May 2007
52 posts
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Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their... →
Sudan threatens to cut off the export of Arabic Gum, an essential ingredient in cola for which it is the lead supplier, if the US imposes sanctions.
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Zoo: Rare rhino death leaves only 13 worldwide →
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Secret island for elephants discovered off coast... →
Hundreds of elephants escaped massive hunting on the mainland.
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The Batman’s Irrational Exuberance →
A look at the Batman of Morrison’s current run and of Miller’s All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.
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Images of the Starship Enterprise overlayed with... →
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The Golden Compass Trailer
If you haven’t seen it, the teaser trailer for this winter’s The Golden Compass is out. Bear with the LotR plug for its first few seconds.
Not a lot of daemon action in the clip, but it’s possible they’re going to be CG and the animation isn’t finished yet. Reading the book I always pictured them looking a little bit magical, maybe slightly transparent, but I think...
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iTunes Plus and EMI's DRM-free music hands-on -... →
Worked as advertised for Engadget, though I haven’t tried it myself. You can click a button to upgrade (for a fee) your entire library to higher quality, copy-protection-free versions.
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On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist →
This story was, I’ve just learned via Wikipedia, a strong inspiration of Philip Pullman in writing His Dark Materials, along with Paradise Lost.
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THE GOLDEN COMPASS on Yahoo! Movies →
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The Fountain
Going in, I expected The Fountain to be a bit more literal than what it turns out to be. I thought it was a set of three stories, one set in the past, one the present, and one the future, which it is, and that there was a story about reincarnation and lovers finding each other in different lives, which it sort of is, but in watching it you realize it’s much more subtle and spiritual than...
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Serialized Fiction
Yesterday I was talking about bit about how the end of this season of Lost was very good, while the beginning was very slow (duh). I’m sure that the creators of the show may say that the beginning was slow on purpose because it was all buildup, and that if you go back and watch them again you’ll understand why they had to be that way to set up the ending to be so good.
Related, today...
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Lost Finale
Spoilers!
I think universally everyone liked this episode. Finally the story moves forward! I don’t think, though, that it feels so good because it was so slow earlier. The creators will surely come out and say that they intentionally set up the season to build up slowly and then be released toward the end, but really I think they were just killing time. It’s my belief that with...
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Serebii.net Diamond & Pearl Pokédex →
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Is it a good idea to invest in "forever" stamps? →
Postage has actually gotten cheaper over the years when you consider inflation.
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Popular names for twins →
Lots of alliterative pairs.
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I Chat, Therefore I Am... →
Two chatting bots having a conversation.
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Star Trek: The Experience Wedding Packages →
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Connect your Xbox 360 Gamertag to Twitter | Duncan... →
Very clever. Checks your XBOX status and updates Twitter when you’re playing a game.
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Simulation II Begins →
Marvel editor Tom Brevoort is running a comic book editor simulation, with a few people picked from his forum pretending to be Marvel editors and making decisions about books. The last one was a great look at the process.
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Bots on The Ground →
Neat article about how soldiers in the military are anthropomorphizing the robots in their squads.
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iTunes-like video services have no future: study →
I don’t buy the premise that iTunes directly competes with free, ad-supported TV. The market IMO for iTunes video is as a replacement for TV. The “free on NBC.com” style is much more for people who miss an occasional episode.
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Pac-Man and Ninja Gaiden are out for the Wii... →
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Flight of Battlestar Continues →
Executive Producer David Eick says they haven’t made a decision about the fourth season being its last, though I think it still might be.
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A monkey drinks water from a roadside tap in the... →
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Super-Sized Office
Though it’s been recanted, there was talk a few days ago that NBC would start airing The Office as an hour-long show every week. I’m glad they’re not sticking to that plan. I love the show (as I did the British version), but I’ve always felt that the super-sized episodes didn’t quite work. The extra material fits great onto a DVD, but when you’re watching the...
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Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff Confirm... →
This is the right call I think. Though probably motivated more by money (low ratings), creatively it’ll let them go out on a high note without diluting the story too much.
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LiveScience.com: Americans and Japanese Read Faces... →
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DAILY FILM DOSE: A Daily Film Appreciation and... →
Nice list with videos of some of the most famous long takes in cinema history.
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The 52 Exit Interviews: Grant Morrison →
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Nice review of 52 by Marvel writer Matt Fraction →
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Television"Veronica Mars" pretty close to renewal →
Generally one doesn’t hope for network retooling, but only time will tell if it was worth it.
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The Harry-est Town in America →
Go Falls Church!
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LolCat Builder →
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Official Google Reader Blog: Feed Your Television →
Official post about the Wii version of Google Reader.
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Google launches Google Reader for the Wii →
Has specific commands for the Wii Remote.
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New Spinal Tap short film →
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They Might be Giants goes exclusive with launch on... →
“Exclusive” is misleading — it’ll be out on CD a month later, but you can get it from iTunes first.
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The perils of coincidence →
Critique of Spider-Man 3’s story. For the record I enjoyed the movie, but agree that the story was too weighed down and depended on coincidence too heavily.
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Rumors are flying that the next StarCraft will be an MMO. Blizzard’s a talented enough company that I don’t think they’re just make it “WoW in Space,” but I do have my fears. Blizzard tried to do a few online real-time strategy things with the battlegrounds in WoW, but they didn’t fit into the framework of the rest of the game and had to be significantly...
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Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops →
I’m not surprised. There’s no way the expense of a computer for every student adds its dollar value in education, especially if you consider how many teachers that could have paid instead.
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CNN to release presidential debate footage without... →
Great news. Allows the public to use footage of debates without having to get permission from CNN.
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Free Comic Book Day May 5th 2007 →
Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. There’s supposed to be a good Spider-Man story and a fun horror comic called The Astounding Wolfman coming out (and free!).
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John Edwards joins the call to open up the license... →
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Internet-wide feature request: "Snooze" →
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Barak Obama urges DNC to release presidential... →
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I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? →
Never got around to actually looking at this until today.
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Google Personalized Homepage becomes "iGoogle" →
This makes me not want to use the service. It looks like a lame attempt at a “what if Apple and Google merged?” Photoshop contest.
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Iron Man's movie armor →
Looks nice. Nothing changed much from the comics, which was a great design to start with, and it makes for a good transition to the comics for some viewers.