Neal Stephensons New Book

Coupla things:

Ask Neal Stephenson questions about Anathem

and

Spooky, wonderful music CD in Neal Stephenson's new novel

Stoked.
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Blade Runner Lego

One of a kind, though. Sorry.

Check it out.
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Pistol-Cam

No...seriously. Look.

I'm so getting one.
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Vis a Vis that post of Italian OST Music...

... Rod (of the Bloody Pit of...) sends me here for an interview with Fabio Frizzi:

This was also the start of a fruitful collaboration between Frizzi as a solo composer and Lucio Fulci. "Fulci loved music and knew very well what kind of score his film needed," Frizzi says. "As usual, after reading the screenplay, we talked about our project; then it was time for demos, discussions, arrangements, and recordings. We were always in close contact." Frizzi also talks about his personal relationship with Fulci; "He was a friend, probably my first 'senior' friend. I'm grateful to Lucio; he's one of the [people] who helped me to learn how to compose my beautiful and hard work." Frizzi composed the music for Fulci's ultra violent mafia film Contraband in 1980, and then worked on the scores for the films that many consider to be of Fulci's "golden era"; The City of the Living Dead (aka Gates of Hell, 1980) and The Beyond (aka Seven Doors of Death,1981). Frizzi's film themes aided Fulci in his dark atmospheric works, by creating scores composed of dissonant orchestral themes and eerie sounds made from the most radical synthesizers of the time.

Read it all.
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Watching Movies with My Daughter

My daughter, 11, is my buddy. But at 11, I'm sure she's every bit as impressionable as I was at that age. So as we delve into more mature content, I really have to watch it. As a family, we enjoy watching true crime shows, ghost shows (except with stoopid British psychics), and stuff like that. Lately, though, she has expressed a strong interest in "scary" movies, and that puts me in a tough spot. Horror has never really been my thing, I've seen quite a bit of it, and I know what I like and what I don't like. And what I don't like is ultra-realistic gore. Bleh. I haven't seen Hostel, Saw, or any of that cause I just don't consider it a pleasant way to spend time.

However, I think The Shining is one of the finest films ever made. And she is loving the NBC Fear Itself series on TV (as am I). And while I'm not letting her watch The Shining just yet, I am having a blast letting her watch things like Jaws and Alien. Watching her try to make up her mind - as the shark threw itself on the back of the Orca, and Quint lost his grip - if she really, really, truly wanted to see Quint get chomped on, is a series of facial expressions I'll never forget. (She passed - this time).

But with a movie like Frailty, for example, while there's no gore, and very little in he way of lanuage, deals with themes I'm not sure I'd like her dealing with just yet. Doubting God, religion, and daddy. That's a tough spot. Even though I think Frailty is a great movie, can I actively endorse it to my 11 year old daughter? I'll pass.

We did watch Evil Dead 2, though. HAHAHA! She loved it. Army of Darkness is on deck. It's so funny cause she knows Bruce Campell from some kid's show that she watches (!) But I get to explain to her that these movies are where he got his start and that the director is the guy who did the Spider-Man movies. She eats it up.

I need to go back and watch Bubba Ho-Tep cause I can't remember the language.

So you'll see a lot of rewatches in my monthly movie summaries. My baby-girl is why.
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Proof? We Don't Need No Stinking Proof!

What could possible go wrong?

From Wired:

The Motion Picture Association of America said Friday intellectual-property holders should have the right to collect damages, perhaps as much as $150,000 per copyright violation, without having to prove infringement.

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Ghost Hunters

Few shows entertain me and the fam more than Ghost Hunters. We watch it religiously. It's by far they best of all the haunted house shows on television. I really shouldn't even say that. It's in a league of it's own. They don't employ psychics or any of that, and they spend most of their time trying to debunk claims of paranormal activity. And while their methods aren't exactly scientific, they are fun to watch and think about.

Here's a vid someboy compiled of what they consider the Ghost Hunter's best evidences for paranormal activity spanning the run of the series. There are a couple of good ones missing. And I doubt any of this wil mystify you without seeing the full episode from which the evidence comes in its full context. But it's still fun.


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Fear Itself: Episode 3 "The Family Man"

As I previously mentioned, I wasn't all that impressed with the opening episode of this series, but the second episode was VERY good, and the third and current episode keeps that pace.

These episodes are stand-alone, 40 min horror/supernatural thriller movies. So you don't have to know what's going on before watching the latest episode. But if you want to catch up, you can watch full episodes online here.
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A Man Who Uses His Remarkable Skills for Evil

FOOT 2008 (REMI GAILLARD)
Uploaded by nqtv

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GOL!

Got this the other day from sources undisclosed.

Excellent fun.
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Firefox 3 - SMOOOOOKIN'

This is awesome. Good lookin', quick and chock full of features I haven't even gotten to yet.
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Firefox 3 Debuts In the Morning

From Wired:

Firefox 3 — available for download at 10am PDT Tuesday — is the culmination of a two-year quest to build the best browser ever. And while it’s not perfect, it comes pretty close.

If you're not already a Firefox user, nows the time to make the switch. If you are, you're stoked.
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Pocket Money (1972)

Just ordered this on DVD for like $1.95 plus S/H.



I think this movie is hilarious. It's not for everybody, and it wonders in places. But there is plenty of hysterical moments between Newman and Marvin. Oddly enough, Terrence Malick wrote the screenplay. More than worth the 2 bucks from sellers on Amazon.
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Speaking of The Wire

While surfing past the trailer for the last post, I came across this gem for fans of The Wire.

The Wire with a laugh track. Genius.


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From the Creators of the Wire

Generation Kill premiers July 13th on HBO. Seven part miniseries. Based on a book I haven't read.

Nonetheless... stoked.


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This Looks Like Fun

Fat Guy Stuck in the Internet.
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Poster Printing... Solved!

I found out recently that an old standby of common printer drivers since Print Shop and C64 days has disappeared from almost all normal printers. That i sthe poster setting. This setting simply allowed a user to take a file that was large and print it out - full sized over several sheets of paper that were then taped or glued together to make one large print out.

Well, good luck finding that feature now. Especially on common (whether expensive or not) HP models. From a choice of over five (!) HP printers and one non-HP on my network at the office, not one had the ole poster print feature.

I was trying to print a rather large Network Logic Diagram. Something one would figure a lot of companies do from time to time. Other people may want to print, say, an 8 foot poster of Lee Marvin holding Angie Dickenson upside down out a window... or something. The concept is the same.

Anyway, for Mac users, problem solved.
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O.M.G

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country's largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of "Internet metering" in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. "Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years," the company said in a statement.

All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Full article.
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Wireless N

Wired Magazine does a good round-up of some of the latest N Routers.

Good stuff if you're in the market. I'm not now, but will be in a few months.

Check it out.
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Hyperwords Is a Bad Mofo

Don't use Firefox? What are you thinking?

Here's another awesome reason to use the best browser in the world.

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Fear Itself

I tuned in for the first episode of NBCs new series Fear Itself, a Twilight Zone-style 13 episode series and was impressed enough to tune in this week.

I'm glad I did. The second episode, "Spooked," was much better than the first. Eric Roberts starred as a rough cop turned private eye who is haunted by his past. I know it sounds conventional, but it's not. The writing is tight as a drum.

Excellent episode. You can catch it here.
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Eastwood to Spike Lee: 'Shut your face.'

This is great:

Clint Eastwood says Spike Lee should "shut his face" about the lack of African-Americans in "Flags of Our Fathers."

"Has he ever studied the history?" Eastwood asked the U.K.'s Guardian in an interview published on Friday.

While promoting his own war movie, "Miracle at St. Anna," about the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division, which fought the Germans in Italy during World War II, Lee said Eastwood's Iwo Jima movie "Flags of Our Fathers" lacked a single African-American.

"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in 'Flags' or 'Letters From Iwo Jima']. That was his version: The negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version," Lee said recently at the Cannes film festival in France.

In response, Eastwood told the Guardian: "A guy like him should shut his face."

"He was complaining when I did 'Bird' [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else."

As for "Flags of Our Fathers," he says there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is 'Flags of Our Fathers,' the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

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Funny Stuff

Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey, Jr.

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Spot a Fake Photo

In case your interested or curious, you can check this out at Scientific American.
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Y'all Hear That? We Usin' Code Names

Apple is indeed well into the development of Mac OS X 10.6, which the company has internally code-named "Snow Leopard," according to ArsTechnica.

Citing a person familiar with the situation, the technology website confirms several of details the next major Mac OS X upgrade first reported on Tuesday, including a scheduled release as soon as Macworld 2009 this coming January, and that it will not introduce any major new features.

Instead, Snow Leopard is said to focus heavily on performance optimization and security, a move that will in all likelihood widen the gap between Mac OS X and Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system in those areas.

"Things like the MacBook Air, iPhone, iPod touch, and other mysterious devices that have yet to be announced need better performance for better battery life, and that's definitely something Apple wants to excel at in the years to come," wrote Ars' Jacqui Cheng.

Unconfirmed is whether the software will be shown off or discussed at the company's annual developers conference next week. However, AppleInsider in recent weeks has been told to expect discussion of "another big cat" at the event.

Also unconfirmed, but somewhat likely, is that Apple will completely wrap Snow Leopard in its Cocoa application programming interface (API) set, meaning that applications written via the company's legacy Carbon API will fail to run on the new system.

Adding corroboration to an AppleInsider report published last September, Ars adds that Mac OS X 10.6 is expected to support only Intel-based Macs, leaving owners of PowerPC-based systems of yesteryear out in the cold.

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Email Selected Text From Firefox with Right-Click

This is an awesome little Firefox plugin.

Highly recommended. Mac users Ctrl+Click and Email-To (Seamonkey) will activate Apple Mail.

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): If you find yourself regularly selecting, copying, and then pasting text from your browser into emails, Email This! is a definite time saver. A right-click (or toolbar) menu lets you directly compose a new Gmail, Yahoo, or Google Apps web mail message with the selected text, or pass it into a mail client like Thunderbird or Outlook. Those options can be added to or whittled down, and helpful shortcuts (Alt+G for Gmail) makes text sending even quicker. Email This! is a free add-on, and works wherever Firefox does.

Email This! [via gHacks]

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One of These Days We Won't Install Anything

Adobe has launched a new online office suite that brings together several existing Adobe services under a new domain — Acrobat.com. Adobe’s online office tools include its Buzzword word processor, the conferencing app ConnectNow and a 5GB online storage area for sharing documents with other Acrobat.com users.

It continues...

While Acrobat.com is available through your browser and is squarely aimed at competing with the likes of Google Docs and Zoho Office, Adobe is also offering a version that runs from the desktop via AIR. For the moment, the AIR version doesn’t allow offline document access and syncing, but Adobe claims that will be part of a future release.

Aside from a much slicker interface, Acrobat.com doesn’t offer many features above and beyond what you’ll find in Google Docs or Zoho Office. However, when the AIR version gains offline syncing capabilities, Adobe may possibly have a real winner on its hands. Other potentially interesting developments include the possibility of integrating Photoshop Express, the company’s online version of Photoshop, into the suite.

Full Story.
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Secret Everyday Tips and Trick from Japan

I get a kick out of stuff like this:

When it comes to life and getting things done, we like to do things a little differently in Japan. When I break a glass in the kitchen, I don't use my vacuum cleaner to clean it up; I use a slice of bread. When my socks become dirt-stained from running in a muddy ravine, I don't pour bleach on them; I stuff them with marbles. And to save space and money, I have never bought a document shredder. I just stuff incriminating documents in a stocking and toss them in the washing machine.

In Japan, there's an organic, non-commercial cure for almost anything. It's a tradition that blossomed in the post-WW2 era when people had to save money and space for economic reasons. Today, this habit of utilitarian thriftiness paired with a quirky national sensibility has spawned a phenomenon called urawaza—a collection of offbeat life hacks and unmapped shortcuts. It's also the subject of my new book, Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan. Keep reading for excerpts on how to silence a crying baby, get rid of splinters, swim backward, make grass greener, and easily clean up egg yolk... all using common household objects.

1. How to make a baby stop crying
Dilemma: Sure, the baby's cute. But why won't he stop crying?
Solution: The secret to stop a crying baby lies in making the sound you produce during the mouthfeel stage of wine tasting.
Why this works: When babies are still in the womb, the noises they can hear are limited to those in the 6000-8000mHz range. The sound you make when you slosh the liquid behind your lips during wine tasting takes place at about 7000mHz, reminding the baby of a time when the world around was peaceful and the whirs and stirs inside Mommy's tummy soothed him back to a sleepy state.

2. How to get rid of surface splinters
Dilemma: You have dozens of little splinters in your hands and arms from helping your little brother with his secret wooden fort. Isn't there a way to get rid of them without having to pluck each and every one out with tweezers?
Solution: Dip your finger in a tub of liquid glue and smear it all over the problem area. Once it dries, peel it off, just the way you used to when you were a bored little kid in arts-and-crafts class. The splinters will come right out along with the peeling glue!
Why this works: Surface splinters are hard to get out not because they're deeply embedded but because they're tiny and hard to grasp even with the daintiest of fingers. The sticky glue serves a function similar to a lint roller when the glue is applied evenly across the splintery surface of your skin. Plus, it's super fun to peel glue off your hands.

3. How to clean up spilled egg yolk
Dilemma: The egg was supposed to crack in the pan—not on the floor. Now there's gook all over the linoleum.
Solution: Sprinkle some table salt on the spilled egg and wait ten minutes for it to soak in, then sweep the egg yolk right off the floor with a broom.
Why this works: The salt dissolves the lipoproteins in the egg yolk, which changes its texture from gooey to nongooey, making it easier to clean.

4. How to make the grass green again
Dilemma: You got a new puppy, and now your once beautifully green lawn has bare brown patches all over it from dog pee.
Solution: Pour some beer on the problem areas, making sure the foam's covering all the naked spots. The grass will be greener in no time.
Why this works: Beer has fermented sugars in it, which can act as natural fertilizer. The dying grass will feed on these sugars, detrimental fungi will die, and your lawn will start looking normal again.

5. How to swim backward
Dilemma: Your breaststroke is weak, your dives all end up as belly flops, and you can't even do half a somersault without getting water up your nose. You need some kind of skill that will set you apart from the rest of the pool party this summer—but what?
Solution: Learn how to swim backward! When you flex your feet instead of pointing them while holding onto a kick board, your body will chug through the water in reverse gear.
Why this works: The direction you advance in the water depends on which way you're kicking. When you kick away from your body—which is essentially what you appear to be doing when you flex your feet—you reverse the body's inclination to go forward. It takes a little bit of practice, but once you perfect it, the whole party will be wide-eyed with wonder at your newfound skill. Images by Joel Holland for Chronicle Books.

Check out Urawaza videos here.

Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan [Amazon]

Courtesy of Lifehacker.
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Mac Maintenance Myths

Confused on what needs to be done (or not) to keep your Mac running in tip-top shape? Dan Frakes at Macworld discusses some common disinformation.
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Speaking of Filesharing...

Why BitTorrent causes so much latency and how to fix it

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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File Sharer? Check This Out:

By embracing DRM-free music, the record labels have finally admitted the truth to themselves: not just that the cat’s out of the bag, but that he’s high-tailed it halfway across the country. The levels of piracy were already immense before the recent DRM-free push, so the music companies clutching onto rights management was like polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Instead, the labels have redefined their enemy: sure, they’re still concerned about the shadowy legions of faceless file-sharers casually trading MP3s, but shadows are by nature intangible and hard to pin down. It’s much easier to fight an enemy that you can see, one that doesn’t bother trying to hide from you.

Like, say, Apple.

Full article at Macworld.
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Ubik Coming to a Theater Near You?

I'm going to act like I didn't see this until I hear more.

The French production company Celluloid Dreams has obtained the movie rights to Philip K. Dick's science fiction novel Ubik.

Ubik will join a growing list of Philip K. Dick novels and short stories that have been adapted into big screen movies (some badly, others brilliantly). Past movie adaptations include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Screamers, Imposter, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly.

While a movie version of Dick’s masterwork Ubik is excellent news for fans of quality science fiction, its themes of regression and restoration, death and decay, the real and unreal, are likely to present challenges for any director hoping to capture the novel's complexity.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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Two Computers and an iPod?

The you'll immediately see the benefit of a program like this.

SuperSync has released the v2.4 update to its self-titled software, used to manage multiple iTunes libraries across multiple computers and iPods. The update adds several significant features, most notably the saving of user-created metadata, such as groupings, play counts, and volume and EQ adjustments. Supported custom video metadata now includes series and episode numbers, as well as type, whether movie, TV show or music video.

Check it out the review at MacNN.

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New Quicksilver Skins

If you're on a Mac and you don't use Quicksilver, you should probably check it out. Like so much great Mac stuff, it's freeware.

If you've tried Quicksilver in the past and couldn't "get" it, maybe a new interface will help.

Try some of these.

Windows user, the closest you're going to find to Quicksilver is Dash Command. I've used it and it's pretty darn good. It'll cost you $20 after a limited function trial.

Either way, you'll be amazed at how much time you can save by not stopping to go to the mouse every five seconds. Watch these videos.



Mac Users (Quicksilver).



Windows Users (Dash Command).


(Hat tip to Lifehacker on the new skins)
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Scientific Proof: Video Games Are Good For You

I knew it!!!

In the study, conducted as part of Hutton’s graduate thesis, 98 undergraduate and graduate students were asked to play a popular video game, Dance Dance Revolution, at various levels of complexity. The students took a standard creativity test after playing. The researchers also took readings of the players' skin conductance and asked players if they were feeling either positive or negative after the game.

"We looked at two emotional variables: arousal and valence," said Hutton. "Arousal is the degree of physical excitation -- as measured through skin conductance -- and valence, which is the range of positive or negative feeling."

When the researchers ran a statistical analysis of the two emotional variables and the students' creativity scores, they found two totally different groups with high scores.

Players with a high degree of arousal and positive mood were most likely to have new ideas for problem solving. The statistical tests also revealed that creativity scores were highest for players with low arousal and a negative mood.

Full article.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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No Suprise There

The IQ League maintain a "60 Second IQ Test" online. Interestingly, they correlate the results of this test with a number of statistics available from their server logs. Along with the geographical distinctions like city and country, the referrer and OS/Browser user-agent strings are also mined, to determine the Smartest Browser and OS. Cutting to the chase, the very smartest is Firefox on Unknown (which internal evidence suggests is MacOS-Intel), and the dumbest, as of this writing, is IE on WinNT.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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Neat-O Address Book Plug-In

Another developer fills in the gaps.

This plug-in is Relationship Completer, a great tool that does exactly what it says: it completes relationships. Once you install Relationship Completer by placing the plug-in file in ~/Library/Address Book Plug-ins and restarting Address Book, the plug-in will add another item to the contextual menu that pops up when you click on the field title to the left of the related name. Clicking the new item will add automate adding the Related Names field to the related contact in the appropriate format (brother to sibling, father to child, spouse to spouse). Hopefully OS X 10.6 or OS 11 will include an improved Address Book which automatically does this, but Relationship Completer is the best solution at the moment.

Full article.

(Hat tip: Leopard Tips)
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Comcast Gets a Lesson on Customer Service

Anybody who has ever had to deal with Comcast tech help should find this hilarious.

Comcast Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First

Courtesy of Wired News.
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TiVo Tries to Stay Relevant

With the onslaught of DVRs into the mainstream market and being available through most satellite and cable companies (forgoing the need for a separate component to deal with, not to mention the remote control attachments), TiVos days have been numbered. With this latest development, the device may stick around a little while longer.

TiVo is prepping a digital video recorder that would serve as a hub for an entire house, company chief Tom Rogers confirms at the D6 Conference. He notes that current TiVos are essentially limited and can't record or offer content to more than one TV set in the home; the Wi-Fi adapter that lets the TiVo work remotely is only a part solution to the problem, Rogers says. Instead, TiVo is working to produce a version of its self-titled hubs that could give "whole-home" access, though the executive doesn't provide more details.

The dish companies have a feature that allows you to share recordings between two televisions. The two televisions actually share a dual-tuner box. I had one of these fr about a year and the only issue we ever ran into was the remote for the second TV was an RF and sometimes had to be pointed in strange directions in order to reach the box all the way in the den. But the issues, even with the RF remote, were rare.

Comcast Cable doesn't currently offer a model with that kind of capability. I don't know about the other cable companies.


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Apple Back-To-School Promo Largest Ever

Always wanted a Mac but the price made you think twice? Well, if you're currently enrolled in an institution of education, now maybe the time. Apple's educational promos are coming. And they're supposed to be the biggest ever. From the MacNN:

Apple is expected to unveil its 2008 back-to-school promotion, a move that senior vice president Ron Johnson calls Apple's biggest educational special "ever". AppleInsider reports that the incentives will be larger than any promotion in Apple's history, with some leaning towards the company's possible inclusion of the 8GB iPod touch into the deal. Particulars on the special were not readily available, but Apple is expected to start the offer as soon as Monday, June 2nd. The expectations are based upon yearly increasing incentives, with last year's $199 discount covering the cost of a 4GB Nano. In 2006 and 2005, the promotion ran for a $179 rebate, which earned students a 2GB iPod nano and Mini, respective to the years.

Apple has traditionally offered the promotion on all computers save for the Mac mini, due to its lower cost and finer margins, but will reportedly extend the benefits to the popular MacBook Air.

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