Category: General

BBC News => Doctor battles Daleks in New York

The Daleks are poised to do battle in New York in a forthcoming episode from the latest series of Doctor Who.

The two-parter will see the show’s star David Tennant and new assistant Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, face their famous foes in 1930s Manhattan.

“This time, their plan is the most audacious Dalek scheme yet! Even the Doctor finds himself out of his depth,” said lead writer Russell T Davies.

So much for the days of “absolute secrecy” about upcoming plot developments.

Update: BBC Press Office releases more detailed info on the episode and the third series.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who, Dr Who

Christmas Eve is almost over.

We’ve prepared the tree, placed all the presents under it, even the ones “from Santa” and even cleared out the front of the fireplace so that Santa had a place to get in. (Why not? You can’t burn anything in a fireplace on any day cold enough to want to have a fire because of high pollution warnings.)

I must say, I’m still a little disturbed about perpetuating this whole “Santa Claus” fantasy, but Michelle has picked it up from her friends at school and she’s really looking forward to it. At least she hasn’t picked up any of that baby Jesus nonsense.

We took the kids out to the zoo to see the Zoolights. Each year, as they get older, it’s more fun as they appreciate it more. I guess there will come a year when it starts tapering off as they get too old for that sort of stuff, but it is fun to enjoy it now.

It’s interesting, having a family. Now we have “obligations” to make an effort at Christmas and while it might seem like a bit of a chore, it really isn’t. I hope we have many, many more Christmas

Perhaps it is our society, or perhaps it’s that I hold no stock in Christmas as a holy day, but I just don’t see a lot of Christmas spirit. Shopping, yes. People wearing Santa hats, yes. Bad traffic, yes. But no spirit.

I’ve only ever felt a genuine Christmas spirit once. It was back in about 1977, I was thirteen. My father and took the two-week Christmas vacation to travel down to the tip of Baja Mexico. We travelled over the inner “highway” nearest the gulf. Highway is a joke, it was a dirt road and we travelled for days without seeing another person.

We pulled into La Paz, which in those days was a sleepy fishing village, on Christmas Eve and we stopped into a little restaurant that stayed open for us. The owners didn’t speak much English, and we didn’t speak much Spanish, but before they left, they came over and asked about us. If we had family in the area, etc. We told them we were just traveling and that’s when they invited us to their home for Christmas. It wasn’t an obligatory invitation, it was sincere and genuine because they didn’t want us to be alone on Christmas.

We didn’t take them up on the offer, we had known where we’d be at Christmas and had planned accordingly. Still, I genuinely felt the actual spirit of Christmas that day and it was kind of nice.

I’ve typed away the rest of Christmas Eve, it’s now Christmas day. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, Family

BBC News => BBC moves to file-sharing sites

You know, I would gladly pay the £131.50 ($255.87) television license fee that everyone in the UK with a TV is required to pay that funds the BBC if only I could get the BBC programming. The technology exists, but it is political and contractual barriers that prevent it.

BBC programming is far more interesting to me than the existing pay networks we have in the US like HBO or Showtime. Of course, we have BBC America, but that’s only a small subset of the programming and it’s often months or years behind the actual transmission. It’s also cut and heavily loaded with commercials.

The programming never includes BBC Four material, like Dr. Iain Stewart’s Journeys from the Center of the Earth or Journeys Into the Ring of Fire – two excellent documentary series on geology that would probably be considered too arcane even for the Discovery Science channel over here.

That’s why I applaud the BBC’s commercial arm for attempting to setup a bitorrent distribution system through Azureus/Zudeo. I have just have two cautionary things that hopefully the BBC will not stumble over. They have to distribute the files fast (within, if not a day, than no later than one week after original transmission) and they need to price them reasonably. The second series of the new Doctor Who sells on DVD for $70, that’s about $5 per episode and it’s already rather pricey for DVDs. Copy-protected digital media can’t be anywhere near that expensive. It’s going to have to be in the range of iTunes’ $1.99 or less.

Even at $1.99 the numbers add up too fast. That’s $25 for Doctor Who, $25 for Torchwood, $25 for Robin Hood, $16 for Life on Mars and that doesn’t touch on other shows like Planet Earth, My Family, Worst Week of My Life and many other programs.

Most importantly, their DRM better work on Macs.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Commentary, Doctor Who, Dr Who, Mac, MacBook, OSX, Robin Hood, Technology, Torchwood, Video

It was a cold, dark, dreary, rainy day.

It’s not very often a story about Phoenix starts that way, but that’s what it was like today.

I had to go out at lunchtime to try to find a DVI cable for my new monitor. I also needed to get an Apple mini-DVI to DVI dongle for my MacBook. With a little luck, I thought perhaps Fry’s Electronics would have both the cable and the dongle. I was sure they’d carry the cable, but the dongle was more of a question mark. They carry Apple products and a few accessories and apart from the Apple store, they were the only place that might carry it. (I knew the Apple store wouldn’t carry the DVI cable.)

Fry’s only had the cable (and 135 people in line in front of me) so I had to make a trip after work to the Apple store. The city was practically gridlocked, between the holiday traffic and the rain, it was brutal. A trip from my office to the Apple store normally takes 10 minutes, today it took an hour. The parking lot was a log jam, and the Apple store was doing a ripping bit of business.

The guy ahead of me was buying eight 30Gb iPods!

I wish I had that kind of money for XMas (or even Saturnalia) presents.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, Christmas, xmas

My wife is so thoughtful. She goes out of her way to try to surprise me Christmas. I really bad when it goes wrong… but on the other hand, as those wise sages, Morecambe & Wise, once said, the secret of all great comedy is timing.

Last night, my wife had to go pick up the ham. (I refused to pick up the ham because of last year’s tale.) Ten minutes after she left, someone showed up at out door. It was the UPS guy, which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting any packages. He was holding a small box from Amazon.com and he held out the electronic clipboard for me to sign.

I signed my name and reached for the package, which he pulled back to indicate he wouldn’t give it to me. Instead, he just pointed down at the ground next to the door, where I saw this: A new Sceptre 20“ wide screen monitor. (The one I thought I wasn’t going to get because I had already found my XMas gift and it wasn’t big enough.)

There wasn’t much I could do, it was packed just as you see it, so I couldn’t leave it outside and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know what it was.

Still, it’s a wonderful present and it leads me to my next post…

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, xmas

Every year, the neighbors on the corner put up the ugliest nativity scene ever!

You can practically see the fleas leaping off the mannequins, and they’re always at least one or two wise men short. Joseph is often missing for days on end. (Well, what with the baby crying all the time and their marriage is a bit strained since he isn’t the father – who could blame him?)

I think this year, they got a new lamb and may have re-upholstered the donkey. Either way, my main complaint isn’t the display, it’s the fact that this is on the corner of a major thoroughfare and when you’re coming off our street (heading left in this picture) you cannot see the oncoming traffic because of that damn manger.

(They did move it back from the street some this year, which does help.)

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, xmas

The new server got put into place yesterday, and hopefully there’s nothing too wrong with the site. A few of the backup files may have been corrupted on upload, so if anything doesn’t appear to be working, let me know.

Technorati Tags: Blog

This is the worst hiding place for an Xmas present ever. My wife left my “secret” present on our bed. On MY SIDE of the bed. And I was not supposed to notice this how?

Why do I have a sinking feeling this is not a 20“ wide screen monitor?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Christmas, Family, xmas

Wired => Fantasy Love Hotels

For decades Japan’s love hotels have provided a place for couples to enjoy anonymous, uninterrupted sex. Politician and secretary, teacher and student, husband and hooker — all are welcome, as long as they pay in cash and leave when the time limit is up. But 2006 spawned a new type of love hotel. Decorated with theme park interiors and equipped with game consoles, karaoke boxes and sex machines — these establishments provide kinky fun for all types, from fetishists and sadomasochists to the ordinary couple seeking sexual adventure.

I can’t help wondering what sort of alien probes come standard in the “Alien Abduction Play Area” pictured above. You have to go see the other “themed” rooms. I think the Hello Kitty one may give me nightmares for years to come.

These pictures are all by Misty Keasler and are part of her book Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan

“Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan”

Technorati Tags: Blog, Japan, Japanese

The Daily Mail => How one leopard changed its spots … and saved a baby baboon

Great story, lousy ending.

“She had killed the mother primate, but then found this live new-born on the ground. The little baboon called out, and we thought we were going to hear a major crunch and the leopard smacking its lips, but instead the baby baboon put its paws out and walked towards the young leopard.

”Legadema paused for a moment, apparently not knowing what to do. Then she gently picked it up in her mouth, holding it by the scruff of its neck and carrying the infant up a tree to keep it safe.“

Read the rest…

Technorati Tags: Blog, Natural Sciences