newsweak

slaveleia1
Originally uploaded by bonniegrrl.

(Pictured: A clutch of Slave Leias at Star Wars Celebration IV. There's video, too.)

But wait, there's more...

Recursive link: It was too many years ago today...

Update: You can too order a wopburger.

2,000 people, 3,000 cattle and countless birds, wild animals and insects -- in short, every living thing for miles around -- died because the lake farted.

Washington Redskins players Clinton Portis and Chris Samuels defended Michael Vick on Monday by ridiculing the notion that dog fighting is considered a crime... "I don't know if he was fighting dogs or not," Portis said. "But it's his property; it's his dogs. If that's what he wants to do, do it."

A billboard advertisement for Wesleyan College was removed Monday after officials discovered it had been altered. The billboard, located near the Forsyth Road and Rivoli Drive intersection, was supposed to read, "Picture yourself at Wesleyan." Someone used white and black paint to change the sign to read, "Picture yourself a lesbyan."

"Having [a Visible Panty Line] is unforgivable. It is as bad as picking your nose in public. It is not cute, never has been cute and is a poke in the eye to modern manners."

To promote the upcoming film “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” 20th Century Fox and The Franklin Mint altered 40,000 U.S. quarters to feature the character. The U.S. Mint said in a news release Friday that it learned of the promotional quarter this week and advised the studio and The Franklin Mint they were breaking the law. It is illegal to turn a coin into an advertising vehicle, and violators can face a fine.

Dyslexia 'is just a middle-class way to hide stupidity.'

Newsweak

Silver And Blue
Originally uploaded by Rod Monkey.

Fox News says Michael Moore's new film, "Sicko", is "brilliant and uplifting". I don't think anyone has argued that he isn't a talented filmmaker.

Trivia question: Which Presidential candidate's wife has a tongue stud?

B'bye, Cingular; So long, BellSouth. One ring(tone) to rule them all.

Samantha Larson, 18, of Long Beach, successfully reached the top of Mount Everest on May 16. Is she the youngest person ever to have done it? Well, no. But she probably is the youngest non-native-Nepalese to do it. And she is definitely the youngest person to scale the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.

Fresh footage of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

Racism goes on trial again in America's Deep South. Speaking as a native of the official scapegoat region for American Racism (something the rest of the country never lets us forget), I have to challenge the word "again". That would imply that it ever stopped being on trial in America's Deep South. I would submit that much more sensitivity to racial issues is found in the South than the region is given credit for. I would further submit that most other regions, and most especially the regions from which most of our mass media originate, are in deep denial that racism even exists there.

What to say to creationists.

The ten most common passwords, according to PC Magazine. "If you recognize yours, you may as well hand over your wallet or purse to the first person you see on the street." No need to do that, just send it to me.

Only in Florida: A drive-in church.

Newsweak

Wig in bus stop
Originally uploaded by 倉促成事.

(Well, I can't call it "Friday Follies" if it isn't Friday.)

Doctors are experimenting with new surgical techniques that allow them to go in through natural openings in the body rather than abdominal incisions. "The idea is part of a broader trend to make surgery less and less invasive. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, surgeons began removing gallbladders with laparoscopic surgery, performed through a few small slits in the belly for a camera and surgical tools instead of the 10-inch incision needed for the original, open operation." (NYTimes story, may require registration.)

"I can't have someone like you here. We might need to part ways," the Christian boss (allegedly) said to the atheist soon-to-be ex-employee.

No good deed goes unpunished: The unintended consequence of increased popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles is that their owners don't pay their "fair share" of gasoline taxes, jeopardizing road maintenance and expansion projects. Oregon has been experimenting with gas pumps that query the vehicle's electronic odometer and calculate taxes based on miles driven instead of gallons purchased.

If the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 passes, I'll be a journalist! The same federal "shield laws" that protect newspaper reporters will also apply to bloggers.

M-I-C-K-E-Y J-I-H-A-D.

Sears.com tells you that the item you've ordered for in-store pickup is in stock, whether it is or isn't.

After 88 years on the menu, you can't buy a wopburger in Louisville, CO any more.

Barack Obama, in Kansas City: "The day that this president steps down, the entire world will breathe a sigh of relief." At least he didn't fly to Syria to say it.

And, at the bottom of the news, presenting Britain's, and perhaps the world's, oldest functioning vacuum cleaner.

Evil Oil

I can understand why some are upset at the price of gas. After all, we live under a fairly consistent message from Big Media that Big Oil is eeeeevil. The idea that Big Oil always lies while Big Media never does strikes me as amusing.

But what drove me up the wall this time is the following post from Wise Bread, one of several budget-living blogs I enjoy:


What she's upset about is a packet of BP-branded sunflower seeds (for planting, not eating), bearing a drawing of a little girl who wouldn't look out of place in the world of Hello Kitty. What I'm... well, upset is too strong a word, we'll say bemused by, is the fourth tag in her cluster of keywords. It contains a name not otherwise used in the post, nor is the position that person holds referred to at all. The implication is that the current oil prices are so obviously Bush's fault that it requires no explanation at all.

That's a pretty big leap to make from a package of sunflower seeds.

So, of course, I went Googling. Here's what I found:

• A 2005 brochure from the Energy Information Administration breaking down the components of the cost of a gallon of gasoline
• A chart of the same information, current as of March 2007 (The government, via taxes, makes about twice what the oil companies do on each gallon sold.)
  
• Conoco-Phillips' attempt to answer the question, Why Are Oil Company Profits So Large? (Answer: Because the industry is large. But if you look at the profit margin, the net profit as a percentage of sales, the oil industry, while profitable, is only slightly more so than industry at large, and significantly less so than, say, computers, beverage/tobacco, or pharmaceuticals.)
• BusinessWeek's cover story from 5-15-06, "Why You Should Worry About Big Oil" (Because the easy pickin's are gone, and satisfying the world's demand for petroleum is only going to get harder -- and more expensive.)

Ooh. That's too hard to think about. Hey, look, Birkenstocks are on sale!

LATER: Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm ignoring opposing viewpoints. I'm not. Some of the best unintentional comedy is found there. (Same reason I listened to Air America from time to time.) "There is simply no competitive market in this industry." Please, no more, I can't breathe.

Friday Follies

Forest Green DxO
Originally uploaded by ecstaticist.

China shows its immense respect for Western intellectual property by ripping off Disneyland.

"A Superior Court jury convicted a vegan couple of murder and cruelty to children Wednesday in the death of their 6-week-old, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice."

7 World Trade Center in New York has those elevators I mentioned a few weeks ago.

"Unisex lavatories - with blurred glass walls - could help in the battle against school bullies, government guidelines for England suggest."

Wouldn't you like to be a hooper too?

"All the time I spent in that hellhole [mental institution], people were constantly trying to convince me that I felt sad because there was something wrong with my brain. But do you want to know what I really learned? ...I learned that I wasn’t sad because there was something wrong with my brain. I learned that I was sad because my life sucked."

When one of the world's foremost violinists takes his Stradivarius to the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., and plays his heart out for forty-five minutes, with his violin case open before him with a fistful of change in it... will you stop to listen? (Caution: This story may make you cry.) (I'm thinking the results might have been different if they'd tried it in the afternoon rush instead of the morning rush.)

"In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26-year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person." "

Friday Follies

O + = + ) = hcf
Originally uploaded by nor¤cal¤jeff.

Here's a short examination of why DVD players have regions--and how to get rid of them. From Wise Bread.

Back before the invasion of Afghanistan, when the world was telling the U.S. that it wasn't possible, one of the reasons given was the "brutal Afghan winters." And it does get cold there occasionally -- almost as cold as it gets here, at any of our numerous ski resorts. I thought of that when I read about the woman who skinny-dipped in the Trevi fountain in Rome, to "beat the heat". The blistering record heat wave of... 27 Celsius (80 Fahrenheit).

Emotive's flagship product, the patent-pending "Push Ringer", reverses the common ringtone model. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. Oh, great, just what we need. I've already seen a roomful of people doing the Cellphone Macarena because they can't tell whose phone is ringing, and that's when they know what they set their ringtone to. Want to hear another reason this is a bad idea? You think spam e-mails are frustrating, wait until someone "pushes" a sales pitch onto your phone. Imagine the hilarity when your pocket asks you if your pen!s is really large enough for you. During an important meeting.

Sheryl Crow thinks we can all get by with "only one square [of toilet paper] per restroom visit." Fortunately, Rosie O'Donnell performed a public service by delivering an untoppable answer to Crow's suggestion: "Have you seen my ass?"

Looking for a fast moneymaking scheme? Buy a herd of sheep, take them to Japan, and sell them to the locals. Tell 'em they're poodles. They won't know the difference: They don't have many sheep in Japan. Oops, too late.

John Q. Public really didn't need more reasons to hate Wal-Mart. BusinessWeek suggests that the recent implosion of some of the nation's largest electronics retailers (CompUSA, Tweeter, Rex, Circuit City) is attributable to WallyWorld having broken the $1000 barrier for flat-screen televisions back on Black Friday 2006. Just as their aggressive toy and grocery pricing killed FAO Schwarz and Winn-Dixie, respectively. (Saw it at The New Shelton Wet/Dry.) The Wall Street Journal reports that "In past decades, deejays and music critics helped shape musical trends. Today, many music industry executives agree, the big boxes have become the new tastemakers." And we all know whose box is the biggest. (Saw it at the Consumerist.) And now Forbes has named "the Wal-Mart squeeze", summarized by the Consumerist thusly: "The more stuff you sell at Walmart the more dependant your company is on their various whims. The result? The most stuff you sell, the smaller your profit margin is."

The mysterious fifth sense

I was beginning to think no one would ever hear my adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The Country of the Blind". But, much to my surprise, there it is in ARTC's Podcast, part one last week and part two this.

I can't judge the performance of the actor playing the lead character, Nunez, but the rest of the cast is delightful, and it was a pleasant surprise to hear my friend Thomas Fuller as the Elder of the little village.

This has always been one of my favorite stories, and I hope we've done it justice.

Why people hate tech support

There is nothing unusual about this tech support call. Thousands just like it happen every day.



From The Consumerist.

Friday Follies

Robert Heinlein at One Hundred.

The ancient mystery surrounding the great acoustics of the theater at Epidaurus in Greece has been solved.

This is the story of a girl named Corey O'Malley, and a boy named Corey O'Malley, who had their credit reports accidentally merged.

Did you know that Don Imus' "nappy-headed ho" remark was actually George Bush's fault? It's on the Internet so it must be true. Just as well he isn't in the furniture business.

Interplanetary war is now reality. First we invaded Mars, then we nuked Jupiter.

ZDNet's list of 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid. "Bare/bear", "poll/pole", "ring/wring" and "reign/rain/rein" mysteriously missing from list.

Oops

The downside of moving to the new post-beta Blogger template is that I have no way to display old comments. I've archived them all, but Blogger gives me no way to import them into its comment engine.

Sincere regrets for any inconvenience this may cause.

Friday Follies

No Dumping
Originally uploaded by creativelychallenged.

I don't know what's more interesting, the fact that this letter has been lost in the mail since September 1943, or that it's junk mail.

Organ donor? Cremation? Traditional burial? Why not place your loved one in a unique resting place? (He always wanted to be a writer...)

Playboy comes to my alma mater, only thirty-two years late. Go, you Brazilian dawgs.

It may not be green so much as a slightly greener shade of brown.

Is it possible to be on the Billboard list if you don't have an album? Well, yes, now. (NY Times story requires registration.)

Receiving fines and points had no significant impact on the risk of repeat [traffic] citations. Great, now you tell me.

April Fools Day

Our first day in Japan
Originally uploaded by 7-how-7.

I don't think I dislike April Fool's Day as much as Sleestak does, but it has lost a lot of its charm for me. On the Internet, it means you can't trust anything you read...but that's different from the other 364 days how, exactly?

Friday Follies

links
Originally uploaded by mord.

So, if it's so much more efficient for the IRS if I file electronically, why do I have to pay extra to do it? (Another in a series of backroom deals wherein private industry arranges for the government to pick my pocket.)

Hans Island is a frozen bit of rock in the north Atlantic that's been claimed by both Canada and Denmark. Proving that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, the place has become important as a consequence of... global warming.

Remember that British show called The Good Life (known in the United States as Good Neighbors), where Tom and Barbara Good decide to retool their suburban home for self-sufficiency? Utterly unrealistic, of course. Nobody would actually do that, right? Of course not. Now, if they lived in New York City, that would be realistic. (NY Times story: Registration required. See also Wise Bread and The Compact.)

Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

And an oldie but a goodie, the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time, complete with a link to the BBC's report of a booming Swiss spaghetti harvest.

You get what you deserve....

Shame
Originally uploaded by dubaddict.

...when you ask Google for driving directions from Chicago to London. I especially like the part where Google tells you to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, and actually estimates how long that will take (assuming you can maintain a brisk 6 mph).

Originally observed by Gadling, also reported by Upgrade: Travel Better and The Consumerist, this behavior -- trick? Easter Egg? Computer sarcasm? -- recurs for any two cities separated by the Atlantic. Wisely, Google refuses to attempt driving directions to Tokyo, even if you plan to stop over in Honolulu.

Yes, I tried it. What can I tell you? I was bored.

Best Buy Acquires Speakeasy

Huh? Did I read that right? The internet service provider with possibly the best reputation of any ISP, better in fact than most computer manufacturers I could name, is being acquired by the retailer with the second most ignorant sales force on the planet? (CompUSA holds the title, but they're closing stores left and right and not likely to spread their seed.)

This week's linkdump

California - San Francisco - No Dumping - Sign.jpg
Originally uploaded by Colin Gregory Palmer.

Borders to end its arrangement with Amazon.com? Barnes & Noble and Borders to merge? Dogs and cats living together? ("Farkers everywhere briefly turn away from the comfort of their familiar blue and white columned worlds, and ask 'What's a book?' ")

RIAA asks universities to deliver letter from RIAA to students telling them to pay for downloaded music. Universities say no. RIAA asks universities to rat on students who download music. Universities say no. RIAA asks universities to retain and turn over IP address assignments in order to track students who download music. Universities not only say no, but bill RIAA for the time they've wasted.

Separate beds for married couples not enough? Try separate bedrooms. "The quest for better rest is behind the trend as experts say the lack of decent sleep can cause marital tension. ...Snoring, night-time visits to the bathroom, child-care requirements and shift-working can deprive couples of the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep per night."

"Software developers truly believe, in their heart of hearts, that they are typical users."

And half of teacher's can't see this mistake.

You know, this makes sense

I don't think anyone who knows me would accuse me of being a rabid environmentalist. That said, though, I certainly see the wisdom of minimizing the consumption of resources when practical. Most of the lighting in my house is compact-fluorescent instead of incandescent, which lowers both my electric bill and the average room temperature. I'm sold on the utility of low-power LEDs (which appear to be widely used in traffic lights in the area). Heck, I even find the dark-sky arguments quite reasonable. (I remember when I could lie on the grass at night and watch the stars. I sure can't do it now.)

But I didn't think of this:

Treehugger.com | Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-Hours a Year
From the lights out department - did you know that a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor uses about 74 watts to display an all white web page, but only uses 59 watts to display an all black page? ...

Take at look at Google, for instance, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let's assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. Now take into account that about 25 percent of the monitors in the world are CRTs, and at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, that's about $75,000/year, a goodly amount of energy and dollars for changing a few color codes.

Okay, $75,000 a year divided by however many million visitors doesn't amount to enough difference for any one user to notice. I'd certainly grant that. Nonetheless, it would be a strong, conspicuous gesture toward an attitude shift. Why burn what you don't have to?

No, you won't find me leading any "Internet Goes Black" movements, but (as Treehugger points out) there are many dark colors that still represent energy savings compared to white. I spent years perfectly content with green-on-black 80x24: The screen resolution and color palettes available now offer a tremendous improvement over that.

I suppose it's possible for me to override any page's default colors, but this isn't the kind of thing that would be effective as a user-by-user grassroots movement. The hosts of the internet's most popular pages would have to buy into it.

Of course, as the world upgrades to LCD monitors, the issue may take care of itself.

"Oh, you’re going to defy me when I become president?"

Looking for an alternative for President in 2008? Tired of choosing the lesser of the evils? Have I got a candidate for you.

Columbia Chronicla | Secret Service investigates satanic vampire
The 2008 presidential bid just got a little more challenging for the race’s only satanic vampire candidate.

Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, a 42-year-old New Jersey man who is running under the Vampire, Witches and Pagan Party, is currently being investigated by the Secret Service for potential threats toward President George W. Bush.

According to Sharkey, Secret Service agents visited him and his 19-year-old wife, Spree, in Ohio on Feb. 15. The visit concerned Sharkey’s repeated remarks about impaling Bush, an act Sharkey said he would only do if he were elected president.

“They never even asked to see my impaling stick,” Sharkey said.

... “They were telling me, when they were interrogating me, that their job was to protect Bush even after he’s out of office,” Sharkey said. “I’m looking at them like, ‘Oh, you’re going to defy me when I become president?’”

The Secret Service agent's reaction is unrecorded.

Time is broken

Sun Dial, Kew Gardens
Originally uploaded by bluedwarf.

Did everyone remember that the new, improved Daylight Saving Time begins today?

I did remember, and spent the last half-hour or so before bed last night changing clocks. We have cheap battery-powered wall clocks in almost every room: Those would have to be changed manually. So would the clock on our oven, and the one in the breadmaker (we have a microwave, but it doesn't have a clock), and alarm clocks in my son's room and on my wife's side of the bed. Oh, and the clocks in our answering machine and thermostat, and my analog pocket watch.

I missed the VCRs. I confidently expect I'll have to change them four times this year: Once when DST now is, and once when DST would have been. I'll see if I can disable the auto-settings for that, while I'm in there.

My alarm clock, my daughter's alarm clock, and the wall clock at my wife's desk all get atomic timekeeping signals: They all updated themselves. So did the computers and cel phones. (Exception: My iPaq, an older model, didn't update. I wonder if there's a patch for that version of Windows Mobile. Why, yes, there is.)

Outlook, of course (and those of you who use it should be aware of this), jumped the gun and went wonky a couple of weeks ago. My all-day events spanned two days, because they begin and end at 1am instead of midnight, and my timed events drifted forward an hour. Downloaded Microsoft's Time Zone Data Update Tool: Worked just fine. Although I am amused that Windows itself can update automatically and Outlook can't.

Note to myself: When I replace clocks of any kind, replace them with clocks that receive atomic timekeeping signals. I shouldn't have to do this.

Ah, well, it could be worse. I could live in Indiana.

Rational discourse

It would be unfair of me to draw any general conclusions regarding the thinking or reasoning power of the average "progressive" based on one stray posting at Wonkette. I am, however, impressed that those who chose to comment on the "issue" are so determined to hate conservatives that they cannot accept a statement from George F. Will at face value even when they agree with its substance.



If you happen to view the video before you follow the link, you may wonder what the fuss is about. It's 24 seconds into the video, when George Stephanopolous asks Will about Ann Coulter (a reference, one supposes, to her recent remarks pertaining to John Edwards), Will falters, recollects his thoughts, and says "...the less said about whom, the better."

At least, that's what I heard him say. The progressives seem equally sure he said "...the less said about him, the better."

That's it. That's all.

Coming Soon

Ten days after Valentine's Day the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company will bring you a show about seduction; that fine art, that ability so many aspire to but so few achieve. And what's more seductive than a good vampire story? It's guaranteed to get your blood pumping.
Special musical guests: The Radio Ramblers!

Stage Door Players
5539 Chamblee Dunwoody Road
Dunwoody, GA 30338
Box office phone number: 770-396-1726
Tickets are just $10!

Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 8:00pm
Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 2:30pm

(Create custom images at ImageChef.com)

That's "as smart as I"

"Second-class citizen"

Fox News | Toys 'R' Us Reverses Decision on Denied New Year Baby Prize
After coming under fire for denying a Chinese-American infant a $25,000 prize in a New Year's baby contest because her mother was not a legal U.S. resident, the Toys "R" Us company said Saturday evening that it had reversed its decision.

The Wayne, N.J.-based company said it would award each of the three babies in the grand prize pool of the "First Baby of the Year Sweepstakes" a $25,000 savings bond.

...Chinese-American advocates had complained that the toy company's decision smacks of second-class citizenship.

I can't fault Toys 'R' Us for choosing the solution they did. True, they're giving away three times as much money as they intended to, but it's petty cash for a company of TRU's size. Still, I find myself wishing this case had gone to court. Which it may yet, I suppose. It might then fall to a judge to provide some long-overdue clarification of the legal status of children born to non-citizens who happen to be in this country when they give birth. With the current state of affairs regarding the US / Mexican border, this question is far from merely academic.

Because we are the wealthiest, and most generous, nation on the planet, we accept that babies born here are U. S. citizens regardless of the status of their parents. This would not be the first occasion on which parents exploited that generosity for their own benefit, although it might set a record for the tender age of the child being exploited.

But there is one way in which the accusation of "second-class citizen" might be appropriate to this situation, for that is exactly what the child is: Or, to put it another way, a minor. There is a world of things that minors may not do in America (and we consider this right and just), among them enter into contracts--and what is a contest's entry blank if it is not a contract between the entrant and the sponsor? The rules of TRU's contest specify that only a citizen of legal age may claim the prize. The child can't do it: She's not of legal age. The mother can't do it: She's not a citizen. It's not TRU's fault that the mother-to-be didn't read the fine print.

TRU, in short, was right to disqualify the entrant. TRU caved because they didn't want the PR headache this situation would be. It just isn't worth the cost of a $25k savings bond to have mom's lawyer telling the press that Toys 'R' Us hates yellow babies.

591 ways to find Britney Spears

If everything is on the web, then that means that some really, really weird stuff is on the web.

This page begs several questions:

Why is Google tracking the number of ways that people misspell "Britney Spears"?
Why are they putting the results on a publicly viewable page?
What does it say about computer users, as a class, that over three months, there were over 600k queries for "Britney Spears"?
What could anyone want to know or see that isn't already public knowledge?
What does it say about computer users, as a class, that nearly one-fourth of the queries were misspelled?
I didn't know there were 592 ways to misspell "Britney Spears". (Okay, I realize that isn't a question.)

Tread carefully, Verizon

NY Times | Verizon to Allow Ads on Its Mobile Phones
VERIZON WIRELESS, among the nation’s most widely advertised brands, is poised to become the advertising medium itself.

Beginning early next year, Verizon Wireless will allow placement of banner advertisements on news, weather, sports and other Internet sites that users visit and display on their mobile phones, company executives said.

...“We know we can make significant dollars in mobile Web advertising in 2007,” said John Harrobin, vice president of marketing and digital media for Verizon Wireless. “That said, we likely will not — we want to take it carefully and methodically, and enable the right experience.” More generally, he added, “Mobile advertising is going to take off in 2007.”

Ah. With the magnanimous generosity of the suggestion that they will probably choose not to make as much money with this as they could, they implicitly admit that they know there might be some customer resistance to this tactic.

Allow me to spell it out for all those Verizon managers who are doubtless hanging on my every word:

The first ad I see on my mobile phone will be the last ad I see on my mobile phone. I will stop whatever I'm doing and head directly to my local Verizon store to return my phones and cancel my account. If I have calmed down, I will walk into the store to do this. If I haven't, I'll throw it through your front window. But I will be damned if I will pay you to put an ad in my pocket.

Perhaps you, Verizon management, have forgotten that I already pay you handsomely for the privilege of carrying your phone. I do not browse the web on it. I do not take pictures with it. I do not play games with it. All I do is place and receive calls. Apparently this is too high an expectation for a mobile phone. I have it in order to enable fast, convenient communication with my scattered family. Do that job and no more and you have a customer for life.

She tickled me with science

MSNBC | Ha ha ha: Did that make you smile?

If you see two people laughing at a joke you didn’t hear, chances are you will smile anyway — even if you don’t realize it.

According to a new study, laughter truly is contagious: the brain responds to the sound of laughter and preps the muscles in the face to join in the mirth.

Boy, I'm glad fifty years of canned laughter on situation comedies hasn't been utterly wasted. "Hi, honey, I'm home." Bwah-hah-hah.

Next on MSNBC: The sun rises... in the east!

Look how clever I am

boingboing | Species mimicry in corporate logos

The logos of the fast-food joints on a stretch of desolate American road reveals a kind of species mimicry, or evolutionary convergence:
"...Notice how all of these companies use shades of red and yellow in their logos?"

No fooling. All these companies that want to be noticed on the roadside have signs dominated by colors with contrast against sky blue. Who'da thunk it.

(I'd link to the site from which boingboing got this blinding insight, but it's apparently been overwhelmed by the traffic. As an Olde Farte, allow me to be depressed that this is what fascinates the Generation That Will Shape The Future.)

[LATER: Now the original source, Random Connections is available, having, er, dugg out from underneath its bandwidth-alanche.]

Big Damn Heroes

I'm speechless. I can't top the headline I found on this story on Fark, so here it is:

Not news: Due to unforseen circumstances, exclusive Firefly convention is canceled.

News: Firefly fans turn up anyway.

(In the world of Fark, this may be news. I can't say it surprises me very much, given the intensity of affection with which a lot of fans regard Firefly. However...)

Hero tag: And so do the actors.

Say what?

Yes. Nathan Fillian (Captain Reynolds), Alan Tudyk (recently deceased pilot "Wash", wasn't even supposed to be there), Mark Sheppard (Badger the, er, "entrepreneur"), Jonathan Woodward (Tracey the organ smuggler), Christina Hendricks ("Our Mrs Reynolds") and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) all showed. Jewel Staite (Kaylee) tried, but she's stuck in Canada.

The stories on the forum at Whedonesque are enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Imagine there's no buttons...

It's easy if you try...

I never thought I would see a blog all about buttons, but then came History of the Button.

In this provocative post, our host asks the question, does the elevator user interface need changing? Those who, like me, have waited an hour or more for an elevator going our way at DragonCon might argue that it does. I find myself longing for the days of a human operator who could (a) enforce load limits or (b) keep people from getting on an down-elevator in order to go up. (Aside from the fundamental unfairness of the tactic, it places unnecessary wear and tear on the elevator itself. Or is it not obvious that an elevator that is moving someone in the wrong direction is wasting energy?)

The original "user interface", as I understand it, was a single handle: Moved in one direction, the elevator ascended: In the other, it descended. It was up to the human operator, specially trained for the job, to bring it to a gentle halt with the elevator floor level with that of the desired story of the building.

The problems began when we got rid of that darned operator, put out on the sidewalk to commiserate with the buggy whip manufacturers. The elevator was now controlled by its riders--and a sophisticated set of relays, sensors, and failsafes that (generally) accomplished the task at hand without a human being's constant attention.

Suddenly the question "Is this elevator going up?" was subject to a vote. Every time the door opened. The operator, the final arbiter of the question, was gone--and the elevator itself didn't care. I hope the poor operator at least derived some amusement from the new problems his absence created.

Elevator brains got more and more complex, resulting in a conveyance that would continue rising until it got to the topmost floor to which it was sent (or from which it was called) before it would turn around.

The problem is, the elevator encourages each rider to think only of himself. There's no way to know how many other people want the same floor you do, and nothing to do about it if you did know. With increasingly rare exceptions, there's no way for the average rider to know where the elevator is if he isn't actually on it. PC Tech Support can tell you how long before your call is answered, but nobody can tell you how long before "your" elevator arrives, or how many intermediate stops it will make before it reaches your floor. The user is "protected" from the information he needs to make any kind of intelligent decision regarding the allocation of elevator resources. He's also "protected" from any clues what the elevator system itself is doing, or why.

I'm sure there must have been a few false starts before the familiar elevator interface came together. The rider approaches the lobby and calls an elevator moving in a particular direction, then when one arrives, he gets on and designates his floor. It's a two-step process (unless one happens to be on the topmost or bottommost floor, and so few buildings have their main entrances on either one).

Why should it be two steps?

Back to Bill at the History of the Button, who talks about “destination elevators”. All of the user controls are in each floor's elevator lobby: On the numeric keypad, you tell the system your intended destination floor: It responds by telling you which elevator will go there. There are no buttons in the elevator itself (except, one presumes, the reassuring Emergency Alarm button).

I would love to see a hotel full of science-fiction fans try to cope with elevators like these.

Celebrity Endorsements

Who were you expecting, Orson Welles?

Nobody likes a sore winner

Interesting.

After spending the last month ramping up a challenge to the accuracy of electronic voting, the left now has nothing to say about it.

"A Loud Message for Bush", says the New York Times, a headline paraphrased by every other major news organization. I think I'd be insulted if I'd just campaigned for, and won, a seat in the gorram House of effing Representatives, only to see every analyst in the country dismiss it as "a message for Bush". It wasn't about anything I'd said or didn't say, or did or didn't do: It's about Bush.

I didn't have an opportunity to send a message to anyone, since my congressman, the hon. John Lewis, ran without opposition from either party, a situation he's enjoyed for as long as I can remember.

(What a coincidence, too, that the NYTimes has made its subscription-only web content freely available this week, doubtless in gleeful anticipation of today's headlines.)

I'm getting pretty far off track. That isn't where I'd meant to go.

Congratulations, Democrats. No, really, sincere congratulations. And best wishes: I don't envy the position in which you've put yourselves. Now that you've made it crystal clear that your plan, your only vision for the future, is a nation without Bush, you have to spend the next two years getting along with him and producing visible results. Blocking the President at every turn isn't going to be enough: You're going to have to actually Do Something eventually.

But that's a thought for the future. Just now, less than a hundred hours after the election, you can get away with Doing Nothing. In fact, Nothing is exactly what you should be seen as doing. The last two Presidential elections have been marred by the embarrassing spectacle of a national Democratic Hissy Fit as you demonstrated just what sore losers you were. Sore winners are even worse. One would think, now that you are flush with victory, you could bring yourselves to simply bask in it for a few hours. Accept it gracefully. Don't keep slamming the other guy: That fight is over. Be magnanimous. Recognize the people who actually did the grunt work in your campaigns. Thank the voters, who gave you a chance to prove you aren't the same jokers they turned out twelve years ago. Use the words "worthy" and "opponent" in the same sentence. You can afford to. You won.

Then, when you do start actually taking action, the one thing you can do that will give you the most credibility in my mind is to actually address the concerns you raised a month ago regarding electronic voting machines. Prove that you actually care about such things even when you win. Money can't buy publicity that good.

Oh, and see if you can rein in Bill Maher*. I thought you were too tolerant and enlightened to think that "outing" gay people was inherently slanderous.

Good luck.

* *rolls eyes* Maher and O'Reilly, two sides of the same coin. Shame we can't pull 'em both off the table and raise television's collective IQ by fifty points.

The Coming Darkness

Daylight Saving Time - When do we change our clocks?
On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete.

Hm. So we'll be on so-called Standard Time for only four months of the year. Perhaps it's time to re-designate Daylight Saving Time as Standard Time and the winter months as, oh, I don't know...



Vote early and often.

Something's wrong, but I can't put my finger on it

Last Saturday, Mark Evanier of News From Me linked to a YouTube video of a campaign commercial. It features Michael J. Fox's endorsement of Missouri Senatorial candidate Claire McCaskill, a democrat looking to unseat incumbent Jim Talent.



Fox has also done a similar ad (which I haven't seen) for Maryland Senatorial candidate Rep. Benjamin Cardin. Here's an excerpt from Evanier:

My topic here is the nature of this commercial and how I honestly don't know how I feel about it. ... I've watched it three times and each time, something inside me says, "This is not right." But I can't really explain what I object to...

He goes on to list several good reasons to object to it, none of which are apparently enough:

• "It reminds me a bit of tasteless charity pitches that roll out crippled children and imply that without your nickels, Little Katie will die within the week."
• "It's so sad to see Michael J. Fox in the condition he's in."
• "I've become ... distrustful of emotional appeals in political ads..."

It's events like this that convince me that Right and Left will never get along. Things that are so obviously wrong from one perspective generate a puzzled shrug from the other.

Rush Limbaugh further accused Fox of exaggerating or outright faking his Parkinson's symptoms for these spots, which had the effect of drawing the discussion even further off topic. (As heartless as it may seem to point this out, Fox is, after all, an actor.) He later retracted and apologized for this, although he also said:

I have gotten a plethora of e-mails from people saying Michael J. Fox has admitted in interviews that he goes off his medication for Parkinson's disease when he appears before Congress or other groups as a means of illustrating the ravages of the disease.

I e-mailed Evanier to say I had some thoughts he hasn't mentioned.

A very small part of it is automatic suspicion that a Big-Name Hollywood Actor with no (at least no obvious) ties to Missouri should be offering an endorsement in that race. It may be unfortunate that this is my first reaction, but it's no less real. I also realize that Ms McCaskill is not the first candidate to get support from outside her constituency, nor is either party innocent of this.

I think the largest part of my own reaction is this: This is the kind of appeal I expect from someone who knows the facts are not on his side.

If this were a radio ad; If it were a voiceover behind still photographs of the candidate, or Mr Fox, or activities of the Michael J Fox Foundation, or even slides of numbers and statistics (how many people have been helped so far, how many could potentially be helped, how much money are we talking about); If the cameraman had caught Mr Fox on a better day; If the piece were edited in such a way as to minimize his symptoms; Or if this were an appeal for donations to help fund stem cell research, something that is perfectly legal for private companies to do regardless of Senator Talent's vote...

But it is none of these things. Given the wide range of physical imperfections a good filmed or videotaped image can conceal, the fact that they chose to present Mr Fox in this manner wasn't an accident. Someone, someone not themselves a Parkinson's sufferer, looked at this film and made the decision, "Yes, this is what we want our audience to see," in order to influence a Senatorial election.

That's what creeps me out.

This ad is, in its purest form, Not Fighting Fair. I know, imagine that, a political ad not fighting fair. Thank goodness that's never happened before.

Dixie Chicks offer to buy the Red Cross

Since well-known social scientist Natalie Maines is now claiming that the Red Cross flatly turned down her group's no-strings-attached million-dollar contribution (on NPR's Fresh Air and in the documentary Shut Up and Sing), it might be worth pointing out, as Hoystory did, that there was one big fat string:

The Chicks wanted something from the Red Cross for their $1 million, namely for the Red Cross to attach their name to the Dixie Chicks summer tour.

I always thought sponsors paid you, not the other way around.

(Thanks, Ron.)

The next logical step

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes to wed in Italy? Why?

I guess if the Hollywood press have already over-legitimized their new daughter, the only thing that could justify that is if her parents' wedding were performed by no less than the Pope himself.

Yeah, it's a slow day.

Axis of Weasels

Aww, those poor helpless mink, ruthlessly farmed for their fur.

Planet Ark | Raiders Set Free Minks on Spanish Fur Farms

MADRID - Night-time raiders freed more than 17,000 minks on fur farms in northern Spain, police said on Sunday.

Police suspect the raiders were animal rights activists or rival breeders. In carefully planned raids, they simultaneously broke into farms in three regions of Galicia, northwest Spain, which is a centre of mink production for the fur trade.

This article is a Reuters story: emphasis is mine. The assertion that police think "rival breeders" might be responsible is not confirmed in the more widely available AP story (see Boston Herald). Reuters also refers to "night-time raiders", whereas the AP article calls 'em what they are, "vandals". I guess even Reuters couldn't use the phrase "freedom-fighters" with a straight face when they're talking about mink. I mean, have you actually seen a living mink? Only two species of this animal carry the glamourous name "mink": The other dozen or so are known variously as stoats, ferrets, polecats, or most commonly, weasels. They're not known for their winning personalities.

Now, it is true that an estimated 17,000 weasels -- I mean, mink -- were released from their cages, but it's also estimated that just under half of them actually managed to escape from the compound. That's still 7,000 mink, a lot of free-range fur. What's going to happen to them?

[The farm's owner Charo] Carrillo said that most of those that got away will probably starve to death in a matter of days because they were raised in captivity and do not know how to hunt or fish.

Jose Benito Reza, a conservation official with the Galician regional government...said the people who freed the latest batch “did them no favor whatsoever” because they cannot survive in the wild and that the mink are ornery carnivores who might attack other animals and birds.

"Might"?

That is, those that aren't shot as the pests they are, or killed by larger animals, or run over by passing motorists. But at least they'll die free. (Even the Free Republic, a bastion of extreme-leftist "thinking", has no sympathy for people who'd turn loose thousands of critters that can't feed themselves.)

Maybe the "raiders" should have crated 'em up, sent them to Australia, and turned 'em loose on the out-of-control rabbit population. Coast to coast bunny / ferret madness.

Ron saw how this story was presented in the local paper (AJC), and replied:

A photo caption in the 10-16 AJC says: “A mink makes its escape Sunday after a group, believed to be environmental activists, broke into three mink farms in northwestern Spain and freed more than 15,000 mink.” The photo is a ground-level, extreme closeup of a mink with farm buildings behind it. I have a few questions:

1. Did an Associated Press photographer accompany the ‘environmental activist’ criminals in the commission of their crime, or --

2. Does AP distribute photographs provided by anonymous criminal sources, or --

3. Are we supposed to believe that a mink paused long enough in ‘making its escape’ for an AP photographer to be summoned, make the trip to the mink farm, and take its picture?

4. Or was this particular mink too stupid to make it up the boards and over the fence? (Possibly a good thing he didn’t escape, if he’s that dumb.)

As with so many newspaper websites, AJC's is an afterthought that imperfectly mirrors the print edition. The photo that accompanied the AP story isn't there, so I haven't seen it. It could, I suppose, be a staged file image of a mink still in captivity, despite the caption that asserts that it is a photo of a crime in progress. It appears that the AP are either complicit in the crime or simply lying about the photo's origin, neither of which reflects well on them.

But it's not like it's real news, like any of the dozen other images the news services have misrepresented or outright faked lately.

Does a yo-yo work in zero g?

Weightless teachers carry thrills home to students
The moment he became weightless, Mike Hickey of South High School in Cleveland, Ohio, completely forgot about the science experiment he was to conduct.

"After the first bounce, I said nuts to the experiments," an exhilarated Hickey said after returning from his 90-minute flight aboard G-Force One, an aircraft specially designed to simulate the zero gravity of space by making controlled free-fall descents.

Hickey and 38 other teachers took part over the weekend in the last of five "Weightless Flights of Discovery" sponsored by Northrop Grumman Corp. and Zero Gravity Corporation of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Now, this is inarguably cool, and I'm not saying I wouldn't do the same thing. But I'm wondering how Professor Hickey (who doubtless gets enough snickering in class as it is) will respond when his kids blow off their experiments because they were interested in something else.

I'm being too much of a grinch, surely. But what about this:

Hickey was mystified by one experience.

"I had a water bottle with this much water in it, that I was going to drink," he said, indicating a small amount.

"At zero gravity there was nothing in there that you could see. But when gravity came back, it was in there. It had just vaporized or something."

Now, the article doesn't say what Hickey teaches. Possibly it's not science, but if so, why was he even on this flight? Does he really think that water vaporizes in zero gravity? (I mean, more so than normal.)

I'm just a middle-aged liberal arts major, so let's see if I can get it right. We're told that there isn't very much water in the bottle. I'm going to assume that magic doesn't happen and that, since the water "reappeared" in the bottle, that it never actually left. Theory: Under simulated zero g surface tension causes the water to spread out and coat the inside of the bottle fairly uniformly, making it difficult to distinguish from the sides of the bottle. A simple experiment -- swinging the bottle around to generate a little centrifugal force -- would cause the water to pool at one end, if that is the case.

Do either of my readers know enough science to tell me if I'm right?

If the point of this trip was to inspire a little scientific curiosity, looks like it failed, both with Mr Hickey and with Reuters, who thought they were cleverly reporting the lack of same in one teacher, but who failed to provide any answer to the question themselves.

One hundred and nine years ago today

Much as I love Atlanta and the South, even I must admit that, once in a great while, a good idea does come from somewhere else. One of the greatest of all ideas came from a newspaper in New York.

It came from a question asked by one of its youngest readers, and from the man that fate—and the editors of the New York Sun—chose to answer it.

Read more...

Save it for Biology class

Warning: Post contains stick-figure nudity.

YAHOO (AP) | X-rated font used on third-grade handout
MONROE, N.Y. - School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Officials with the Monroe-Woodbury School District in Orange County apologized last week after parents at Pine Tree Elementary School were given the spelling packet at an open house.

Administrators said the teacher did not use the font intentionally.

Monroe is about 45 miles northwest of New York City.

I have two questions.

One: Just how "x-rated" can you get with stick figures?

Two: "The teacher did not use the font intentionally." How does one use a font accidentally?

Fortunately, for those of us who want the whole story, Yahoo links to the original source, where there is significantly more information. There's even an image of the "offensive" cover sheet in question.

Times Herald-Record | Central Valley teacher gives x-rated handout
...At first glance, it's difficult to make out the salaciousness of the type font.

Sources said the teacher had no idea the alphabet was offensive when she downloaded the font from the Internet...

The design is so subtle that even school officials missed it. And many parents didn't know what they were looking at until they received a letter of apology Friday from Pine Tree principal Jean Maxson.

Okay, I get it. Teacher in a rush, found what looked like a cute cartoon alphabet, didn't look at it too closely (who would?), and next thing she knows she's getting a call from the PTA.

One still has to wonder why she felt a need to use a cute cartoon alphabet on a handout intended for parents.

And now for something... ah, you know the rest

If you're on a dialup, this may take forever, but it's the funniest minute and a half I've seen in a long time. Presenting Star Trek Sings "Knights of the Round Table."

It's coming

Yes, ARTC's one and only performance at DragonCon 2006 is coming Friday, September 1, at or around 7:00 pm.

Uncharacteristic Self-Promotion

This DragonCon (next week) will see the release of three new CDs by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. Two of them are re-releases of material previously available on tape, but both are in slightly different form. The third is perhaps the most eagerly awaited release in ARTC's history (by us, if not by our fans).

1. H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, adapted by Brad Strickland, and Dr Geoffry Stanhope: Hour of the Wolf by Thomas E. Fuller
2. The Happy Man by Gerald W. Page, and The Competitor by Brad Linaweaver
3. I'll be shot at sunrise if I tell you what this one is.

At some point after Labor Day weekend, you'll find these for sale on ARTC's website.

ARTC @ DragonCon: Now 50% less filling

Our Long National Nightmare is Over

Yahoo/AP | McKinney loses runoff for Georgia seat
DECATUR, Ga. - Cynthia McKinney, the fiery Georgia congresswoman known for her conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks and the scuffle she had earlier this year with a U.S. Capitol police officer, lost a runoff election Tuesday for her district's Democratic nomination.

Attorney Hank Johnson, a former county commissioner, won the nomination with 59 percent of the vote, surpassing McKinney by more than 11,000 votes.

She was running what I would call a stealth campaign, perhaps under the theory that her best chance at winning was if her constituents forgot there was an election. According to USA Today:

Unlike typical candidates, McKinney has no campaign press secretary or public schedule. She did not participate in debates before the primary. A recorded office greeting last weekend urged callers to vote in the primary July 20. The primary was actually on July 18.

The above link from PhotoDude, where there is much more fun to be had at McKinney's expense.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Cynthia Tucker: Voters can see through McKinney
She doesn't have the prestige or power to pass a resolution in support of sweetened ice tea.

It couldn't happen to a nicer woman.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords

Wired News | Giant Robot Imprisons Parked Cars
The robot that parks cars at the Garden Street Garage in Hoboken, New Jersey, trapped hundreds of its wards last week for several days. But it wasn't the technology car owners had to curse, it was the terms of a software license.

The garage is owned by the city; the software, by Robotic Parking of Clearwater, Florida.

In the course of a contract dispute, the city of Hoboken had police escort the Robotic employees from the premises just a few days before the contract between both parties was set to expire. What the city didn't understand or perhaps concern itself with, is that they sent the company packing with its manuals and the intellectual property rights to the software that made the giant robotic parking structure work.

Just in case you thought a software license dispute couldn't do any real harm.

Coming soon

We're a long way from knowing which show will appear when, so I'm guessing on the day and time, but we do know what our shows will be.

Kudzu Covered Houses

Everything is on the web, you know. Here are some houses losing the battle with imported Japanese groundcover, something I could also see by taking a stroll around the neighborhood.

UPDATE: I might have known that page was just a part of a larger site.

If you found a USB drive, would you use it?

Dark Reading | Social Engineering the USB Way
We recently got hired by a credit union to assess the security of its network.

We gathered all the worthless vendor giveaway thumb drives collected over the years and imprinted them with our own special piece of software. I had one of my guys write a Trojan that, when run, would collect passwords, logins and machine-specific information from the user’s computer, and then email the findings back to us.

The next hurdle we had was getting the USB drives in the hands of the credit union’s internal users. I made my way to the credit union at about 6 a.m. to make sure no employees saw us. I then proceeded to scatter the drives in the parking lot, smoking areas, and other areas employees frequented.

Drives seeded: 20.
Drives found by employees: 15.
Drives plugged into company computers: 15. Yes, all of them.
Employees who realized anything was going on: 0.

It's unreported whether anyone tried to find the "lost" drives' owners.

Jor-El, where are you?

Found at Casey Zak's Mighty Blog.

Art is never finished, merely abandoned

Star Wars -- by which I mean the original 1977 theatrically-released science-fiction movie, which did not call itself "Chapter Four: A New Hope" -- may well hold the record for having been released in more different home-video editions and media than any other film. (Does that seem right to you? I mean, it's good, but it's not that good. But I digress.)

When it was finally released on DVD, it was the 1997 Special Edition, with numerous "improvements", the infamous "who shot first, Han or Greedo" decision being one of many unpopular changes. When fans complained that they wanted to see the original theatrical release, the one they'd fallen in love with in 1977, Lucas dropped a bombshell: Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Ever. This (the 1997 edition) is it. This is "Star Wars" now.

At least, it would have been a bombshell if anyone had believed him. I don't know anyone who believes that George Lucas actually destroyed the original negatives to a film that, "flawed" as it was, made him, well, more wealth than I can imagine, and I can imagine quite a bit. (Yeah, I know, it's just so hard to avoid those cliches.)

This September, 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm will release the Original Theatrical versions of the first Star Wars trilogy, each in a two-disc set that also contains the 1997 Special Edition...

With a catch. (Source: The Digital Bits.) Since the original negatives don't exist (ahem), the source material for this release is the 1993 laserdisc release. A thirteen-year-old transfer of a non-anamorphic widescreen print. I am going to attempt to explain why this is the video equivalent of offering a starving dog a rubber bone, in such a manner that I myself can actually understand it.

The 1993 part is easy. Has digital imagery improved since 1993? Pixar was doing Listerine commercials, and Lemmings was the state of the art in video games. You tell me.

To explain the anamorphic question, though... Let me show you a series of simulated screen captures of a scene I know you'll recognize.

First: "Normal" television (which can also be called pan-and-scan, or full-screen 1.33:1 ratio):


Anamorphic widescreen -- not normally seen in this form, but this is what the image recorded on the DVD actually looks like: Your player unsqueezes it as it plays.


Normal television, letterboxed widescreen (2.20:1 image on a 1.33:1 screen). Your DVD player unsqueezes the image to fill your screen left-to-right, then generates a black letterbox to fill the screen top-to-bottom.

(This is also what the raw image looks like on a NON-anamorphic transfer. That is, the black letterboxing on a non-anamorphic movie is part of the image. That will be important later.)


If all you have is a "normal" television, you can pretty much stop reading now: anamorphic vs non-anamorphic doesn't make much difference in what you see. But if you have, or ever anticipate getting, a widescreen television, read on.

Here's a digital 16:9 widescreen TV, viewing an anamorphic transfer. You still get a little letterboxing, since Star Wars was released in widescreen 2.20:1, but the image fills your screen from left to right.


Here's what George Lucas thinks you want: This is how a digital 16:9 widescreen television will render a non-anamorphic transfer. Letterboxing top and bottom is part of the original image: Gray filler left and right is generated by your expensive television because this pre-letterboxed image doesn't fill the screen. (It'll actually be black: I've made it a very dark gray just so you can tell which is which.)


Of course, your expensive digital 16:9 television can zoom in, but at the expense of crispness and resolution.


Let's look at Leia's lovely face, shall we?


Yikes!

All right, I'm being silly now. The point is, you've got a decision to make:

Do you believe George Lucas? If you think this man is actually capable of destroying the original negative of Star Wars, and every existing original print, and the various intermediate stages and archival copies that may exist throughout the world from which usable digital elements could be derived, then this is the best of what survives and you should probably get it before he decides to clean house again.

If you think he has something else up his sleeve for next year's 30th Anniversary of the original release of Star Wars (God, I feel old), then you might want to wait.

If you're like me and filled with revulsion at the idea of giving George Lucas any more of your money, well, there's still Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

The Independent | Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'
Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

...faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs)...

This has been common practice for going on at least thirty years, which is about how long ago I found my own informational pamphlet -- oh, all right, "press release" -- for the SCA published verbatim in a local newspaper. (My only regret was that I hadn't put my name on it.)

Frankly, I've been ignoring this story for the last week or two, astounded that any responsible news organization has the nerve to present this "scoop" with a straight face. Press and media relations, corporate and governmental, are based on the reality that if you release a publication-ready story, many publications will use it. That's the point.

77 television stations over ten months? Hell, everyone does it. Every television station, every radio station. Every television and radio network. Every newspaper, every magazine. And every outlet that's been reporting this story with the wide-eyed innocence of Casablanca's Captain Renault. It's a real and expected part of where your news comes from.

Should you know about this? Certainly, yes. Should you be concerned? Occasionally. Should you be surprised? Not if you've actually been paying attention to the news and "news" you consume.

I'm much more concerned that the Centre for Media and Democracy is attempting to play it as a "conspiracy".

Just Because

Why now?

When noted political analyst Natalie Maines recently took back her apology for having insulted the President in London in 2003, I found myself doing my best imitation of Alec Guinness in Star Wars: Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

I was content for that to be so, though not particularly concerned. I'd assumed she'd retired. I wondered what the occasion was for her return to the public eye. Had poverty forced her to return to work? Had she just escaped from a political prison? Was she looking for her shadow? (And would it mean six more weeks of American Idol if she saw it?)

The next day, I had my answer. You may not realize it, as she is not one to brag, but in the lean times between political analyses, Ms Maines is a musician of sorts. She and her friends had an album to promote, and the no-respect-for-the-President demographic was her target audience. As one of her friends said:

I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.

What a nice way of saying We have enough money, thanks. At least the poor girls won't be forced to appear naked anymore.

Which way?

Did you know that, in Atlanta, if you head southbound on Northside Drive, you'll go through West End on your way to East Point?

Northbound, of course, will take you to West Paces Ferry and South Cobb Drive.

North Avenue, on the other hand, is a puzzle: You can't go north on North, only east and west. East Avenue also runs east-west, but it's south of North.

So, you see, we're in deep trouble even without 37 Peachtree streets.

Fame sucks

Yeeeah! | Mandy Moore has Unlimited Orgasms
Mandy Moore was horrified when she saw the cover of the May 2006 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Next to her face, there’s a headline which says “orgasms unlimited”.

Well, let's see. Looking elsewhere on the cover, I see: "4 things you do that turn him off"; "8 new places to have sex"; "A deadly disease that's striking young women"; and "Touch him there!" Which of those would she have preferred? (Well, yeah, there are a couple of innocuous headlines on the cover, too, but they're badly outnumbered.)

Perhaps she just needs to instruct her agent not to sell her photos to Cosmopolitan. Is he the same guy who sold Jessica Alba's bikini pose to Playboy?

Philips hates us

New Scientist | Invention: The TV-advert enforcer
Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over. The flags could also be recognised by digital video recorders, which would then disable the fast forward control while the ads are playing.

Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be "greatly resented by viewers"...

No. You think?

...who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts.

Is it at all possible that this is a hoax? Naah, it's all too typical. The usual reaction when the "old media" people are feeling threatened by "new media" technology is to make the "old media" even less attractive by comparison, in a misguided attempt to protect their intellectual property.