Pining for Panther

Dammit. I knew this was going to happen. My copy of Panther came today. I had it delievered to my home address because it was supposed to come tomorrow, and if I had sent it to work I would have had to wait until Monday to get it. But since it came a day early, I wasn’t home to get it, so they didn’t leave it there. Now I have to either drive out to the FedEx plant on Eisenhower Ave. or wait until Monday. The FedEx lady on the phone didn’t know why the delivery man didn’t leave it at the door. Oh, and it’s not just my copy, but Katherine, Justin, Dre, and Matt Thomas’, too.

Update: Drove to the FedEx facility this morning and got it. The “Fast User Switching” cube effect has to be the most over-the-top feature ever.

Dear Framers

While I understand that a right to privacy can be intuited from the Bill of Rights, we could use clearer enumeration. Case in point:

In September 2002, JetBlue Airways secretly turned over data about 1.5 million of its passengers to a company called Torch Concepts, under contract with the Department of Defense.

Torch Concepts merged this data with Social Security numbers, home addresses, income levels and automobile records that it purchased from another company, Acxiom Corp.

[…] JetBlue’s privacy policy clearly states that “the financial and personal information collected on this site is not shared with any third parties.” Several lawsuits against JetBlue are pending. (Newsday.com, “Terror Profiles By Computers Are Ineffective”)

Could someone please wake/raise the men listed here and have them work something up. Promise them good, healthy brains to eat if necessary.

Trust for Museum Exhibitions

I am very proud to announce the launch of my first professional website: The Trust for Museum Exhibitions. The idea was to make something that TME would be able to update themselves without having to pay their unreliable web techs $125/hour to make simple changes to the text.

I didn’t actually redesign the site much from what TME already had, but the whole thing looks cleaner and prettier now. Under the hood it runs very, very light. In fact, the entire site weighs well under 1 meg: over six times smaller than the previous code. The site is run entirely by MovableType using templates for everything so that it can all be edited from within the MT interface rather than needing FTP. It passes most of the U.S. Section 508 accessibility guidelines, making it available to blind and disabled users. The masthead image (thanks Matt Thomas!) uses StopDesign-style image-replacement to make it accessible. Everything is run by one (valid) stylesheet, which ensures that pages display uniformly and allows for easy alteration should TME want different fonts or colors. Almost every page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, with only a few errors on the inner-most pages being due to curly quotes and dashes that got copied in from the old text. With only two exceptions, every page validated on the first try! Once TME starts entering their own text there are sure to be some invalid entities that creep in, but the structure of the site should remain correct.

Thanks to Cyndi for letting me loose on place of e-business.

The Undead and Philosophy

My dad just forwarded this to me. Interesting…

Abstracts are sought for a collection of philosophical essays on the theme of the undead. The editors are currently in discussion with Open Court Press (The publisher of The Simpsons and Philosophy, The Matrix and Philosophy, and the forthcoming The Sopranos and Philosophy¬, etc.) regarding the inclusion of this collection in a new book series dealing with philosophy and various cultural topics. We are seeking abstracts, but anyone who has already written an unpublished paper on this topic may submit it in its entirety. Potential contributors may want to examine other volumes in the Open Court series.

Contributors are welcome to submit abstracts on any topic of philosophical interest that pertains to the theme of the undead. We define “the undead” as that class of corporeal beings who at some point were living creatures, have died, and have come back such that they are not presently “at rest.” This would include supernatural beings such as zombies, vampires, mummies, and other reanimated corpses. The editors are especially interested in receiving submissions that engage the following perspectives: philosophy of mind; the metaphysics of death; political and social philosophy; ontology and other topics in metaphysics; ethics and bioethics; aesthetics; cultural theory and globalization studies; race and gender; epistemology; philosophy of religion; phenomenology and existentialism. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to, the following: zombie-based critiques of functionalist theories of mind; historical treatments of the undead in philosophy; the films of George Romero, Danny Boyle, and Joss Whedon; the novels of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Bruce Campbell, and Poppy Z. Brite; critical writing by Julia Kristeva, Jalal Toufic, and Slavoj Zizek.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone writing within a philosophic discipline who might be interested in contributing.

More information is availble here.

Kids Play the Darnedest Things

Electronic Gaming Monthly lined up a bunch of ten to thirteen year-old kids in front of 80’s-era arcade games. Here are some excerpts (try not to hear the children in Whitehead’s voice. I dare you!):

[Pong]

Tim: My line is so beating the heck out of your stupid line. Fear my pink line. You have no chance. I am the undisputed lord of virtual tennis. [Misses ball] Whoops.

John: Tim, how could you miss that? It was going like 1 m.p.h.

[Donkey Kong]

Tim: Mario dies way too easy. Oh, grab the umbrella. Those are cool. Unfashionable, gay, but cool. Oh, 300 points. That’s it? All you get is points? That’s lame. Can’t you do something with the umbrella?

[Handheld Football]

Brian: What’s this supposed to be?

EGM: Football. It’s one of the first great portable games.

Brian: I thought it was Run Away From the Dots.

[Tetris]

John: I just lined up six of the same color. Why didn’t they blow up?

EGM: Nothing blows up.

[Space Invaders]

Kirk: I’m sure everyone who made this game is dead by now.

You can read the entire interview here.

As someone who grew up on Nintendo and still loves video games, I see a lot of people my age lamenting modern games for their lack of the classics’ elegance. They’re wrong. Games these days rule. Games have always ruled. Older games were fun, but they never came close to the level of immersive gameplay that new technology can provide. Still, Tetris rocks, and I think getting a good score on that will always be harder than finishing a glossy forty-hour adventure on a modern system. What games have now are length and complexity, but not necessarily difficulty. And I still love me some Dr. Mario.

Three, Disjounted

Three completely different items today.

Trust

The webpage for Cyndi’s company should be up within the next day. I’ve worked hard on it, and I’m very happy with how it turned out (not that I made more than cosmetic changes to the existing design.) I’ll announce the official launch when I hit the big publish button.

Sports

A very amusing anecdote by Jason Kottke about watching the Cubs game and the surreal bubble that TiVo can trap you in.

Scopophilia

I like Kill Bill volume 1 quite a lot. I like that it’s not trying to be smart like Pulp Fiction and I like that its chronological displacement seems to be for the sake of storytelling and not for the sake of itself. I like the violence and the swordplay.

Almost all of the movie has stylized cartoon spurting blood. A few scenes have very serious tones to them, though the movie itself doesn’t carry them anywhere. That’s to its benefit I think, because it allows it to remain an exhilirating take on samurai films while still containing the themes. If you were to look at me, tap 3 mana, and cast “Summon Dave’s Inner Film Major,” I’d say that it’s a movie about watching violence. Specifically, there are two scenes in which small children watch gruesome murders. Tarantino is playing with our willingness to allow the level of desentivity neccessary to watch a film as bloody as this. We’re willing to enjoy watching Uma slaugher 88 thugs in a restaurant because we write it off as kickass action, but then there’s the murder of Vernita Green followed by the image of her daughter standing in the doorway, and the murder of O-Ren Ishii’s parents as she hides under the bed. Both scenes are meant to jar us into realizing how terrible violence really is.

Art: The Creative Outlet to Save a Generation

This week’s The Onion | What Do You Think? asks: “After the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California. What do you think?” Sarah Jacobs, Lyricist, replies:

Who would have thought that a bad Austrian artist who’s obsessed with the human physical ideal could assemble such a rabid political following?

Ah jokes. Senior year I took a class on totalitarian art. There’s a lot to be said for how much Hitler looked at running an empire as having hundreds of thousands of pretty blonde toys to dress up in uniforms and order to perform for him. What would have happened if he had just gotten into art school?

Multiple Column Layout Using MT Tags

The layout of newspapers and magazines has developed into an elegant art. Web design lags behind. One of the staples of print design that the web hasn’t gotten right yet is multiple column layout. XHTML and CSS have (so far) no way to make an article automatically spill over into a second or third column.

I think, and I haven’t tested or templated this, that MovableType tags, along with a few junk divs, can be used to make a post flow into columns.

The idea, and please send me a TrackBack if you have any success, is to use trim_to and offset in your <$MTEntryBody$> to cut up each column to the same length and use multiple divs to place them where you want them.

(500 characters below is a complete guess at column length.) Something like:

<div class="col1"><$MTEntryBody trim_to="500"$></div> <div class="col2"><$MTEntryBody trim_to="500" offset="501"$></div> <div class="col2"><$MTEntryBody trim_to="500" offset="1001"$></div> 

I’m not entirely sure that offset works like this, but if not someone could probably write a plug-in. Even better, someone could write a plug-in that counts the character or word number of an entry, divides it by three, and uses that for the trim_to.

Just an idea.

iTunes for Windows

CNET News.com is reporting that Apple will be releasing iTunes for Windows one week from today. Get your pocketbooks ready!

Curse You Chik'N Pot Pie

What makes me think that the next bite won’t burn my tongue even though the one 15 seconds ago did?

Tank Tops and Corsets

I’m still amazed that we went to a Rennaisance Festival. It wasn’t what I expected it to be. There were a lot more families and blue color Marylanders there than nerds dressed in ye olde garb. I’d say 70% of the crowd were the people the same people you see at amusement parks except that the fat guys weren’t wearing their tank tops because it was too cold. My question is why weren’t any of the attractive girls the ones wearing the corsets?

Looking Forward to Superman

Batman: Hush was so good. It’s killing me to have to wait six months until Jim Lee starts drawing Superman. I think tonight’s Smallville finally got me to understand how damn good that book will be. Lee’s been quoted to say that he and Brian Azzarello are going to darken the title up a bit, which I think is good. Superman’s the good guy. The statue of the good guy, and that’s how it should be. But that’s gotta be hard. He has to doubt himself sometimes. He has to get lonely when Lois is in Washington reporting. He has to worry that being the best is a huge legacy.

I’ve always wanted to like Superman. I pick up a story here or there, and I’m usually disappointed. It’s easy to understand how a character whose flagship title is 800 issues old can be hard to write for, but still, there are a lot of good writers in the world. Why wasn’t DC recruiting the best of the industry the entire time?

Clark! Zoey!

Six minutes until Smallville and then West Wing! [deep breath]

The Allure of Crapulence

I want to go see the Texas Chainsaw remake, even though remakes suck. What is it about movies I know are going to be bad?

Babble or Prate

Here’s another good-looking page that shows what can be done with some good design sense and the TypePad template builder.

Plus he reads Bendis.

Little Red Bar

Every once in a while I click around to random websites and today I found a very pretty one with a lot of good content. Go take a tour of LittleThinkTank. I think you’ll enjoy your stay.

Of the neat things I found there: a link to a magnificent set of photos of something very pretty. Hint: sleek sleek aluminum.

I Like Toys

Chris Din delivers some of the best news I’ve ever heard: KB Toys has lost a lawsuit and is putting the entire store on sale! From the official announcement:

Defendants will distribute the Net Settlement Fund by providing a discount at the cash registers of all KB Toys, KB Toy Works, KB Toy Outlet, Toy Liquidator and KB Toys Express stores nationwide, including Guam and Puerto Rico, equal to 30% off all qualifying purchases of $30 or more during October 8-14, 2003. This distribution (the “In-store Distribution”) will be done without requiring a request of any store customer and will be separate and apart from, and in addition to, any previously planned promotional events for 2003. Defendants will not advertise or otherwise promote the distribution in advance of the In-store Distribution. Signs detailing the terms of the In-store Distribution, however, may be displayed in or around the stores during the In-store Distribution and up to 48 hours in advance of the In-store Distribution.

And I get paid this week!

Finished Warcraft III

There are a few good things about having your girlfriend gone for a week. One of them is having lots of time on your hands to devote to video games. I finished WarCraft III this weekend. Overall I thought it was fantastic. I don’t think the storyline was a strong as StarCraft’s, but I absolutely loved the smaller hero’s band approach rather than the large-scale army concept of the earlier games. I wish that people on battle.net weren’t so good, because I have fond memories of playing online StarCraft freshman year. I’m excited to jump into the expansion pack, but I’ll probably wait a week or two.

Ex Drunk A Log

In my referrer log this afternoon I found ex.drunk.a.log. It moved me. The author in an early post:

The good news is that by getting sober I was given a chance to confront all my difficulties. The bad news is that by getting sober I was given a chance to confront all my difficulties

Go read this weblog. Start with the first post. This is one of those perfect uses and reasons for the personal publishing format. It gets feelings out there. Maybe someone else has a similar life. Maybe it can help.

Justice League Season 2 Kicks Off

Aside from one teaser this summer, it’s been over a year since the last new episode of Justice League aired. Last night “Tabula Rasa” finally kicked off their second season.

And it’s going to be a good one.

The artists on the show must have been working very hard in the last two years. The artwork, which had leaned more toward the style of Superman, has taken on some of the grittier air of the older episodes of Batman. The backgrounds have a strong level of detail and there’s a much greater use of motion.

I love seeing Lex Luthor as a Silver Age super villain. His current comic book persona as sly businessman turned President of the United States is genius, but watching him run amok in a green power suit with the Justice League in hot pursuit is fun. Combining this to make a Frankenstein’s Monster story out of Amazo was just great. They made a wise change in Amazo’s from this to a plain grey morphing monster (images from Toonzone). Even more impressively, the power absorbing robot succeeds in being a serious threat to the entire league. There are moments when you can actually believe that they might not win this one.

On top of some very good widescreen action, “Tabula Rasa” also features a good side plot featuring Martian Manhunter. While the resolution of his character development in the episode ends up being a little bit cheesy, it works and I bought it.

I can’t wait to see what Bruce Timm’s team has in store for us for the rest of the season.

(New episodes air Saturdays at 10pm on Cartoon Network.)

Album Cover Challenge

Via Mena, here’s a pretty difficult quiz: 60 album covers. The band names have been removed. How many do you know?

Tip for the Chronojumper

Today I ran across a useful set of tips for anyone out there claiming to be a visitor from the future: Idle Words’ “Best Practices for Time Travelers”.

One useful snippet:

[…] insist on an infinite number of near-identical, parallel universes, so you can never travel quite to the same universe you came from. In Titor’s case, our ‘worldline’ is within 2% of his own worldline, so things like sports scores or stock prices might not match up, even if major historical events do.

Check back later today for advice on world domination.