Disorderly Content

I've been doing way too much blog surfing with BlogExplosion, both to find interesting blogs, at which I've been only mildly successful; and to increase traffic to my own blogs, probably a waste of time, since I assume most visitors leave after the 30 seconds required to get BlogExplosion credit. But I've noticed that a surprising number of BlogExplosion blogs use OLE or DirectX or some other evil Microsoft technology on their web pages, technology that I as a Macintosh user are prevented from viewing.

So whatever happened to the idea of "one site to rule them all", that web pages should display on everybody's browser? Do the owners of these sites care that they're locking Mac and Linux users out? Does it worry them that they're also putting their Windows readers at risk? Or do they figure that anybody silly enough to rely on Windows deserves what they get?

That last question was rhetorical, in case you couldn't tell.

Okay, I really need to stop with the bad pun titles for these entries. But not just yet; I'm having way too much fun coming up with them.

Anyway, I just finished my writeup of the fifth annual Burbank Farscape convention, put on by the folks at Creation Entertainment. And a gushing account it is too. If there's a better way to spend a weekend than with a thousand of so close friends, many of whom you're meeting for the first time, I'd like to know what it is. This isn't about a science fiction show, or at least it's not only about that. There's something about Scapers. It's like getting together with family, only without the aggravation and the arguments about inheritances and who mom liked best. A real shame we can't gather together more often.

Thanks to a fellow Scaper for posting part of an interview with Jolene Blalock that appeared in the Christmas issue of SFX Magazine. I'd given up on Enterprise quite a while ago, after following every Trek series religiously, even the second rate Voyager. But you have to give credit to someone who's willing to nibble at the hand that feeds her:

SFX magazine Christmas 2004 has a big interview with Jolene Blalock, in which she talks about Enterprise and her feelings about it with impressive honesty. I've never heard someone in an ongoing show let rip like this *cough*notevenRobertBeltran*cough*.

On the plus side, she really likes Manny Coto's work, and thinks he's making the changes that need to be made:

"... what's interesting is that I opened the first script of the fourth season ... and it was good! And that was weird! Then I got the second script - and it was good too!"

But she doesn't hold back about the stuff she's been unhappy with previously. When SFX mention that some of the semi-nudity and "Vulcan neuropressure" seems a little, uh "... unecessary", she replies:

"I agree. It was. You can't substitute tits and ass for good storytelling. You can have both, but you can't substitute one for the other, because the audience is not stupid. You can't just throw in frivolous, uncharacteristic ... well, bull and think it's gonna help the ratings. Because that's not our audience. I'd like to appeal to their intellect. I mean, God forbid we inspire the question, 'What if?' 'What if we travelled in space?' 'What if we met other species?' 'What if?' So it has been frustrating for me. But I don't have any say in it."

"If you can't find consistency in your character, then it's a transparent character, and that's very tough, because it turns out that you are a different person from episode to episode. And it's not fair, because I don't know what to count on!"

When asked if she flagged up her concerns with the show's creators:

"Absolutely! Well ... I did at first. Now, I've got to the point where I raise my hands. I wave my little white flag!"

On the positive changes in the show:

"It's bizarre that all of this is happening in our last season. Unfortunately, it takes people upstairs to turn their heads to a distraction in order for others to come in and freshen the concept and make the show good ..."

" ... I mean, you're talking about a show where the captain doesn't sweat! T'Pol's hair doesn't move - even in battle! And if it does, we reshoot it. We don't bleed here, and nobody dies. Give me a break! And we're all-knowing. Where's the risk? Where is the danger? Where's drama? Where's the challenge? Where's the story? Give me a break, I'm bored!"

Character consistency:

"You can't take T'Pol and say 'Okay, you're a Vulcan' and take away the Vulcan characteristics. You might as well clip the ears! For example, eating food with their hands - they don't do that! And yet they'll throw in episodes where she's eating popcorn, and I'll say, 'Can I use a napkin? How can I ...'" Jolene cuts herself off in the booming, uncaring voice of The Man. "'No! Use your hands!'"

Not very logical, say SFX:

"It's not, but that's not what they care about. They care about ... " Jolene sighs. "I don't know what they care about. But y'know ... I'm resigned."

On why she cares so much:

"... being a part of the Star Trek legacy is very important to me. It deserves a bit of respect. You can't just crap on it! It means something."

And despite her faith in Manny Coto's work, she seems to believe it's too late and this will be the last season:

"I think this will be our last season. I do. You can feel it. And after this show is over it's gonna be the first time in 17 years that Star Trek isn't on television. I don't know how people feel about that, but I know I'm affected by that thought. But I'd rather let it go than let it die a slow death. It deserves the respect it's due, and if we can't do that ... then let it go."

A few days ago I posted links to some of my Farscape convention pictures on a couple of web forums I frequent. Because I host the pictures here, I can see how many people have accessed the pages. What I didn't expect, not that I mind at all, is that other Farscape fans would post the picture links on other sites. It's fun to see how far and wide this information goes. Especially when it gets to places like Moscow, where I presume this site is located. I just find the idea of Russian Farscape fans appealing.

Apologies if your web browser can't display Cyrillic.

I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago at a partner presentation put on by IBM. I'd taken Caltrain up to the city, since I hate traffic and SF's obscenely expensive parking. Anyway, once the presentation was done, I made a stop at the Ferry Building to pick up some expensive chocolate at the Scharffen Berger shop. And was accosted (in the nicest possible way) on my way down Market Street by a woman from Children International. Our conversation was brief, as I'm already sponsoring three of their kids.

(A very good friend of mine was a CI sponsor. He died a few years ago, much too young. We were asked to donate to CI in his memory. And I've been doing it ever since. It doesn't help me miss him less, but at least some small good can come out of the tragedy.)

I mention this encounter because of a posting on a website I discovered on BlogExplosion. True, they were asking for people to visit a different charitable site. But the desire to do good is the same.

Thanks to a bustling trade in Farscape pins, I've been doing a lot of business with my local post office. Not the one I complained about here; the larger one with the Saturday hours. Anyway, having spent last weekend at my annual convention in Burbank, I've been mailing out a lot of CDs of the pictures I took. (Gotta love digital cameras: took 600 pictures in one weekend, at a per-picture cost of a tenth of a cent!) Most of the CDs are for fans in the US, but a few are elsewhere. And while I was being served, another postal employee mentioned that their spiffy new machine could handle my requirements when the lines were long (as they will be starting on Monday) or the place is closed. It can even do international mailings, with customs forms and such, as long as the package weighs less than a pound.

So I gave it a try. And darn if it isn't the cleverest thing I've seen in a long time. Touch screen, built-in scale, accepts ATM and credit cards, prints postage. I'm trying to think of something to complain about... Oh, yeah. It didn't provide me with airmail stickers. Had to ask the postal guy for those.

Convenience from the post office. Amazing.

Having spent last weekend at a Farscape convention, I've been busy burning CDs of photos and sending them to all my Scaper buds. Which necessitated a trip to my local OfficeMax to replenish my supply of bubble wrap envelopes. Not hazardous duty, or so you might think. Except of course that today is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the most popular and absolute worst shopping day of the year. Even at an office supply place! All I wanted were some envelopes. And some extra CDs and jewel cases. And CD labels. Nothing remotely festive.

There ought to be a special checkout lane in stores for people who aren't doing holiday-related shopping. In fact, I think I'll start working on a state proposition. If I can get it on next year's ballot, maybe we humbugists (better than humbuggers, doncha think?) can have an easier time of it next Day After Thanksgiving Conspicuous Consumption Holiday. Worth a try.

The second biggest challenge to having a blog (after figuring out what to write about) is getting visitors. I've been pretty lucky in that regard, since the age of my larger website gets Google's attention. But anything that attracts more eyeballs is generally a good thing, right?

Enter BlogExplosion, a link exchange with a difference. Instead of swapping links between websites, a practice I've never cared for, BlogExplosion trades visitors. You use the site to visit members' blogs, either randomly, via banner ads or their blog directory. And for each two sites you visit, they bring a visitor to you. It's pretty well implemented. And if your blog is compelling, maybe a few people will come back on their own. Or better yet, add you to their RSS feeds. And if not, well, at least it's free. Remember free?

Over on my other blog I posted about an album in support of Sudanese refugees. Apple's done a good thing here, promoting an album and then giving all the proceeds, including its own fees, to the cause the album supports. My own efforts are a lot less significant, of course. All I did was buy a copy and then recommend that my two or three readers give it a listen. So imagine my surprise when I got an email from the project coordinator, thanking me for the mention. Heck, I'm surprised he found me so quickly; I only discovered the album myself two days ago on the far superior As The Apple Turns.

Anyway, if you have an iPod, give some thought to buying The Afrobeat Sudan Aid Project. It's some amazing music. And you'll feel good listening to it.

I've always found Thanksgiving to be a good day to see a movie. And not having seen Pixar's latest, I decided it was time to catch The Incredibles. I was predisposed to like it, being a big animation fan and having enjoyed all of their earlier films. I do consider A Bug's Life to be a lesser work, a kiddie version of The Seven Samurai or, if you're not into Kurasawa, The Magnificent Seven. But despite their sometimes childish tone, I think Pixar has done an amazing job of telling stories that have something real for adults.

But I was surprised by The Incredibles. Because it isn't a kid's movie; it's an adult story told with animation. Not adult in the "lots of people take their clothes off and get sweaty" sense. Adult in that it tells us something important about ourselves. And it does it without getting preachy. It's also a beautiful film, visually stunning in the style of the better James Bond films. I can't wait to get a copy on DVD.

On the other hand, I was kind of appalled by the trailers. Especially the one for the sequel to The Mask. Let me be among the first to predict a complete "sunk without a trace" disaster. Just the idea of doing another Mask movie is laughably bad. And without Jim Carrey? Please. But the sight of a CGI-enhanced baby doing leaps? I may just be sick.

I may just be the least mechanically inclined individual you've ever met, provided of course that you actually met me. That's especially true where automobiles are concerned; I've never had the least interest in tinkering with cars. In fact, I only knew one useful automotive trick, taught to me many, many years ago by my first college roommate. And that trick became useless the moment carburetors went out of fashion.

So you can imagine my horror when I noticed last night that my passenger-side headlight was burned out. Where, I wondered, does one get a headlight replaced? Especially the day before Thanksgiving, not the best possible time for emergency repairs.

Anyway, I weighed my options and tried to think of someplace to get a quick repair done. And then took a look at my owners manual, which has sat unopened since I bought the car in 1997. And which explained that, unlike the sealed beam headlights I remember (or at least think I remember), my Acura has replaceable bulbs. And they made the procedure sound idiotproof, even for this particular idiot.

So off I went to an auto supply store to buy a new bulb. And then had to figure out how to remove a connector that didn't want to disconnect. (Squeeze the connector? What if it doesn't want to be squeezed? Or is that squozen?) A little careful prodding with a screwdriver got the connector off. The bulb came out easily, the new one went in and the connector connected a whole lot easier than it disconnected. One run inside to clean the grease off my hands (some magical kind that cleaned off easily with soap and water) and I verified that I did indeed have a second working headlight.

Yeah, it's not exactly the discovery of penicillin. But for a software guy like me whose manual dexterity doesn't go much beyond plugging it in and hoping for the best, it's still one proud moment.

I'm putting this in humor, although it's no joke. The Jones Soda Company has a limited edition holiday pack of seasonal soft drinks. Which come in such nontraditional flavors as turkey & gravy, mashed potato & butter, green bean casserole, cranberry (which doesn't sound quite so awful) and fruitcake. If anybody reads this and orders some, can you tell me what they're like? I just can't bring myself to try this one...

Thanks to Gadling for pointing this one out. Or is thanks the right word?

Most everybody knows about the Universal Studios tour. It's one of the fun things to do when you're in Los Angeles, right behind Disneyland as a destination. It's half movie experience, half theme park, and now half shopping mall. (Wait; how can you have three halfs?)

But a lot fewer folks know about Warner Brothers Studio tours. And if you're a serious (or even semi-serious) fan of the entertainment business, you should. Because the Warner tour is the real thing: a glimpse into the works of a real studio. Instead of set pieces and stunt shows, you get to see production facilities, real sets and, if you're lucky, people hard at work. Every day the tour is different; it all depends on who's doing what where.

And if the Warner tour isn't well known, there's an even bigger secret. Warner's offers an alternative to the standard two hour tour: a once-a-day five hour tour that lets you spend more time everywhere. When two friends and I took the deluxe tour this past Monday, it was just us and the guide. We saw dialogue recording for The West Wing and audio mixing for E.R.; saw the sets for several sitcoms and wandered the backlot sets of Gilmore Girls and E.R. Oh, and stopped for coffee at Central Perk. (No, no coffee. But a chance to sit on that famous couch and pose for pictures.)

If you like movies, I'm betting you'll like Warner's. It's the real thing. (With apologies to Coke.)

My first post in days! I spent the weekend in Burbank at the fifth annual Farscape convention, courtesy of the folks at Creation Entertainment. And while I was there I spoke to the folks at La-La Land Records, a small genre music label. It seems they're putting together albums of the music from select Farscape episodes. First up are Eat Me and Revenging Angel, the former a reinvention of Night of the Living Dead and the latter a spin on Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons. The CD is a limited edition and only available at their website. So don't delay: read about it here.

An article at Yield.com called Beatles fans in denial of Apple Computer heritage sets the record straight regarding the name conflict between Apple Corps Ltd, home of The Beatles, and Apple Computer, which does something unrelated. To quote Fox News, "We report; you decide."

On the one hand, we have the Senate (a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney) working to pass a bill that would make skipping commercials illegal. On the other, TiVo is about to add features to its PVR that will show you their own ads when you're skipping the ads on the programs your watching. Which is good, right? Because we don't get nearly enough advertising in our lives.

What's that old saying: those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it? I'd read about the latest attempt to create temporary DVDs, which turn into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight. Well, not literally. Actually, it's supposed to take a couple of days. And they turn red rather than pumpkin-colored. But they're real. And they're on Amazon.

I was surprised to see the first Flexplay DVD among Amazon's offerings. I can't believe that these people didn't learn the lesson of DivX (the limited-use DVD, not the video codec): that consumers don't really want DVDs that turn into coasters. If I don't want to own a disc, I'll rent it, and for half the price of this thing. And I'll feel better about life for not filling landfills with stacks of useless discs.

Of course, it's all academic. The first and, I believe, only disc in Flexplay format holds no interest for me. Not big on Christmas movies at my house. Not even for "an inspiring, contemporary story of hope, forgiveness, love and redemption". And certainly not while contributing to a global trash problem.

It's a pity; Flexplay's a good name. But not to worry. I'm betting that in a couple of years someone'll resurrect it to name something less lame than this.

Our newly activist Federal Communications Commission slapped Fox Network with a record $1.2 million fine for the shocking goings-on on a show called Married By America. But here's a real shocker: according to a Freedom of Information Act request, that fine was the result of 90 complaints! 90, out of an audience in the millions! But what's even better is that all but two of the complaints were virtually identical. So there were really only three complaints that led to that obscene fine.

What I want to know is why majority rules when conservatives make up that majority, but the needs of an easily offended minority have to take precedence when they don't. "Heads, I win; tails, you lose". Thought I'd seen the last of that one when I hit adulthood.

I spent this afternoon at the Curran Theater in San Francisco, attending a matinee performance of a Broadway-bound adaptation of the film White Christmas. As to the play, my feeling is that it neither improves on nor diminishes the original. Depending on your opinion of Bing Crosby and company, that may tell you what to expect from this version.

But that's not why I'm writing. There's a moment at the beginning of the second act when the Phil Davis and Judy Haines characters are performin "I Love A Piano", and an eighteen inch tall white baby grand comes sliding its way out from stage left. And all I could think about was that tiny Stonehenge arch from Spinal Tap. Was I projecting, or did the two actors have looks of total dismay as this undersized prop came toward them? Heck, all they needed were dwarves in tuxedos to complete the effect!

Okay, maybe you had to be there.

It's a paradox I've been trying to understand for years: that the American separation of church and state has led Americans to be more, not less, religious. Americans attend church far more often than citizens of other First World countries. Especially those countries with state-sponsored religions, where the locals treat religious institutions with the same reverence as we do the Library of Congress: cool and all, but nothing to do with my day to day life.

What brought this to mind is the recent election, the culture gap between red states and blue states and debates about morality. Oh, and some statistics that have been written about by folks on the blue side of the divide. Including a piece from the New York Times that was reprinted in my local paper. Because it seems that that part of America that's so concerned with morality, and with defending marriage from those who would cheapen and destroy it, has the biggest reason to worry.

A few numbers to make the case: The 2003 divorce rate in Massachusetts, bluest of blue states, was 5.7 per thousand married people. Kentucky, Misssissippi and Arkansas had twice that, at 10.8, 11.1 and 12.7, respectively.

There's more to the studies, including analyses debunking any idea that being "born again" decreases the likelihood for divorce. But in the final analysis, what it suggests is that red staters should look deep into their own hearts to understand why their marriages fail so often. And they should stop blaming the other guy; all three of these states voted this year to ban gay marriage, when maybe they should consider making it harder for straights to get hitched.

A couple of weeks ago the tech news, at least the online Mac version, was full of reports of Macintosh pioneer Jef Raskin's complaining about Mac OS X, that there's no difference between it and Windows XP and how what the computing world really needs is a big does of Artificial Intelligence so users can say do what I mean and the computer will figure out what the heck that is. I thought it was nonsense at the time, a no-longer-listened-to prophet getting old and cranky. And having spent a bunch of years around Artificial Intelligence, I was a lot less confident than Jef that a computer's idea of DWIM would look anything like the user's.

A small example is the SB-600 flash I got for my Nikon D70. It offers two automatic modes when coupled to the D70. The cool mode is called i-TTL Balanced; it uses the camera to determine just how much light to apply to the scene, balancing the need to light the subject of the picture as well as the background. Then there's plain old i-TTL; it lights the subject and lets the background fend for itself. And one guide to the camera warns you not to use Balanced mode, because you won't be able to predict the results. By trying to light both subject and background, you may end up with both lit poorly. Whereas just doing the subject, you can be pretty confident that it will be lit correctly.

And this is the problem with AI solutions to normal problems: that what you gain in the quality of the solution (assuming the solution is actually good), you lose in predictability. And for humans, getting the answer we expect is more important.

What made me think of all this today is an article on As The Apple Turns, my favorite humorous Apple news site, that talks about the surprising product suggestions you can get from Amazon's own brand of AI. To wit, add Mac OS X 10.3 Panther to your wish list and you'll get a suggestion of Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. Ask for the upcoming Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger instead and you'll be told about The Tripleets of Belleville. And the magazine suggestions are even better: interest in Panther makes you a target reader for The New Yorker, while Tiger buyers are candidates for Playboy.

All of which suggests something I figured out around 1989: this AI stuff is fun, but I sure wouldn't stake anything important on it. (Too bad I got started in it in '83. But some of us take a while to discover important truths. And some of us never do.)

IT Conversations has an audio lecture by author Malcolm Gladwell that talks about the flaws in supposedly objective product testing. His descriptions of why Herman Miller's testing of their Aeron chair should have told them to forget the whole thing, and Coke's confidence that New Coke would be a hit, are fascinating as they show how flaws in test methodology can give you exactly the opposite results you should be getting.

It's something I realized a long time ago: that people believe that numbers are objective, despite the fact that what they're measuring are often too complex to be described by a single value. Are SAT scores objective? They're objective compilations of the results of a students answers, that's true. But the decision as to whether an answer is right or wrong isn't always an objective one, especially once you move off technical subjects and into the humanities. And how individual test questions are scored, the way these scores are combined, those are based on whole series of subjective judgments on the part of the test developers. Judgments that never see the light of day.

It's amazing how many things we know that are at their core unknowable. And how many attempts to turn engineering-style rules of thumb into provable science fail in the end. But they do make entertaining stories along the way.

John Battelle's Searchblog has a piece about how entering the phrase "more evil than satan" in Microsoft's new search engine returns Google as the first result. (Here: try it for yourself.) This is Microsoft's revenge for the fact that a search for that phrase at Google back in 1999 returned Microsoft as the top result. But what's interesting about this is that, although Microsoft manipulated these results as a bit of tit for tat revenge, Google says they didn't fire the first shot. They claim Microsoft turning up on the evil search was just a bit of accidental humor.

So what can we learn from this? That Google doesn't try to manipulate results? That Microsoft does? That being rich and powerful and world-dominating isn't enough? That if you say mean things about them, or even if they think you did, you should prepare yourself for attack?

How about this lesson: Don't believe anything you hear from Microsoft. Because if they don't like the answer, they'll make one up.

I've often thought over the years that if I ever get sick of high tech, or more likely they get sick of me, I'd like to try my hand at something related to travel. Having a website full of travel stories and photographs has me convinced that I might have a talent for it. And loving visiting new places and telling others about them makes it a natural.

But of course any job is first and foremost a job. And as this piece demonstrates, writing for a travel magazine can be its own very special kind of hell. Suddenly high tech doesn't seem like such a bad gig.

I ordered an Airport Express right after Apple announced them. It's a little wireless access point in the shape of a PowerBook power adapter, only a little bit bigger. And one of its uses is to provide a wireless link between computers running iTunes and your stereo. Which it does very well, especially if these two are in different rooms. But there was one major inconvenience: if you're in the room with the stereo, you don't have control over the music.

But now Keyspan has an answer: a new version of their Digital Media Remote. Plug the receiver into the USB port on the Airport Express and you can use the remote to control iTunes on the connected computer. Can't wait to get one and try it out.

Spotted on Gizmodo.

I love words. I love unusual words, especially the ones that express an idea perfectly. And even better when you have to steal another language's word, because your own doesn't have a way to express it. I loved discovering defenestrate, which I first encountered in an Arthur Clarke short story called, memorably enough, The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch. And I marveled at the Germans who gave us schadenfreude, a concept we all recognize but only they were clever enough to name. But my hat is off to the Congolese, who, according to an article at BBC News, have the hardest word in the world to translate. The word is ilunga, which is, and I quote, "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time." Now there's a word we need in English.

And a tip of that same hat to Gadling.com, which provided this bit of wisdom, as well as the next nine most untranslatable words. Although shlemazl as number two? What's so hard about that?

(As a child, I was told that a shlemiel was a clod who's always spilling soup. A shlemazl is the one he's always spilling it on. Seems clear enough to me.)

According to the Associated Press (article here), John Ashcroft just resigned as Attorney General. This is the guy who lost a Senate bid to a dead guy and then went on to do more damage to American life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than Osama.

(Well, less damage to life. But I stand by the other two.)

But here's the funniest part: in his resignation letter, Ashcroft claimed:

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

Don't these guys remember what happened the last time they put up a big Mission Accomplished banner?

If there's anything good to say about the election, it's that I've rediscovered my sense of outrage. And although I have to accept the decision of my fellow voters, that doesn't mean letting the horrors that have been (and, I fear, will continue to be) perpetrated by this adminstration go without comment. So it's with a sense of both gratitude and irony that I went ahead and joined both Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union. Because if my government insists on being the champions of immorality, somebody has to stand up for what's right.

I don't even play an instrument, but I so want one of these! It's a roll up MIDI keyboard, just the perfect thing for the traveling musician. Or somebody who just likes cool toys. Whatever.

Found at Music thing, which I discovered at Engadget, which was talking about a completely different musical toy.

I spent the day at a seminar put on by Nikon School. The subject: digital photography, and in particular advanced workflow techniques. The instructors were both knowlegeable and entertaining. But the biggest laugh of all came during a brief discussion of the proper procedure for cleaning the sensor of a digital SLR. One instructor uses a photographic blower to apply a little air to the sensor in hopes of dislodging whatever dust may have gathered. The other used the same approach, but with a less expensive device to get the air to the right place.

He was quick to suggest that you not attempt this procedure with a used one.

My DVD buying has outpaced my DVD viewing by quite a bit lately. I was keeping up pretty well until the new television season started. And between the few new shows worth watching and the rest of Angel season four, the unwatched stack was growing a little too fast. But I finally finished with Angel. In fact I'm done with all of Joss's output, having caught Angel season five and Buffy season seven on broadcast television. With commercials! Well, actually, with ReplayTV's fast skip feature. But they're still there even if I don't have to see them, right?

Anyway, now I can work my way through some old favorites I've picked up over the past couple of months:

• The President's Analyst, a 60s Cold War comedy with James Coburn as a paranoid shrink who really does have everybody after him
• The Assassination Bureau, Jack London's unfinished tale of WWI-era political intrigue, turned into a wild comedy caper film with Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg
• Ed Wood, finally on DVD and with commentaries and other goodies
• My Name Is Modesty, a low budget film about Peter O'Donnell's wonderful comic strip creation, Modesty Blaise. Which will, I pray, remove any memory of the appalling Monica Vitti/Terence Stamp adaptation from the 60s

Oh, and Shrek 2. Which, while not the tour de force of the original, is still a whole lot of fun.

I learned that bit of Latin from The West Wing. It means "After, therefore because of", and refers to our instinctive belief that events that are joined in time must also be joined by cause & effect. That's not always the case; sometimes it's just a coincidence.

Then again... Today I was out shopping for various odds and ends, which included a stop at Cost Plus. Where I purchased some interesting odds (I got the ends during other stops), including a bottle of diet pink lemonade. So I got home, unpacked my purchases and prepared to open said bottle.

I should have paid more attention to the bottle, in particular to the heavy glass of its construction and the Grolsch-type stopper arrangement used to seal it. Because the moment I opened it, I had a geyser of pinkish liquid that soared a good three feet over the counter. It never would have occurred to me that lemonade would develop that kind of internal pressure, ya know?

Anyway, after cleaning up the mess I moved over to one of my computers. And a few minutes later I noticed that my DSL was down. The modem was flashing red and not connecting. Great, I thought, my DSL problems are back. Except after a little fooling around I realized that it didn't fit the pattern. And then I noticed that the in use light was on on my phone. And the line was silent. This was more serious than DSL.

And eventually the light came on. Sometimes post hoc ergo propter hoc is right on. And I noticed a little moisture on the wall outlet where my phone and DSL connect. Yep, that lemonade fountain had been both high and wide. Took a bit of effort, but I managed to clean off the phone contacts and get myself back online.

The moral of the story: diet pink lemonade is not only effervescent, it also makes an excellent conductor of electricity.

No, not that kind of perspective. But one of the upsetting results of this election for those of us on the blue side of the map (blue both for candidate affiliation and for mood) is the feeling that we're vastly outnumbered. Which just isn't so; although Bush won a majority this time, it was only by 3%. But the electoral map makes it look far more dramatic.

Hence the map at right, which redraws the states based on their electoral contribution. Yeah, we still lost. And we lost big. But it wasn't a mandate-size difference. And I fear there's going to be real trouble if, as I suspect, the victors don't take that fact into account as we move forward.

Map courtesy of essays & effluvia by way of Silicon Valley's own Dan Gillmor.

An interesting article in Wired about product branding, what it used to mean, what marketing people think it means and why it suddenly matters a whole lot less than it used to. Working in a small startup with visions of grandeur, I hear our marketing people describe their efforts to sharpen the company's brand and the messages behind it. But if the thesis of this article is right, and it makes a compelling case, brands only work in a few rare cases.

The idea in brief: Brands used to be about protecting the customer. My brand identifies the maker of my products and promises a level of quality that you've come to expect. If someone uses my brand on their product, they're claiming my reputation for quality. Not just saying their product is as good as mine, but that their product is mine.

But somewhere along the way, brands became about the maker rather than the customer. So a company keeps others from using a similar brand for wholly unrelated goods, like Lucasfilm suing a rap performer who calls himself Luke Skywalker or a former employer of mine with the temerity to call themselves JEDI Technologies. Even though the use of the brand doesn't risk confusing a customer (the two sets of products aren't even remotely related), the brand itself has become property to be protected.

But what's changed is that product quality is less tied to brands these days and more tied to the products themselves. Thanks in part to the Web, we can get information about a product as soon as it's available, if not sooner. And that includes both professional and customer opinions. So we don't rely on the fact that it's a Sony or a Nokia or a Nikon; we can learn instantly whether the specific product is any good.

And that makes those brands a lot less relevant. If a maker stops producing what the customer wants, brand loyalty isn't going to keep them buying anyway as it might have done (for a while at least) in the past. Nokia stops making clamshell phones, and suddenly Nokia isn't the hot brand in mobiles. The brand's value rises and falls with the products.

Interesting reading. It certainly made me think. And I wonder how long it'll be before the marketing crowd accepts the idea. (Found on Boing Boing.)

I know exactly how these folks feel.

I've had a website for almost ten years now. And I've been analyzing my site's access logs pretty much nightly since the beginning. Every few weeks I notice that someone found my site by doing a Google search on my name, which always makes me wonder why they were looking for me, and why, once they found me, they didn't say hello. But it always felt pretty benign.

Now I'm not so sure, as 20 reasons why you shouldn't post your picture on the Internet makes me wonder what people could be doing with what they find here. Nothing nearly so clever, I suspect.

After the worst election night of my life, it's nice to know that there are alternatives to the cowboy theocracy.

Despite Yogi Berra's famous warning that it ain't over 'til it's over, I have to accept that the people have made their choice. But in much the way that black and white reactions to the O.J. Simpson verdict demonstrated that there are two Americas who will never see eye to eye, the idea that a majority of voters could choose George W. Bush stuns and depresses me. How can so many people care so little for our place in the world and our legacy to the future, whether in what we do to our air and water or to the financial mess we're leaving for future generations? How can people in and connected to the military believe in a man who risks their lives so cavalierly, and then repays them with such contempt?

Worst of all for me is knowing that this president will be able to create a Supreme Court in his own twisted image, an image that will outlast my own lifetime. Civil liberties have taken a beating under this administration; they will only grow worse now that the president has the mandate he didn't get in 2000. How do we stand by and watch the rape and pillaging of the American soul continue? What choice do we have?

I didn't laugh at Shakespeare translated to Klingon. And I won't laugh at this: Harry Potter translated into ancient Greek. Although I can't help wondering what an ancient Greek would make of Jo Rowling's witches and wizards take on English schools. Probably think she was mad.