Death by a Thousand Cuts

In his October 2004 address to the American people, bin Laden noted that the 9/11 attacks cost al Qaeda only a fraction of the damage inflicted upon the United States. “Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event,” he said, “while America in the incident and its aftermath lost — according to the lowest estimates — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”

Al Queda doesn’t have to do much to make us do a lot.

Death by a Thousand Cuts - By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross | Foreign Policy

127 Hours

And that’s why you always leave a note.

—J. Walter Weatherman

I’ve been a fan of Danny Boyle’s films since Trainspotting, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go see 127 Hours. A movie based on the true story of a hiker who gets trapped under a rock and has to cut off his own arm? Wouldn’t that be unbearable to watch? Turns out, yes and no.

Honestly, if you’re squeamish, you can still watch this movie. The whole thing is tense, but it only gets really bad for about two minutes. If you’re worried you can’t take the arm-cutting, here’s my advice: after about an hour and fifteen minutes, he realizes what he has to do. The scene starts with him breaking his own arm. When that happens, leave the theater for three minutes, then come back. You’ll be fine and he’ll be free.

I stayed, and it was an overwhelming but rewarding experience. When he finally gets free, my heart rate was elevated and I took a bunch of hurried breaths to release the tension. It’s amazing what James Franco pulls off, doing a whole movie stuck in what looks like a tiny chasm. He has to carry the film single handedly, so to speak, and does.

April 11, 1954

Every day something of significance happens, a person is born who is destined for fame, there is an event in the arts or sports, history is created. With 300 million of these facts fed into the “brain” of True Knowledge, Tunstall-Pedoe’s Cambridge company, the computer was asked: “What was the most boring day in the 20th century?”

April 11, 1954, apparently.

Christmas Playlist 2010

I’ve been very carefully building a Christmas playlist for the past few years. I only add one song a year, and I only listen to the songs on the list between Thanksgiving and the Epiphany. There are now ten songs on the list.

1. “The Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues
2. “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley
3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland
4. “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon
5. “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby
6. “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” by Dean Martin
7. (New) “The Christmas Song” by Nat “King” Cole
8. “Baby It’s Cold Outside” by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
9. “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” by David Bowie & Bing Crosby
10. “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade

Previously

Apple Makes Find My iPhone Free

Macworld reports that the “Find My iPhone” service will be free for all iOS 4.2 users starting today. “Find My iPhone” lets you locate your iPhone from any Web browser or iOS device in case your phone is lost or stolen, or you want to track your spouse/children.

Schneier on Backscatter X-Ray Machines

Security expert Bruce Schneier has posted a great roundup of links to news stories and studies about the use of x-ray backscatter machines in airports.

Personally I do sympathize with the TSA’s charge to protect us from planes getting blown up or hijacked but think these machines go over the line. Here’s my simple test: imagine that instead of using these machines to take a naked x-ray picture of you, the TSA required you to step behind a screen and undress in front of one of their agents while they take your picture (which they claim they won’t retain).

I think we’d be far safer spending the $300-400 million we spent on these scanners to instead hire air marshals. As Schneier points out, the shoe and underwear bombers were caught by humans noticing something wrong, not machines.

Meanwhile in the TARDIS

Two excellent deleted scenes from the most recent season of Doctor Who. (via)

Eat a Bagel, Lose Your Baby

The ACLU of Pennsylvania recently filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of a couple whose newborn baby was kidnapped by Lawrence County Children and Youth Services (LCCYS) because her mother recklessly consumed an “everything” bagel from Dunkin’ Donuts the day before the birth. Jameson Hospital, where Isabella Rodriguez was born on April 27, has a policy of testing expectant mothers’ urine for illegal drugs and reporting positive results to LCCYS, even without any additional evidence that the baby is in danger of neglect or abuse. LCCYS, in turn, has a policy of seizing such babies from their homes based on nothing more than the test result. Unfortunately for Isabella’s parents, Elizabeth Mort and Alex Rodriguez, Jameson sets the cutoff level for its opiate test so low that it can be triggered by poppy seeds, which is why two caseworkers and two Neshannock Township police officers visited their home the day after baby and mother returned from the hospital. LCCYS seized the three-day-old girl and put her in foster care for five days before conceding it had made a mistake.

Eat a Bagel, Lose Your Baby - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine. My memory of when Mythbusters tested this is that they found even a few bites of something with poppy seeds will set off a drug test. (via)

What The Old Timers Used To Call Cabin Fever

From left to right, every costume change Jack makes in The Shining.

The Washington Post for iPad

The Washington Post App for iPad (iTunes link)

I’ve used this a bit in the past few days and like it a lot. It feels snappier than The New York Times’s iPad app. I find it easy to browse through the sections and read stories I’m interested in. Easier than using the webpage.

A few niggles:

• I think prefer pagination to scrolling for long articles on the iPad (as opposed to on the Web), but here I don’t mind it much.
• They’ve locked out copy and paste, which is silly.
• The ever-present ad bar at the bottom seems like wasted space. Maybe the ads could float in/around the articles instead? Worse is the floating social media bar thing. It’s a lot of pixels at the bottom of the page I’m just ignoring. It’s early, though. Maybe they’ll make good use of it.

Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale

This is it. I can feel it. It’s okay. We each get to be in the world a time, and I’ve had mine. It can be tough. It can be ugly. But I’m grateful for the journey and what I’ve stumbled across along the way.

As it was cancelled long before its time, there are many stories that Joss Whedon never got to tell in Firefly. The film cleans up the main River Tam plot, but the character of Shepherd Book never got a chance to have his story told. In this new hardcover from Dark Horse Books, Zack Whedon tells Book’s tale from outlines by brother Joss, with art by Chris Samnee.

The story starts with what could be a deleted scene from Serenity and then flashes back to glimpses of Book’s life. We see some of his time at the abbey and some of his much-speculated career as a soldier. There’s a nice twist at just the right place, precisely as I was worrying, “this is it? The big secret is that he used to be a soldier?”

The graphic novel’s plot structure reminds me of Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. Both books start at the end and work their way back in time through embedded flashbacks. It’s a neat format that works nicely here and makes great use of the sort of overlapping narration Scott McCloud talks about in Understanding Comics, where the dialogue from the previous scene carries over to a panel in a different time/place, creating a contrast between the two settings. I don’t know that Whedon was thinking of The Gunslinger when he structured the story this way (he probably would have mentioned it in the backmatter along with the other influences he references), but I’ve always felt the same gritty, western feel in both the Dark Tower and Serenity ’verses.

While I enjoyed the book, reading it made me sad that the series ended so early. That Joss Whedon decided to disclose Shepherd Book’s backstory serves as further proof that no new movies are coming. I recommend The Shepherd’s Tale to anyone who loved Firefly and is curious about Book’s history, or just wants to revisit the trappings of the series for a few minutes. Amazon has it on sale for $9 and I would expect to see Dark Horse put out an iPad version as well.

I'm Here

I’m Here is a brilliant, stylish short film by Spike Jonze. I highly recommend you take twenty minutes and watch it.

This is the sort of thing the internet makes great. Short films are hard to get in front of people because networks don’t run them and they don’t fill seats in movie theaters, but you can put them online and people can watch them. I question the decision to build the whole site in Flash, though. Wouldn’t it be better to offer a download so people can watch it on their iPod or stream it to their TV?

Thirty-Five Images of Space Helmet Reflections

from 3 Ton Gallery

Suggested Real Name: Katherine "Kitty" Pryde

Letters of Note publishes the pitch page for Kitty Pryde from 1978.

Jamie Hewlett Illustrates "Common People"

Eight page comic of Pulp’s Common People by Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl, Gorillaz).

The Walking Dead Google Map

I read The Walking Dead in hardcover, so I’m always about a year behind. Thus, this map has spoilers in it, but if you just look at it zoomed out you get a general idea of the landscape. It starts in Kentucky and moves to Atlanta.

Daring Fireball: Going Flash-Free on Mac OS X, and How to Cheat When You Need It

Daring Fireball: Going Flash-Free on Mac OS X, and How to Cheat When You Need It

The Single Weirdest Thing in the Batcave

I’m pretty sure that this is the single weirdest thing in the Batcave. And considering it’s only two doors down from a robotic tyrannosaurus, that’s saying something.

—The Weirdest Thing in the Batcave: Batman’s Truth Chamber - ComicsAlliance | Comics culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

Batman & Robin 16

It is worth noting that the way this finale plays out only underscores how unnecessary and fabricated the recent Bruce Wayne: The Road Home issues truly were, as if that wasn’t already readily apparent from those forgettable one-shots. It doesn’t take a close reading of this issue to realize none of the events of The Road Home fit logically within the confines of Morrison’s story.

—Batman and Robin #16 Review - Comics Review at IGN

Grant Morrison on the Logo Design for Batman & Robin

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