Cuz We Said So

In a Move That Should Surprise Roughly No One...

Venezuela sinks beneath the waves:

A congress wholly loyal to President Hugo Chavez approved a law Wednesday granting the Venezuelan leader authority to enact sweeping measures by presidential decree.

"Long live the sovereign people! Long live President Hugo Chavez! Long live socialism!" said National Assembly President Cilia Flores as she proclaimed the law approved. "Fatherland, socialism or death!

For all the ranting about “tyranny” here in the US, many people seem happy to tolerate the real thing everywhere else.

"Like a Park Avenue hooker"

I guess this means John Dvorak isn’t much impressed with Vista either.  “Unless the computer is re-architected from scratch, which will not happen in the next 100 years, we are set on a path of never-ending misery. Windows Vista proves it.”  So that’s what troll-baiting looks like…

The Yawn Starts Now

Ah, Vista Launch Day, here at last.  Microsoft assures me that “The Wow Starts Now,” but I am unconvinced, and I’m not the only one.  Engadget on reviews of Windows Vista: “The overall verdict right now seems quite lacking in enthusiasm.”  I’ll say.  Summary:

…Things are much easier to use in general, but inconsistencies are often jarring, and certain added features don't seem entirely fleshed out, making the OS -- which was five years in development -- feel rushed and in noticeable need of that SP1 update. There's also a penchant for preferential treatment of Microsoft stuff, such as IE RSS feeds, which some Mac users might find disappointingly familiar. On the numbers side of things, bit-tech has discovered a 10 percent performance hit in most operations in comparison to XP, which isn't noticeable on high-end PCs, but might be enough of a reason for low-end users to hold off for the moment.  …the number of different versions is way too confusing, and the full versions of the OS are too expensive. Most still agree that Vista is the best version of Windows yet, but it looks like you'll still have to figure out if it's the best for you.

And let’s not forget Mike Elgan’s take for Computerworld: Wait! Don't Buy Microsoft Windows Vista.

Again, count me among those who don’t buy that Vista is the best version of Windows.  It absolutely could have been, and I had high hopes going into the beta.  But Microsoft dropped the ball here, and I doubt even the already-announced Vista Service Pack 1, they’ll have changed enough to win me over.  Vista offers too few benefits over Windows XP for the time I had to wait and the money they expect me to pay, and there are enough incomplete, ill-conceived, or downright anti-user changes that they offset the appeal of those limited benefits. 

In a way, I would like to see Microsoft burned badly by Vista, not out of malice, but because it might shock them into radically rethinking where they are going, and heading instead in a direction I want to follow.  I don’t have a lot of hope that will happen.  I suspect Vista will do well enough, because it will ship on most new PCs, and most users either won’t care about Vista’s shortcomings or won’t know enough to ask for XP instead.  Microsoft will keep going wherever they’re going, and I’ll be left here wondering where that is, exactly.

Microsoft has accomplished one thing with Vista that impresses me: after years of roundly mocking my Mac-loving friends, I’m actually considering joining them.  XP works fine for me, but I so thrive on novelty that I really want a great, shiny new OS, and waiting for Microsoft to provide it has left me nothing but disappointed.  Mac OS Leopard, XP, and Boot Camp or Parallels may just be my next upgrade.

"We Need More Haiku"

Russell writes poem
Far too much spare time has he
Or so says Yoda

Happy Meal Unhappy Science

Boing Boing:

I caught this nonsensical fact on a McDonald's Happy Meal bag today. It says: "You can jump 6 times higher in space." I don't think that's correct. If you jumped off a massive platform in space, you'd just keep going. They must've meant the moon.

I suspect they did mean the moon.  Where you would end up jumping from a platform, on the other hand, would depend on the mass of the platform.  You’d only keep on going if your jump velocity was higher than the platform’s escape velocity.  If the platform was as massive as the moon, on the other hand, you’d still jump only six times as high as on earth.

True science fact: if people are actually relying on their Happy Meals to learn science, we’re doomed.  It would explain the state of US sicence education, however.

OMG! TANGERINES!

Via Digg: "A flash game where you dodge bouncing tangerines. Pretty hard. WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM?!"  I got a chuckle from the commentary by the little guy at the center of the fruity onslaught.  OMG! indeed.

Office Drama

I’ve been making an effort to get into The Office lately, because everyone says its so good, and hey, I’m a sheep.  Sadly, I rented the first season from Netflix a few weeks ago, and we completely failed to hit it off.

Perhaps if it were more like this, I’d be interested….

 (Via TV Squad)

Not a Ghost of a Chance

When I first saw the trailer for Ghost Rider, whenever that was, I was struck by how quickly it convinced me the film would be terrible.  What was it about that preview, I wondered, that screamed “behold, the power of cheese!”  A good trailer can make a bad movie look worthwhile, and I’m sure a bad trailer could scare me a away from a good movie (though I can’t think, off-hand, of a case where that’s happened.  But what exactly is it that conveys the impression of good or bad?

There have been super-hero films I thought were great, and I didn’t detect anything about Ghost Rider’s premise that turned me off, so I don’t think it was that.  I’m a fan of Nicholas Cage; I enjoyed his performance in last year’s Lord of War, for example—so I assume its not him.  The special effects on display seemed fine.  Was it dialogue, maybe?  Pithy banter and sound-bite catch phrases can work great in context (Die Hard, Last Boy Scout, Men in Black, every good Schwarzenegger film) or stink up the joint (Men in Black 2, every bad Schwarzenegger film).

What separates dead-pan from wooden, and clever from corny?  I have no idea, and given its output, I don’t think much of Hollywood does, either.  Anyway, neither the appearance of the Ghost Rider TV commercials that inspired this post nor this post at Cinematical do anything to dispel Ghost Rider’s initial—horrible—first impression.

In a world where LaFontaine does movie trailers...

Don LaFontaine, instantly recognizable movie trailer voice-over guy, is in a current TV ad for Birds Eye frozen vegetables, that starts, "In a world where frozen vegetables..." and goes from there.  He's in a Geico commercial as well, where he says, "In a world where both of our cars were totally underwater..."  And "In a world..." appeared self-referentially in the LaFontaine-voiced Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trailer as well.

The point of the joke is that “in a world…” is an overused expression.”  But every recent instance of the expression’s use that I’ve noticed has been a gag about it being overused.  I wonder just how many movie trailers have used, "In a world..." where it wasn't a gag, and what they are?

Small Wonder It Eliminates Depression

Snopes:

This 1995 article quite nicely sums up the issue of clomipramine, an anti-depressant drug, having the side effects of causing some of its users to experience orgasms when they yawn

...The New Scientist says that the drug's users have been comparing notes on the Internet and speculating on its unusual consequences: people who experience it would presumably seek out the most boring person they could find at parties.

I imagine this stuff would improve attendance at long meetings, too.
(Via digg.)