davextreme: July 2008

28 July 2008

Google Calendar CalDAV support

Need to try this when I get home. I’d love to be able to sync my home calendar with Google’s.

26 July 2008

Watchmen Stuff

Watchmen was a comic book series in the 80s that’s widely regarded as the greatest graphic novel of all time and often appears on lists of the great novels of the 20th century. Zack Snyder is directing a movie coming out next spring, which is getting great buzz. Some links:

The trailer released last week.
A writeup of the Comic-Con panel.
A set of six teaser posters.
The original house ads for the comic on which the posters are based.
The book on Amazon.
An interview with author Alan Moore who, unsurprisingly, isn’t a fan of Warner Bros. making a movie of his work.

21 July 2008

Secret Invasion Tie-Ins

Along the lines of what I was saying earlier, Don MacPherson illustrates nicely the problem with Brian Michael Bendis’s tie-ins to Secret Invasion in New Avengers and Mighty Avengers:

You know, I’m really getting bored of these Avengers flashback issues that fill the readership in on what was really going on in these titles right from the start. […] It’s Elektra… does anyone really care when she went from being a human ninja warrior to an alien ninja warrior?

Exactly. We already know what happens. The backstory has to be very compelling to overcome the fact that its narrative tension has already been broken.

The Terrific, Tragic Origin of Dr. Horrible

I know, I know, I can’t stop talking about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Bear with me for a minute.

Star Wars started in the middle of its tale, and did it brilliantly. Did you really need to know how Darth Vader became a bad guy? No, the movies were perfect just as they were, starting with part four. Certainly the prequels could have been better, but no matter what story they told, they still end with Darth Vader becoming the villain, which you figure out pretty quickly in the very first scene of the original movie. Why bother telling the whole story when you can just tell the interesting stuff and leave the rest to your the imagination?

Lost has just gotten through a similar problem. When the show started out, the flashback sequences were a great format that gave you background about the character that contrasted with what was going on the present. But once you know that Charlie is a failed rock star and junkie, how many more episodes do you need to see of his pathetic life? Again, just give us enough to know what’s going on. Fan fiction writers will will in the rest.

Dr. Horrible gives us a neat spin on this. We see how a small time crook becomes the mighty Dr. Horrible, but we never see who he is afterwards. Maybe he becomes the leader of the Evil League of Evil. Maybe he really does take over the world. It’s like Joss Whedon just gave us Bruce Wayne’s training on the mountain and cut out the context where he becomes Batman. We get Dr. Horrible’s tragic rise to power, and then a fade to black instead of the rest of the picture. Sure, he could probably go back and make the rest of the movie, but why bother when he’s already shot the good parts?

Peter's Evil Overlord List

Peter’s Evil Overlord List

A classic. (via DrOct)

16 July 2008

Requiem for a cheeky 'Batman'

Requiem for a cheeky ‘Batman’

Neat piece by the man who wrote the pilot for the 60s Batman series, which, despite the harm it did to comics for years to come, I adore.

15 July 2008

Exclusivity

Final Fantasy XIII is going to come out for both the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360, and some people are furious. My feeling is that what system a consenting adult plays a game on in the privacy of his own home is no one else’s business. That someone else is playing the game on a different console does not affect your ability to enjoy it on the console of your choice.

Dr. Horrible

Act I is out today. II and III will be Thursday and Saturday.

13 July 2008

Geotagging Photos in Flickr from your iPhone

The iPhone now has the ability to add the location a photo was taken to its metadata. Flickr’s been able to handle this for a while, but you had to map the photos manually. To enable it to understand the location data, first you have to authorize it to “Import EXIF location data” in your Privacy & Permissions settings. Unfortunately, according to Macworld, this data isn’t included if you email the photo directly from your iPhone, but if you copy it to your computer first, then upload it, it should work. Emailing a photo directly from the phone also resizes it, though, so it’s better to upload them from your computer anyway. I’m hoping that Flickr will release an iPhone app at some point.

11 July 2008

Sweet: Pandora's Streaming Radio App for iPhone | Listening Post from Wired.com

Sweet: Pandora’s Streaming Radio App for iPhone

Sounds like it’s worth checking out, but sadly I don’t have much occasion to listen to these sorts of things as it won’t work on the Metro.

The Real Price Difference Between the Old and New iPhone - Pogue's Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog

The Real Price Difference Between the Old and New iPhone

Since you’re dividing the true cost of the new iPhone over time, if you invest the money it’s actually cheaper than the old ones.

10 July 2008

The Jefferson Bible

Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible, editing it down to just the moral codes and laws.

09 July 2008

Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics

Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics

Huge index.

08 July 2008

The letters of Stanley Kubrick - Telegraph

In Popular Culture

For no reason whatsoever today the phrase “elephant graveyard” popped into my head, which of course meant I had to look up the Magic: The Gathering card of the same name because I couldn’t remember what it did1. Naturally the first place I look is Google, which leads me to Wikipedia, I kid you fucking not:

In popular culture
In the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering, an elephant graveyard is a land card.

Compare to yesterday’s XKCD. Can something be parody when it’s that close to reality?

Tap to add 1 colorless mana to your mana pool or regenerate an Elephant or Mammoth. (source)

A Song of Ice and Fire

“This isn’t going to be one of those love stories, is it?” Bran asked suspiciously. “Hodor doesn’t like those so much. […] He likes the stories where the knights fight monsters.”
“Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran.”

From A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. I’m about halfway through, with the next sitting on my shelf, but that quote about sums it up.

Previous/Next and Back/Next pagination links considered harmful

This is something that trips me up, too. “Newer”/”Older” is much better.

YouTube - Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma

Neat long take video, but it totally steals from Wes Anderson down to the choice of type.

07 July 2008

Kubrick Questions Finally Answered - An In Depth Talk with Leon Vitali

Good stuff about the big aspect ratio question.

kubrickonia: Orange Times Vol. 2 No. 001 1972

Tabloid format program that was distributed when A Clockwork Orange came out.

Coudal Partners's Stuff About Stanley Kubrick

Coudal Partners’s Stuff About Stanley Kubrick

Going to be reposting a bunch of stuff from here for posterity.

04 July 2008

Superman 2000

Tim Callahan and Chat Nevett over the past month took a look at a pitch that Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Mark Wait, and Tom Peyer did called Superman 2000 that never ended up being published. They had lots of great ideas—and some that weren’t as great—but it’s a fascinating read. Much of it eventually turned into Morrison’s All Star Superman masterpiece, Geoff Johns is using a few of the ideas in his Action Comics, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Millar use some if he ever gets over to DC or is allowed to pitch his movie idea. Notice how their idea to break up Lois and Clark is almost exactly what Marvel ended up doing to Peter and Mary Jane.

2001: A Space Odyssey Program

Amazing printed program that was distributed to the attendees of the premier of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Citizen Kubrick | Features | guardian.co.uk Film

Citizen Kubrick

Great piece on the obsessive research Stanley Kubrick would do for his films.

Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season | Media | guardian.co.uk

Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season

What if all advertisements were this artfully done? I guess you’d still get sick of them and want to fast forward.

Magical negro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A black character, often a janitor or prisoner, who appears out of nowhere to offer wisdom to a white character.

03 July 2008

scans_daily: Batman 113: Zur! En! Arrh!

This week’s Batman references another old story. I get that it’s like a game for Morrison to bring in strange obscure things, but it’s be nice to see a footnote or something on the back page.

02 July 2008

Captain Hammer: Be Like Me! Nemesis of Dr. Horrible

By Zack Whedon, a tie-in to Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

The Umbrella Academy: Anywhere But Here

New short from Dark Horse Presents.

Hancock

I don’t intend to go see Hancock, but my prediction is that it’s going to suffer from the same problem Heroes does: its creators wanted to play with the superhero genre but don’t know much about it. Most of this stuff has been done before, probably better, but since they don’t know that they can’t add much of a new spin on it. As Heidi McDonald puts it:

The plot and premise here reminds me of what I would see back in the day when I was editing whenever some Hollywood guy or gal pitched me some ideas—they would be some kind of simple, deconstructed idea that would never get past the slush pile at Marvel or DC because they were so simple and direct—a regular man must deal with the effects of getting superpowers on his family (Unbreakable), what if a superheroine dated a regular guy (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), what if a superhero was a drunk (Hancock).

It’s funny, come to think of it, how many sci-fi movies Smith has done. Independence Day, Men In Black, I, Robot, I Am Legend, and throw in Wild Wild West as steampunk. I like that he brings this stuff to the mainstream, but in this superhero overkill summer, you’re probably better off to wait two weeks for The Dark Knight.

Presto

Short film that accompanies Wall-E. (link opens iTunes)

A Clever Trick for Automatically Finding Deals You Want at Amazon

How to create an RSS feed that filters Amazon’s Gold Box for specified search terms.