Thank You for Smoking
Finally went to see “Thank you for Smoking” which presents us with the life of Big Tobacco lobbyist Nick Nailor. Here is a trailer :
The movie was very funny, entertaining, and smart. The movie had the potential to get preachy due to its subject matter but it never did and was very intelligiently irreverent. It got applause from everyone in the theater at the end of the show.
This is a thumbs up in a “go see it in a theater, rent it, or buy it, but find some way to see it” kinda way.
Write a Story and get asked for you fingerprints and DNA by UF police
According to this article on Boing Boing, a University of Florida English graduate students was asked to provide fingerprints and DNA after publishing a story involving a murder on his blog where he publishes his stories. The murder as well as his stories are fiction. To make the story even weirder, apparently this seems to be some kind a backlash for his use of his admin blocking priveleges on Wikipedia.
AT&T NSA Spying Evidence
Wired has acquired and decided to publish the evidence that is currently under Seal in the EFF vs AT&T lawsuit.
To see why they did it, please go here :
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70947-0.html
To see the evidence itself, please go here :
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.html
Google Notebook
Today Google launched, Google Notebook. It is essentially an extension to Firefox/IE that allows you to highlight text, images, etc on a website and add it to a “notebook”. You can then create notebooks on different subjects, annotate your snippets, and also make these notebooks publicly viewable if you choose. The best part is that the notebook is stored on google so you can access it from anywhere. Suddenly, research, at least for me, has gotten a whole lot easier to manage.
You can try notebook out by going to :
http://www.google.com/notebook
I have already sent in a suggestion, for them to add a feature so that you can automatically generate a bibliography based on your snippet URLs. Try it out and enjoy, although, I think I am officially becoming a Google fanboy. (Although Google desktop search still makes me a little queasy.)
The Davinci Code : The Movie (Pre-Show)
Well “The Davinci Code” opens on Friday and I plan on seeing the movie sometime next weekend, you can take a look at the latest trailer here :
And of course you can take a look (or another look) at my review of the book here. But, before anyone gets in a tizzy about this movie, please take a breath and remember that it is very much a work of fiction meant to entertain, not meant to convey any hidden truth, even if the author gets a little antagonistic at points (remember Dan Brown is a writer who wants to sell books and movies and controversy generates buzz). That being said, if you are still a “believer”, please take a look at the inaccuracies in the book (and presumably the movie based upon it) :
Time : The Ways of Opus Dei
How Stuff Works : How the Davinci Code Doesn’t Work
US Conference of Catholic Bishops : Jesus Decoded
Opus Dei : Theological issues raised in the Davinci Code
So you may be wondering if I think the book (and maybe movie) are so wrong, why am I going to see it? Two reason, it should be an entertaining and well-acted movie (Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and Hans Zimmer score, come on, the score itself will probably be worth it), and if it is bound to get people’s feathers ruffled across the world, I would like to be knowledgeable so that I can know what I am talking about.
Etc : May 5 – 12
It’s been about a week since I’ve updated my blog, so here are a bunch of things I’ve been thinking about this week, that didn’t quite make a blog entry of their own :
The RIAA/MPAA broadcast flags are once again making their rounds through congress. If you think that these flags will actually stop piracy and not just stifle innovation, you may want to read up on them or if you would like to take action, write you senators here.
The NSA is apparently going fishing, through your phone records, that is, with voluntary cooperation from some phone companies, You can read all about it here :
Washington Post
ABC News
CNN
There is also the story of a Ohio priest convicted of a 1980, Holy Saturday, murder of a Sister. Just generally sad all round. You can read about it here :
And finally, something a little less severe, I meant to put a link to the Stephen Colbert Roast of President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner at Google Video but didn’t get around to it either, until now.
Feliz Weekend!
ODF Plugin for MSOffice
Massachusetts (MA) made a request yesterday for a plugin that would allow for seamless integration of ODF (Open Document Format) into Office. You can see that request here. A day later the The OpenDocument Foundation responds that they have a plugin that is compatible with current versions of Word, and going back to Word97. You can read more about that on Groklaw here. So for the first time, you will be able to completely seamlessly share and develop a document between Word, OpenOffice, AbiWord, and other programs.
The MS Office vs MA showdown been like watching a software soap opera and apparently Office has just developed an inoperable brain tumor so that it can be written out of the script. Ok, I don’t watch Soaps but I imagine that is what would happen if Office were in one.
But I digress, the plugin is apparently not yet available for general consumption but is available to the state of Massachussetts so that they can begin their testing.
BTW, you can download a completely free office suite that supports ODF as well as Office formats here.
Superman Returns – Trailer 2
There is a new trailer for Superman Returns up on the Apple site :
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/supermanreturns/trailer2/
Coming to Theaters on June 30th.
Silent Hill – The Movie
I went to see Silent Hill on Saturday evening and I have to say that I thought it was a good movie. Of course the two other people I saw it with completely disagree with me on that point, so your mileage may vary. I must have made up my own movie as I went along, at least according to them. That being said, I don’t think I will be adding this one to my video collection, even though it was good, it wasn’t great.
The good :
- The movie looked great (very good cinematography and special effects)
- The basics of the storyline were good (but see below)
The bad :
- Very poor dialogue for the main character and no quotables
- Non-existant use of exposition, when the movie contains a “featurette” almost at the end in order to attempt explain most of the movie, you know the writers, directors, and producers, dropped the ball along the way. If the information in the “featurette” had been dished out as we went along, it would have significantly improved the movie.
- There were no really scary moments, the movie mostly consisted of some gory moments. (i.e. It doesn’t stick with you like “The Grudge” does. That is definitely a good scare, BTW, and really well executed.)
All in all, I give it a thumbs up in a, “if you haven’t seen it, I would wait and rent it”, way.
Now Reading
Planned books:
None
Current books:
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The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4) by Robert Jordan
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A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin
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1776 by David McCullough
Recent books:
- Lamb by Christopher Moore
- The Demonata #6: Demon Apocalypse (Demonata) by Darren Shan
- A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) by George R.R. Martin
- The Demonata #5: Blood Beast (Demonata) by Darren Shan
- Demonata #4, The: Bec: Book 4 in the Demonata series (Demonata) by Darren Shan
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