Category: Miscellaneous

I loved this movie. Ok, it’s a sappy chic flick – but it’s so good. A family comes to the United States seeking a better life and their story is retold in this great film, “In Amerca”. Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 89% fresh rating. It definitely gets a high ranking in my book, but don’t take my word for it, see “In America” for yourself. I’m not sure but I think having been to New York allowed the movie to bring back that overwhelming feeling that the Big Apple has on small town folk like myself. Oh and if you are at all like my mom you’ll need about a box and a half of Kleenex, but I think you’ll like the movie anyway.

It looks as though Jerry Orbach has filmed his last scene in the series Law & Order. Don’t worry though – a friend of mine discovered that a new Law & Order series is in the works. It’s going to be called Law & Order: Trial by Jury and will star Jerry Orbach.

This new drama will feature a kind of ripped-from-the-headlines stories that that franchise has become know for, beginning with a criminal arraignment and continuing through the trial. The show will provide fictional access to prosecutors, defenders, judicial chambers, the jury room and every other nook and cranny of the process.

The show’s format is set up to allow for the possibility of cameos from other actors and characters from within the “Law & Order” universe.

I’m not the world’s biggest fan, but I really do like the show. I’ve been pretty disappointed with the spin-offs Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, but I’m hoping the new series will be more like the original than these two. Look for it on the air in January 2005.

There is a lesson in here somewhere.

A bunch of guys decide it would be a good idea to fire roman candles at a human target. (Via Dave Barry)

An engineer from San Fransico writes an open letter rant to the Crackhead that vandalized his sparkplugs. (Via all over the blogosphere).

On Wednesday morning I emerged from my girlfriend’s building by U.N. Plaza to find that you had sawed the tops off both the sparkplugs on my motorcycle. At the time, I had no idea why anyone would do that. Other than the sparkplugs, the bike was untouched. Some kind of bizarre vandalism? A fraternity prank gone awry? I had no idea. All I knew is that I looked like a huge douchebag riding the Muni to work in a padded motorcycle jacket and helmet.

Because the bike was immobilized I got a $35 street sweeping ticket that night. Thursday I had it towed to the shop ($45) where they replaced the sparkplugs and the boots ($50 including labor). They explained to me that “people” – I use the term loosely here – like you break off the tops of spark plugs and use the porcelain tubes to smoke crack. As an engineer and former MacGyver fan, in a way I think this is kind of cool. But then I remember that I just paid $100 for YOUR crackpipes, and I get angry again.

Submitting a link to the New York Times website? When you input the link you want into The New York Times Link Generator it gives you a URL to a permanent page. That way, your link will go to the NYT archives, and not to a page asking for money.

Prepared for my New Media Seminar class; it’s called, Creative Commons: Innovating Creation and Culture.

Wired magazine has reported that Japanese and Korean scientists working in collaboration have bred a mouse with two female parents and no male parent. While some may speculate that this is the first step to making men obsolete, I must remind them why the world needs men. Without them, who will mow the lawn, reach things off the top shelf, or open jars?

I want to say happy birthday to my girlfriend Anna-Maria.

She has this worked out… the year is 04, the month is 04, the date is the 22nd (2+2=04) and she turned 22 (2+2=04 again). 04040404 Some crazy sign or much ado about nothing? Either way, Happy Birthday Anna-Maria.

I’m making her a marbled cake (two small ones actually — I guess I should have made her four).

While researching Larry Lessig’s new book Free Culture, I came across a reference to http://www.archive.org, a site dedicated to archiving everything. This afternoon I downloaded a copy of the now famously ridiculous “Duck and Cover” film from the 50’s. It taught kids that the best thing to do in case of a nuclear attack was to duck and cover. There is a myriad of material there waiting to be analyzed in a historical context, or perfect for remixing into multimedia products.

I’ve been writing an essay (on and off for the last 2 days) on copyright and society and found BoingBoing’s link to the EFF and what they are doing to prevent patent abuse:

In light of growing concerns about illegitimate software and Internet patents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today announced a new initiative to combat the chilling effects bad patents have on public and consumer interests.

“Patents traditionally only targeted large commercial companies,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz. “Now bad patents are threatening non-profits, small businesses, and even individuals who use software and Internet technology.” These threats target non-commercial personal use, such as building a hobbyist website or streaming a wedding video to your friends.

The new EFF initiative seeks to document these threats and fight back against them. EFF has pledged to file “re-examination” requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), asking the agency to revoke patents that are having negative effects on Internet innovation and free expression.