The only thing more dangerous to me than a book store … … is a library used book sale. Given that the books ranged from $1.00 (kids books) to $2.00…
The only thing more dangerous to me than a book store …
… is a library used book sale.
Given that the books ranged from $1.00 (kids books) to $2.00 (the latter for hardcovers), you can figure out for our $80-odd how many books we ended up with. About 2/3 new, about 1/3 replacing worn-out paperbacks with hardcovers.
Drool …
Here’s a more detailed comparison to show what else George Lucas has tweaked, with screen shots comparing the 1997 Special Edition (already an “abomination” in some folks’ eyes) and the…
Here’s a more detailed comparison to show what else George Lucas has tweaked, with screen shots comparing the 1997 Special Edition (already an “abomination” in some folks’ eyes) and the new 2004 DVD set. Yes, he’s even revising some of the revisions.
So even though Greedo fires first, Han now fires back faster.
Jabba (Ep IV), the arrival at Mos Eisley, and the light sabers (again) have been redone (to the better), and Sebastian Shaw has lost his eyebrows.
Ian McDiarmid gets to play the Emperor in Empire, with some mild dialog alteration.
Naboo is now celebrating in Jedi, and various landmarks have been added to Coruscant’s skyline. Control panels are no longe rin English.
And, of course, there’s Hayden Christiansen in the Final Finale. Eek.
Some of these changes are trivial (cityscapes, Jabba, language), some are more significant but understandable (the Emperor). One can disagree whether George should be polishing the movies at this late date, but these changes don’t matter all that much, and are even arguably improvements (as much so as adding “Episode IV – A New Hope” was to the original’s text scroll).
But having Greedo shoot first still rankles. And having HC be the “Ghostly Jedi” is just goofy.
(via Julia)
And sometimes my blogging feels like this….
And sometimes my blogging feels like this.
Doyce mixes the twisted psychological rules setting of Sorcerer with my favorite public recreation and comes up with Eighteen: A Golfing Epic for Sorcerer. Needs some play-testing (hint), but it…
Doyce mixes the twisted psychological rules setting of Sorcerer with my favorite public recreation and comes up with Eighteen: A Golfing Epic for Sorcerer. Needs some play-testing (hint), but it looks to be a very nice extrapolation of the idea that golf isn’t a competition against the course, or others, but against yourself — just what Sorcerer excels at dealing with (usually in a more metaphysical fashion).
Even the county sherriff will let you get away with blowing through the speed limit when he sees what you have on your tail — at least until he figures…
Even the county sherriff will let you get away with blowing through the speed limit when he sees what you have on your tail — at least until he figures out it’s just balloons.
(via Les)
(by Jack Ziegler at the New Yorker, via Cartoonbank, which will put this on a t-shirt or matted print, hint-hint …)…
(by Jack Ziegler at the New Yorker, via Cartoonbank, which will put this on a t-shirt or matted print, hint-hint …)
Like Uncle Bear, I have a bad feeling about this. Tom Cruise has become the highest-earning actor in Hollywood history after signing a deal that could reportedly earn him $519…
Like Uncle Bear, I have a bad feeling about this.
Tom Cruise has become the highest-earning actor in Hollywood history after signing a deal that could reportedly earn him $519 million for his role in War of the Worlds.
Rather than agree to a set fee for his part in the Steven Spielberg-directed epic, Cruise will earn 10 per cent of the film’s box office takings plus a share of profits from DVDs, video games and toys, according to IMDB.com.
Experts predict the film – based on HG Wells’ classic novel about a Martian attack – could make $2.6 billion at theatres alone, of which Cruise’s share would be nearly $260 million).
And, if he stars in the two planned sequels, Cruise’s earnings will double at least.
Sequels?
A Hollywood source says: “No expense will be spared. Spielberg wants to make it the film of the decade – the one that everyone talks about and rushes to see.”
Okay, now I really am scared.
More news on the various tweaks, edits, changes, and other “enhancements” George Lucas is making in the New, Improved, No, Really, This Time DVD set of the original Star Wars…
More news on the various tweaks, edits, changes, and other “enhancements” George Lucas is making in the New, Improved, No, Really, This Time DVD set of the original Star Wars trilogy. No big surprises, for anyone following the news along, but confirmation that, yes, the Anakin Skywalker the Friendly Ghost at the end of Jedi is now played by Hayden Christensen (though Sebastian Shaw still shows up as the Man Under the Mask, now digitally enhanced, evidently).
Oh, and Greedo still shoots first.
(via Uncle Bear)
Your bad astronomy pun for today….
The FCC, the FAA, airlines and technology companies are working to make cellphones work safely on airline flights. But as problematic as the technical issues are the social ones. During…
The FCC, the FAA, airlines and technology companies are working to make cellphones work safely on airline flights. But as problematic as the technical issues are the social ones.
During the American Airlines test, “we told everyone that the softer you speak, the better the conversation,” Mr. Ford said. “Yet the moment we gave out the cellphones, they all started yelling.”
Swell.
From the Top5 Little Fivers Comics list: The Top 9 Differences If Martha Stewart Were a Comic Book Super Hero/Villain 9. Pym Particles would come in 12 designer colors. 8….
From the Top5 Little Fivers Comics list:
The Top 9 Differences If Martha Stewart Were a Comic Book Super Hero/Villain
9. Pym Particles would come in 12 designer colors.
8. “With great power comes great responsibility, made out of leftover oven mitts and decorated with bit of lace recycled from a wedding dress.”
7. Laser eye-beam-carved ice sculptures.
6. She’d be the only JLA hero capable of freaking out Batman.
5. “Decorative ceramic tiles on your doomsday device will brighten up your entire evil lair.”
4. “Bring your organic steel skin to a healthy glimmer with ordinary household ingredients.”
3. “Skulls of vanquished foes can be used as decorative centerpieces during Thanksgiving.”
2. Martha: Not just cleaning up crime, but decorating it with festive garlands!
and the Number 1 Difference If Martha Stewart Were a Comic Book Super Hero/Villain…
1. Giant orbiting death ray replaced with a *really* big hot glue gun.
(via Marc Berard, Central Falls, RI (1, 2); Erik Deckers, Syracuse, IN (3, 4, 7); Jeremy Bleichman, Fair Lawn, NJ (5); Marcelo Rinesi, Buenos Aires, Argentina (6); Dave Hill, Centennial, CO (8); Craig Israel, Cleveland, OH (9); Andrew Jones, Brisbane, Australia (Topic)
And from the runners up …
More ecru, less solitude in the Arctic fortress. (Marcelo Rinesi, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
“Green” Lantern? I think not. Try “Spring Moss with undertones of Burnt Sienna” Lantern! (Guy Payne, Birmingham, AL)
“The joes of Easy Company were getting anxious for action, so I set them to the task of crocheting new ammo belts for Bulldozer’s spring ensemble.” (Ibid.)
“When I have defeated the Fantastic Four and made doilies out of their worthless hides, then all Latveria will cry, ‘It is a good thing!’ Doom has spoken!” (Ibid.)
Shame on Cheney for intimating that a Kerry victory is more likely to draw further terrorist attacks. Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen….
Shame on Cheney for intimating that a Kerry victory is more likely to draw further terrorist attacks.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.
“It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,” Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.
If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a “pre-9/11 mind-set” that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush’s offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists.
One can argue for or against the reasoning — just as one can argue for or against the proposition that a vote for Bush is a vote to continue boosting terrorist group membership which argument has also been made. But while it seems a reasonable (if both inflammatory and debatable) argument, it’s probably not best made by either the presidential candidates or their veep candidates. It smacks too much of questioning your opponent’s patriotism, an appeal to emotion, arguing from authority.
Veeps are supposed to be the “attack dogs” in campaigns, but this seems a bit too low for my taste. And, to prove at least the former point:
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards issued a statement, saying, “Dick Cheney’s scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that.”
Edwards added that he and Kerry “will keep American safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it.”
On the bright side of all this? Eight weeks! W00t!
UPDATE: Michael Totten concurs. Again, the argument that Cheney uses to explain his assertion is certainly worth debating, but the implication is that, if Dubya is reelected, we’ll be safe from terrorism — and that if a terror attack does occur, it’s the fault of whomever is in the White House, while, in reality, it’s the fault of the attacker — attackers who have shown that “reason” has little basis for their attacks.
UPDATE: Taken in context — which means running the two paragraphs separated in the AP story above into the single paragraph given in the speech — it’s a lot less inflammatory (still debatable, but not the over-the-top excerpt as given). More in the comments.
Food packaged, not by weight, but by caloric content: 100 calorie packs of snack food from Nabisco. Not for everyone, of course, but, frankly, (some) folks would rather, I think,…
Food packaged, not by weight, but by caloric content: 100 calorie packs of snack food from Nabisco.
Not for everyone, of course, but, frankly, (some) folks would rather, I think, buy X calories of cookies/snacks than Y ounces (or Z cents). Folks, at least, who are watching their calories.
Brilliant.
Playboy’s October issue — featuring video games for grown-ups — includes various buxom silicon characters in various stages of undress. What? I mean, it’s not like the photos are any…
Playboy’s October issue — featuring video games for grown-ups — includes various buxom silicon characters in various stages of undress.
What? I mean, it’s not like the photos are any less realistic than the normal fare …
Reading evidently (based on brain imagery) takes place in different parts of the brain based on culture and writing — which implies that dyslexia and other reading disorders don’t function…
Reading evidently (based on brain imagery) takes place in different parts of the brain based on culture and writing — which implies that dyslexia and other reading disorders don’t function the same way, either.
Neurologists described the results as “very important and innovative.” While dyslexia has certain common roots, they said they now have some proof that this kind of functional problem plays out differently according to the unique demands that Western and Eastern languages place on the brain’s wiring and processing centers.
[…] Earlier brain scans show that English-reading dyslexics misfire in the left temporal-parietal region of the brain associated with awareness of phonemes, 44 sounds from the English alphabet. It is located in the middle and upper portions of the brain’s left lobe. Similar results were found with French and Italian dyslexics.
“We assumed that all dyslexics probably were the same,” Eden said. “But reading Chinese requires a different set of skills.”
And, according to the new study, it uses some different parts of the brain called the left middle frontal gyrus, or LMFG.
Interesting, once you’ve learned to read in your language, you continue to use the same brain areas to learn to read in other languages, too.
(via GeekPress)
Functional MRI can act like a high-tech lie detector. Relatively safe psychopharmaceuticals can reduce the ability — or inclination — to lie. But does that make using them for interrogation…
Functional MRI can act like a high-tech lie detector. Relatively safe psychopharmaceuticals can reduce the ability — or inclination — to lie. But does that make using them for interrogation okay?
Of course, the advent of these new drugs and brain-scanning techniques doesn’t remove the moral questions about whether they should be used on detainees. Consider a hypothetical pill, whose only side effect is slight nausea and a headache, that makes anyone who takes it tell the truth for 90 minutes. Should military and intelligence interrogators be able to force POWs or unlawful combatants to take the pill?
It’s still a hard call. Critics always envision Manchurian Candidate-like brainwashing scenarios. Human rights advocates constantly worry that forcing the pill on prisoners would violate their rights to be free from self-incrimination. But it’s not clear that these minimally invasive interrogation options would cross a hallowed legal line. After all, even in American criminal proceedings, the state can legally draw blood, take fingerprints, and obtain DNA for testing. And POWs and unlawful combatants are not in a criminal system but one where less-stringent protections are typically afforded. At the least, public policy debates should explore the possibility that the new interrogation techniques, if conducted appropriately, aren’t inherently torture or abuse.
It isn’t obvious, for example, that being attached to a Functional MRI scanner is the moral equivalent of being deprived of sleep for 36 hours in a cold cell. Being made to take a Paxil-like derivative isn’t necessarily the legal equivalent of being forced to strip naked and simulate sex with another inmate. Interrogation methods based on non-consensual and passive medical interventions would give rise to criticism, but it’s certainly plausible that in the eyes of international law they would be less objectionable than methods based on the threat and reality of physical beatings.
These are questions that will need to be dealt with — and that will have implications in the criminal justice system as well, Fifth Amendment or no.
(via GeekPress)
Cold fusion is back — or at least being Officially Looked At Again. Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts…
Cold fusion is back — or at least being Officially Looked At Again.
Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion—the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It’s an extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE’s Office of Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department’s own investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the department’s attention now.
The “something important” has been a lot of scientists and engineers working to demonstrate that something is going on, even if it’s not yet altogether clear what.
(via GeekPress)
It’s just the sort of positive feedback and reinforcement that every pack-rat husband needs. Boo-yah!…
It’s just the sort of positive feedback and reinforcement that every pack-rat husband needs. Boo-yah!
As we were walking on the course on Sunday, I noticed that Doyce had a pedometer. I wore one of those for a month or so, as I got started…
As we were walking on the course on Sunday, I noticed that Doyce had a pedometer.
I wore one of those for a month or so, as I got started on my diet. I think I eventually stopped wearing it because I had a sense of how many steps I was taking a day, but the number fluctuated a lot, and eventually I knew how many calories I was burning from walking, and that was that.
“Yeah, Jackie got it for me for our anniversary. It’s letting me keep track of my Five Hundred Miles to Nowhere.”
I’ll be damned.
It makes perfect sense.
Marn started it, at least for me, complete with its own project site, but it was something I associated solely with, well, you know … exercise. Like, “I did a mile and a half on the jogging machine at the gym.” Or, “I ran a couple miles around the track this morning.” Like, Real, Scientific, Measured Movement of the sort that Ahnold (or Marn) would Officially Recognize (and even award a rubber ducky for).
But a pedometer — ah, it’s fiendishly clever! And, being someone who has no time, something I can do. Because I do walk. A lot. And I can measure it, with that same pedometer. I walk here. I walk there. I walk my feet off everywhere. As Dr Seuss might say.
I can walk five hundred miles. And I can walk five hundred more. Just to be the man who … uh, I digress. Though havering with Margie sounds fun.
At any rate, if all I need to do is just, y’know, walk (as opposed to Use Expensive Gym Equipment, or Jog on Cushy Blue Foamy Track Material), then, damn, I’m there.
It’s late to shoot for 500 miles this year. But yesterday was the 250th day of the year. I started wearing a pedometer yesterday (too late to harvest the golf games, but in time for the corn maze), meaning that as of yesterday, we have 366 – 250 = 116 days left (32%) in 2004. 500/366 = 1.37 miles/day * 116 = 160 miles (rounding up) to walk.
I can do that. It will earn me at least three rubber duckies. 
And that’s nothing to quack at.
(And, lest I get smug, Marn is currently at 660 miles out of her thousand mile goal. And Doyce is at 406 out of 500. So I have a lot of catching up to do … Though, according to the pedometer, I’ve clocked 6.5 miles already.)
I’ll let you know how it goes.
They say it’s bad to make your emotional state contingent on another person’s. That’s difficult to avoid, though, when your little four-year-old wakes up way too early (fortunately you’re downstairs…
They say it’s bad to make your emotional state contingent on another person’s. That’s difficult to avoid, though, when your little four-year-old wakes up way too early (fortunately you’re downstairs working) with a cough and a hack and a wheeze, complaining with slow tears about a bad dream, about a head that hurts, about being scared of the dark.
The expedient in you wants her back asleep so you can get back to what you should be doing. The parent in you wants her back asleep because it means she’s not feeling bad.
And when she wakes up twice more, you can’t help but ask her if she wants to come downstairs and curl up on the couch. And when the decongestant kicks in, and she’s feeling a bit better, and she begins to smile and laugh, you can’t help but feel better.
Even if that means your emotional state is, in some fashion, contingent upon hers.