John McClane for President in 2008
Now here’s a presidential candidate I can get behind.
McClane was fighting the war on terror before it even had a name — and he’s proven he can win it.
John McClane believes in strong health care — he just doesn’t have time to get to a doctor when he’s being shot at.
McClane gets that technology creates as many problems as it solves. Relying on a gadget is no replacement for doing it yourself.
McClane knows that patriotism isn’t about waving a flag while you sit on the couch watching ‘American Idol’. It’s about getting off your butt and fighting for what’s right.
McClane is the American cowboy for our times. He gets how important action-packed portrayals of true heroism are.
Since he hasn’t announced a running mate yet, given that I’m not in entire agreement with his stance on technology, may I suggest Angus MacGyver? Equally as able to get out and get things done, but his willingness to use and adapt available technology would be a nice balance to McClane’s ‘hands-on’ approach.
(via nyquil.org)
Twice an Uncle
I got this little note from dad last night…
Paul Fain Hanscom was born at 5:58PM AST (6:58PM in Oregon). Emily and Paul are doing fine. They had not recorded height and weight when Kevin called.
I now have two nephews, and Noah has a brother! Yay!
Congrats to Kev, Emily, and Noah. We’re looking forward to meeting Paul!
Another Valentine’s Day Present
Valentine’s Day morning, as I was puttering about the house and getting ready for the day while Prairie slept in, there was a knock at the door. When I answered, I was handed a package from Amazon by one of our landlords. This was a little confusing, as I didn’t remember ordering anything, but it was definitely addressed to me. Okay, whatever…
When I opened it, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find The Cult of Mac, which I’d put on my Amazon Wishlist not too long ago. On the shipping invoice was a nice little note from ‘Liz in Pittsburgh,’ who reads this site and decided to send me a Valentine’s Day present — cool!
So, many thanks to Liz! I got about halfway through yesterday as I was bussing around town, and have been enjoying all the stories of the Mac über-fans (and, unsurprisingly, seeing elements of myself in more than a few of the stories). I hope your Valentine’s Day was a good one as well!
De M’amour Soiez Sure
Our Valentine’s Day presents to each other: poesy rings inscribed with ‘Of my love be sure’ in French.
The original of this 15th century poesy ring can be found at The British Museum, Dept. of Medieval and Modern Europe, London, England.
The original of this ring is enameled gold. The hoop is rounded on the outer edge where it is engraved with an interlaced band between two rows of sprigs. The poesy is engraved in the interior of the ring in period French, though the ring is actually English. French remained the language of the Court and Nobility for several centuries after the Norman Invasion in 1066.
Poesy (n): A short poem or sentiment decoratively inscribed on rings or jewelry, particularly in the Middle Ages – usually a romantic gift or token of friendship.
Tradition has it that words which touch the skin have a particular power. Poesy Rings were traditionally given in sterling silver as engagement rings, and then replaced with the same ring in gold upon marriage.
Everything New is Old Again
A short quote from the end of an article about the Seattle Monorail: “Like so many inventions, lack of financial backing prevented further development.” What’s interesting about this (at least to Seattleites…er, well, at least to me…) is that it’s talking not about the recent monorail debacle, nor the existing monorail built for the 1962 Worlds Fair, but the 1911 William H. Boyes Monorail.
This test track was built and demonstrated in 1911 in the tideflats of Seattle, Washington. The rails were made of wood and track cost was estimated to be around $3,000 per mile. A bargain! The Seattle Times commented at the time that “the time may come when these wooden monorail lines, like high fences, will go straggling across country, carrying their burden of cars that will develop a speed of about 20 miles per hour.” Like so many inventions, lack of financial backing prevented further development.
Neat!
(via Paleo-Future, quoted paragraph from Monorails in History)
Netscape Has Left the Building
Netscape Navigator, one of the first ‘popular’ web browsers, is dead.
Navigator will continue to function should you happen to have a recent copy stashed away. But American Online, which has been Netscape’s guardian during its long, downward slide in popularity, will no longer support the browser and will stop releasing updates. Support for all versions of the software will be off-loaded to the Netscape community forum. Netscape.com will continue to live on as a web portal.
A sad, if unsurprising and inevitable end. One of my earliest web pages bills itself right at the top as being ‘Netscape 2.0 enhanced.’ Times gone by….
Star Trek Optimism
When I first heard that work was beginning on a new Star Trek film, I suppose you could have described my first response as ‘cautiously optimistic’ — however, that reaction would have swayed far more towards the caution side of things than the optimism side.
However, as more and more (non-spoilery) details appear, I’m moving more and more towards the ‘optimism’ side. While there are still a few little details that raise warning flags (for instance, that the script was written by the guys who wrote Transformers), overall, things are looking good.
Recently, director J.J. Abrams, writer and producer Roberto Orci and a fair chunk of the cast and crew spent a little time between shots doing a couple of Q-and-A sessions on the Trek Movie fan weblog. Full transcripts are posted here and here, but they’ve thoughtfully provided an ‘executive summary’ list. All in all, I think there’s a lot of promise here.
- First full trailer currently in the works, targeting early- to mid-summer release
- Principal photography is scheduled to wrap at the beginning of April [about 1-2 weeks more than originally planned]
- Documentaries on the film’s pre-production and production process can be expected on DVD release; Making of… book also discussed
- [J.J. Abrams friend and frequent collaborator] Greg Grunberg will not appear in Star Trek due to his commitment to another film
- About 1,000 effects shots are expected to be used in the film (more than any previous Trek film)
- Target MPAA rating: PG-13
- The two biggest challenges for Abrams were getting a handle on the vision of the future and casting the film
- Humor is a very important aspect in the film (“humor and humanity go hand-in-hand”)
- Abrams’ goal is to make Trek ‘real’ and is thus utilizing sets and location shooting rather than green- or blue-screens wherever he can
- The Enterprise “will be a combo of the physical and the virtual”
- An image of the Enterprise is “coming soon”
- The doors on the Enterprise will go “SWOOSH!” when they open.
- The set of the Enterprise bridge will be stored for future use;
- the movie’s script is about 128 pages long (indicating a roughly 2 hour movie)
- the script took about four months to write
- [Orci] and co-writer Alex Kurtzman will not be making cameos in the film
- James T. Kirk and the film’s villain (Nero) were the most difficult characters to write;
- the TOS episode “Balance of Terror” and the second, third, fourth and sixth films helped shape the writers’ takes on the characters, as did novels by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
- Script shoots for many memorable moments akin to the “Never forget the name of the ship…Enterprise” moment in TNG “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
- Film makers have kept with Trek tradition and brought in academic and scientific consultants (more info on this promised)
Google Transit: A for Effort…
…but a solid F for practicality and safety. At least where my commute is concerned.
According to Google Transit, the best way for me to get from my apartment to North Seattle Community College involves grabbing a bus from the closest bus stop to the transit center just south of the Northgate Mall. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, after that, I need to walk a block, scale a chain-link fence, climb a hill, play Frogger across three lanes of northbound traffic, one express lane, and three lanes of southbound traffic on I-5, go down a hill, scale another chain link fence, hike through some woods, and swim across the lake on the NSCC grounds. Oh, and according to their estimates, it should take me nine minutes to do all this.
I think that I’ll stick to the Seattle Metro Trip Planner for now. ;)
(Yes, I’m sure Google does much better in many circumstances. This one just gave me a good laugh.)
Make a Band (Altered)
Thom posted a fun little meme using Wikipedia, a quotations site, and Flickr to randomly choose a band name, album title, and cover art. I wanted to do it, but the one thing that bugged me was the cover art portion: the original instructions simply had people grabbing the third image off of the past week’s ‘interestingness’ page. A great way to get good images, sure, but one that paid no attention to copyright. Each time I reloaded the page, I was coming up with images that were published under a standard ‘all rights reserved’ copyright.
So, here’s my version of the Make a Band meme…
- The title of whatever random Wikipedia page you land on is the name of the band.
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The last four words of the last quote on this page is the title of the album.
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Put the last word of the quote (the album title) into the search box on this page, and the third image the search brings up is the cover of the album (this will search Creative Commons Attribution licensed photos and sort them by interestingness).
Put ’em together in your image editor of choice, and post your band’s new album for the world to see!
Here’s what I got, from this Wikipedia page, this quote and this image by Mayr:
