K-Squared Ramblings

Working Wireless

I am posting this from out on our patio. We ended up getting a Netgear wireless router that has its own built-in 4-port 10/100 switch and will hook directly into our DSL connection. What does this mean?

• It adds wireless capability.
• It can replace our hub.
• It can replace our router.
• We don’t need to find any more outlets or power strips. In fact, the end result is we’ve freed up an outlet.
• We don’t need to buy wireless cards for the computers we already have.

The AirPort Express looked nice, mainly for AirTunes, but we would have had to put it in the other room with the stereo anyway. And besides, none of Apple’s Airport stations have more than one LAN port - the assumption is you’re either going all-wireless or you’ve already got equipment for your wired systems.

Aye, there’s the hub!

A few weeks ago I noticed that our network hub was getting disturbingly hot, so I started turning off the power strip when we weren’t home. After returning from San Diego, the first time we turned the computers back on, the hub started buzzing. However, it stopped after a few seconds.

So I should have thought of the hub immediately when the network started acting up today.

I had been on and off the computer and the net all morning with no noticeable problems, and Katie had been on for just a few minutes when it stopped loading websites. Read the rest of this entry »

Power distribution

Yesterday I went to two comics stores looking for issue #2 of Powers volume 2, which hit store shelves on Wednesday. Both had already sold out.

Today I tried a third store. They had a stack of at least 20, and that was just on the shelf. Who knows whether they had more in the back?

Of course, this store tends to carry both a larger selection and a larger inventory than the others. If I’m looking for back issues or anything esoteric, that’s my first stop. The others — well, the one I normally go to (which is near where I work, so I can drop in on my lunch hour) has a small collection of mostly recent back issues, but much of the store is given over to D&D and Warhammer. The one I tried yesterday evening (since I had a better chance of getting there before closing) is very small, and I have no idea what they do with their back stock, because I’m fairly certain it’s not in the store. But they have lots of graphic novels, anime, and manga — and the best thing is that they rent out graphic novels as if they were videos. That’s how I discovered Powers, actually — one of their clerks recommended it to me and I rented the first few collections, then started buying them.

What I’m getting at is that store #1 and store #2 seem to be ordering the number of books they expect to sell and no more, while store #3 seems to plan on keeping things around so that people can come in, pick up issue #4, and look for issues #1-3, and actually buy them.

Either that, or stores #1 and #2 mainly get customers in on the day new comics arrive, and store #3 gets more of its customers on the weekend.

Different definitions

The ingredients list for what my calendar calls SPICY GUACAMOLE DIP:

1/2 c mayonnaise
1 lg avocado, peeled and mashed
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 c minced onion
1/4 c green chiles, drained and chopped
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t salt

This reminds me of the Gallery of Regrettable Food recipe for Hot ‘n’ Spicy Tex-Mex Chicken, which involves removing an atom of chili powder from its lead casing and waving it carefully over the casserole. Then I recall with thank-God-it’s-over nostalgia the time I asked our waiter how spicy the dressing on the spinach salad with rare ahi tuna was, received the answer “just a little spicy,” and subsequently spent half an hour attempting to extinguish my taste buds. (This was made worse by the fact that I was on Weight Watchers pretty hardcore at the time and couldn’t make myself eat bread to get rid of the burn.) I guess there must be people who think Ortega canned chiles are spicy, but I’ve never met any. Still, it’s oddly comforting knowing somebody out there has a more tender tongue. Maybe I’m not such a hopeless white girl after all.

Cry me a river

So Apple is ticked off at Real’s reverse-engineering to let people buy music from Real and play it on an iPod. Apple has threatened DMCA sanctions and all but promised to deliberately break it in the next software update.

Excuse me? In general I like Apple, but their insistence on locking the iPod to iTunes and iTunes alone is short-sighted. When people hacked up a way to use an iPod on Windows, they first licensed the software, then wrote iTunes for Windows. iPod sales have tripled to the point where they may soon outsell Macintoshes. This could never have happened if Apple had kept the iPod Mac-specific.

I’m reminded of the many times Microsoft has altered its file-sharing protocol to break compatibility with Samba, the package that allows Linux, BSD, and now Mac OS X to connect to Windows networks.

The classic analogy is getting a car that can only run on certain roads. So someone’s found a way to let the iPod drive some different roads. But Apple still sells as many iPods. They might even sell more (as when it gained Windows compatibility). Why the accusations of hacking, why the legal threats, and why the determination to keep the iPod locked to their own roads?

Wolf Cry

More “You sent a virus!” garbage going around. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even look at most delivery failure notices, which means I could easily miss errors about mail I really did send.

I got ticked off enough this time that I wrote back to the return address on the warning, matching the tone and structure of their message as closely as possible:

An invalid virus notice was found in an Email message you sent. Your Email scanner recognized a virus as W32/MyDoom-O but did not take into account the fact that this virus always uses a fake sender address.

Please update your virus scanner or contact your IT support personnel as soon as possible as you are sending bogus virus warnings to third parties whose systems are not infected with the virus. This runs the risk of causing unnecessary concern among the less tech-savvy (and extra calls to tech support about the nonexistant virus they fear they have). I would recommend reading up on the phrase “crying wolf” as well.

Pining for the Fnords

I’m about halfway through The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the most apt description is, if you’ll pardon the language, a mindfuck. Once the writing settles into a coherent structure (or perhaps once the reader is attuned to it), the mind starts noticing connections. Everywhere. It’s as if it was written specifically to induce apophenia.

The most insidious part of the book(s) is the frequent use of historical or other authors’ fictional sources. “Oh, there’s Emperor Norton.” “OK, we’re back to Buckminster Fuller again.” “Hey, that’s right, ‘Tekeli-li!’ does show up in both Lovecraft and Poe.” And this constant mixing of fact with fiction, familiar with strange, and things known to be true with things which seem implausible does make you wonder: how much of this did they make up on their own, and how much did they stitch together out of real events, prior works, and creative synthesis?

After all, if you had never heard of Joshua Norton, and one day heard the story of a man who declared himself Emperor of the United States, Read the rest of this entry »

The Bathroom Manifesto

Here are a few additions I would make to the building code for public restrooms:

1. All restroom doors must open outward. If the restroom is large enough to contain stalls, it must be possible to open the outer door simply by pushing with the toe of one’s foot. Sharply-turning doorless corridors that block sightlines are acceptable.
2. If it is necessary for a restroom door to lock (as is the case with single-person restrooms), handles are to be used rather than doorknobs. Additionally, attempting to open the door from the inside must automatically disengage the lock.
3. If a restroom displays a sign asking people to wash their hands before leaving, it must be directed at all users of the restroom, not only at employees.
4. If the outer door can be opened without the use of one’s hands, choice of paper towels, air dryers, etc. is left to the discretion of management. In the event that opening the door does require hands, drying methods provided must include paper towels.
5. At least one trash receptacle must be within casual tossing distance of the outer door.

Of course, these are mostly ways to mitigate the fact that a disturbing number of people won’t take an extra 30 seconds to clean up on the way out. A better solution might be a device I saw in The Far Side: an alarm which went off whenever someone left the restroom in a less-than-sanitary state, with a blazing sign proclaiming “Didn’t wash hands!”

Anonymous Coward Strikes Back

From an anonymous Slashdot post:

I heard Episode 3 is going to be teh sith.

Politically Dead Words

When I was in elementary school, we were given a list of “dead words.” These were words that had been so overused that they had lost their meaning or impact, and we were told to use them as little as possible in our writing.

In that spirit, here is a short list of political terms that have become useless by provoking knee-jerk reactions that prevent any rational discussion:

Liberal

Somehow a lot of people over on the right have decided that liberal = communist. It’s gotten to the point that even liberals don’t like to use the word anymore.

Ultra-conservative

I don’t know what conservatives usually call the types that want to turn America into a theocracy or oligarchy, but one whiff of this phrase and they assume you’re a rabid left-wing nutjob. (I’ve seen this happen on articles about something as unrelated as the origins of Linux.)

Special-Interest Groups

Everyone loves to accuse their opponents of being beholden to special interest groups. The problem is, any group with a political agenda is a special interest group. That includes, for example, both the logging industry and the Sierra Club.

Environment

Some people immediately think of “tree-hugging hippies” instead of an effort to keep the world around us livable. I’ve actually heard people claim that environmentalism is nothing more than a modern interpretation of pagan earth-worship.

Intellectual Property

Are you talking about patents, copyrights, or trademarks? They’re all different concepts, and subject to different laws. Just say what you mean, don’t confuse the issue.

Elitism

I’ve heard this term a lot from conservatives discounting the views of liberals in academia and the entertainment industry. Often, it’s used by conservatives in academia and the entertainment industry.

Christian

Unfortunately, there are a lot of vocal nutjobs who give Christianity a bad name. To some on the left, it’s become associated more with religious intolerance and inflexibility than with the actual religion. (Hmm, kind of like the word “Muslim.”)

Balanced

How often have you heard someone ask for a “more balanced” portrayal of some issue? Are they really looking for something that presents both sides of a controversy equally, or are they generally looking for something that presents their side more favorably?

Comparisons to World War II

OK, this is one I’m tired of hearing. It seems like WW2 has become the template for interpreting every war (or pending war) for the past 60 years, whether or not the situation is actually comparable. While you can certainly find similarities between 1930s Germany and pre-invasion Iraq, post-9/11 USA, your local mall security guards, ancient Sparta, or whatever society or organization you’re concerned about, invoking images of Nazis only distracts from the real issue. (For example: Is so-and-so a threat, and what can we justifiably do about it?) It’s nothing but Godwin’s Law in action in the real world.

Comic-Con Photos

Photos from San Diego and Comic-Con are up!

• Sightseeing, panels, and exhibits
• Hall Costumes / Cosplayers

Edit: The 2007 Photos are up now, too.

Redesigning

A few weeks ago I started experimenting with a new look for the site. I tried some ideas, showed what I had to Katie, and we hashed out what did and didn’t work. I’m trying to do as much as possible through CSS, to make previewing as easy as possible and to make theme switching easy as well.

I backported a few minor changes into the current look, and I also made one important change for usability: I finally switched from using Fahrner Image Replacement for the banner to using Leahy/Langridge Image Replacement (LIR). Why? Accessibility. People discovered that FIR didn’t actually succeed in what it was meant to do: allow screen readers to pick up the text for blind users while showing the formatted graphic logo to sighted users. LIR seemed like the least intrusive of the other techniques available.

Anyway, I’ve been messing around more with CSS, and Katie will be working on the graphics for the new banner. If you’re using Firefox or another browser that supports alternate stylesheets, you can see a preview by selecting the “Experiment” stylesheet. (On Firefox it shows up as a small palette in the lower left hand corner.) Actually, if you’re curious about how this would look with the default WordPress template, you can try the “WordPress” style. It’s… different, to say the least.

Bunch O Links

Some random links I’ve come across today (several from the same source)

Peter David: Getting Ink for the Fund - yes, Peter David has gotten a tattoo to raise money for the CBLDF. He follows up: “What have you done for the CBLDF lately?” Well, I’ve plugged it on my website and bought a T-shirt… (Edit: It seems Neil Gaiman just missed this by not answering his phone. Also, Newsarama has posted a follow-up story with photos)

The Great Custom 404 Page Adventure - comparing the sometimes helpful, sometimes hostile, sometimes humorous “file not found” messages at various websites. Update: Ironically, the site’s gone 404 itself…

Indispensable Mac OS X products - ’nuff said.

Pir(l)ouettes - a commentary on Adobe’s history of the ampersand.

ACLU - Pizza - a funny/chilling animation of what might go on if a pizza place could cross-reference your health, library, and banking records while you were on the phone.

Comic-Con Quotes

Quotes from Comic-Con are now available.

Ewwww, he touched my song!

Suing JibJab over using the tune and some lyrics of “This Land is Your Land” is like filing a class-action suit against grade-schoolers for using “The Birthday Song” to sing “You look like a monkey/And you smell like one too.” The contention that the song has been “damaged” by its use as parody is ridiculous. Have these people not been outdoors since 1999? Do they not know how long internet fads actually last? Sure, for some people the cartoon will be the first thing they think of on hearing the song for a while, but that will go away. The only reason Badger Badger Badger and All Your Base are still primarily associated with their source material is that they were either widely unknown before the humor emerged (AYB), or were original creations (BBB). “This Land is Your Land” is, or at least used to be, aggressively marketed as an assembly-appropriate song in elementary schools, and children’s brains are much more receptive than adults’. I don’t even think of the cartoon now on hearing the song, but of the inside of my elementary-school cafeteria, the time they accidentally let the record play all the verses, and, of all things, tissue-paper flowers. (God only knows why, as they weren’t used at the same assemblies.) TRO needs to grow up and let people have their perfectly legal fun. Though it would be fun to see them get a trial date a year from now and try to prove there was any lasting damage.

Thtphphtppthtphttt.

Only In San Diego? Part 2

(Continued from part 1.)

Our hotel was located within walking distance of the Little Italy trolley stop. Diagonally across from a coffee shop (”It’s a Grind”) that we frequented during our stay was this restaurant:

Katie informed me that one of the Indigo Girls has, in fact, opened or invested in a restaurant, but this doesn’t seem to be it.

Here’s another restaurant (or more likely a bar) that we spotted, this time in Downtown San Diego:

This was Friday night with Sean, when we were wandering around the Gaslamp District and environs looking for a place to eat. We found ourselves wondering… was this a martini made with Ranch dressing? A place where martinis grazed and rustlers had to watch out for stampedes? Did they serve a crispy ranch martini with bacon?

Actually, “Grand Admiral” Sean should take the credit for the next one: I don’t remember if it was this year’s con or a past one, but he was on one of the escalators with Timothy Zahn, who remarked that the view always reminded him of the view inside the Death Star cannon. Inspired, I checked out that particular escalator, and Zahn’s right: it does look like the Death Star cannon!

And, in closing, an image from our hotel room this morning. It seems that Salvador Dali had somehow gotten into our room and transformed our soap:

(Continued in Volume 2.)

Neverwhere comic

I missed this bit: It seems that Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is being adapted as a comic book.

(Firefly) Serenity Preview

Last in the Comic Con preview series: Serenity, the feature-film spinoff of Firefly. Joss Whedon showed up, explained he wouldn’t waste any time since they didn’t have much, and that he “had something to show [us].”

Let me just say that, even if I hadn’t just finished watching Firefly, I’d be interested in seeing Serenity. If The Peacekeeper Wars closes the current chapter of Farscape, it looks like Serenity is designed to open a new chapter of Firefly.

After they ran the preview, he said he had something else to show us — “actually nine things.” The whole place screamed (the program had said only “surprise guests”), and out walked the entire main cast of the show! Like the Farscape group, these people are great fun to watch. (Edit: quotes are now available) Unfortunately, most of the audience questions were directed at Joss. It’s a comic book convention after all, and he writes comic books — plus there are lingering Buffy and Angel questions. To make sure they were included, Joss directed some questions of his own to the cast. Some of which were, shall we say, “interesting.”

As to the future of the Buffyverse: Angel, as a TV series, is dead. But it could eventually come back as a movie or TV movie. And while Buffy has run its course, there’s always the possibility of another spinoff (although clearly some people in the audience haven’t caught on to the fact that Eliza Dushku is busy right now).

Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars Preview

Let me just say that the upcoming Farscape miniseries looks incredible. They ran a trailer they had just finished — not the one that’s just started airing, but one they’ll start showing later on — and it looks like it may be the most intense four hours of Farscape ever. They’re very cagey about the actual plot, but the clips show a level of danger, action, and drama at least equal to Farscape at its best.

The stated goal is to “bring this chapter of Farscape to a close” — to tie up the major dangling storylines and leave things open for other miniseries, feature films, comics, spinoffs, etc. Who will be around by the end is unclear, but it’s clearly going to be a heck of a ride.

They opened the floor for questions from the audience, and let me just say, hilarity ensued. I’d never seen any of this group at a convention before, but when anything funny comes up, David Kemper, Claudia Black, and Ben Browder just run with it. (Edit: quotes are now available.)
Read the rest of this entry »

MirrorMask Preview

Yesterday I mentioned the MirrorMask panel at Comic Con. Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean were both there to talk about the movie and play a trailer-like clip they had put together the night before.

MirrorMask came about when Sony noticed that while Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal didn’t do very well in theaters, over the years they’ve become strong, steady sellers in the home video market. So they went to the Jim Henson company and asked if they could do a fantasy film in the same vein, on a budget. So Lisa Henson called up Neil Gaiman by way of asking for Dave McKean, and explained the situation: They only had a $4 million budget, but they wouldn’t have any studio interference. They went on to say they knew they couldn’t afford Neil to write the screenplay, but could he at least come up with a story, at which point he said (Edit: corrected quote) “If Dave’s directing it, I’m writing it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Revenge of the Sith

Well, Lucasfilm has announced the official title for Star Wars: Episode III. I would have preferred Rise of the Empire, but it’s better than either of the last two titles, and it does provide symmetry with Return of the Jedi — which they’re clearly playing up with everything from the logo (there were zillions of T-shirts around Comic Con with the title in exactly the same red-on-black style as the old Return of the Jedi logos) to things like Anakin’s hair (which looks oddly like Luke’s in ROTJ).

And reportedly George Lucas has stated that this time, “revenge” is staying in the title.

Con Report: Days 1-2

We accidentally went to Comic Con on Thursday. The plan was just to pick up our badges that afternoon, but there was a panel on balancing action and character development with some really big-name authors - Robert Jordan, Peter David, Raymond Feist, etc. (The basic lessons: let combat grow out of the characters’ actions instead of tossing it in, and be aware that combat is confusing. Focus on individual characters as much as possible, rather than trying to present a long view.) So we stayed, I got massively dehydrated, and we spent the next hour slowly drinking water and recovering. We ended up running into a group from the UCI RPG club and just stayed around and talked for a while before we headed off to dinner.

Neither of us had ever been to Comic Con on a day other than Saturday, and my experience with conventions tends to be that Thursdays are very light. Not so! Read the rest of this entry »

Con-ercise

I’m beginning to think I should recommend convention-going as a good form of exercise. At this size convention, anyway. Not only do you get winded just traveling between panels (which comes standard at just about every con I’ve been to, since they all go overtime and the next one you want is always at the opposite end of the place), but there’s the opportunity for climbing multiple flights of stairs, the walk to and from your car is a great hike, and the food at the convention center is expensive enough to keep your caloric intake down. Also, the dealers’ room is sort of like an Olympic-sized crowd-weaving practice ground. Fun if you’re me, not so fun if you’re trying to follow me.

The other thing about cons that makes me want to exercise is seeing how the medians of the demographics play out. You have the younger contingent, who are mostly good-looking and relatively thin. You have the really old people, who are using hand-carved canes and usually there because they’re connected with actually producing something, and who are generally moving pretty well. Then you have two basic groups of middle-aged fans: the ones who are really skinny and nerdy-looking still, and the ones who put the “middle” in “middle-aged.” It’s wonderful motivation to lose weight when you see a forty-year-old Arwen on a Lark. (Please understand that I’m not trying for a cheap shot. I consider myself lucky that I’m able to lose weight when I want to, and I wish everybody were that fortunate. It’s just kind of heartbreaking in a weird empathetic way.)

So I’ve been on a real veggie kick the last couple of days, and I only just figured out what was up with that this afternoon at Subway. (Found out they’ll give you spinach on your sandwich if you ask nicely. Score!) And all things considered, it could be worse. I could be on a steak kick in the middle of India.

Pillow Progression

Day 1. Hotel room contains two queen beds, each with the usual number and placement of pillows. Pillows are highly inadequate. We grab the pillows from the other bed and double-layer them. All is good. *sleep*

Day 2. The pillows from the unused bed are stacked on the side of the bed we slept in. We laugh, and move the pillows atop the other set. *sleep*

Day 3. The bed is made… with the pillows already double-stacked! (They’re learning!)

Only in San Diego?

Well, we made it to San Diego, and if you’re reading this, we managed to scrounge up an Internet connection. The drive down was fairly uneventful, and we arrived too late to do much sightseeing, but we still managed to find some interesting sights.

For example, when we walked into our hotel room, we found a pizza flyer shoved under the door, and the following stand-up card on our table:

OK, so they have deals with some places, but come on! Garage operations with “unsafe” pizza?! I suppose it’s possible, though.

For those Babylon 5 fans, here’s an excerpt from the dining guide:

And we encountered another relative of Boba and Jango Fett at dinner:

While driving back to the hotel, we missed a turn and ended up driving through the seedier part of town (we passed no less than three nudie bars). We also spotted a restaurant calling itself “Extreme Pizza” (which might explain the card in our room) and a movie theater with an interesting cross-section of Hollywood:

• Hellboy
• Kill Bill
• Passion of the Christ

Sadly, we didn’t have a chance to capture either on fil– uh, pixels.

Allergy labeling

Congress has passed passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, mandating the top 8 food allergens appear on labels in plain English! The voluntary labeling over the past few years has been very helpful. Well, some of it has — the “processed in a facility that also processess XYZ” labels mainly amount to a CYA statement, although I’m sure there are people sensitive enough that it does help.

The NPR story provided some examples of why this matters, including a story of a college student who had a very similar experience to one I had a few years ago: he bought a chocolate chip cookie from a vending machine — a brand he had been eating with no problems for several years — but they had added peanut flour to their mix without labeling the change. He died within 15 minutes. When it happened to me, I had enough medication to stop it. But I don’t eat anything from Famous Amos anymore.

Some other nice provisions include having the FDA do a study on cross-contamination [archive.org], and having the CDC track allergy-related deaths.

Further reading: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, The Food Allergy Initiative

At least someone has sense over there

CNN: Lawmakers oppose election delay [archive.org].

Among the outcry is a resolution sponsored by Ohio Senator Bob Ney (a Republican, for the record) stating that “the actions of terrorists will never cause the date of any presidential election to be postponed” and “no single individual or agency should be given the authority to postpone the date of a presidential election.” There are about 60 supporters of the resolution, and another 190 representatives have slapped Homeland Security with a clue stick.

Thank you, Senator Ney.

Postponing elections is not something that should be done in a free society. The essence of democracy is that it is government with the explicit consent of the governed. Take away that consent — as in take away the ability to choose different leaders — and you no longer have democracy.

Free Speech in Comics: The CBLDF

You might think nothing of going down to the store and picking up a comic book, but there are people out there who want to limit your choices to books aimed at 10-year-olds. (Admittedly, there aren’t enough books aimed at 10-year-olds right now, but that’s another rant). Imagine if all movies were G-rated. Because, after all, everyone knows, movies are just for kids, right?

There was a time when all comics had to be approved by the Comics Code Authority, because in the 1950s, comics were the trendy scapegoat for juvenile delinquency (much as video games are often blamed today). While writers and artists of the day managed to produce classics within those constraints, one can only imagine what the world missed out on that it wouldn’t see until publishers began to risk non-code books in the 1980s. The now-classic Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing, for instance, or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, could never have been produced under the limits of the Comics Code, even under its current incarnation. (Back to movies briefly: did you know that It’s a Wonderful Life broke the rules of the motion picture code? Mr. Potter may have failed to take over the Savings and Loan, but he was never punished for his misdeeds — a requirement under the film codes of the time!)

Even now, there are people who want to keep everything “safe” and innocuous — for everyone, adults as well as kids. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression in comics from this sort of attack. They’ve defended writers, artists, even retailers over the past 15 years.

So if you like books like Fables or Powers, or books like 100 Bullets or Y, The Last Man — check out the CBLDF. Read what they do, and why. Consider joining, or making a donation, or just buying a T-shirt. And if you’re going to San Diego for Comic-Con International this weekend, drop by their booth and see what’s going on.

Why Bad Movies Matter

Let’s face it, there are a lot of good books that get turned into bad movies. On one hand, you might wonder: does it really matter? After all, the original is still there. The mere existence of the movie doesn’t alter the fact that the book is good, any more than the remake of Psycho diminishes the worth of the original.

The first problem is simple visibility. Books rarely become pop-culture phenomena, and those that do are usually nonfiction (or at least billed that way). But movies generally have massive, nation-wide advertising campaigns, by the end of which everyone knows about them. Pick any bad movie based on a book, and chances are more people will know about the movie. That’s a lot of people who could have experienced the original — or at least a good movie — who won’t go near it. (This is less of an issue with well-known source material. A new version of Hamlet isn’t going to take the original’s place in anyone’s mind, though a good one may, over time, supplant older Hamlet films.)

The second problem is that once one studio adapts a work, it will take years before anyone does another adaptation. (Again, this is less of an issue for established material. Returning to Hamlet, there was plenty of room for both Mel Gibson’s and Kenneth Branagh’s versions.) Part of this is contracts, but it also comes down to a question of perception. A studio is not going to look at something that made a dismal flop and say “We can do it better,” they’ll say “Oh, that flopped, let’s not try it.” They’ll wait until there has been enough turnover in the audience that they figure most people will have forgotten the flop. And an author who has seen his work mangled may not trust the next studio that wants to buy the film rights.

So yes, bad movies do matter — not because they diminish the original but because they distract from it. And they matter because they set back the process of getting a good movie made.

Ethnic Spam Stew

I don’t usually post in this category, but the latest Nigerian clone to hit my inbox was worth it. It claimed to be from a British barrister, acting on behalf of a recently deceased French national, attempting to relocate funds from Saudi Arabia. The contact information was an email address as “Barrister Lindsay Smith” was currently in Ireland. I think this one’s winning the “Most Countries Invoked in a Single Spam” award so far as my inbox goes.

On a side note, the only information requested was a name, address, and phone/fax number–not a bank account or credit card or anything of the sort. Maybe the spammers are figuring that asking for financial info is rapidly becoming suicide. Or maybe they think it’ll work better if you establish a rapport first?

Read ’em and weep

While reading metaquotes, I came across this list of horrible names: Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing

We’ve gotten through about half the list… some of these are truly appalling!

(Naming your daughter Xev Chiana is probably not a good idea…)