Just in case anyone was wondering, there have been no updates in White Wolf v. Sony since the last time I posted. In theory, depositions were done by now, but I haven’t seen any signs of progress. The last court papers were filed on 11/5/2003 and there’s been nothing since then.
Author: Bryant
Chris Corrigan’s Maps and Territories is a translucently simple blog. Each entry contains a map, along with a bit of literature that relates to the map. Evocative and, for a map lover like me, irresistable.
Sure, spammers are scum of the earth, but the plight of the guy who made death threats kind of warms the cockles of my heart. Welcome to the real world, in which making death threats is not considered a normal element of discourse. I’ve been on the company’s of that sort of thing a little too often to feel sorry for Mr. Booker.
Did you ever read Usenet? Miss those newsreader days? Population: One is now available via NNTP. It is perhaps a bit quixotic of Dan to scrape weblogs rather than slurping up RSS feeds, but it’s a kind of quix I have to admire. The old diesel engine of blog syndication, as it were.
The North Korean crisis has been pretty quiet lately, at least until KEDO decided to halt the North Korean reactor project.
This is pressure on North Korea to come back to the negotiating table. We’re betting that North Korea won’t escalate as a result. The only levers we have are power, food, and military action. We’re not going to starve people, and even if we were so inclined, the UN is working on food aid. We’re not going to invade a nuclear power. That leaves cutting the nuclear power plant construction, which has the advantage of not making the North Korean situation any worse. It just blocks one method of making things better, so it’s about the most palatable pressure possible.
No telling how North Korea will react. That reaction will determine if applying pressure was in fact the best thing to do.
I almost passed on Intolerable Cruelty, but it’s been a long time since I missed a Coen Brothers flick and I figured I might as well watch George Clooney emanating suave for a couple of hours. The Coens didn’t write the movie, which means it’s not the pure hit of creative oddness I wanted, but it was still OK.
As Coen screwball comedies go, it’s no Hudsucker Proxy, and as Coen romantic comedies go, it’s no Raising Arizona. I don’t think it was trying to be a screwball comedy, really; there wasn’t any snappy dialogue in the classic screwball sense. It felt more like a casual exercise than anything else.
The acting was perfectly solid, Catherine Zeta-Jones was luscious, and Clooney was great. I didn’t dislike the movie. It just didn’t have the zing you expect from the Coens — no bite.
Jon Udell has a very good article about using Bayesian techniques to categorize blog postings. I think this is rather interesting, because I keep meaning to try Bayesian filtering on (alternately) Usenet and my mailing lists. The difference between me and Udell is that he went out and did it and got paid for writing about it.
Now that he’s pointed me at the right tools, I may try this on Usenet. Bwah hah ha.
Mom’s getting out of the hospital on Saturday, much to her (and my) relief. She really appreciated the cards and best wishes — thanks to all.
We now return to my usual veil of silence about my personal life.
Glenn Reynolds wants to know if Hollywood is swinging conservative. He quotes one of his readers:
“At the moment it is almost impossible to imagine Hollywood producing a MASH or Catch 22 or Doctor Strangelove (Although I hasten to add Strangelove will always be in my top five movies.) It wouldn’t dare. They may still smile knowingly over their designer water at home but not in their films.”
The terrifying “they.”
In any case, someone’s suffering a severe failure of imagination, I fear. As a corrective measure, I’d recommend that Glenn and his correspondant spend a day with their DVD players. Start out with Three Kings, which is topically applicable and which came out four years ago. Move on to Hulk, for a more current movie with no fondness for the military. And just to make the situation crystal clear, pop in The Quiet American. (Which nearly didn’t get released, admittedly — but which, in the end, did.)