Yesterday, my dad sent me an article about how Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” will be republished without editorial censorship. Society was considerably more conservative back in the 50s so sections of the original were not included because of references to sex and drugs. I wonder how it will change the feeling of the book. When I read it earlier this year, I remember thinking that the book seemed a little toned down, maybe this will not be so in the new version.
Technorati Tags: beatnik, books, kerouac, ontheroad, reading
According to the exclusive report, Israeli troops has started constructing a temporary detention compound at a military base in northern Israel, which is to be used for holding hundreds of Lebanese detainees taken during the future operations in southern Lebanon.
Just like Uncle Sam.
Technorati Tags: guantanamo, israel, lebanon, prison
Spoiler warning: If you haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2, this may completely ruin it for you, but I’m not really sure.
I decided to be a “cool kid” this weekend and go see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I was disappointed, to say the least. I started to think about how it could have been better and came up with three steps to making a better movie sequel.
Look like you were planning to make a sequel
The easiest way to do this is to actually plan to make a sequel all along. You don’t have to have the story entirely figured out but an idea where you are going would be nice. I was perfectly happy with where the original Pirates ended… the sequel seemed “tacked on”
If it was funny in the first movie, it’s probably not funny in the second movie
Do not drag things on! Yes, I laughed at the dog with the keys and the broken candle holder in the first movie. When you put references into the second movie it’s just annoying. I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one.
Don’t change the meaning of important objects
Harry Potter did this. Lost kind of does this. It makes you look like you are making it up as you go along. I was perfectly fine with my original perception of said object, but no… you had to go and change it to fit your needs.
Technorati Tags: movie, pirate, piratesofthecaribbean, sequel
I realize it is a tad naive, but one of my favorite cartoons is Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. I find it’s animation and humor quite interesting. The main character is named Blooregard Q. Kazoo, normally called Bloo. Bloo was “imagined” by Mac who could not keep him and had to give him to Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. The animators keep a weblog and today they posted the visual development of Bloo. It is quite interesting to see how he grew from being a blob all the way to his current gravestone shape.
Technorati Tags: bloo, blooregard, cartoon, cartoonnetwork, fostershomeforimaginaryfriends, television
A few days ago, the Campaigns Wikia launched as a place where people can discuss political causes and issues. After looking through it today, I realized there was no page on torture. In response, I started one. It is quite small right now and I intend to expand it a little later. If you wish to contribute, head over there and add your 2 cents…
Technorati Tags: campaignwikia, wiki, torture, wikia
I was looking at my statistics this morning and discovered that my “data transfered” yesterday was significantly higher than almost any other day I can remember. I was a little suspicious of this so I looked a little closer. It turns out that the majority of the hits came from 4 IPs. Also, the most used User Agent yesterday was called “Yeti”. I looked Yeti up and find that it is a Korean search bot.
I’m not sure why a bot like this is wasting my bandwidth and I’m pretty sure that I don’t get many readers from Korea so, until further notice, “Yeti” and it’s IPs are being banned. I went looking for the best way to block an evil bot and found my favorite on the Wordpress forums. Here’s my code:
# Deny Evil Bots
SetEnvIf User-Agent "Yeti" bad_bot
SetEnvIf Remote_Addr "222\.231\.2[01]\.[0-9]+" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot
Technorati Tags: blocking, bot, htaccess, spam, yeti
This summer, I am partaking in an internship that involves researching a global issue that will be discussed in a conference early next year. The topic I was assigned happens to be torture. All I was given was the word (torture) and a list of websites that might come in handy. The direction of the research has been left up to my judgement. These are my initial thoughts on torture…
Torture is a complex issue. On one hand, torture can be seen as an easy way accomplish certain goals of a powerful party (i.e. a government, military power, etc.). On the other, it degrades the tortured, dehumanizes the torturer, and could possibly have no yield. I do not believe the “advantages” of torture outweigh it’s disadvantages.
I do not believe torture can ever be justified, but what alternatives are there? This is where the difficulty comes up. It is a moral dilemma that could potentially weigh one human life against others. I can, however, see where the motivation to torture would come from.
Through my research, I would like to learn mostly about alternatives to torture and the ethics of torture. If you are interested, you can follow me and even suggest some resources.
Technorati Tags: research, torture
That’s right, Homestar Runner and his friends are back in an all new cartoon that attempts to explain what people have been doing for the past 2 months. Much of the crew over in Strongbadia have been on vacation… Marzipan went on tour with ‘Cool Tapes’, Strong Sad and the King of Town went to camp, and Bubs drove his truck to the beach. Strong Bad decided to be a little more daring and answer an email while jumping out of a plane. It’s on the cover of all the latest blogs.
Technorati Tags: cartoon, funny, homestarrunner, humor, strongbad
