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