Month: October 2005

So, what do you think?

Robert Heinlein observed that there’s really no such thing as a retired writer. They just don’t seem to be predisposed to it. Which is a good thing, as it meant that Arthur Silber couldn’t stay away from blogging for long.

Welcome back, Arthur. Your voice was missed.

Meanwhile, back to semi-brief radio silence while I work on deadlines. I will note that many of the stories, and most of the good one, that come from an editorial production perspective start with the phrase, “First of all, (blank) was late…”

I’ll be posting more about this later on, but suffice it to say that I am absolutely livid about Cardservice International and the lousy support I have been receiving from them, and am now accepting any and all recommendations for credit card processors.

I also feel perfectly happy saying this now, as I don’t expect to hear anything useful from them until Monday, which makes their 24 hour, 365 days service claim a bit of a lie…

I think he’s waiting for the American military deaths in Iraq to top 2000.

This might give Bush an out. All he has to do is prevent any soldiers from dying in Iraq, and he can keep all the indictments away.

Heck, all he has to do is prevent eight soldiers from dying. I’ll spot him seven corpses. And I’ll bet he still can’t do it.

An interesting list, with photos. I don’t know that I agree with them all, and they skipped the cover to THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1 (hey, it’s a periodical), but a good list.

The Abstract Factory: The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject:

The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject

Moderator: We’re here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des—

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate’s kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the “naturalistic” explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible — it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!

Oh, read the whole thing. You’ll feel better.

(Via Pharyngula.)

As you may know, I run a website called Lot Auctions, and there’s an auction going on now of 30,000+ comics that you might want to bid on. Every so often, you hear about a collection like this– now you have a chance to get in on it.

This is the personal collection of a long-time employee of the big-two comics companies (we can’t tell you who because of their corporate policy) who has to pay for a college education for his kids– so he’s selling off his entire collection, from Action Comics to Zot!, including complete runs of Avengers, Justice League, Green Lantern, Iron Man, and many others.

Most books prior to 1975 are VG or better, most books after 1975 are VF or better. Many are in mint condition (read once) and many rare issues are to be found, like the Elseworlds 80 Page Giant that includes Kyle Baker’s “Letetia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter” and which was pulped in the United States– less than 700 copies are suspected to exist.

Covers shown are NOT the actual covers, but used only for display purposes. The collection is available for viewing by appointment, and individual issues are also available for more precise grading information on request. Shipping costs will be paid by the buyer for any and all issues purchased.

Timmy’s Super Secret break down of the Bad Bush Poll Numbers:

Timmy’s “super secret” break down of the Bad Bush Poll Numbers

Yikes, talk about bad poll numbers. What the heck, the President doesn’t look at this stuff anyway.

Video-WMP Low res

Video-QT

As Think Progress notes: Apparently, it isn’t working so well. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that just 2 percent of African-Americans approve of his leadership. NBC’s Tim Russert — who called the number “a dramatic setback” — looked into it, and he could not “find a pollster who can remember any President ever getting just 2 percent approval from African-Americans.”

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

Brandy points out that is a rounding error. The numbers are so low as to be unstable. It might very well be zero.

UPDATE: I just found out the margin of error is 3 percent. So it could be as high as 5%, or as low as negative 1. I suppose that means unborn black children are against Bush too, which is ironic for someone so theoretically anti-abortion. On the other hand, that might just be a reaction to Bill Bennett’s comments about aborting black babies.

I wonder if we can convince the management at the New York Times that nobody in the blogosphere is subscribing to Times Select as a form of protest against Judith Miller?

I have a new habit that may tick off Hollywood.

I have lately taken to downloading TV programs from various place on the Internet, even though the episodes are already in my DVR. Why, you ask? Because when they’re on my computer, I can control the playback speed. And lately, I’ve been watching many TV shows at 1.5 times the speed.

If you have an hour long episode of, say, CSI Miami, and you take out the commercials (dropping the length to 45 minutes) and then play that back 50% faster, you can get through them in a half hour.

If you get the chance, try it. QuickTime Pro allows for changing playback speed with no change in pitch, depending on how the file was encoded. Anywhere between 1.25 and 2 time speed, depending on the show.

You may discover a few things:

One: most shows are heavily padded. Establishing shots are getting silly– I love Vegas, but I don’t need to see a shot of the Strip at night at the beginning of every act break. I shudder to think how quickly I’ll get through an episode of Jeopardy or a World Series game.

Two: the shows hold your interest better. Most of the time when I watch conventional TV, I’m usually doing something else– writing, answering email, eating dinner, what have you. At higher speeds, I find that I spend more time paying attention, partially out of necessity, but partially because I’m not bored by lulls, and also because of the knowledge that I’ll be done quicker– besides, I can always hit pause if I need to.

(As another data point, I notice that my reading habits are beginning to follow a similar pattern. I’m reading more and more in my RSS reader, and I’m spending more time reading folks who provide full feeds to their posts (like Mark Evanier) instead of excerpts (like Talking Points Memo) because to finish an excerpt I have to click through and burn time. I’m also reading less of people who just have pointer links to other things without much description, because I have too much other stuff to get to.)

As I said, this may tick off Hollywood. On the other hand, it may allow Hollywood to sell more product, because consumers can go through it faster. The biggest drawback to the medium that Hollywood traffics in is that the speed is locked down. When I read, I do so at my own pace– and as a result, I consume more product because I need more of it. It’s possible the same thing could happen with TV. Be honest: wouldn’t you be more likely to watch the nightly news if you got all the information in half the time? Wouldn’t there be more films you would try? Heck, wouldn’t it address most of the problems you have with a lot of films and TV?

Doing this addresses the zero-sum game problem inherent with Hollywood: there’s only so many hours in the day, so there’s only so much time to watch TV. If you’re trying to keep up with a dozen TV dramas, that’s 1/14th of your week gone.