A review of the long and tortuous path the production of a new Superman movie has taken. And, of course, it’s not there yet. “It’s hard to have the appearance…
A review of the long and tortuous path the production of a new Superman movie has taken.
And, of course, it’s not there yet.
“It’s hard to have the appearance that we don’t know what we are doing,” Mr. Robinov said. “But we are committed to `Superman’ and we will continue trying until we get it right.”
As long as there are no giant spiders or fuzzy robot children sidekicks, I’ll be happy.
Wasn’t just a week or two ago that GOP lawmakers in Congress were trying to impose a one-size-fits-all Constitutional amendment against gay marriage, to quash even states from allowing such…
Wasn’t just a week or two ago that GOP lawmakers in Congress were trying to impose a one-size-fits-all Constitutional amendment against gay marriage, to quash even states from allowing such laws? Wasn’t it just a week or two ago that Democratic lawmakers were crying out that the states are best suited to make such decisions?
Well, that was a week or two ago, and now the Marriage Protection Act — which would remove the Defense of Marriage Act from federal court review — has the two sides flip-flopped again.
Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., author of the bill, said the issue is too important to ignore. “Simply put, if federal courts don’t have jurisdiction over marriage issues, they can’t hear them. And if they can’t hear cases regarding marriage policy, they can’t redefine this sacred institution,” Hostettler said when he introduced the legislation in May.
and
While Republicans defended states’ rights, Democrats said the phrase recalled Southern opposition to desegregation, which was propelled by a series of federal court rulings.
That’s closer to the usual alignment, but in point of fact both sides have shown they’re more than willing to depend on Federal law and courts to impose support positions they believe in but that the states have not yet fallen in line behind.
As to the law itself, it depends on a very rarely used clause of the Constitution itself, Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 (emphasis mine):
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned [in Clause 1], the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Which means it’s probably constitutional, from what I understand, but it strikes me as a pretty bad idea. Congress passing laws and preventing judicial oversight of them strikes me as a dangerous precedent — one as likely to bite any ideological stripe of Congresscritter depending on who’s in the majority. As one observer on the radio noted this morning, “What if a Democratic Congress passes a major gun control bill and adds that the federal courts can’t review it against the Second Amendment?”
Some folks might consider that a blessing against the tyranny of the judiciary. It seems like an opening for a crazyquilt of extra-constitutional laws to me.
A chance encounter and good news regarding The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. Huzzah. (via BoingBoing)…
A chance encounter and good news regarding The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. Huzzah.
(via BoingBoing)
So I would still never dream of just casually reloading my PC, but there have been some positive aspects to the ongoing exercise. Having done it, I’m better prepared to…
So I would still never dream of just casually reloading my PC, but there have been some positive aspects to the ongoing exercise.
On the down side, the resolution on the tiny screen of this ThinkPad T40 is stuck at 1024×768, which is just killing me here. I like having a large (if microscopically rendered) desktop.
Work continues.
Jerry Goldsmith, composer of more great soundtracks and theme songs than one could shake a stick at, has died. Just to list the ones that I find are particularly noteworthy…
Jerry Goldsmith, composer of more great soundtracks and theme songs than one could shake a stick at, has died.
Just to list the ones that I find are particularly noteworthy would take a while, but just a few off the list includes:
The Mummy
Mulan
Star Trek: Voyager (theme)
Total Recall
Star Trek the Motion Picture (thus, the theme to Star Trek: Next Generation)
Aliens
The Omen
Barnaby Jones (theme)
Patton
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV theme)
Perry Mason (theme)
Have Gun, Will Travel (theme)
And eleventy zillion others. Impressive, both in scope and length. I’ll miss him.
This is probably a fairly easy trivia question, but I thought it was pretty amusing. Name the film that had three future US gubernatorial contenders in it — two of…
This is probably a fairly easy trivia question, but I thought it was pretty amusing.
Name the film that had three future US gubernatorial contenders in it — two of whom ended up actually winning their races.
The day dawned much like any other day, except that the date was different. The 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners are hereby announced. (via Ipse Dixit)…
The day dawned much like any other day, except that the date was different.
The 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners are hereby announced.
(via Ipse Dixit)
UPDATE (3:00p) – Got the loaner PC, a Thinkpad T40. Faster, but smaller (and lower screen res) than my A31. Ah, well, beggers can’t be choosers. I’m going to lay…
UPDATE (3:00p) – Got the loaner PC, a Thinkpad T40. Faster, but smaller (and lower screen res) than my A31. Ah, well, beggers can’t be choosers.
I’m going to lay out the stuff that I need to do to get my replacement/loaner PC up to snuff, in roughly the order it needs/I want it to be done, assuming I get a machine with a clean image of XP and Office 2000 (our standards) and contingent on where I am at the time I’m working on it. I’m putting the list here so that (a) if I lose my notes, I won’t be screwed, and (b) for the edification and brickbats of all:
Notes: DA=”install from Downloads archive”; DF=”needs data files from backup”
X Wireless PC card (at home; CD)
X Copy over Downloads archive from backup.
O Office 2003 (get discs from Rick/Sara) (Rick has them at home, dagnabbit)
O Lookout (DA, dagnabbit; too many things to look up.)
O IHateSpam (DA; dagnabbit)
X xReminderPro (DA, DF; need to be reminded of stuff!)
X Firefox (DF; see info on profile migration. The bookmarks.html should be available from DF, too) Installed, then copied over Mozilla profile directory. No sweat.
X Firefox extensions (DA? See here for partial list) Installed automatically.
X Thunderbird (DF; see above on profile migration, also here; verify mail copied over!) Installed, copied over Thunderbird profile, but ran into serious problems. Several partial rebuilds of the profile later, eventually got working in Safe Mode …
X Thunderbird extensions (DA?) … because for some reason the extensions didn’t load in, so it was getting all confused. Uninstalled them, reinstdalled them, all’s right with the world.
X Jaeger (DA; restore settings from DF?) Installed, then copied over Application Data directory. Oops, bad license code since the PC ID is different now. Working, but nagging.
O PSACards (DA, DF)
X AdAware
X SpyBot S&D
X XP PowerToys/TweakUI
X Set up ClearType.
O Restore partial My Documents directory. (Since size will be an issue, do not bring over My Pictures or My Music for the moment, maybe more)
O Templates
O Spelling dictionaries?
X Windows Messenger (does it work now?) Yes, it does!
X MTClient (DA)
O Palm basic software (CD? DF – CUSTOMIZE TO LOAD STUFF FROM PALM, DESKTOP, OR SYNC BEFORE FIRST SYNC (my Palm’s okay).)
O PocketMirror
O BackupBuddy
O SplashID
O BalanceLog!!
O WordSmith
O BrainForest
O Installation directory (DF)
O SmartFTP (DA)
O RoboForm (DA; DF?)
O Siggy (DA)
O EditPad Lite (DA)
O FontMinder (DA?)
O SharpMT (does it work now?)
O home scanner software (CD)
X PaintShopPro 8.1 (CD)
X MS Project (CD)
X Visio (CD)
Do not install:
X iTunes (for now; no music files)
X POPfile (no need)
X OE Backup (no need)
X SyncIt (no need for now)
X AZZCardfile (no need for now)
X MSN Messenger (since WinMsgr works)
X SETI@Home (let’s hold off)
Now you see why I didn’t want to have to start over from scratch. And, at that, I’m sure I’m forgetting all sorts of stuff.
It’s a good thing Friday night is Bachelor Night at my house …
The role of religion in the thinking and philosophy and actions of the Founding Fathers is a very complex one. Attempts to portray them all as freethinking atheists is vastly…
The role of religion in the thinking and philosophy and actions of the Founding Fathers is a very complex one. Attempts to portray them all as freethinking atheists is vastly oversimplifying matters (as would any blanket description for dozens of strong-minded activist individuals from across several states).
Of course, attempts to portray them all as “orthodox, deeply religious Christians” — particularly as the term is meant today — is equally simplistic. And, to be perfectly blunt, doctoring quotes to make it look that way is itself hardly in keeping with Christ’s teachings.
(via Cronaca)
The Case of the Corrupted Kernal continues … Attempts to push the image down to the only free 60Gb drive we have — so that I can then get rid…
The Case of the Corrupted Kernal continues …
Attempts to push the image down to the only free 60Gb drive we have — so that I can then get rid of some of the stuff, and then reimage it, then push it down to a 40 — have failed. Don’t ask me why. So …
They can (and are going to anyway) get a 60Gb notebook drive, which would arrive on Friday. At that point, they could (hopefully) push the image down to that, plug it into a spare notebook and go from there.
I.e., two more days without my PC’s image. At least. Probably the weekend, too.
No.
So, Plan G. They get me a clean notebook as a loaner. I rebuild it into my desired image, use the data files from my backup drive at home, and I’m up and running by COB tomorrow. I hope. Then my old notebook can be shipped off to IBM for a week or twelve, and when it gets back, we transfer an image from the loaner notebook to mine, and I’m back to where I should be.
Rrg. Pain, to be sure, but I’m sure that, in a decade or two, we’ll look back on this sort of PC migration the same way we today look back on “I dropped my only copy of the typewritten manuscript on the ground and the pages got all messed up and some flew away, so I had to retype it all” as quaint and thank-god-we-live-in-a-modern-age way.
I hope.
The pendulum swings … While this country was founded out of protest, the Founders themselves decided it was necessary to add an amendment to the Constitution — the first –…
The pendulum swings …
While this country was founded out of protest, the Founders themselves decided it was necessary to add an amendment to the Constitution — the first — that read (emphasis mine):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Government types often hate that, since it means a lot of people saying unpleasant things in front of them, often with the press corps busy taking their pictures.
The country has gone back and forth on this sort of thing. Certainly calling out the police, or the national guard, or the army to deal with protesters has a long (and often dark) heritage. Yet, at the same time, we still see it as a fundamental right.
In the last decade or two, under the not-entirely-dismissable aegis of “security,” we’ve seen the development of “free speech zones” being set up in conjunction with with major political events, especially as regards the president. It started (or first became publicized) during the Clinton years, but has increased during the Bush II era. Essentially, protesters (peaceful or otherwise) are told that protest is fine, and Constitutionally protected … but for security reasons, you can only do it over here, which is usually someplace lockable, away from the site of the speech/event, and away from the cameras.
It’s a tough call.
National presidential conventions have been at the forefront of protest (and suppression) for years (see Chicago, 1968). And this year is no different.
Cement barriers, 8-foot-tall chain-link fencing, and heavy black netting have been installed around the protest zone outside the FleetCenter, angering protesters who say they will be penned in and closed off from Democratic National Convention delegates.
Much of the area is located under abandoned elevated Green Line tracks that slope downward. The setup, which one netting installer called ”an internment camp,” will force tall protesters at the southern end of the zone to lower their heads to avoid banging them on green metal girders.
Furious that protesters are being shoehorned into an enclosed space, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild said they will ask a federal judge to open up or move the zone.
The netting, and “clear” plastic sheeting is to keep protesters from throwing things at the delegates who will be arriving by bus nearby. Tables for leaflets and other material will also be banned from the site, since the tables could be used “as weapons.”
The GOP has also come under similar fire:
On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan issued an order that blocked New York police from using pens made of interlocking metal barricades at demonstrations outside the Republican National Convention without ensuring that protesters can get in and out. The judge also said that police cannot close streets and sidewalks leading to protest sites without informing the public of other ways to get to the demonstrations.
I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s far too seductive for those in power to be able to shunt off protest and dissent out of sight (or further). Give an inch, and there will be some folks who will gladly push you away a mile.
On the other hand, some level of security is obviously necessary. My right to peaceably assemble and petition doesn’t mean I get to wander into the White House any time I want and chat up the president. My desire to exercise my free speech in front of the press doesn’t mean I get to run up onto the podium and grab the mic from John Kerry.
Where does the line get drawn? My inclination is to lean most toward those First Amendment rights, but that doesn’t answer the question, just influences where to draw that hypothetical line.
(via InstaPundit)
Is it my imagination, or is there a similarity between the famous Queen “News of the World” album cover robot (itself derived from a famous sf pulp magazine cover) and…
Is it my imagination, or is there a similarity between the famous Queen “News of the World” album cover robot (itself derived from a famous sf pulp magazine cover) and the I, Robot robot? Or is it just the inevitable similarity between smooth, hairless, slightly startled/confused robotic faces?
(I don’t think it’s a “rip” by any means, just inevitable coincidence. Still …)
When Scott starts off ranting about right-wing commentary, e.g., at a place called “Bush Country,” my first inclination is, I’ll be honest, to roll my eyes and scroll down. But…
When Scott starts off ranting about right-wing commentary, e.g., at a place called “Bush Country,” my first inclination is, I’ll be honest, to roll my eyes and scroll down. But this time he’s got a a very fine point.
Tamara Wilhite opines there there that one reason the exteme Islamicists hate the US is because of our support of things like gay rights.
What does this have to do with terrorism? Quite a bit. These Muhajadeen — mad Muslim Men — hate us. Their real reason is that we refuse to roll over and cry Mullah. Their stated reasons are our evil vice and our support for Israel. How does the failure of the Federal Marriage Amendment play into their hands? Not only do we allow our women to go unveiled. Not only do we allow our daughters to have sex outside of marriage. Not only do we allow abortion. Not only do we allow women equal rights. We dare to allow homosexuality to exist.
In Muslim countries, the punishment for homosexuality ranges from death to a long prison sentence. Mohammed’s word was for homosexuals to be executed. Not only do we allow homosexuals to exist. Not only don’t we allow them to live, we tolerate them living in the open. They can be seen in public office and public broadcasting. Now, worst of all, we are granting them equal parity in the law with heterosexual couples. If that is not giving the green light to sin, then neither is Madonna dancing around in the near nude provocative.
Fair enough. Frankly, I accept that as a badge of honor — while it’s dangerous to say, “The stuff my enemy despises must be good for me,” I’d say that tolerance and liberty and equality before the law are good things that we should be proud distinguish us from the theocratic tyrannies others would impose.
Then she veers off into left — er, right field.
We don’t stop lesbians from making children. Our courts are slowing giving homosexuals equal adoption rights to children. Now we are unwilling to say that two men or two women married in a civil ceremony are not equal to the natural pairing of man to woman. We have just given the signal that we are the Sodom and Gomorrah cesspool they accuse us of being. All with Kerry and the other Democrats’ support.
If buses of Israeli schoolchildren die for Israel’s existence and Spanish commuters die for their government having a few hundred peacekeepers in Iraq, I wonder how big the gay target will be bombed in protest for this evil.
Um …
Is her point that we shouldn’t do these things because they make the Bad Guys mad at us? Because they make us more of a target, and provoke their narrowmindedness?
Is that really what she means? Does she want (if you don’t mind my saying) to let the terrorists win?
I mean, if you want to let that into your societal calculus of “does this harm us?” I suppose you can. But I suspect that Ms. Wilhite would have a very different response if someone suggested that the “mad Muslim Men” are offended by, say, the overt Christianity of people in the US, and how church groups in the US send missionaries abroad. I doubt she’d say we should lay low and not do anything to offend them, lest we get “targeted.”
Yeesh.
I’ve been having mixed luck with the Books on Tape regimen driving to and from the office. When it’s good, it’s a heck of a lot more relaxing than listening…
I’ve been having mixed luck with the Books on Tape regimen driving to and from the office. When it’s good, it’s a heck of a lot more relaxing than listening to the news, a lot more engaging than listening to music, and a hell of a lot more intelligent than listening to drive-time chatter. When it’s bad, it’s … not.
The good news is, this unabridged audio of Ellis Peter’s Cadfael novel, The Confession of Brother Haluin, is excellent. The bad news is, the version I listened to (from the library) is not the version currently offered on tape, above, but this one, narrated by Patrick Tull, now sadly out of print and not showing up anywhere on Google.
The story mixes religious devotion of 12th Century Benedictines with — as is usual in Cadfael novels — a murder mystery. Unlike most of the series, though, most of the action takes place away from the abbey, on a pilgrimage wherein a cripped brother, escorted by Cadfael, attempts to atone for evils he has committed. And the murder, in this case, is almost incidental to the other, greater mystery and drama going on.
It’s one of my favorite Cadfael books. And Tull’s narration (he’s did a number of other Cadfael books, and many others) is excellent. Even though older and a bit harsh-voiced, he manages a richness and variation in tone that plows through even long narrative bits without being boring, and lets him convincingly play everything from youths to women to old men. His equally-fine rendition of the Cadfael Summer of the Danes is still available. I’ll be remembering his name as I look for other BoTs.
There may be a bigger, more jarring leap available out there than between The Confession of Brother Haluin and Laurell Hamilton’s Seduced by Moonlight, but I’d be hard-pressed to think of it. From a tale of 12th Century monks to modern-day faeries in LA, from gentility to crudity, from nunneries to sex, from forced marriages to …
Well, there are some aspects that aren’t that much different, in substance if not in tone.
I enjoy Hamilton’s works, though the Merrie Gentry series less than the Anita Blake one. But while Laural Merlington does a good job narrating as Gentry, the book is too thick, too full of interminable narrative and exposition, especially toward the beginning. The abridged version might work better, in that way, except that there’s so much backstory that needs explaining (in-between the sex) that it’s difficult enough to understand as it is.
The other failing touch is that while Merlington’s has Merrie’s voice down, she simply cannot do men’s voices well — certainly not anyone with a deep voice. Cross-gender voices are difficult to pull off in a recorded medium, and it just doesn’t quite work here. Which, given the number of guys Merrie’s fooling aorund with, is a problem.
I think this one’s a better book than a tape.
I asked yesterday whatever happened to all the Star Trek fiction. I think I found part of my answer.
Star Trek: Spectre is either evidence that Bill Shatner cannot write, or that he cannot hire a decent ghost writer. On my worst day as an author, at my most ill-plotting and melodramatic and awkward and pretentious (all of which I manage to achieve high levels in when I’m not careful, and sometimes when I am), I don’t come near to the crowning achievements in this novel.
Now throw in Bill Shatner doing the narration. And cheesy sound effects.
Let’s see — in the first 20 minutes or so of this 2-cassette abridgement, we have mysterious people declaring that “James … Tiberius … Kirk … will … die!” We have some leaden comedy involving a tree stump and a romantic scene with Kirk’s Klingon wife, we have Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise, and we have the return of Voyager. All of it intoned with Shatner’s trademark bombast and smugness.
That was enough for me. When Shatner made Riker sound even less interesting than Frakes usually did, I’d had enough. It had moved beyond amusing to just too damned irritating for words.
It may be that this turns into a fabulous novel at 30 minutes in or so, but I wouldn’t count on it. The synopsis mentions that we get a return of Spock. And McCoy. And the Mirror Universe folk. No mention of kitchen sinks.
The jacket intones:
William Shatner has once again brought his unique blend of talents as actor, writer, director, and producer to continue the saga of Jim Kirk’s remarkable second life, as an insidious menace from his past threatens a new generation of heroes…
“Unique” is doubtless the right word here. “Insidious” also fits, though perhaps not as intended.
An unforgettable saga peopled by old friends and ancient enemies, Star Trek® Spectre propels Kirk on a journey of self-discovery every bit as harrowing as the cataclysmic new adventure that awaits him.
“Unforgettable,” alas, yes. “Harrowing” and “cataclysmic” — oh, yeah.
Gack. Escape in the life pods while you can.
The Case of the Corrupted Kernal Continues … So, we finally decided to ship the thing back to IBM for warranty service. Okay. So, before we do that, we need…
The Case of the Corrupted Kernal Continues …
So, we finally decided to ship the thing back to IBM for warranty service. Okay. So, before we do that, we need to Ghost an image of the hard drive.
Hilarity ensues.
Well, not much hilarity. Just looooooooooong Ghosting. After all, there’s about 40Gb on that 60Gb hard drive.
And, um, a lot of it’s MP3 files which aren’t work-related. Etc.
Now, had I given it a thought (and gotten to the keyboard), I’d’ve wiped those off. Not because they’re non-work-related things, but because it would have an impact on the folks working on my machine and I have the frelling things backed up. So it would have been no loss to me, and would have helped the cause.
Didn’t think of it.
They finally got the Ghost image complete, and then went to the next step, to see if they could write it down to the hard drive on an alternative notebook. That’s got it’s own risks (different model), but there was a good chance it would work.
Except, of course, we don’t have any notebooks with 40Gb of drive space on them. Which means that the large number of unofficial files on my notebook (which is that way because, dammit, I carry the damn thing everywhere, work and home) not only slowed down the whole process, but made it impossible to complete.
*Sigh*
Okay, fine. Let’s trash My Music and My Picture — in fact, the whole Personal directory, too. Then upload it. I can restore those files when I need to. Okay?
Well, no. The hard drive, once Ghosted, was formatted to see if it detected anything wrong with it. Which it didn’t. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not the drive, but doesn’t indicate that it is.
Oooookay. Well, then, let’s reinstall that image back to the old hard drive, okay? Then we can delete these directories, cut off a good 10-15 Gb, and all’s right with the world, right?
Right. Except that there was a problem doing that, and now they have to recompile the Ghost image which, hopefully, will work, and then still …
All of those steps have something that could go wrong with them. And it’s going to be at least until COB tomorrow that I’ll know whether I’ll have “my system” (or a reimaged version of it) to work from, or whether that will have to wait the inevitable 3-6 weeks for IBM to scratch their heads and figure out what the problem is.
Rrg.
We’ve all received “Nigeria 419” spam — the ones that tell of some deposed dictator’s wife/son/daughter, or the friend or banker of some rich engineer who died intestate, etc., who…
We’ve all received “Nigeria 419” spam — the ones that tell of some deposed dictator’s wife/son/daughter, or the friend or banker of some rich engineer who died intestate, etc., who only wants some nice person in another country to send them a bank account number so that they can transfer gazillions of dollars in, and so smuggle it out of the nasty banana republic it’s trapped in — in exchange for a percentage of the take, of course.
Well, some 419ers have taken the next step: out-and-out shake-downs.
From: Secretary Towogbola [secretary_in_chargeeeee@hotmail.com]
Subject: TREAT AS URGENT {THIS IS NO JUNK MAIL}
“EXECUTION”EXECUTION”EXECUTION”‘
NATIONAL CORPORATION HEADQUATERS LAGOS.
PRIVACY. we wish to introduce our company/ourselves as a subsidiary of INTERNATIONAL ASSASINATORS AND WORLD SECURITY ORGANISATIONS,with branches in one hundred and two {102}countires.
we have received a fax message from our headquaters,new york,this morning to inform you to produce a mandatory sum of US$40,000.00 {FOURTHY THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS} only,into our account given below in nigeria within ninety six hours{96},alternatively you will be SNIPPED and GUNNED down during the period of our oncoming anniversary of fifty years.
STANDARD TRUST BANK VICTORIA ISLAND BRANCH LAGOS A/C NO. 03681173101152 {OLAJIDE .O. WILLIAMS} NIGERIA
CAUTION.
1.you are to attach and send with immediate effect,the payment slip,confirming the payment and to enable us to reconcile with our files and deploy our men already monitoring you.
2.we will as well waste no time to carry our operations,if we discover that this contact is disclosed to any second party including the following:-
{a}police {b}relation and {c}friends
3.we guarantee your saftey locally and internationally,on the completion of this contract and will not hesitate to disclose our men in your country to you and as well render our service if needed or on request.
we seek your urgent co-operation,for it is not our wish to get you eliminated.
Note : – Your death has been paid for by someone you offended sometime ago and it will be adviceable that you co-operate with us a.s.a.p.
TOWOGBOLA .A.JOHNSON SECRETARY.
Of course, given how honestly they followed through on earlier promises, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if one of these appears in your in-box.
Something I’ve noticed in the last few months at the local Barnes & Noble (and Borders): Where have all the Star Trek books gone? I mean, for the past decade,…
Something I’ve noticed in the last few months at the local Barnes & Noble (and Borders): Where have all the Star Trek books gone?
I mean, for the past decade, an entire columnar bookshelf or more of Star Trek novels — from every era of every show (and in-between and beyond) have been a staple at major bookstores.
And now? Two, three shelves only. Hell, there are more Star Wars books there than Star Trek.
In general, I always found most ST books dreck (Peter David’s being a noteworthy exception), but it’s sort of shocking to see the selection implode like that. A major publisher’s decision? Bigger profits from manga? New strategies from Paramount? A collapsing market? No idea. But it’s … well, as someone would say, “Fascinating.”
For the last few months, I’ve been using a faboo program called Lookout, a background search indexer for Outlook that lets me find any message in my multi-hundred-megabyte multiple message…
For the last few months, I’ve been using a faboo program called Lookout, a background search indexer for Outlook that lets me find any message in my multi-hundred-megabyte multiple message stores in a matter of a few seconds (vs. minutes for a by-folder check like Outlook provides). Sweet!
Now comes word that Micro$oft has bought them. Which means that the program is no longer available for purchase, and probably means that, rather than an independent product, the functionality will be bundled into Outlook Enterprise Edition XP 2008, available separately for $500, or as part of the Microsoft Seach Creation Enterprise Windows bundle for $13,000 …
And it won’t work, either.
Congrats, of course, to the two-man shop who put together a great product, and doubtless just made a big bundle o’ cash.
The standard retort (rightly or wrongly) to claims that the economy is improving, jobs are increasing, and outsourcing is actually good for US employment, is that the jobs that are…
The standard retort (rightly or wrongly) to claims that the economy is improving, jobs are increasing, and outsourcing is actually good for US employment, is that the jobs that are being generated are, in fact, cheap, low-wage, “McJobs.”
Well, even those McJobs may be in horrible danger.
Pull off U.S. Interstate Higheway 55 near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and into the drive-through lane of a McDonald’s next to the highway and you’ll get fast, friendly service, even though the person taking your order is not in the restaurant – or even in Missouri.
The order taker is in a call center in Colorado Springs, more than 900 miles, or 1,450 kilometers, away, connected to the customer and to the workers preparing the food by high-speed data lines.
So next time it sounds like that order-taker at the drive-thru doesn’t speak English as their native language — it’s now even more possible.
Well, probably not. International circuits and latency — plus accuracy issues — would make it unlikely for the local Wendy’s to outsource the order line to Bangalore. But for domestic consumption, so to speak … well, it’s still kind of an odd development. You have telecomm costs on the one hand. On the other hand, you have supposedly improved accuracy and throughput (and, though unmentioned, the eventual efficiency of balancing “rush” order periods across multiple time zones).
It’s a bizarre idea, on first blush, but it makes enough sense that, someday, it may seem perfectly natural.
I always enjoyed working drive-thru …
(via GeekPress)
Sweet. Everyone needs to brace their camera now and again, and everyone carries around water bottles. So here’s a little gimmick that turns your water bottle into a fat monopod….
Sweet. Everyone needs to brace their camera now and again, and everyone carries around water bottles. So here’s a little gimmick that turns your water bottle into a fat monopod. I might have to look into one of these …
(via BoingBoing)