The Cave

We went last night. It’s a total throwback to the 80′s action flicks, with a touch of modern editing (the steady/jerky cam in the opening sequence, for instance), and it’s a tad bloodier than I recall most of the ‘classics’ Not that they were bloodless, and it was quite tastefully handled; a few sequences could have been much gorier, but they (wisely) cut the camera. Very Hitchcock-esque in some scenes, you KNEW exactly what happened, but you didn’t need to see it (and to better effect not to).

If you grew up on the 80s action flicks, it’s a must. Very much in the tone of Rambo, Die Hard, most of Arnold’s movies, and the like. The cast is rockin’ too. The scene in the church with Sly, Arnie and Bruce is both something they’d talked about doing for years and never quite worked out, and totally dripping with back references (and some current ones too). If you’re under 35 you probably lost much of the conversation, but for us 80′s children it was a total blast.

It’s not brilliant, and in the classic tradition the best parts were often not at the end (though the end is pretty nifty all in all), but The Expendables easily meets the most important bar in entertainment — it was entertaining. Two thumbs up.

Heh:

Only two industries in the world refer to their customers as “users”.

Now they both sell tablets.

The article talks about the administrations promises vs actions on science-based policy, but has the great quote:

“You can’t enforce a principle, without a rule,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a whistleblower group that he describes as “sort of a shelter for battered staff.” Ruch’s group is calling attention to the one-year anniversary of the blown deadline in hopes of spurring action.

“The reason that the Bush people were able to manipulate science is because there are no rules against it. And there still aren’t,” Ruch said.

“For changes to be meaningful and lasting, the White House must provide specific guidelines, they must provide a timeline and they must present benchmarks for agency performance, so we can measure the agencies and assure accountability,” said Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity project at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Or as the saying goes, Trust but Verify.
(Trust No One?

“All Ends of the Spectrum” by Jerry Pournelle, explaining why left/right doesn’t accurately mean, well, anything, and a better solution. A little science for the realm of social sciences.

Most interesting was the origin of the ‘left/right’ phrase. Learn something new every day. Hint: France.

Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. — Author unknown

Last month, a world survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: “Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world.” The survey was a huge failure…

Africa they didn’t know what “food” meant.

Eastern Europe they didn’t know what “honest” meant.

Western Europe they didn’t know what “shortage” meant.

China they didn’t know what “opinion” meant.

The Middle East they didn’t know what “solution” meant.

South America they didn’t know what “please” meant, and

The USA they didn’t know what “the rest of the world” meant.

What about Canada and Mexico?

They were the ones who asked the question.

Hmm:

Here’s a graph you might find interesting: Productivity, 40 hours versus 60 over eight weeks. [lostgarden.com]

From the same presentation:

Working more than 40 hours per week leads to decreased productivity

- Less than 40 hours and people weren’t working enough.
- Greater than 40 hour work week gives a small productivity boost.
- The boost lasts three to four weeks and then turns negative.

Ford chewed on this problem for 12 years and ran dozens of experiments. As a result of Ford’s experiments, he and his fellow industrialists lobbied Congress to pass 40 hour a week labor laws. Not because he was nice. Because he wanted to make the most money possible. We like to think of a 40 hour work week as a ‘liberal policy’ when in fact it was hard headed capitalism at its finest.

50+ years of comic book history in 5 minutes. Narration over comic book scenes from the very first Silver Age Green Lantern (wood bad) thru Hal Jordan, Jon Stewart, Guy Gardner and Ion. Great to catch up on the overall flow of Green Lantern, in preparation for next year’s movie with Ryan Reynolds.

Kick Ass fuckin’ rocks!

The little things do matter.

Here.

Big news for the Mac as a game platform:

If players already own the PC versions of Valve games, they’ll get Mac versions at no extra charge through a feature called Steam Play. […] By using the Steam Cloud feature that the company introduced in 2008, players can save in-progress games online, then call up those saved games no matter which version they’re playing. If you’re playing Half-Life 2 on your home PC but then head out on the road with your MacBook, you can continue your game-in-progress.

Handy, especially for Mac laptops.

Hysterical

Brilliant.

And amusing too. Slides 6 and 63-68 are keepers

Yoda says

begun the book wars have

“If Da Vinci was alive today, he’d be eating microwave sushi, naked, in the back of a Cadillac with the both of us.” – Darwin Mayflower

Interesting:

0MQ (“Zero-Em-Queue”) is a messaging system that tackles these issues by taking a different approach. Instead of inventing new APIs and complex wire protocols, 0MQ extends the socket API, eliminating the learning curve and allowing a network programmer to master it in a couple of hours. The wire protocols are simplistic, even trivial. Performance matches and often exceeds that of raw sockets.

A husband and wife were sitting watching a TV program about psychology and explaining the phenomenon of “mixed emotions”.

The husband turned to his wife and said, “Honey, that’s a bunch of crap. I bet you can’t tell me anything that will make me happy and sad at the same time.”

She said: “Out of all your friends, you have the biggest penis.”

Snicker:

Monster? Ha! A cheap fabrication for those who don’t know better.

Ever since I switched to triple platinum-plated (no cheap gold here!) Pear Anjou cables, the colors on my monitor have been much deeper, richer and more vibrant, truly life-like! That’s because they have a proprietary hybrid geometry, and the platinum plating provides ultra-low electrical reactance and the underlying copper is fully annealed 99.999% pure oxygen free. Not that cheap copper you get everyplace. All this combines to allow for new levels of digital accuracy.

Oh… are people still using platinum? Well, I guess if you’re willing to settle, rather than pay for unicorn horn, then it won’t degrade your signaltoo much. Probably not enough to spoil your enjoyment, but a true videophile can tell.

Not to drag this dry videophile discussion out too long, but I presume you’re not using cheap factory-raised unicorn horn, notorious for its poor standing wave sync-sweetening and shallow inter-bitstream raster resonance?

Only unicorns raised in the Swiss Alps have the protein content in their horns that allows a digital signal to hit such crisp, sparkling 1s and deep, thick 0s.

Unicorn horn!???

No!No!No!

Everybody knows that Unicorn horn introduces subtle color leakage and timing delays.

A real videophile would know that true video nirvana can only be achieved by using Fossilized T-Rex Turd connectors: only posers go with Platinum and Unicorn Horn.

Pretty much my read too.

Genius!

I’ve long since upgraded from this unique Buffalo 300gb USB 2.0 external hard disk, and now my loss can possibly be yours, too. I bought this disk around 2005, and it was amazingly massive at the time. What wonderful times we had! Happily storing and retrieving everything I sent over her 480mbit/sec high-speed USB 2.0 link, and me happily accessing it at later dates. But as time went on, my eye turned outwards. There were so many newer, prettier hard drives out there.

I admit it, I dallied. I bought a 250gb portable drive – I rationalized it. It was smaller than this one. I only needed it for when I went out. I’d always come home to my faithful Buffalo. Emboldened by this success, I became quite the rake. First came a pair of identical 500gb Seagate twins, then their younger cousin, a 500gb portable. No matter how much I had, my wanton lust for storage would not be quenched. I became irresponsible, and was known to have immodest flings. I once bought quite a tart of a 1tb disk. I spent the day with her, then returned her to the shop in the morning.

Meanwhile, the Buffalo faithfully put up with it. And then, she started exhibiting some disturbing? inconsistencies. I would plug her in, dutifully waiting for the icon to appear on my desktop. I’d wait, and wait, and wait. I sometimes waited for hours or days, peering at my desktop with slavish attention, groveling for access to my miserable data. She was showing me who was really in control here, and exerting its power. I wanted to leave, but it wouldn’t let me. Every time I thought about it, I’d remember all the good times we had – and more importantly, my data, which it jealously guarded.

The end came unexpectedly for her, though I planned it long in advance. I spent a full two weeks sweet-talking. I put her back in a prominent position on my desk, letting the other disks know who was my favorite. We wined and dined, and I showered her with chocolate and roses. One evening, after a particularly romantic night out at Ruth’s Chris, I politely asked for access to my files. And she complied – opened right up.

I rushed in and plundered every miserable byte, leaving her magnetic surfaces a desolate, empty expanse.

Things haven’t been the same between us. They never can be. Despite all our time together, good and bad, it’s time to set her free. I hope you treat each other better than we did.

Snicker:

From here:

I remember the first time I saw a sign that said $1,000 for littering (I live in California). At first I thought nothing of this until I later saw a sign, in the same town, that said $271 fine for running a red light at a busy intersection. Now, This was years ago so the numbers have probably changed but I remember being shocked at this discrepancy. Running a red, which could cost other drivers significantly (as in multiple thousands of dollars of damage as well as potential death) had a lower fine than throwing my straw wrapper out my window which, at worst, could what…kill a bird that was to stupid to tell paper from food and choked on it?

and here:

Speeding tickets are a gold-mine for municipal budgets.

If you have a cash cow, you milk it gently. Not rip the udders clean off.