Google Calendar CalDAV support

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.

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:

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

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)

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.

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

Dr. Horrible

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

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.

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.