| What Sci-Fi Crew? |
[Feb. 15th, 2006|11:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | quiz, sci-fi | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "DS9 Opening Theme" | ] |
 | You scored as Deep Space Nine (Star Trek). You have entered the dark side of the Star Trek universe. The paradise of Earth is far from you and you must survive despite having enemies on all fronts. But you wouldn�t have it any other way because you thrive in conflict and will know what needs to be done to take care of those around you. Now if only the Founders would quit trying to take over the galaxy.
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) | | 94% | Moya (Farscape) | | 94% | Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) | | 88% | Serenity (Firefly) | | 88% | SG-1 (Stargate) | | 69% | Enterprise D (Star Trek) | | 69% | Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) | | 63% | Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) | | 63% | Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) | | 56% | Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) | | 44% | Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) | | 44% | FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) | | 38% | </td>
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com |
Sometimes, I tend to disagree with the results becuase I find the questions asked too limited to express my true philosophy. So it is here, but this time the answer came out right.
DS9 has always been my favorite of the new Star Trek series. I always found ST:TNG too preachy and too "politically correct" for my taste, and Voyager was just dumb. Don't even get me started on Enterprise, though I actually found it watchable from time to time.
But DS9 appealed to me because, out of all the series done in the past couple of decades, it's the most "real." You're out on the frontier, but while it's not perfect, it's also not sterile. The bar is run by a real scoundral, but the ale is gloriously real! Best of all, you could even hope at the end of your adventures to marry, have a family, and find a plot of land to live on and quietly work. Even the characters, through their interactions and relationships, seemed the most real of any of the Star Trek series. |
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| Will You Speak Out When... |
[Feb. 2nd, 2006|05:40 pm] |
They come for the cartoonists?
As you probably know, islamists around the world are seething (like when aren't they, dear daNightman?) over six cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a negative light. Actually, they claim that no image of the prophet is to be made, though this hasn't stopped him from being depicted, even in the Moslem world, over the centuries. And the Danish cartoons are light compared to the ongoing "Mohammad the Prophet Answers Your E-mails" series.
Michelle Malkin, whose article I linked to above, mentions an on-line campaign to show support for Denmark by buying their goods. This is a good way for us at home to stand up to the terrorist bullies, because if Europe accedes to their demands, freedom of speech and satire will be threatened. Besides, a few satirical cartoons are the least of the Prophet's image problems.
So, Lego Mindstorms, anyone? |
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| Notable and Quotable... |
[Jan. 29th, 2006|05:07 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | oil, vdh | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Dark Ages" - Jethro Tull | ] |
Something bouncing around the blogs, particularly Titus One Nine and elsewhere.
If the left would push nuclear power and more drilling, and the right would push more mandatory efficiency standards and alternative fuels, the United States could cut its imports and collapse the world price.
Victor Davis Hanson
Who wouldn't think that would be a good thing nearly all around, especially to our wallets, our long term prosperity? |
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| A Great Character Actor Dies |
[Dec. 27th, 2005|06:49 am] |
Last year around this time, I heard with great regret the death of Jerry Orbach, the actor who played detective Lenny Briscoe on the series "Law and Order." A well recognized character actor, he became so associated with the city of New York that he was seen as a living ambassador of the town the series took place in.
I was on vacation in Savannah Georgia around that time, and something like that always comes as a shock.
Now, it's happened again, as we now hear of the death of character actor Vincent Schiavelli. He never played a major role, but was well known for the multitude of characters he played in movies such as Ghost, Batman Returns, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and others.
(From the Quarter.org)
He shall be missed, but his work will live on. |
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| It Came From Washington |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|07:28 pm] |
In the politics of the United States, many ideas come from the folks in Washington, DC. Some are agreed to be good by many, others benefit some of the populace at the expense of others. Many ideas are, well, half-baked.
Then there are ideas that come out of the Beltway that are so bad that the only thing one can say after their jaw drops is "what the *#?! were they smokin?" Last night, the news was full of one of those ideas.
As radio reports suggested that the commission suggested a mileage tax on Hybrid vehicles and other fuel efficient cars. Yep, it suggested punishing people who buy more fuel efficient cars to save on gasoline expenses by taxing them by the mile.
Actually, the Boston Globe article suggests having a vehicle tax to punish the fuel frugal and a mileage tax as separate issues. In a time where gasoline prices surged to $3.00US a gallon, this later still strikes me as exceedingly irresponsible in that it benefits those that drive gas guzzling vehicles when the thing needed is more efficiency in the national fleet. Add to this the continuing refusal of Congress to take any but the most pointlessly symbolic actions, and you have a government that can not...or will not...take this critical national survival issue seriously.
How about this for an idea: instead of finding new ways to hammer our wallets, why not just use the Federal Highway Trust fund for highway projects that are actually FEDERAL (as in between states). That way, we can cut a lot of the excess by cutting ALL non-highway and intra-state projects (meaning Alaska has to pay for that Bridge to Nowhere. You all can cover that, right, Sen. Stevens?[R-Alaska]) |
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| A Crack in the Walls of the Hermit Kingdom |
[Nov. 20th, 2005|12:16 am] |
| [ | music |
| | "Volga" - Frederik | ] |
Tonight on the program CNN Presents we have a documentary by Jung Eun Kim showing the efforts of North Korean dissidents to get news of the outside into their hermit nation, and show how things are inside the psycho-prison camp empire of the Pyongyang Pipsqueak.
The show, "Undercover in the Secret State" shows scenes taken inside North Korea, taken at great risk and smuggled out of the country. What you'll see, including starvation, corpses laying in the street, public executions and great abuse and cruelty, makes for disturbing viewing. But if you believe in prayer, perhaps you might spare a few for those risking their lives to get the truth out, and to help crack the veil of lies protecting the secrecy of this modern day Mordor.
Even crossing the Chinese-North Korean border is dangerous. Like Mordor, one does not simply walk in.
That veil of lies and propaganda is likely the only thing the Pyongyang Pipsqueak has to truly protect him (except perhaps the nukes), and the sooner it's striped the better for the world. Kim Jong Il is a brutal anachronism whose time should never have come and has passed a long time ago.
Time for the Pipsqueak to go down! |
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| Attention All Creators |
[Nov. 6th, 2005|03:49 pm] |
I have some bad news here. Andrew Knight has filed, and the US Patents and Trademark Office has now published, the first application for a storyline patent in history (USPTO application #20050244804).
This first claim, one that Knight states is one of several to be published later this month, covers a plot-line where a student awaiting an MIT entrance prays to sleep until the letter arrives. When he awakens, he finds that 30 years have passed where he lived as a "philosophical zombie," with no recollection of his life during the intervening period.
If this patent was applicable in, say, 2000, films such as "Memento" or "50 First Dates," among others, would be liable for patent infringement on all counts listed in the filing, and touches the ancient sleeping hero motif used in Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" and the Japanese Urashima Taro legend. The later appears in various anime such as Love Hina and is the central plot element of Beautiful Dreamer, the second UY movie written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. I could also mention the short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, but I think I've made my first point.
But aside of the issue of prior art in regard, not just to this, but any attempted storyline patent, the bigger issue is whether stories should be patented at all. Richard Stallman demonstrates some of the damage done by relating a patent application could, for instance, ban the publication of Victor Hugo's famous "Les Miserables" if they existed back in the 1800s in an article he wrote for the Guardian back in June of this year. Who would dare write the Great American Novel if he could be sued for, and be fined for, multiple (not just one) patent infringement for elements in it?
Not many. And I suspect that goes double for fanfic writers.
Can we hope the patent office, notorious for not finding prior art if it bit them, will reject this trash? What will the courts decide?
Why wait? Here is the full patent application from the USPTO for you to peruse. You might want to contact the USPTO and relate your thoughts on this to them, not just on the prior art issues but on the chilling effect of the notion itself. You might also want to write your congressman about this, and recommend that laws be passed to limit USPTO authority in this area.
The story you save...may be your own.
Related notations: Slashdot broke the story on Friday.
Richard Stallman more details on this in his blog "Right to Create." |
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| Is Paris Burning? |
[Nov. 3rd, 2005|09:42 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | burning, paris, terrorism | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  melancholy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Bad Moon Rising" - Credance Clearwater Revival | ] |
I don't know, but with 20 towns around it now involved in the Paris Intifada, now in its eighth straight day, you can smell the smoke from here.
It's interesting to note the people reporting on this working to ignore the fact that these are Muslim. I was listening to a report from CNN radio this morning and you hear the reporter attempting to ignore the two-ton Elephant in the room.
Seriously, if you look at photos like this:
and this:
you definitely come away with the notion that France has come seriously unglued. Factor the fact that the youths are resting up for the nightly battles, and you get the sense that this is going to go on for a while...
That's without reports of youths shooting at police. Could this be the start of a Eurabian insurrection in the heart of France?
That's certainly the opinions on the nets from such places as "Ipso Facto" and Cox and Forkum.
I have to agree. There is a bad moon rising.
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| Now, Finally, a Group Everyone Detests! |
[Oct. 24th, 2005|10:20 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | bored | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Carl Perkin's Cadillac" - Drive-by Truckers | ] |
Huzzah! Finally, a musical act everyone is getting heartburn over, something not even bat-head eating metal or gangsta rap could do.
And it only took two teenage girls singing about Rudolph Hess to do it.
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the "Olsen Twins of hate," Lynx and Lamb Gaede who form the band Prussian Blue.
[Pssst...] what, you said that was Russian Blue? Oh, dang that spell checker.
Anyway, their cute looks and racist musical messages have captured the attention of media outlets from ABC News to the London News Telegraph
So what's new about them? Nothing, aside of the fact that in an increasingly rare moment in this country, everybody of every political stripe, from the alternative SFist to the arch-conservative blog Free Republic.
And it's as danged near unanimous as it can in this day and age...We're appalled!!!
Anyway, that's their fifteen minutes of fame...everyone enjoy your grapefruit! A new one will be along shortly.
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| Smurf 'em All, and let God Smurf 'em out!!!!! |
[Oct. 9th, 2005|09:14 pm] |
I got this a few minutes before finding out that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jwz noted this, but this is so weird you'll hear about this everywhere sooner or later.
In a fund raising campaign to support ex-child soldiers, UNICEF just unveiled a 25-second film where the Smurfs get bombed in their village. The people of Belgium, the land of the blue creature's origin, were shocked to see the first adult Smurf episode.
Weird thing is, this was actually approved by the family of the late creator of the Smurfs, Peyo. jwz has the videos, but the frame rate is a snail's paced 0.3 fps.
One person on the web, however, got the idea first. I think this pic, from the late webcomic "The Parking Lot is Full", gives you the flavor of the short sharp shock.
Gargamel never came up with this one, apparently. Then again, that's why he never got 'em. OTOH, could it be that they got their fate for their chosen political system?
UPDATE - 21:19: This does, however, fulfill a fantasy of the large American anti-smurf fans, like the folks that came up with this poem. They got their dead smurfs afterall. ;-> |
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| What Happens if You're a Crashing Boar in Seoul |
[Oct. 2nd, 2005|09:11 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
A bit of excitement in Seoul a couple of days ago as a wild boar came down from the mountains and attacked two people, one in a bar and another in a park. After disappearing and being sighted again in another district of the city, the authorities went after the piggie. The animal gave said authorities an eleven hour chase before they finally killed it.
I'm sure someone's going to have a fine roast this weekend. |
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| Drop Down the Cone of Silence... |
[Sep. 26th, 2005|10:15 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Get Smart OP" | ] |
for the last time.
The Shoephone has its last ring.
Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart in the 1960's classic James Bond parody, "Get Smart", died today of a lung infection at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, CA. He was 82.
BTW, in a personal connection with this show, Maxwell Smart's "second car" was a gold 1969 Opel GT. Don drove it in many episodes around season five of the show, and it appears in the Bill Murray film "Stripes." I mention this because I have a 1972 Opel GT (they didn't change that much) which is...gold.
Would you believe that car could pass for Maxwell Smart's vehicle?
Would you believe it if it ever got out of the garage?
UPDATE: I was looking for clips of the car, and as they say, "seek and ye shall find." Here is the opening of the Fifth Season of "Get Smart", featuring the Opel GT.
And here is Maxwell Smart being pulled over in it! (Clips from the Opel Motorsports Club website, http://www.opelclub.com/index.html |
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| Can you do this? |
[Aug. 25th, 2005|10:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Star Spangled Banner" - Francis Scott Key | ] |
An increasing number of people can't, sadly, even in this country.
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test | 
Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct! |
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| A Great Reporter Passes |
[Aug. 7th, 2005|11:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sad | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Lacremosa" - Mozart | ] |
Just a few minutes ago, what some have reported on the net was confirmed by ABC News President David Westin.
Peter Jennings, "ABC World News" anchor since 1983, has just passed away only four months after announcing his diagnosis of lung cancer.
Whatever you think of journalism as a profession, or the state of the news today, it cannot be denied that Jennings was a man of class who will be missed. |
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| GI Joe Sigma Six |
[Aug. 2nd, 2005|07:31 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Music? We have to have music?! | ] |
Hasbro has a new GI Joe series coming out called "GI Joe Sigma Six," produced by, of all people, Gonzo, known for such shows as Blue Sub 6, Kiddy Grade. You can see the trailer for it here.
First big news is that the sneak peak of the first episode is this saturday, August 6.
But what's even more exciting is this...
Ladies and Gentlemen...G.I. Joe can finally shoot straight!
(Don't know about Cobra...they'll have to take up the slack.) |
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| The World Turned Upside Down |
[Jul. 31st, 2005|10:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bitchy | ] |
1). So former President Jimmy Carter is saying that Gitmo is an "embarrassment," and that he wouldn't be surprised if we get terrorism because of this.
Just one question, and I've asked this before. Until recently, I considered Carter a better ex-President than a President, but he's since overran even that bit of good karmic credit.
Exactly how stoned was this country back in 1976 to ever consider voting for this idiot, much less make him a President? Or was Ford that much worse?
2). Cox and Forkum have this editorial cartoon about the NYT's editorial condemning the "Take Back the Memorial" effort "unamerican."
For reference, the Take Back the Memorial effort wants a space on Ground Zero sacred to the memory of those that gave their lives to rescue people on 9/11, and those that lost their lives there on that terrible day. Others, including the NYT, want this space as a come-on-come-all space for political discourse. To the former, the Old Gray Lady has this to say:
[T]his is not really a campaign about money or space. It is a campaign about political purity -- about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the Iraq war. On their Web site, www.takebackthememorial.org, critics of the cultural plan at ground zero offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities "that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events." This, to us, sounds un-American.
Excuse my asking, but how is the request that a memorial space to those lost on 9/11, well, actually remember them unamerican? And who the Hell does Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, the editor of the NYT, think he is to define who is or isn't "American", anyway?
And speaking of gall...
3). How about NASA, who spent 1500 million dollars on a Space Shuttle repair that hasn't seemed to have repaired anything? This is the redesigned Space Shuttle, safe for flight, that is now falling apart at the seams in slow motion.
First the foam that grounded the fleet...again...and now the gap filler material is dangling from between the ceramic tiles of the Space Shuttle.
Can we retire the shuttle, a space vehicle that failed to met any of the stated goals its backers touted, and replace it with something that works. Maybe something that's on the top of a rocket instead of on the side of it?
For the amount of money this effort cost, I'd hate to think how unsafe it would be if they didn't do it...
4). OTOH, we have Matt Drudge, on his radio show, saying it doesn't look like we're "meant" to leave Earth orbit.
Of course, we were never meant to fly in jets at 33000 feet, run submersibles miles under the ocean, or many other things. By that logic, we should ground the commercial air fleet and bring all subs to dock, and return to walking to work every day. We do all these things well when politics aren't put before safety or good engineering, so maybe Drudge should consider that next time he walks into an airport. |
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| End of the (Royal) Line |
[Jul. 19th, 2005|10:25 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | awake | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Requeim Mass" - Mozart | ] |
The last imperial prince of the Korean Royal line died, they estimate, three days ago of a heart attack (they think) in a room at the Akasaka Prince Hotel in Tokyo Japan. The time and manner of his departure from this world are a matter of estimation because, after a long life full of ups and downs, the last prince of Korea died alone in his hotel room, hundreds of miles from his homeland.
His obituary can be found in this article in the Korea Chosun Ilbo. A full biography of his life can be found in a wikipedia entry here.
A lonely end to a long royal line.
UPDATE: The Joseon Dynasty ruled Korea from the fall of the Goreyo dynasty in 1392 to the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910. Included in this dynasty is Emperor Sejong the Great, a gifted inventor, writer and linguist who guided the creation of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. |
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