July 24, 2008
Pesos, anyone?
This is sad. The peso is almost as valuable as the dollar.
A new, real reason to move to Mexico. Perhaps a new, real reason for the illegal aliens to decide to go back.
I believe in Harvey Dent.
How many people really realize that "I believe in Harvey Dent" is a line taken straight from The Long Halloween and Dark Victory? I dunno. But, there sure are a lot of people who believe in him.
No, I still haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, and I don't know when I'll get a chance to, but I've heard plenty of spoilers by now. So Two-face dies... but did he really? Did he fake his death? Is he still alive? Well... if the actor who played him is planning on being in the next film, what exactly does it mean? You decide.
July 23, 2008
More reasons why The Dark Knight is awesome
No, I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, but I plan to see it soon. I've no fear of spoilers, however, and I've already heard all about the boat scene. There's a fascinating discussion of it here, using game theory:
As always, readers are smarter and think harder than writers, so the comments are important to read, too. I don't know everything about Batman, so I couldn't be sure if this is something from the comic books, or if Chris Nolan came up with it himself, but either way, it's genius.
A 96-pus
So, if a cephalopod with eight legs is called an octopus, then what would you call one with 96?
I'm really not up on my Greek numbers, so any help here would be much appreciated.
UPDATE: I guess I found it. It's a enneacontakaihexapus. Sweet.
Want some pills?
First, there was Boing Boing
A plastic skull encrusted with pills. Not nearly as expensive as the diamond encrusted one, but possibly far more dangerous if eaten.
My New Blog...
So, I thought I'd create a new one. I'm fully aware of the fact that there aren't really any regular readers of this one, and I don't know why I bother to write it, really... but I've found that the focus is a little off, or it never had one. So I decided to make a new, more narrowly focused blog. Since I'm working on getting into comic strip syndication, and I've been quite the avid comic strip reader all of my life, I thought I'd make a blog about it. Seeing as there don't seem to be very many blogs about comic strips out there, it seemed quite easy. Let's see if it actually is... but, for now, check it out here.
July 21, 2008
Male hormones rage
Yes, they will rage no matter what the woman looks like. If it's a woman, testosterone levels will go up, and men will try to impress.
So, it means that men want to impress any woman they can. The evolutionary reason for this is that mating is important, and mating with any woman is important (ask any desperate man). Men will also go to great lengths to impress, exaggerating their accomplishments and having better posture. Apparently, though, men don't care about looking good in front of other men. Though, I wonder what the homosexual reaction would be...
Pretty neat password recovery software
It's called Passware. It's password recovery software for recovering passwords for logins and encrypted files. The basic Passware Kit includes modules for password recovery of all MS Office passwords (Word, Access, Outlook, Powerpoint, VBA and Excel Password), Windows Professional and Enterprise admin passwords, Lotus Notes keys, EFS keys, SQL keys, and many others. The software is built for PC platforms, but Mac users should probably only need to check out what's going on in their keychain to find their lost passwords. It's a bit expensive, but looks very good and very professional, and will probably be worth the money in otherwise lost time and resources. I'd suggest any Windows user to at least check it out. There are free demos. :)
July 18, 2008
The coolest thing since Defender...
This is cool. It's javascript. It's the game of Defender. It's a favicon. It's playable. It's just cool. Click it.
Pouet has a page on it, too.
Sometimes the Onion just isn't funny...
But this time it wasn't supposed to be. This time, it was supposed to be satirical, and I think there was an actual point to be made. Someone deserves a medal.
July 17, 2008
Great story for the one who hates math...
A not so interesting article on an extremely interesting topic: Are numbers necessary to language? Apparently not, as evidenced by a hunter-gatherer tribe in the rain forest of Brazil.
They have a word for quantities of one to four and another word for anything above five. They have no words for specific numbers, though. Also interesting is the fact that they haven't developed the ability to draw, especially not in straight lines. Why? Are they just underdeveloped, stupid savages? I think not. I think that in their culture, they just didn't need them, so they never developed them. Seems simple enough, right?
July 10, 2008
Holy backstory, Batman!
This guy kind of gets it, and kind of doesn't, and I can tell he's never read the comic books.
The man is praising The Dark Knight because it spares the backstory of the Joker, making him crazier, more irrational, and basically a better character for Heath Ledger to play around with. Fine, good, I agree. However, he says it fails at putting Harvey Dent/Two-Face in it and giving him a bigger backstory. Why not do the same thing with Two-Face that you did with the Joker?
Because Chris Nolan knows the comics better than you do. I'll explain, since Batman is my all-time favorite superhero*.
In the comics, the Joker had no real backstory, and what was there was very vague. Apparently he got dunked in some weird chemicals, giving him the green hair, red lips, white skin, and crazy smile. So, no, it's not actually make-up. The Killing Joke, the seminal Joker story, fleshes it out a little bit, showing that the Joker a failed comedian turned robber, and that's how he fell in the chemicals. Still, however, it's very vague, and the Joker himself states that he doesn't remember his former self that well. There is a point to this, and that's what the article writer gets, except that it isn't Chris Nolan's idea. He's just going by the comic canon. The Batman creators knew it when they created the Joker. Having a backstory gives a character a more rational reason for the crimes they commit. The Joker is supposed to be the ultimate irrational character, to be juxtaposed with the rational, logical Batman. He's the perfect villain.
Next, we have Harvey Dent. For Harvey Dent, there's no question that Chris Nolan was inspired by Year One, The Long Halloween, and, to a lesser extent, Dark Victory. Anyone who's read those knows that Harvey Dent is not Two-Face. The man that was once Harvey Dent is transformed into Two-Face by some unfortunate events. The character is much more complicated and sympathetic than the Joker. The most important part to remember, too, is that Harvey Dent as Harvey Dent, and not as Two-Face, is a very important character in the comics. He became the DA right before Bruce Wayne became Batman. He worked with Jim Gordon, the last good cop in Gotham City, a city ruled by mob bosses and corrupt police officers (which is actually shown in Batman Begins with Carmine Falcone, and not shown sufficiently in any other Batman film). He wanted the same thing Bruce Wayne wanted, and they became good friends. Then, however, Harvey became Two-Face. After that, Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon were never the same, because they were fighting their friend. Thus, this backstory must be told, or Two-Face doesn't actually make sense. The Joker doesn't need to make sense, but Two-Face does.
So, thankfully, Chris Nolan gets it. Perhaps whoever wrote this article didn't, but it's a pretty good one anyway.
*I must say that a very close second for favorite superhero is Talisman of the Justice Machine. A fairly obscure comic, but a pretty good one. His costume is great (just an expensive black suit and tie, and white gloves), and his superpower is, to my knowledge, unique (super karma power??!).
The military has an established religion?
I believe in God, but this story is still ridiculous.
Threats from superior officers just because you don't believe in God? Saying because he doesn't believe in God he isn't upholding the Constitution? Isn't freedom of religion part of the Constitution? Aren't we fighting to defend everyone's right to believe in whatever they want, be it God, no God, a little golden man on a shrine, or even a living tree? If not, I'm moving.
Missing the point, again.
So, the Olympics are coming up. They're supposed to be a symbol of the world coming together, in unity and harmony, for some friendly competition. Apparently, the presidential candidates have missed this.
So, President Bush, completely understanding the point, is going to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Obama says he wouldn't, because he doesn't like what China is doing. At the bottom of the article, McCain basically says the same thing. Good, boys. You've missed it.
Another question, too: How in the heck did John McCain get to run as a Republican?
