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Welcome to my web presence. Herein lies information related to my interests, my passions, and my philosophy. Please peruse the various sections listed above. Enjoy.
2008.11.03
Well, tomorrow's the big day, where people in the United States think they are being all democratic by voting based on nothing more than sound bites, attack ads, and soothing words of a demagogue. In some small way I wish we could be visited by zombie Jefferson and Madison to give us a collective slap in the face so we wake up to the laughable situation we're in as a republic. A democracy only works when the voting citizenry is educated. In other words, have actually read the Constitution that sets up and restricts the power of the Federal government. We've slowly traded away our freedoms for more government control, and the next four years will only see that getting much worse, no matter which of the two major candidates find their way into office. I'm certainly not an optimistic person by nature, but I'm feeling downright hopeless for the United States of America.
2008.09.11
The Large Hadron Collider recently had a successful test of its proton beam, and the first collisions will probably start in October. With all the hoopla about black holes and runaway antimatter annihilation, this website will help everyone keep an eye on the status of the earth and whether or not it's been destroyed yet by the LHC: [www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com]
2008.05.22
I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opening day at a 12:01 midnight showing. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but be forewarned some hints may be given. I've been a huge fan since 1981, right along side my Star Wars fascination. As a kid I would swing on my whip in a tree in the backyard, want to find a perfect fedora, and basically loved everything about the Indiana Jones mythos, so it was with much anticipation that I went to see the new film; after all it's been 19 years since the third installment. Having read some the of the plot details beforehand, I realized that Lucas was taking the story into 1957, which also meant taking the film style away from the 30's adventure serials of the first three into a new era with the Red Scare, the atomic bomb, and all sorts of new science fiction mysteries. Given this, I loved the movie. Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf did amazing jobs (Mutt's lines were some of the best - particularly early on in his introduction), and I really enjoyed the production of this film. There were some silly points, sure, but so were there in all the films. The script was a bit weak in parts, but the story was great for the era, the characters were fun to watch, and the sets/production were exceptional. The editing was tight (especially in the jungle jeep chase). I'll be going back to watch it again shortly, but my initial review is that it's a 3.5 out of 5. I think it fits with the rest of the movies, but is sufficiently different to make it impossible to rank (kinda like Temple of Doom). [indianajones.com]
2008.03.04
Nine Inch Nails released a new album Ghosts I-IV. What's interesting about this collection of 36 instrumental tracks is not so much the music itself (which is fantastic), but the method of distribution. Trent Reznor recently split with his record label, so this new album is being released online and in CD format, with the first 9 tracks available for free. He even uploaded them to torrent sites himself. If you want to buy all the tracks you can get them in DRM-free MP3, flac, or Apple lossless formats for only $5. If this doesn't scare the record labels, I don't know what will. It's obvious that the RIAA and the old model of music distribution is dead. There's also a $10 option to download files and get physical CDs, along with a $75 and $300 set of deluxe formats (printed book, blu-ray, etc). I've been a fan for a while, and this just takes it up a notch.
[ghosts.nin.com]
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