GM Crops Created Superweed

Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the governments three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.The new form of charlock was growing among many others in a field which had been used to grow GM rape. When scientists treated it with lethal herbicide it showed no ill-effects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,,1535428,00.html

Natural Gas Costs To Double Next Month

The cost of heating your home in January is set rise sharply, with Direct Energy getting approval for rate increases of between 60 per cent and 80 per cent across the province.The bump means an average customer in southern Alberta will pay another $100 next month, while northern customers will see an average increase of about $60.
http://www.cbc.ca/calgary/story/ca-natural-gas20051230.html?ref=rss

ID Thrown Out: Maybe Theres Hope For The US After All?

In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents...
To be sure, Darwins theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions...
this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Boards decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=threw_the_book_at_em&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

OReilly on Web 2.0

Some dismiss this as marketing speak but I firmly believe that this is where its at. Blogging, Wiki, and Google have proved it. It basically comes down to the web as a platform for interactive, collective intelligence.
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228

Essence of Aikido

 

 

Spiritual teachings of the founder. Very difficult to understand. Great calligraphy.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/477002357X/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/102-0133326-6725737?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Budo

Osenseis teachings, enough said.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4770020708/qid=1134679080/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-0133326-6725737?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Other Origins : The Search for the Giant Ape in Human Prehistory

Our direct ancestor, Homo erectus , had close ties to a 10-foot-tall, 1200-pound ape called Gigantopithecus. Fossil remains of the two species have been found together in caves in Vietnam and China. New light was thrown on these discoveries in 1989 when Ciochon, a University of Iowa paleoanthropologist, and Olsen, an archeologist at the University of Arizona, participated in a U.S./Vietnamese expedition that unearthed the oldest dated Homo erectus fossils in southeast Asia.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553070819/qid=1134678988/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-0133326-6725737?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

Fingerprints of the Gods

The truth is, when the evidence presented by archaeologists, egyptologists, and other professionals is examined critically, the traditional school is very far from convincing. This does not mean that the general public is ignorant or gullible. It means that when we cannot build a replica of the Great Pyramid today, with our technology (the Japanese tried and failed, and theirs was a far smaller "scale" replica), but are expected to believe that copper-tools wielding Egyptians could (2.3 million blocks of stone; weights going from 1.5 tons to 15 and 17 tons; "killer" slope of 52 degrees; near perfect alignement; perfect 90-degree corners; perfectly cut diorite blocks, and so on), then is when inquisitive, intelligent people wonder, How is that possible? Since traditional science provides answers that prove usatisfactory because they really feel like nonsense, people will look for alternative scenarios. Graham Hancock provides such scenario. He may be wrong, but his points are as solid, or more, than those of the now-accepted school of thought.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0517887290/qid=1134678898/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-0133326-6725737?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

The Mars Mystery

Hancock seems to be more fair-minded than many NASA critics, stating that, "what we see is a mindset, here, not a conspiracy." And indeed, one is hard-pressed to imagine why NASA isnt agreeing wholeheartedly with Hancock, since his ultimate point is that we should be paying more attention to our planetary neighbors and the skies above, lest we suffer the same fate as the Martians. Hancock raises many intriguing questions in this synthesis of unorthodox Mars theory, but those looking for applications of Ockhams razor had best search elsewhere--Hancocks theories require a leap of faith as surely as NASAs do.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609600869/qid=1134678780/sr=8-5/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i5_xgl14/102-0133326-6725737?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Exorcism of Emily Rose

Not bad, a little bit of a let down to have a ghost story center around a court case. 6/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404032/

Dumbass Theatres Are Going To Put In More Ads To Offset Losses

Theatre owners and studios dont seem to realize that a big part of the reason that people dont go to theatres is that they have to sit through 20 minutes of ads to watch the movie theyve paid 12 bucks to see. This is just going to drive more and more to download movies off the net and watch them at home.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-12-06-cinema-ads_x.htm

Crash

Good, good movie in every sense of the term. 8/10.
http://www.newvoyages.com

Star Trek: New Voyages

James Cawley, who plays Kirk, and director Jack Marshall are the cocreators of Star Trek: New Voyages. They are repairing a rift in the space-time continuum, fixing the most glaring flaw in the history of science fiction. As every geek in the galaxy knows, Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise set out on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before. But NBC canceled the show in 1969 after only three seasons. New Voyages aims to fill fans in on what they missed. In September, Cawley and Marshall assembled more than 50 Trek lovers from across the US (and the UK and Canada) to shoot the third episode of what shouldve been season four. At their current pace of one episode a year, theyll finish the five-year mission in 2054.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/startrek.html

Kick Ass Self-Assembling Radio Station

Pandora takes in artists that you like and spits out streams of audio from those bands mixed in with bands that are similar that you might like. It rocks.
http://www.pandora.com

Great SETI Paper

The present approach is similar to the one favored by Dyson (2003), whosuggests searching for life at distant objects of the Solar System (and otherplanetary systems). Although Dyson only considers primitive life, this can beeasily generalized to life of higher level of complexity and even intelligence.8In his other writings, Dyson has suggested supercivilizations of various sortswhose activities can be detected even if they are not actively engaged in aneffort to contact and communicate with other societies; for an early reviewof such ideas, see Lemarchand (1995). In our view, the migration hypothesiscan solve Fermi?s paradox, since the truly advanced societies, i.e. those whosurvive the bottleneck presented by the threat of self-destruction throughwarfare or accident will tend to be located at the outskirts of the Milky Way,outside of the main thrust of SETI projects so far. The very same traits makingATCs capable of migrating and utilizing resources with high efficiency(compactness, high integration, etc.) will tend to make them systematicallyhard to detect from afar. This is in diametrical opposition to views of manyearly SETI researchers?recently brought to a sort of the logical extreme byWeinberger and Hartl (2002)?that ATCs will indulge in extravagant spendingin order to achieve interstellar communication, even if only nominal. Thesame applies mutatis mutandis to the large-scale interstellar travel to diversetargets; the nature of the postbiological megatrajectory is not likely to includeany gain from the scattering of pieces of an ATC all over the Galaxy.9One of the SETI pioneers, Benjamin Zuckerman proposed in 1985 that stellarevolution is an important motivation for civilizations to undertake interstellarmigrations (Zuckerman 1985). Although arguments presented in that studyseem outdated in many respects, it is significant that the mass migrationidea has been presented even in the context of classical SETI studies, biologicalevolution and pre-digital perspective. It seems implausible that anybut the most extreme conservative societies would opt to wait to be forcedto migration by slow and easily predictable process like their domicile starleaving the Main Sequence.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0506/0506110.pdf

Breakthrough for Quantum Measurement

Two teams of physicists have measured the capacitance of a Josephson junction for the first time. The methods developed by the two teams could be used to measure the state of quantum bits in a quantum computer without disturbing the state.
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/11/13/1

Why Expensive Gas Is Good For The US

Rising oil prices are more than just an irritant or even an ominous nick out of the GDP. Theyre an invitation to corn and coal and hydrogen. For anyone with a fresh idea, expensive oil is as good as a subsidy - with no political strings attached. Indeed, every extra penny you pay at the pump is an incentive for some aspiring energy mogul to find another fuel.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/gas.html

Culture Jamming & Buy Nothing Day

A growing subculture of activists now proclaims the date Buy Nothing Day, and its members challenge themselves and others not to consume on consumerisms busiest day.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69652,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Amazingly twisted movie. Always a fan of Burtons work, especially with Johnnie Depp. Great, great movie. 9/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367594/

Batman Begins

Much better than the first few movies, but not as good as the hype. Worth a watch and a good attempt. Christian Bale just isnt that good of an actor. 7/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/

Crash

Well written, acted, and produced. Very heart wrenching and thought provoking. Well worth a watch - 8/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/

Braga Done F***ing Up Trek

Longtime Star Trek producer Brannon Braga told SCI FI Wire that hes done with the franchise, at least for now and for the foreseeable future. "At the moment, yeah," Braga said in an interview. "There will be a lot of fans cheering about that," he added wryly, referring to the often caustic fan criticism directed at him during his 15 years as a writer and producer on Trek series and movies.
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=33262

Great EULAs

You agree that you will not use, or encourage others to use, any unauthorized means for the removal of the GAIN AdServer, or any GAIN-Supported Software from a computer . . . Any use of a packet sniffer or other device to intercept or access communications between GP and the GAIN AdServer is strictly prohibited.
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/22/rtf_eula/print.html

Continuous Integration

An important part of any software development process is getting reliable builds of the software. Despite its importance, we are often surprised when this isnt done. Here we discuss the process that Matt has put into place on a major project at ThoughtWorks, a process that is increasingly used throughout the company. It stresses a fully automated and reproducible build, including testing, that runs many times a day. This allows each developer to integrate daily thus reducing integration problems.
http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

Blink

Blink has huge tie-ins with my Aikido practice. You need to train and rely upon instinct. O-Sensei once said that "budo is the education of instinct". Ive relied on this to great success in work, and to great downfall when Ive let ego override instinct. A good, solid read.
"Perhaps the most stunning example he gives of this counterintuitive truth is the most expensive war game ever conducted by the Pentagon, in which a wily marine officer, playing "a rogue military commander" in the Persian Gulf and unencumbered by hierarchy, bureaucracy and too much technology, humiliated American forces whose chiefs were bogged down in matrixes, systems for decision making and information overload."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316172324/qid=1127754958/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-7849913-9230202?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Kingdom Of Heaven

Very good, but not as good as Gladiator. Thats an unfair comparison, however, as gladatorial games were essentially spectacles -- and this isnt. It is a good treatment of the crusades during the time of Salahadin. Good, solid movie from Ridley Scott and a good performance by all involved.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/

The Upside Of Anger

An old Buddhist parable may help illuminate the issue. A young farmer was paddling his boat up the river to deliver his produce to the village. He was in a hurry. It was a hot day, and the farmer, covered with sweat, wanted to make his delivery and get home before dark. Looking ahead, he spied another vessel, moving rapidly downstream toward his boat. The vessel seemed to be trying desperately to hit him.
"Change direction, you idiot!" he yelled at the other boat. "You are going to hit me!" But his cries were to no avail. Although the farmer rowed furiously to get out of the way, the other boat hit him with a sudden thud. Enraged, he stood up and shouted, "You moron! How could you manage to hit my boat in the middle of this wide river? What is wrong with you?"
As he strained to see the pilot of the other vessel, he was surprised to realize there was no one in it. Rather, he was screaming at an empty boat that had broken free of its moorings and was just floating downstream with the current.
The next time you start angrily blaming someone else for problems you encounter, just remember, there is never anyone in the other boat. When we are screaming, we are always screaming at an empty vessel. The other person who is irritating you will not change direction in the current just for you.

http://pf.fastcompany.com/magazine/98/mgoldsmith.html?partner=rss

Rex Deus: The True Mystery of Rennes-Le-Chateau

Rex Deus is an account of a modern Grail quest with all the accouterments of mystery, cryptically coded documents and tales of secret societies, persecution and genocide. All the threads in the quest lead to Rennes-le-Chateau, a French hilltop village with a turbulent history long associated with religious and political intrigue, secrets and stories of buried treasure. Many claims have been made about its secrets but the true mystery is the most unlikely claim of all-the existence of a group of families descended from the twenty-four high priests of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Rex Deus story is the first full examination of this shadowy dynasty who have repeatedly conspired together to alter the course of history, and the key role it played in the succession of the House of David to the throne of Jerusalem after the first Crusade. It reveals the real influence of this tradition on the development of European culture and the American constitution; and shows how the true teachings of Jesus Christ have been kept in trust for our benefit in the troubled times that mark the beginning of the third millennium.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1862044724/ref=pd_bbs_null_1/104-2562964-2300703?v=glance&s=music

Gwen Stephani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

Kinda dissapointing, maybe 2 or 3 catchy songs on the album but thats about it. Hopefully shell go back to No Doubt soon, shes got energy and style but I dont think shell make it on her own.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00064AEJW/qid=1126107496/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2562964-2300703?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Shallow Ground

What a stupid movie. I cant believe imdb gave it a 5.4 -- the movie didnt even make sense. Had bad acting, bad direction, bad effects and an incomprehensible plot. 2/10 and thats being generous.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369918/

Ring 2

Definately not as good as the first one. It explains someof the back storey but not enough chills to entertain. Worth a watch, but just barely. 6/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377109/

The Interpreter

Not a bad flick. Nicole Kidman is perhaps the best Ive ever seen her -- not the cold, fake person Im used to seeing her as. Story line is good but doesnt hold completely together. Good political thriller -- 7.5/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373926/

Freakonomics

Forget your image of an economist as a crusty professor worried about fluctuating interest rates: Levitt focuses his attention on more intimate real-world issues, like whether reading to your baby will make her a better student. Recognition by fellow economists as one of the best young minds in his field led to a profile in the New York Times, written by Dubner, and that original article serves as a broad outline for an expanded look at Levitts search for the hidden incentives behind all sorts of behavior. There isnt really a grand theory of everything here, except perhaps the suggestion that self-styled experts have a vested interest in promoting conventional wisdom even when its wrong. Instead, Dubner and Levitt deconstruct everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006073132X/qid=1125513008/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-3809526-9000844?v=glance&s=books

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

"A thoughtful companion volume to the earlier Surely You Are Joking Mr. Feynman!. Perhaps the most intriguing parts of the book are the behind-the-scenes descriptions of science and policy colliding in the presidential commission to determine the cause of the Challenger space shuttle explosion; and the scientific sleuthing behind his famously elegant O-ring-in-ice-water demonstration. Not as rollicking as his other memoirs, but in some ways more profound."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393320928/qid=1125512937/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-3809526-9000844?v=glance&s=books

Surely Youre Joking, Mr. Feynman

"Its possible to enjoy Surely Youre Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393316041/qid=1125512857/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-3809526-9000844?v=glance&s=books

Alberta is about to get wildly rich and powerful

Energy has become a central obsession of international politics in recent years, as exploding economic growth in Asia and Americas ongoing love affair with gas-guzzling vehicles have accelerated the drain on world petroleum reserves. Terrorism, trade, the war in Iraq, nuclear diplomacy -- all of it, on some level, is related to the international preoccupation with energy, and access to affordable oil. So if Canada is to play a more significant global role in the years ahead, experts agree it will be due to the reeking, doughy black soil in northern Alberta, and the rest of the worlds keen desire to share it. "The oil sands give Canada one of the single greatest advantages of any state in the Western world," says Paul Chastko, a University of Calgary historian who recently published a book called Developing Albertas Oil Sands. "It gives Canada the ability to supply all of North America for the next 50 years without touching a drop of imported oil." It is, in short, an economic engine and political lever that any nation would desperately love to have.
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/business/article.jsp?content=20050613_107308_107308

The Struggle Over Science

Funding university research for that has been falling through the first Bush term and is now about half what it was in 2001. All told, anyway, America now ranks sixth in the world in the percentage of its wealth it spends on R&D. Yet the downward trend isnt solely the result of the parsimony of "the hick in the White House", as one motor mouth put it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4172504.stm

New Model Of The Milky Way

The milky way might be a barred galaxy after all -- this is a cool artists conception of how it really might look.
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=050816_milky_way_02.jpg&cap=An+artist%27s+rendering+of+the+Milky+Way+and+its+central+bar+structure%2C+with+the+Sun%27s+position+noted.+NASA%2FJPL-Caltech%2FR.+Hurt+%28SSC%2FCaltech%2

Sin City

"... as far as it being a movie and a work of art, I would give this movie high marks in both categories. For it being a movie, it was nice to see something so different as far as the approach to making it go. Also, having such an incredible cast makes it all the more intriguing. I dont see anyone else having portrayed any of these characters any better than the cast that was hired to do so.On an artistic level, it is extremely hard to think of any other movie that comes close to being in the same league... The use of black and white photography with only specific colors added later make for a far more dramatic effect. And so much of the cinematography being so close to a "moving picture" version of comic book art simply makes this movie worth seeing.Take the artistic elements of this movie, and put it together with the amazing cast (both looks and talent) and throw it together with a very different but coherent plot, and youve got yourself an extremely enjoyable movie that is definitely worth seeing."

HHGTTG: Quandary Phase

Book 4 of Hitchikers Guide To the Galaxy on audiobook. Great production from the BBC.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345391837/qid=1124228881/sr=8-11/ref=pd_bbs_11/103-2575518-1325440?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Acquainted with the Night

Good book. Each chapter is an hour in a mythical perfect midsummer Canadian night. Each hour is dedicated to a different topic, such as mythology, nocturnal creatures, and nightclubbers.
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/item.asp?Item=978000639164&Catalog=Books&Ntt=dewdney&N=35&Lang=en&Section=books&zxac=1

Homestarrunner: Cool Tapes and a Bag of Four Grapes

http://homestarrunner.com/coolthings.html

They Have a Better Idea ... Do You?

At Ideo, we believe that enlightened trial and error beats the planning of flawless intellects. In other words, we fail faster to succeed sooner. The reason is simple: the best solutions to most problems are rarely the most obvious. So we brainstorm lots of ideas, prototype the most promising ones, and learn from those that dont work.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/one.html

Tron 2.0

This game rocks, at least so far. The upgrade interface within the game is a little difficult to understand, but the game just looks so damn cool that it can get away with some problems. And, you can ride lightcycles! 8/10.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/tron20/index.html?q=tron+2.0

Robots

"I really liked this film because it aims for the standard set by films like Pixars Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. Animated films these days, which I think will all be in 3D from now on, have really gone a long way, and Robots is another entry in the list of what I consider to be outstanding achievements in animation. The characters in this film are memorable, including Ewan McGregor as Rodney and Robin Williams as Fender. There is enough of everything else to make many smile at the end of the film."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358082/

Hostage

A pretty good thriller. Bruce Willis is actually a sensitive tough guy, which works.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0340163/

Un-DRMing iTunes Music Store Downloads

I had a problem: I wanted to play my music and podcasts on my ipod from my laptop at work. Installs are locked down so I couldnt install itunes, and I couldnt connect to the music store anyway -- its blocked. Sharepod took care of that with a zero-install fully functional player. However I wanted to listen to my itms downloads which wasnt supported, so I found jhymn. Its very cool -- it will march through your library and unlock all the itms downloads with mp3s, m4a, whatever you want. It even replaces them all in your playlists. Theres an OSX and XP version you can download, and its an open source tool written in java.
http://hymn-project.org/jhymndoc/

Record Labels Pissed Over Podcasting

Another stupid record label problem -- now they dont want bands posting podcasts. They are totally missing the point here, and are just going to add fuel to the fire of "podcasting-safe" music which is exploding in the podscape.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050804/tc_usatoday/stormcloudsgatheroverpodcasting;_ylt=Aj0MIMBLdUeE3F9l209.IF4jtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

I Heart Huckabees

Very strange movie, and not very good. I can see how hollywood might think its very intelligent, talking about existential angst throughout the movie. But its very surface oriented and entirely missed any point as far as I could see. Go read Sartres Nausea instead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356721/

Rendezvous with Rama

An absolute classic. I read this several times as a child so I was happy to come across this audiobook. The gist of the story is that this mysterious spacecraft that contains a whole miniature world comes hurlting into the solar system. A small band of explorers enter it and try to figure out its mysteries -- much to no avail. A classic Arthur C. Clarke story told with a scientists dispassionate eye.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553287893/qid=1123164428/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3080515-8227250?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Fantastic Four

A dissapointment. Not terrible, but not great, either -- kinda like Pizza 73. Effects were ok but the plot didnt really make sense and the characters just werent interesting. Plus Dr. Doom was a weenie. 5/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120667/

Why Going To The Theatre Sucks

"I love seeing a movie with a big crowd," he says. "But I had no idea how many obnoxious ads Id have to endure ? it really drove me crazy. After sitting through about 15 minutes of ads, I turned to my wife and said, Maybe we shouldve gone to Jim Carreys house after all. "When DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press took her young twins to see "Robots" this year, she said, "My own children turned to me and said, Mommy, there are too many commercials! Now, when the lights go halfway down, Im filled with dread. The whole uniqueness of the moviegoing experience is being eroded by all the endless ads."
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/07/declining_movie.html

Doom 3

Doom 3 is a fun but essentially vapid game. Its a technically beautiful acheivement, with real-time lighting and shadows, amazingly rendered textures, and realistic blood and guts. Compared to a game like Half-life 2, however, Doom 3 essentially feels like you are walking through a big carnival fun-house with creatures popping up at you with no AI. Not a dissapointment, but not revolutionary, either. 7/10 for effort.
http://www.doom3.com/

Minds May Affect Machines

There is very little that the researchers understand about the phenomenon, but they do know that results arent affected by distance or time. Participants, for example, can have the same effect on a machine from outside the room or across the country. They can also have the same effect if they have the intention before the REG is turned on or even if they read a book or listen to music while the machine is running.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68216,00.html

If Nominated, You Dont Have to Serve

"Often, becoming a team leader doesnt feel like a promotion," says Learning Points Mark Christensen. "The rewards dont feel commensurate with the responsibility you feel. But you need to stay with it. The rewards wont come immediately, but they will come.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo6.html

Membership Has its Privileges - And Limits

Yes, participation inspires motivation. But who should participate in what? And for how long? One of the toughest calls for a new leader is deciding when enough participation is enough. Those calls are especially tough for leaders whove risen through the ranks. How can you go from cutting up with your buddies after work on Wednesday to cutting off debate on Friday?
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo5.html

Lead Individuals, Not the Group

Team leaders dont lead teams. They lead a collection of individuals who together make up a team. Its a small clarification with big implications. Each team member has different strengths and weaknesses, workstyle preferences, blind spots, and hot buttons. Theres no way a leader can get a team to work together, experts say, without first learning how to work with each person as an individual. Leadership is a one-on-one sport.

Reminds me of the martial arts quote that escapes me, which Ill paraphrase as "Lead the one as if it were many and lead the many as if they were one."
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo4.html

Nobody Likes a Know-It-All

Good leaders exude limitless confidence. They also understand their limitations. Indeed, the best leaders recognize a fact of life that too many leaders ignore: the people youre working with know more than you do. Even as their teams look to them for guidance, leaders must look to their teams for knowledge.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo3.html

Dont Forget What Got You There

Becoming a leader is a major job change. That doesnt mean you should change who you are. Plenty of new leaders force themselves to undergo an instant transformation from "one of the gang" to commander in chief. Thats a mistake, warns Ascher. "Dont try to become some kind of presidential persona," he says. "People want you to be yourself. You have to lighten up. You have to get to know people on a personal level, make the job enjoyable. You shouldnt change who you are."
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo2.html

Never Do What You Can Delegate

Your job as a team leader is to provide the tools, motivation, and direction the team needs to do the work itself.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/promo1.html

Gibson on Remixing Content

Our culture no longer bothers to use words like appropriation or borrowing to describe those very activities. Todays audience isnt listening at all - its participating. Indeed, audience is as antique a term as record, the one archaically passive, the other archaically physical. The record, not the remix, is the anomaly today. The remix is the very nature of the digital. Today, an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process generates countless hours of creative product (another antique term?). To say that this poses a threat to the record industry is simply comic. The record industry, though it may not know it yet, has gone the way of the record. Instead, the recombinant (the bootleg, the remix, the mash-up) has become the characteristic pivot at the turn of our two centuries.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html

Do You Have The Will To Lead?

Theres a terrible defect at the core of how we think about people and organizations today. There is little or no tolerance for the kinds of character-building conversations that pave the way for meaningful change. The average person is stuck, lost, riveted by the objective domain. Thats where our metrics are; thats where we look for solutions. Its the come-on of the consulting industry and the domain of all the books, magazines, and training programs out there. And thats why books and magazines that have numbers in their titles sell so well. Well do anything to avoid facing the basic, underlying questions: How do we make truly difficult choices? How do we act when the risks seem overwhelming? How can we muster the guts to burn our bridges and to create a condition of no return?
http://pf.fastcompany.com/magazine/32/koestenbaum.html

War Of The Worlds

This movie has plot holes big enough to drive a martian war machine through. Why have the machines been buried underground since before man was here? Why do they suck peoples blood? Why are kids so stupid in this movie?
Well, it doesnt matter. This is one hell of a scary movie. Spielburg does a fabulous job of showing us one common mans view of the martian invasion. Very spooky without being too jumpy. 7/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407304/

Glenlivet 12 Year

Ive liked this whiskey ever since I visited the distillery. Great stuff. Clean, mellow, and soft with a touch of spice.
http://www.theglenlivet.com/index_ie.html

Macallan 12 Year

My beautiful and loving wife bought me a bottle of the Macallan 12 year and a Balvenie 12. I havent cracked the Balvenie yet but Ive tied into the Macallan quite a bit and I love this whiskey! Vanilla, sherry, and a touch smokey.
http://www.themacallan.com/range/12yo.html

Doctor Who: Coldheart

Ok, ok, the recent Doctor Who tv series got me to take this book out of the library. Its a newer Doctor Who novel with an unrecognizable Doctor and different companions. Kinda boring, really, even though I just expected a simple escapist read. Dissipointing.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0563555955/qid=1119387246/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl14/104-8907650-9051144?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Very dark, funny, smart, and witty. Pitt and Jolie have great chemistry that ties it all togeather. In one dimension its an action movie, in another its a romantic comedy but I think in reality its a dark comedic take on married life. A lot of fun -- I want to see this one again. 7/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356910/

Dot-com mania, part II?

Now, 10 years after two key events in the history of the Internet -- the successful IPO of Netscape, which many cite as the beginning of Wall Streets love affair with Net stocks, and the founding of Yahoo! -- were in the midst of a new, lets say mini dot-com boom. (Netscape is now owned by Time Warner.)
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/13/technology/internet/index.htm?section=money_latest

The Streets: Fit But You Know It

The Streets have been my secret UK-rap/pop love since the origional pirate material. At times silly and fun, at times mind-blowing.
"Mike Skinner has a problem, and from the sound of it, its life-threatening. He opens his second Streets full-length by moaning "It was supposed to be so easy..." as though hes about to deliver his deathbed confession, the classic tale of a crime gone wrong. Instead, three minutes later, its clear what the "it" was: walking down to bring back a DVD rental, taking some money out of the machine, and calling his mother, who hed just left at home, to tell her he wouldnt be back for tea."
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:pq8m961okep5

Beck: Guero

Straightforward fun. Less unapproachable than other attempts, this one you can actually listen to in public without wearing a black beret and turtleneck. Good summer tunes.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ydud6j3471u0

Bloc Party: Silent Alarm

Bloc Partys gotten a bit serious and its done them a world of good. Great, playful, pop-punk goodness.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:6aq4g44xtvnz

Coldplay: X&Y

At times clean, rational, and linear, at times pounding rock. Reaches for the sublime and just nears it. Coldplay has become perhaps my most listened to band, Ill have to see if X&Y continues this trend.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:bfuw6ja471y0

Cold Fusion For Real This Time

Unlike some previous claims of room-temperature fusion, this one makes intuitive sense: its just another way to get atoms close enough together for the strong force to take over and do the rest. Once the reaction got going, the scientists observed not only the production of helium nuclei, but other tell-tale signs of fusion such as free neutrons and high energy radiation.
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2005/0606/p25s01-stss.html

Constantine

Good movie. A smart mix of The Exorcist and Blade, with twists I honestly didnt see coming. A well-written and well-paced thriller with just the right kind of f/x. 6/10.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360486/

Shooting Star On Mars Seen

NASAs Spirit rover photographed a streak of light that was likely part of a martian meteor shower, scientists announced today.
The picture is the first of a shooting star above Mars. Further, the flash has been traced back to its parent comet. And now astronomers figure they should be able to forecast martian meteor showers.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050601_mars_meteor.html

Nazi Nuke

In Hitlers Bombe, Dr Karlsch suggests a team of scientists directed by the physicist Kurt Diebner, which was in competition with Heisenbergs group, tested a primitive nuclear device in Thuringia, eastern Germany, in March 1945.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4598955.stm

Bush Should Be Impeached

The president and vice president have artfully dodged the central question: Did the administration mislead us into war by manipulating and misstating intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al Qaeda, suppressing contrary intelligence, and deliberately exaggerating the danger a contained, weakened Iraq posed to the United States and its neighbors?"If this is answered affirmatively Bush and Cheney have committed high crimes and misdemeanors." It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step. Based on the mountains of fabrications, deceptions, and lies, it is time to debate the I" word.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/05/31/the_i_word?mode=PF

New Trek Film In A Couple Years

Star Trek franchise head Rick Berman recently made the first mention of a possible timeframe for the next Trek feature film, saying fans shouldnt expect a movie in the very near future. "I think that if this film is made it certainly wont get finished in the next year," Berman told Ian Spelling, for the British Star Trek Magazine (via the Sci-Fi Pulse). And although Berman didnt specify exactly when a new Trek movie could arrive in theatres, he did hint at what timeframe he would personally like to be aiming for. "If it gets done in two years or three years I think that timeframe for a new, fresh feature with a whole different outlook would be fine."
http://www.trektoday.com/news/280505_01.shtml

Condom Reef Discovered

Oceanographic scientists say they have discovered a vast, floating "reef" of the worlds disposed condoms in the middle of the South Pacific, about halfway between Tahiti and Antarctica. The phenomenal mass is almost two miles long, an eighth of a mile wide, and in places up to 60 feet deep, the oceanographers say.
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/thursday.handleigh/unusual/other/condom-reef.htm

U.S. living beyond means, Dodge warns

Bank of Canada governor David Dodge offered a bankerly rebuke to the United States on Monday for its borrow-and-spendthrift ways, which he suggested are a threat to world economic stability.
Less directly, he chided nations such as China for rigging their currencies to boost exports while building up larger and larger foreign-exchange reserves, creating a lopsided world in which Asian savings finance U.S. spending.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2005/05/30/dodge-warning050530.html

Top Things Gamers Want To See

1. Give us A.I. that will actually outsmart us now and then.
2. Give us a genre of game weve never seen before.
3. Dont bullshit me about your graphics.
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html

Brain Workout

It doesnt matter how brainy you are or how much education youve had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesnt have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18625011.900

Top 10 Songs On My iPod

1. Are you gonna be my girl/Jet
2. What are you waiting for?/Gwen Stafani
3. Somebody told me/The Killers
4. Walkie talkie man/Steriogram
5. The Scientist/Coldplay
6. Take me out/Franz Ferdinand
7. Alone in kyoto/Air
8. Dear prudence/The Beatles
9. Once in a lifetime/Talking Heads
10. Cherry blossom girl/Air
http://www.apple.ca/itunes

Pulp: Different Class

Just downloaded this from itunes with a generous gift certificate from Dale. Man, they are blowing me away. At times electronic, anthemic, and a direct descendant of David Bowie. Fun, creative, and suprising.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000001E8P/qid=1116258933/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3631511-4817768

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

You know, I really enjoyed this movie. Adams changed quite a lot, which bugged a lot of people. I found it a good blend of reliving the old and finding the new. Im glad I gave it a chance. It didnt blow me away, but it was witty and sharp.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/

Meet The Fockers

I had fun with this movie. Pretty crude and obvious but I got some good laughs.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290002/

Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning

Ive gotta admit, I didnt like this book too much. It seemed to ramble and not give more than the most general ideas or direction. Amazon liked it tho; maybe I missed the point.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014200409X/qid=1115838985/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-3631511-4817768?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

StrongBad: Bug In Mouth

"You shot my favorite TV show!"
http://homestarrunner.com/buginmouth.html

Z Machine

Eight years ago, the Z machine startled the world when a technical advance enabled the machine?s power output to rise the way investors want their stock graphs to move: nearly straight up. Output for Sandia?s pulsed power projects, which had increased only slowly for more than a decade, rose dramatically. For Z, just coming on line, an expected usable output of 50 terawatts rose over the next two years to 230 terawatts. This made the machine not only more valuable as a data provider for nuclear weapons simulations but also showed that z-pinches were a possible candidate for peacetime fusion.
http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2004/physics-astron/Z-R.html

Secret Memo: US & UK Knew Iraq Didnt Have WMDs

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regimes record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8709.htm

Mars Polar Lander: Found At Last?

"It seems that the MPL investigation board may have been correct," writes Malin in Sky & Telescope. "MPL?s descent proceeded more or less successfully through atmospheric entry and parachute jettison. It was only a few short moments before touchdown that disaster struck."
http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1509_1.asp

Shuttle Replacement Details

Instead of the reusable spaceplane used in the space shuttle system, the crew module will be either a capsule similar to the one used in the Apollo, Gemini, Soyuz and Shenzhou systems, or a lifting body, similar to the X-38 and Kliper. The CEV will launch on an expendable launch system and carry crew to low Earth orbit, and perhaps more ambitiously in the future to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Exploration_Vehicle

Primer

A smart, well written independent movie. Four geeks get together and accidentally construct a time machine. What would happen? What would you do? First they try to make money but of course they end up screwing up causality. Fixing things just makes things weird. Interesting and definatly worth a watch or two.
This movie was made for seven grand.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/

More Evidence For Life On Mars

...With no known geological source of formaldehyde on Mars, its clear where Formisanos suspicions lie.
"I believe there is extremely high probability that microbial subsurface life exists on Mars," he said, while acknowledging that although he believes in Martian life, he cant yet prove it.
http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,67315,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Birth

I didnt like this movie. Very slow. Well written and acted until the very end -- they seemed to cheap out and make the reincarnated kid just crazy. A little too easy for me.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337876/

Half-Life 2

They call this the best game ever made. Perhaps it is. A winding, Kafka-esqe plot with stunning visuals. Im about an hour into the game and it rocks. Its certainly perhaps the best first person shooter ever made -- with Half-life 1 being the second, and it held the title for probably 5 years.
http://www.half-life.com/

Alone In The Dark

A decent b-grade horror/action flick. Borrows stuff from Aliens, Stargate, and Lovecraft. If youre into that kind of thing like I am, youll dig it. Christian Slater does a good job, but man does Tara Reid stink as an actress. Just ignore her; shes not really part of the story.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369226/

Dalek terror returns to Doctor Who

The new series of Doctor Who has seen Christopher Eccleston fight living dummies, restless spirits and aliens disguised as MPs, but he has yet to face his mortal enemies The Daleks.
That will be rectified in a forthcoming episode entitled simply Dalek, in which the Time Lord finds that one of the metal killing machines has been collected by an unsuspecting billionaire.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4469761.stm

The Starlost

A coworker and I were having a conversation today and this old CBC sci-fi series came up -- the Starlost. What a great but short-lived series. I loved this as a kid. Too bad it lasted about a dozen episodes. Ben Bova wrote the technical backstory. Very cool.
http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/star.html

More Evidence for Life On Mars

Evidence for intense local enhancements in methane on Mars has been bolstered by ground-based observations. The methane, as well as water on Mars, was detected using state-of-the-art infrared spectrometers stationed atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii and in Cerro Pachón, Chile.
Scientific teams around the globe are on the trail of methane seeping out of Mars. And for good reason: The methane could be the result of biological processes. It could also be an "abiotic" geochemical process, however, or the result of volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the red planet.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050419_mars_methane.html

Rare metal found in samples at Serpent Mound

Scientists studying recent rock samples taken from beneath an ancient earthen mound are trying to determine what caused unusually high concentrations of a metal rarely seen anywhere but near Earths molten core or in asteroids and comets.
Serpent Mound, an earthen snake effigy believed to have been built from about 1000 B.C. to A.D. 200 is about 60 miles east of Cincinnati. Some believe the 1,348-foot-long mound had a religious function for its builders, although nobody knows for sure what philosophy and beliefs shaped its origin because the mound builders left no written records.
Geologists only recently discovered high concentrations of iridium 1,412 feet beneath the mound.
The levels of the silver-gray metal, occasionally brought up in lava from volcanoes, measured 10 times beyond what is usually present in the Earths crust.
Since there are no lava fields in Ohio, some geologists point to the iridium as evidence the mound sits upon a slightly oblong crater created when a massive extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth.
http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050418/NEWS01/504180308/1002

Donnie Darko

Really good movie. Weird, undefinable. Very well done. Basically a teenage boy goes crazy, or does he? The ending leaves you questioning in an amazing way.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/

Decoded at last: the classical holy grail that may rewrite the history of the world

In a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.
In the past four days alone, Oxfords classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=630165

New Doctor Who Rocks

In Canada, Doctor Who had strong ratings for its first episode with Tuesday?s Canadian premiere on CBC garnered 986 000 viewers. This is an excellent rating for a show on CBC, and indeed for non-American dramatic programming.
http://www.dwin.org/article.php?sid=166

Kung Fu Hustle

Really, really fun movie. Great effects, funny story, and a matrix-like ending.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373074/

Ultimate Martial Art?

Human beings are obsessed with conflict. Conflict attracts us just as a light will draw a moth into its orbit, even it ultimately means the destruction of the moth. Conflict of all sorts dominates our entertainment. Increasingly every aspect of our social life is viewed through the filter of polarization, us and them, winner and loser, right and wrong. As human beings we are virtually incapable of simply holding a pair of opposites, of allowing that two points of view can exist simultaneously, that twp interpretations can illuminate one another rather than negate each other. Any contradiction demands some sort of outcome in which one side or the other "wins", comes out on top, prevails over the other.
http://www.aikiweb.com/columns/gledyard/2005_03.html

Walk through doors, but dont walk through walls.

It encapsulates the essence of non-resistance, it illustrates the hard and the soft of yin and yang, the balance of freedom and restriction. It addresses almost all the problems we encounter in our training, and simplifies the analytical process and corrective approach.
http://www.aikiweb.com/columns/rrobertson/2005_03.html

Bad Review Of The New Hitchikers Movie

The Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just wont believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but thats just peanuts to the Hitchhikers movie. Listen.
And so on...
http://www.planetmagrathea.com/shortreview.html

Final Cut

Interesting movie. The premise: you can be given an implant before birth that records your whole life. What would life be like knowing that others, after your death, would watch your whole life? What would that change? What would they make of your life?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/

The Day The Earth Stood Still

I must have seen this movie a dozen times but I never get tired of it. This dvd rendition is massively cleaned up and clear, and the sound is unbelievable for a 1951 black and white scifi flick.
The commentary with the director (Robert Wise) is very interesting as well -- for example, the military in the movie were all nation guardsmen as the US Army refused to participate in the movie; they didnt like its peaceful message!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005JKFR/qid=1112637794/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-9607270-2338218?v=glance&s=dvd

Star Trek The Lost Years: The Sundered

Ive been going through some pretty heavy reading of late, mixed with some stressful times at work. With this in mind, I grabbed a copy of this book from the library. I thought Id given up most of my lightweight scifi reading habits when I was a teenager, but maybe I was wrong.
This book is an absolute joy -- reasonably well written, with a cool intertwining plot and believable characters. It takes place on the Excelsior with Sulu at command. A fun read!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/074346401X/qid=1112632276/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-9607270-2338218

Sight Unseen : Science, UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings

Read this book as a lark. It actually had some cool ideas around trying to figure out how the strange stuff that gets reported actually might happen. A dig into quantum mechanics, superconductive levitation, faster than light communication, etc. A fun read.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743412184/qid=1115839067/sr=8-3/ref=pd_csp_3/102-3631511-4817768?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Dr Who Star Quits

Actor Christopher Eccleston has quit as Doctor Who after just one episode of the new series has been screened, the BBC has confirmed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4395849.stm

Bruichladdich 15yr

Very elegant scotch. Sweet, light, vanilla notes. Very clear looking as color is not added to the blend. Small amount of peaty aftertaste.
http://www.bruichladdich.com/bottlings_reviews_fifteen_include.htm

New StrongBad Email

Long Pants!
http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail127.html

The Simple Art of Japanese Calligraphy

Very cool coffee table book on the different calligraphy styles and how to put them on everyday objects -- from t-shirts to pillowcases.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1402714394/qid=1111523549/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/002-5501705-6320800

The Consciousness Revolution

Very cool book. A discussion between Ervin Laszlo (an important scientist), Sanislave Grof (a new-age "transpersonalist"), and Peter Russel (ecologist and philosopher) debate art, science, religion and consciousness as part of the world around us. Includes a specific meme: that the world is in trouble and if we can change the 80s style "me-ness" of people we can save it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1928586090/qid=1111523312/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/002-5501705-6320800?v=glance&s=books

13 Things That Dont Make Sense

It was 37 seconds long and came from outer space. On 15 August 1977 it caused astronomer Jerry Ehman, then of Ohio State University in Columbus, to scrawl "Wow!" on the printout from Big Ear, Ohio States radio telescope in Delaware. And 28 years later no one knows what created the signal. "I am still waiting for a definitive explanation that makes sense," Ehman says.Coming from the direction of Sagittarius, the pulse of radiation was confined to a narrow range of radio frequencies around 1420 megahertz. This frequency is in a part of the radio spectrum in which all transmissions are prohibited by international agreement. Natural sources of radiation, such as the thermal emissions from planets, usually cover a much broader sweep of frequencies. So what caused it?
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600

Cosmic String Found

Could two lookalike galaxies, barely a whisker apart in the night sky, herald a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics? Some physicists believe that the two galaxies are the same - its image has been split into two, they maintain, by a "cosmic string"; a San Andreas Fault in the very fabric of space and time. If this interpretation is correct, then CSL-1 - the name of the curious double galaxy - is the first concrete evidence for "superstring theory": the best candidate for a "theory of everything", which attempts to encapsulate all the phenomena of nature in one neat set of equations.
http://www.rednova.com/news/space/132303/finding_the_ultimate_theory_of_everything/index.html

Frozen Sea On Mars

The team of researchers, led by John Murray at the Open University, UK, estimates the submerged ice sea is about 800 by 900 kilometres in size and averages 45 metres deep.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7039

Pattern Recognition

Really well written...
The first of William Gibsons usually futuristic novels to be set in the present, Pattern Recognition is a masterful snapshot of modern consumer culture and hipster esoterica. Set in London, Tokyo, and Moscow, Pattern Recognition takes the reader on a tour of a global village inhabited by power-hungry marketeers, industrial saboteurs, high-end hackers, Russian mob bosses, Internet fan-boys, techno archeologists, washed-out spies, cultural documentarians, and our heroine Cayce Pollard--a soothsaying "cool hunter" with an allergy to brand names.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425192938/qid=1108831280/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-1257897-5459005

Hardwired Leadership

Based on his firsthand experience working with leaders and managers around the world, and on the field research of the Center for Creative Leadership, Pearman brings us a new way of thinking about leadership. No longer the domain of a select few, it is a psychologoical process that can be used by anyone charged with getting people to work together toward a common goal. In Hardwired Leadership, Pearman argues persuasively that everyone has a capacity--the mental wiring--to lead effectively
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0891061169/qid=1108831218/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/103-1257897-5459005?v=glance&s=books

Study Points To Sixth Sense

Following the Asian tsunami, scientists struggled to explain reports that primitive aboriginal tribesmen had somehow sensed the impending danger in time to join wild animals in a life-saving flight to higher ground. A new theory suggests that the anterior cingulate cortex, described by some scientists as part of the brains "oops" center, may actually function as an early warning system -- one that works at a subconscious level to help us recognize and avoid high-risk situations.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7036

Its Official: Probably Life On Mars

"Until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life," Dr Formisano told New Scientist magazine. "My conclusion is there must be life in the soil on Mars."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1416305,00.html

Balvenie Doublewood

nother bottle of the doublewood -- arguably one of my favorite scotches. Balvenie just doesnt make a bad blend.
A fab birthday gift from my buddy Jason.
http://timmyp.typepad.com/the_tasting_room/2004/01/the_balvenie_do.html

Glengoyne 17 Year

Really, really good Scotch. Thanks to Dale for scoring a bottle of this for me. One of my new faves.
http://www.whiskymag.com/whisky/brand/glengoyne/whisky554.html

Glenlivet 12 Year Old

Good stuff. I love Glenlivet after visiting the distillery on our trip to the UK last year.Very good basic scotch, a little rough around the edges but really enjoyable. Hint of florals and apple, dry and clean.
http://www.whiskymag.com/whisky/brand/glenlivet/whisky1341.html

Digital Fortress

Not bad, not as good as the Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed it -- deals with cryptography and some real-world potentials. Little off on the math tho.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312263120/qid=1106342875/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/103-7251603-3788610

Getting Things Done

Some really good stuff -- the two minute rule (get it done now if it takes < 2 minutes), the "do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it" rule, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/qid=1106342654/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-7251603-3788610

Disney To Remake Tron

Oh, man I hope Disney doesnt blow this...
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=30173

MAME Kit

http://www.x-arcade.com/byoarcade.shtml