So the freak show in California is over and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new governor.
Lovely.
Reminds me of an old California joke: California’s like a bowl of cereal; once you get rid of the fruits and nuts, all you have left are the flakes.
Blog
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The Return of the King
The trailer for The Return of the King is online. December 17th; just over two months.
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Pirates of the Caribbean
We (finally) went and saw “Pirates of the Caribbean” tonight. It was a lot of fun, I liked it. Johnny Depp was, frankly, amazing. Go see it, if it’s still in theaters where you’re at.
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Broken email prognostication
I’ve been reading a lot about how email is broken these days—articles here, here and here are examples—and interestingly, I came across the following passage in Cryptonomicon (published in 1999) that I thought was apropos:
“I hate e-mail,” John says.
Harvard Li stares him in the eye for a while. “What do you mean?”
“The concept is good. The execution is poor. People don’t observe any security precautions. A message arrives claiming to be from Harvard Li, they believe it’s really from Harvard Li. But this message is just a pattern of magnetized spots on a spinning disk somewhere. Anyone could forge it.”
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Article on blogging
Interesting story on weblogs here. Good introductory overview on blogging, worth reading if you’re new to it and are curious, and even if you’re not.
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Gradual
Obviously I’ve not been very motivated to write much lately. I’m up to my elbows in Cryptonomicon and loving it, so that’s been eating up much of my free time. But today I updated several parts of the site, most notably the ebooks page, where I’m rolling out a better layout and feature set for people viewing the free ebooks. It’s time for it; my ebooks page is by far the most popular page on this site and most of the site searches are for ebooks, but the search function looks at the blog content only.
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Matrix Revolutions Trailer
The theatrical trailer for “The Matrix Revolutions” is online. If you got the bandwidth, I recommend the big version.
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Bye bye, UPN
As reported on bend.com and confirmed on our local cable provider BendCable’s website, BendCable has dropped UPN entirely. Apparently BendCable didn’t want the competition from a new UPN-affiliate that’s scheduled to launch here in January 2004. So, they got pissy and as of now, UPN channel 12 is off the air.
The only show I watch on UPN is Enterprise, so it’s not like I’m missing out on a lot of TV, but what bothers me is that this is the kind of stupid shit BendCable does. This is a provider that doesn’t even offer basic channels like FX or Comedy Central, and up until a few years ago didn’t even offer MTV.
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How to Win a Barfight
Another fun little tidbit reprinted from a friend’s daily “Survival” calendar.
Most state laws stipulate that you may use sufficient force to stop the attack, but you may not deliver any sort of punitive retribution to your attacker. Knowing this may save you a costly trip to court.
- Attack the most sensitive areas of your opponent: eyes, groin, knee, and throat.
Stay close; if your opponent is large he will need room to hit you. - Attack repeatedly and be efficient.
Make fast, repeated blows to any or all sensitive areas. - If necessary, use a weapon.
Choices include telephones, pens, bottles, books, beer mugs, coffee cups, and keys. - Protect yourself from additional attackers by fighting with your back to (but not up against) a corner or wall.
- Attack the most sensitive areas of your opponent: eyes, groin, knee, and throat.
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Not Your Father’s Sesame Street
When you have young children, you get exposed to a lot of children’s television programming, well beyond the Muppets and Sesame Street of yesteryear. Most of these are good, educational, well thought-out and well written shows, perfect for kids, but if you watch too many of them as an adult—as I do—you begin wish you could apply some grown-up sensibilities to them. I’m going to do that here.
Read on if you like; if you’re not a parent, you may wonder just what the hell I’m talking about. (more…)