How many poor saps out there were waiting in line at midnight to buy a copy of the Windows 7 operating system?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Claudville, Virginia gets first public white-space network
Okay well what I wanna know is: does the Wal-Mart in Patrick Springs carry white-space routers already??
Gears of War Snuggie
Ehhhh... personally I'd rather have official Gears of War Underoos :-P
It's that time of year again
And if you buy extra boxes of chocolate chip, the Girls Scouts will even give "protection" for your place of business.
Russia watches American "Self Immolation"
'Tis painfully ironic that these observations are being made in Pravda, of all places. Stanislav Mishin writes...
It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand). Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans...Twenty years ago communism collapsed under its own weight and today the people of the former Soviet Union get to watch the same thing happen to the United States, slowly but surely. Those folks know of what they speak probably better than most anyone else on the planet.(snip)
That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that's a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.
Even the Soviets never created such idiocy. The great famine of the late 1920s was caused by quite the opposite, as the Soviets collectivized farms to force peasants off of their land and into the big new factories. Of course this had disastrous results. So one must ask, are the powers that be in Washington and London degenerates or satanically evil? Where is the opposition? Where are the Republicans in America and Tories in England?
There's plenty more harsh truth in the rest of Mishin's essay.
BATMAN & ROBIN is the most important comic book movie ever
GeekTyrant has more thoughts from Feige. And also from Batman & Robin scribe Akiva Goldsman, who demonstrates enough sincere repentance about the mess that was Batman & Robin that maybe we should finally forgive him and Joel Schumacher for their involvement. In retrospect Warner Brothers was hellbent on making an overblown toy commercial, and not a real movie...
(But it also goes without saying that others before have also claimed that "we were only following orders".)
What the...?!?
Sesame Street has spoofed AMC's Mad Men?!?
Considering that once upon a time Sesame Street did a parody of Twin Peaks starring Cookie Monster, can't really say that I'm surprised Children's TelevisionSesame Workshop would also adapt what is currently one of television's hottest shows for pee-wee appreciation :-)
Next month begins Sesame Street's fortieth season. Wonder if they could do a send-up of House or Lost sometime...
Sequoia accidentally releases source code for its voting machines!
Well friends and neighbors, tonight I get to grin a big 'un: Sequoia has inadvertently released the source code of its voting machines and... wonder upon wonders... already the code is shown to be breaking election law!
"Sequoia blew it on a public records response. ... They appear... to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold. They were wrong. The Linux 'strings' command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800-MB text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code."Want to examine the code for yourself? studysequoia.wikispaces.com has whatcha need!
And truth be told, right now I'm kicking myself for having nearly flunked-out of that C computer programming class I took during my first semester at Elon. But I harbor no doubt: better minds than mine in such matters are going to be picking out a bunch of interesting - and quite possibly very illegal - stuff from this code.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
BioShock Big Daddy action figure
Click here for more product and ordering info, would you kindly?
DEATH TROOPERS prequel coming October 2010!
Joe Schreiber has already turned in the manuscript for a prequel to his just-released Star Wars: Death Troopers novel. The book is now scheduled for an early October 2010 release. In an interview on StarWars.com Schreiber says that the next book will deal with (SPOILER highlight with mouse to read) the origin of the virus that got loose on that Star Destroyer and turned so many people into zombies.
Incidentally, here's my review from a few days ago of Star Wars: Death Troopers. This book has fast found an enthused audience: some are saying that it's one of the freshest Star Wars stories in quite a long while. And ever since I finished reading it, it's been in my mind that Lucasfilm is sitting on a huge opportunity here for a Star Wars "side franchise". I'm talking 'bout video games, action figures, more books... lots more stuff inspired by this newly-minted horror facet of the saga. Hey, maybe even a full-blown Star Wars horror TV movie on Syfy or Cartoon Network: that would sooo rock!
Monday, October 19, 2009
U.S. Senate's health care bill: 1,502 pages long
That's gotta be a helluva big hopper that this bill was placed into.
(It would be better for the entire country and our posterity if it had been dumped into a trash can instead.)
S. 1796 has been filed. The Senate's version of "health care reform" is one thousand, five hundred and two pages long.
What the hell is inside that thing?
Here's the link to a PDF file of this monstrosity if you're so inclined.
Creepiest doll commercial of all time
It's Baby Laugh A-Lot!
I don't know what's scarier: this ad's production values, or that once upon a time children and at least one too many adults found this toy even mildly amusing...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
FDIC without adequate funds until 2012 (at least)
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is in the red, and it's going to stay that way for another two years.
Meanwhile the ninety-ninth federally-insured bank this year has gone under.
Looks like I'm gonna have to begin stockpiling some more "breadlines" photos to use...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Video game console war building out, not reaching up
Gamasutra's Kris Graft has written an interesting piece about the changing face of the multi-billion dollar video game console industry... and why it's no longer about building "the next big thing" and rushing it into production. Blame Nintendo's Wii for the revolution: motion control has become the biggest innovation for video gaming, and now Microsoft and Sony are working on entering the foray with Project Natal and Sony's planned motion-based controller. But rather than waiting for the next generation of consoles, these features are being implemented into the already-existing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And that's a good thing for everyone concerned...
...for Sony and Microsoft, motion controllers are their next-gen consoles. And it's a damn sight easier than launching Xbox 720 or PS4. They can debut these peripherals without needing to engineer completely new boxes for consumers, potentially bundle them over time, and they have a much better chance at getting exclusive games, thanks to the specificity of the hardware (something that's happened a lot for the Wii). Thus, both hardware manufacturers and publishers like EA see these controllers sparking new interest in Xbox 360 and PS3, which will delay the next dreaded console transition for another few years.It also means that we won't have to be dreading the adoption of a next-gen console anytime soon... so that'll save some coin in the short term :-)
Friday, October 16, 2009
30-second promo for AMC's remake of THE PRISONER looks VERY promising!
My mind is still trying to wrap itself around the concept of remaking The Prisoner. Heck, my mind is still trying to wrap itself around everything associated with the original television series. But this promo for the new miniseries starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan... has absolutely put The Prisoner on my must-watch list.
Does it look like Rover got a massive upgrade, or what?
The Prisoner beckons us back to The Village on November 15th.
