…for the Center For Inquiry, and may I just say these are the people who put out Skeptical Inquirer magazines, one of my favorite reads.
Blog
-
Quantum of Silence
OK, so the theme from Daniel Craig’s first Bond film wasn’t the most memorable Bond film of all time, but it had the habit of growing on you a bit. Quantum of Solace’s theme song was debuted on the BBC yesterday and I can only hope they follow the trend started in the last film of not including the theme song on the soundtrack album.
Either that or change their minds and run silence over the opening credits.
-
To walk with dinosaurs
Yesterday, on the 9th anniversary of the moon being blasted out of Earth’s orbit, we celebrated by attending Walking with Dinosaurs, the Live Experience.
This is a multi-million dollar extravaganza (the production, not – quite – the ticket price) to bring life-sized dinosaurs from the Walking with Dinosaurs series to life, on stage.
No matter how many books you read, the scale of these creatures is difficult to imagine. Even the fossilized bones and reconstructions in natural history museums don’t fully convey their scale because they are hollow frameworks.
And so I’ve been eagerly anticipating this show since I first heard of it.
It didn’t disappoint.
Seeing a full-sized brachiasaur walk onto stage is humbling. That we were 14 rows back in a steep sports arena and that it’s head still towered over us really drive home how magnificent these beasts must have been.
Of course the technology could not completely make these “real”. The monstrous beasts were supported on sled-like mechansms that allowed them to be driven without interfereing with the simulated motion of the legs.
The smaller, more agile creatures were performers in suits. This presents an interesting problem as human legs articulate in a reverse fashion from theropod dinosaurs.
Clearly this was a stage production, but an impressive one.
I even shed a tear when the tyrannosaur family was wiped out by the commet.
-
First Phoenix Light Rail Accident?
Driving south on 19th Ave today, I saw this amusing situation. I wasn’t in a position to take a picture except through my mirror as I reached the first stop light. What you can kind of see in the blow up is that the white car has managed to beach itself on the curb that prevents you from driving onto the train tracks. The curb is so high that the car’s tires cannot reach the ground.It’s a little fun to try to figure out how he managed this stunt. If you look in the main photo, you’ll see on the left the where it is painted yellow. This is the nearest point where it would have been low enough for this guy to get over it. My guess is that he attempted to drive with one wheel on the curb and failed. Otherwise, I’d think his wheels would be showing damage. If he did that, he made about 50 feet before stranding himself.
Seems little likelihood that there’s any way he could be in this predicament without a certain modicum of stupidity being involved.
-
How I feel when Windows is in the House
Once again, the comedy duo of Gates and Seinfeld are at it again.
This time, the explain what the commercial is about and the message isn’t good: “Connecting” with people is like an awkward pairing of dysfunctional people trying to live together, which ends with Gates and Seinfeld being kicked out of the house.
Yep, “dysfunctional”, that’s a word we use a lot to describe Microsoft software!
Let’s just pick on a couple things: Gates and Seinfeld are terrible guests (complaining about food, etc) and crooks (essentially stealing the Chinese food rather than paying for it. Who’d be dumb enough to try a dine-and-dash with delivery food? Bill and Jerry. Ace criminals.)
And I love the bit where Bill apparently gives them some fantastic program and reveals that it’s never going to be released. Does that sum up Microsoft, too? No, because I don’t believe they really have any great software in the wings, but it does speak to their business philosophy, doesn’t it? Whatever it is about it is not about quality software.
-
Freedom From Religion Foundation Billboards
The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Imagine No Religion” billboards have gone up in a few places around the Phoenix. One of them is near Indian School and 23rd Street – which I happen to drive past each and every day – and had never seen it. My friend, John, and I were even in the area a couple times for lunch and didn’t see it.
We saw every other billboard in the area, but not that one. We were beginning to suspect that the whole controversy was a clever ploy to get atheists to pay more attention to billboard advertising.
Finally, however, this week we went searching until we found it. (See John here doing his very best Jimmy Olsen imitation with the camera.)
This morning, quite by accident on my way back from a meeting down at the State Capital, I passed another on 19th Ave, near the I-10.
When you’re looking for one, you can’t find one. When you don’t need one, they’re everywhere.
-
Doctor Who – Under the Radar
My Apple TV did something very strange today – something that I can’t recall that it has ever done before. I think it crashed.
One minute it was showing my flickr screensaver and the next moment I noticed it was asking me what language I wanted my Apple TV to operate in. I choose English and it forced a reboot.
When it was done, I poked around to see if I had somehow missed a software update and looked over the content. Under TV shows, there was a staggering number of channels! Far more than I realized were available on the Apple TV. (TV being such crap as it is, rarely has anything I want to watch, let alone pay for the “privilege”.) But there was BBC America, so I thought, why not look.
Shock! Primeval! Torchwood (blech), Little Britain and Doctor Who… but not just Doctor Who with a Tennant… I was full-on staring at Tom Baker in Creature From the Pit! Sure enough, iTunes now not only has classic Doctor Who, but they have episodes spanning most of the Doctors and many that have never been released on DVD.
Real classics like “Time and the Rani”, “Underworld”, “The Sun Makers” and Nightmare of Eden”. Sadly, Horns of Nimon seems to be missing.
All kidding aside, there’s about 27 stories, including real classics like The Time Monster, Planet of the Spiders, the Mutants and The Krotons.
Each story is sold by the individual episode of $1.99 each, with each story being packaged as a “season” for the cost of the episodes put together.
A quick check on the net revealed this story on Wired from last month revealing that they were available. Wonder why I never saw anything about it in either my regularly monitored Doctor Who or Apple news feeds?
-
Public Water
This is why you don’t drink the water out if the drinking fountain at my wife’s school.
-
Mac Mini – Cable Maxi
I mentioned that I got my new Mac Mini to replace my antique G4, but what I failed to mention was that I still had an older Cinema Display that’s still gorgeous (if not wide screen aspect) but it uses the older, proprietary ADC connection – which not only supplied power to the monitor, but also USB and allowed the monitor to act as the on/off switch for the computer.Mac Mini uses a DVI connector, so I had to buy and ADV to DVI connector, seen at the top of this picture here. Note that it is almost as big as the Mac Mini. It weighs more, too.
Now, if I could just find a way to connect the cool Apple Speakers that came with the G4 but also have a proprietary connector that Apple doesn’t support anymore… 🙁
-
Gates & Seinfeld Plug American Express?
Hit tip to Little-Storping-On-The-Swuff for bringing to my attention that these much-anticipated Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates Commercials had begun to appear.
Unfortunately, I haven’t see it on the air yet, but that’s probably because I’m not in the target demographic and don’t watch the Home Shopping Network, anyway.
Some people, apparently, think these are quite funny. On the other hand, some people collect string. Still others kept the Jerry Seinfeld’s eponymous show on the air for 10 flippin’ years!
Perhaps these ads will tie into the zeitgeist (of which I’m apparently not a part of) and be immensely popular. This one reminds nothing more than a retread of the Seinfeld/Superman American Express commercials. I suppose those ads were successful, as I do at least remember that they were for American Express, although I don’t remember much about them except that Superman was a neurotic git.
If this commercial is trying to substitute Gates for Superman and therefore, by association, elevate Gates to Superman status – they’ve failed horribly.
If they’re trying to tell us that Microsoft is in the far-flung distant future going to come out with a working computer all they really did was point out that they haven’t got one now. Not how I’d want to be “on message.” (Or, perhaps, considering how that “secret” is revealed, it may be telling us that Gates is rubbing his ass in our faces?)
The commercial is tediously long, over 90 seconds, during most of it I was so reminded of the Seinfeld American Express commercials, I thought Gates was plugging Amex, not Microsoft. If I hadn’t hadn’t known, in advance, that Seinfeld was doing Microsoft commercials, I would never have guessed it was for Microsoft. In the end, I was expecting Gates to whip out his Amex and pay for the shoes, which was the denouement of the Amex spots (if I recall correctly.)
If indeed they had followed the pattern, the Shoe Circus employee would use a Microsoft POS sales to ring-up Gates’ purchase. That however, would have suspended disbelief too much for most viewers. I think we’re all familiar with how crap cash registers that run Window’s are. I think the $0.99 Store is the only place left that uses them, and they can get away with it because everything is $0.99 and they don’t have to scan accurately.
No bashing of Microsoft and/or Bill Gates will be complete; however, without this caveat: The charitable work being done by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is, in my opinion, one of the greatest acts of humanism in the history of mankind. That Gates has seen fit to utilize his obscene wealth in this way, for whatever his reason, earns the man a big chunk of respect in my book. It would have been better for these commercials been used to try to promote that work rather than Microsoft.