ISS

Ponderings For 2008-12-01

Submitted by GuyGG on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 2:59am

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Caprica has been greenlit to series!!!! Woo hoo!!!!
Given that this is the first day of December, I've started tossing on movies for the season to watch while I mess around with stuff. I started off the series of viewings tonight with The Muppet Christmas Carol. I'll continue on with at least a few of them a week. I'll note them here as I go, and perhaps make my authoritative list of them when I'm done. For what it's worth, I did my usual viewing of Planes, Trains & Automobiles on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.
To get you in the holiday spirit, here's proof that some companies really aren't greedy, evil entities. Amazing. And hey, it's even a local story.
Some plot details for the upcoming Tron sequel have leaked out. The bigger news is that apparently the title has been changed from TR2N to an STUPEFYINGLY awful "TRZ." I didn't think TR2N was an amazingly great title, but it worked well enough. This idiotic TRZ title has GOT to go, though. Please, somebody at Disney, swallow a brain pill and change it back, or to something else. Anything but TRZ. Seriously, this is the first sign of true stupidity involving this production. Let's stop it here and now.
I posted a link to a fan video for Battlestar Galactica yesterday. Here's another one by the same person. Better music this time round. Perhaps not quite as fun a video, but it still has some nice work in it, and is quite cool.
The mind-blowing Oasis Of The Seas has hit the water. It'll be pretty insane to see some videos of it once it hits the open seas.
Happy 10th anniversary to the International Space Station.
And happy 30th anniversary to the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Sometimes, cats stoop to the intelligence of dogs.
Here's a ray that knows how to use those wings.
What atheists put on their headstones.
Nothing to see here. Please move on.

Ponderings For 2008-11-30

Submitted by GuyGG on Mon, 12/01/2008 - 2:59am

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Since I cut myself short on my Doctor Who anniversary post recently, I wanted to add a couple thoughts. First, I meant to include congratulations to Doctor Who Magazine (DWM), who reached their landmark 400th issue during Who's 45th anniversary (though they've since put out another issue that I picked up today). DWM is, without a doubt, the greatest fan magazine ever produced for a TV series. Not only has it been around since 1979, but it has gotten better over time as it has evolved. And even more impressive, it survived and got even better during the years where the series was off the air (considering that it was a 15-or-so year gap, that's darned impressive). DWM has massive ties into the production of the show, right down to the Doctor himself, David Tennant, who purchased the weekly comic/mag as a kid right from issue #1. DWM is the standard by which all other fan publications are judged. Second, I wanted to pay special praise to composer Murray Gold, and his orchestrator/partner-in-crime Ben Foster (not to be mistaken for the actor of the same name), for the cotinually amazing scoring work he does for the show. Along with Bear McCreary's work on Battlestar Galactica, Murray Gold is turning in the finest TV scoring work in quite some time.
Speaking of Doctor Who and David Tennant, check out this curious little piece of trivial news about Tennant's performance of Hamlet with the RSC.
You may have noticed that I added an image/link over to the right of this blog to support DefectiveByDesign.org's 35 Days Against DRM campaign.
Contratulations to the crew of the shuttle Endeavour, for their safe landing today and their work on the International Space Station.
And just how big is the International Space Station? Here's a handy comparison.
Now here's a VERY cool classic gaming case mod - a Blu-Ray equipped PC in a Dreamcast. And for other game casing mod kicks, check out this Atari 2600 in a GameGear.
Congrats also go out to brilliant composer Michael Giacchino for being chosen as music director for the 81st Academy Awards. Though it is kinda sad that Bill Conti stopped just one short for doing the job for 20 years.
Uhhhhh, OK...
Google continues to leave Microsoft, Yahoo and the other smaller players in the search engine industry in the dust.
For those who don't believe in the death penalty. Then again, perhaps that's too easy a way out for him.
And if that article didn't depress you enough, try this INSANELY sobering pie chart of the bailout.
Some of the many reasons to hate MySpace
OK, if that set of unusually depressing items for this blog got you down, check out this hilarious and well done fan video. You'll need to be a Battlestar fan to enjoy it properly. And yes, while I may not like the music used under normal circumstances, it works amusingly well for this video.

Ponderings For 2008-04-22

Submitted by GuyGG on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 1:59am

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Wow. Did you all enjoy this weekend's bright, shiny, happy episode of Battlestar Galactica? Fantastic episode, but man the network must have hated this one. High praise goes out to four aspects of this one. First, Nicki Clyne. I won't say why, cause many people probably haven't watched the episode yet. You'll know when you see it. Second, Gary Hutzel and his VFX team. Not only have they continued to refine their exterior ship effects, but they finally nailed the new centurion effects. This is the first episode where the Cylon centurions really felt like they were really in the room (though there were some nice shots down on Caprica when they were chasing Boomer and Helo in the first season). Third, Bear McCreary's bleary, out-of-body music score. Which brings me to the fourth in the list, the combined and brilliantly odd cinematography and editing of the episode (particularly Cally's material), which also plays perfectly into McCreary's score. Overall, another great episode. One can feel the series hurtling through its final act at this point.
Here's a hilarious example of what happens when big corporations start throwing law suits out there for the heck of it, without thinking things through.
Here's another prime example of why DRM systems completely suck. It's just one of a great many reasons why I don't EVER touch any DRM protected media. Never. Ever.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been picked up for a second season
I ran into this exact same retarded captcha approach on the same site trying to download a shared file the other day. I tried a half dozen times to verify what they wanted, and just couldn't get it right. I had to give up. It really is the worst captcha variety I've ever witnessed, so I'm in total agreement with that post.
Here's an amusing list of some of the dumbest business decisions in history
Some more insane spam statistics
Western Digital has launched the VelociRaptor
Check out the unpacking of a second recreation of Babbage's differene engine
What happens when a goat is challenged by a golden eagle?
This is just plain wrong
Need some "professional" help installing that XBox game?
And oh yeah, Dilbert.com has gotten a major overhaul
Lastly, here's a very cool shot of the ISS from above. I've also done a cropped version of that picture for use on 1920x1200 widescreen monitors, linked below.