Here's a short examination of why DVD players have regions--and how to get rid of them. From Wise Bread.
Back before the invasion of Afghanistan, when the world was telling the U.S. that it wasn't possible, one of the reasons given was the "brutal Afghan winters." And it does get cold there occasionally -- almost as cold as it gets here, at any of our numerous ski resorts. I thought of that when I read about the woman who skinny-dipped in the Trevi fountain in Rome, to "beat the heat". The blistering record heat wave of... 27 Celsius (80 Fahrenheit).
Emotive's flagship product, the patent-pending "Push Ringer", reverses the common ringtone model. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. Oh, great, just what we need. I've already seen a roomful of people doing the Cellphone Macarena because they can't tell whose phone is ringing, and that's when they know what they set their ringtone to. Want to hear another reason this is a bad idea? You think spam e-mails are frustrating, wait until someone "pushes" a sales pitch onto your phone. Imagine the hilarity when your pocket asks you if your pen!s is really large enough for you. During an important meeting.
Sheryl Crow thinks we can all get by with "only one square [of toilet paper] per restroom visit." Fortunately, Rosie O'Donnell performed a public service by delivering an untoppable answer to Crow's suggestion: "Have you seen my ass?"
Looking for a fast moneymaking scheme? Buy a herd of sheep, take them to Japan, and sell them to the locals. Tell 'em they're poodles. They won't know the difference: They don't have many sheep in Japan. Oops, too late.
John Q. Public really didn't need more reasons to hate Wal-Mart. BusinessWeek suggests that the recent implosion of some of the nation's largest electronics retailers (CompUSA, Tweeter, Rex, Circuit City) is attributable to WallyWorld having broken the $1000 barrier for flat-screen televisions back on Black Friday 2006. Just as their aggressive toy and grocery pricing killed FAO Schwarz and Winn-Dixie, respectively. (Saw it at The New Shelton Wet/Dry.) The Wall Street Journal reports that "In past decades, deejays and music critics helped shape musical trends. Today, many music industry executives agree, the big boxes have become the new tastemakers." And we all know whose box is the biggest. (Saw it at the Consumerist.) And now Forbes has named "the Wal-Mart squeeze", summarized by the Consumerist thusly: "The more stuff you sell at Walmart the more dependant your company is on their various whims. The result? The most stuff you sell, the smaller your profit margin is."
Back before the invasion of Afghanistan, when the world was telling the U.S. that it wasn't possible, one of the reasons given was the "brutal Afghan winters." And it does get cold there occasionally -- almost as cold as it gets here, at any of our numerous ski resorts. I thought of that when I read about the woman who skinny-dipped in the Trevi fountain in Rome, to "beat the heat". The blistering record heat wave of... 27 Celsius (80 Fahrenheit).
Emotive's flagship product, the patent-pending "Push Ringer", reverses the common ringtone model. It enables a caller to push an outgoing ringtone to the receiving phone allowing the caller, not the called person, to set the tone. Oh, great, just what we need. I've already seen a roomful of people doing the Cellphone Macarena because they can't tell whose phone is ringing, and that's when they know what they set their ringtone to. Want to hear another reason this is a bad idea? You think spam e-mails are frustrating, wait until someone "pushes" a sales pitch onto your phone. Imagine the hilarity when your pocket asks you if your pen!s is really large enough for you. During an important meeting.
Sheryl Crow thinks we can all get by with "only one square [of toilet paper] per restroom visit." Fortunately, Rosie O'Donnell performed a public service by delivering an untoppable answer to Crow's suggestion: "Have you seen my ass?"
Looking for a fast moneymaking scheme? Buy a herd of sheep, take them to Japan, and sell them to the locals. Tell 'em they're poodles. They won't know the difference: They don't have many sheep in Japan. Oops, too late.
John Q. Public really didn't need more reasons to hate Wal-Mart. BusinessWeek suggests that the recent implosion of some of the nation's largest electronics retailers (CompUSA, Tweeter, Rex, Circuit City) is attributable to WallyWorld having broken the $1000 barrier for flat-screen televisions back on Black Friday 2006. Just as their aggressive toy and grocery pricing killed FAO Schwarz and Winn-Dixie, respectively. (Saw it at The New Shelton Wet/Dry.) The Wall Street Journal reports that "In past decades, deejays and music critics helped shape musical trends. Today, many music industry executives agree, the big boxes have become the new tastemakers." And we all know whose box is the biggest. (Saw it at the Consumerist.) And now Forbes has named "the Wal-Mart squeeze", summarized by the Consumerist thusly: "The more stuff you sell at Walmart the more dependant your company is on their various whims. The result? The most stuff you sell, the smaller your profit margin is."
I was beginning to think no one would ever hear my adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The Country of the Blind". But, much to my surprise, there it is in ARTC's Podcast, part one last week and part two this.I can't judge the performance of the actor playing the lead character, Nunez, but the rest of the cast is delightful, and it was a pleasant surprise to hear my friend Thomas Fuller as the Elder of the little village.
This has always been one of my favorite stories, and I hope we've done it justice.
There is nothing unusual about this tech support call. Thousands just like it happen every day.
From The Consumerist.
From The Consumerist.
Let me approach the fracas du jour from another direction:
This is the cover of the comic that introduced Steel (later Commander Steel, now Citizen Steel, not to be confused with John Henry Irons) to the DCU. Can anyone explain to me how this costume could possibly be drawn, or the character posed, such that it does not draw attention straight to Steel's crotch?
That said...
...what's the difference? Why does it matter now, when it never has before?
In that light, it seems perfectly reasonable that if you're going to make people look there, you might as well put something there worth the trouble.
I've been saying that comics are over-rendered for years now, ever since Neal Adams gave Batman chest hair. This is what it took to get any kind of agreement from the comics community?
This is the cover of the comic that introduced Steel (later Commander Steel, now Citizen Steel, not to be confused with John Henry Irons) to the DCU. Can anyone explain to me how this costume could possibly be drawn, or the character posed, such that it does not draw attention straight to Steel's crotch?
That said...
...what's the difference? Why does it matter now, when it never has before?
In that light, it seems perfectly reasonable that if you're going to make people look there, you might as well put something there worth the trouble.
I've been saying that comics are over-rendered for years now, ever since Neal Adams gave Batman chest hair. This is what it took to get any kind of agreement from the comics community?
I realize that now that Jack is safely dead, the major comics publishers have come to a new appreciation of his work and influence, but Devil Dinosaur Omnibus?
Hints dropped left and right by Gail Simone and DC editorial were confirmed yesterday: Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Secret Six, The All-New Atom) will be the regular, ongoing writer of Wonder Woman starting right after the "Amazons Attack" event, with issue #13.The title has been floundering lately, with a high-profile, chronically late writer (something about that TV show he's also writing for, Grey's Anatomy) and a coming new high-profile writer who, it was announced going in, will only be staying for six issues.
The thing about having a character do something really dramatic (like, say, killing a long-time supporting character, as Wonder Woman did to Maxwell Lord) is that the editors have to have some kind of plan for where the character goes next. I don't think they had one.
So, if Simone is writing it, who's drawing it? She's said "a dream art team," and she's said "if the readers all made a list of who the best possible Wonder Woman art team would be, I bet this would be the number one choice. It’s that good."
I'm thinking one of two things must have happened: Either Didio looked around and thought, "Why am I asking Adam Hughes to draw an All Star Wonder Woman title when the real Wonder Woman title is in so much trouble"; or else he remembered that it wasn't the artists who made the first five issues of the restart late, and realized that he can't do any better than Terry and Rachel Dodson. I'll take either option, but I'm hoping for the Dodsons.
Robert Heinlein at One Hundred.The ancient mystery surrounding the great acoustics of the theater at Epidaurus in Greece has been solved.
This is the story of a girl named Corey O'Malley, and a boy named Corey O'Malley, who had their credit reports accidentally merged.
Did you know that Don Imus' "nappy-headed ho" remark was actually George Bush's fault? It's on the Internet so it must be true. Just as well he isn't in the furniture business.
Interplanetary war is now reality. First we invaded Mars, then we nuked Jupiter.
ZDNet's list of 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid. "Bare/bear", "poll/pole", "ring/wring" and "reign/rain/rein" mysteriously missing from list.
Aw, heck, the Fortress Keeper said it already.
Sincere regrets for any inconvenience this may cause.
Given: The DCU is too white-male-centric.Given: There are only so many good names/costumes/raisons d'etre.
Obvious Solution: Any property from second-tier on down is subject to being killed off and rebooted as a non-white/woman/both.
Okay, I get that. I like that blacks and women can be superheroes without being "Black This-or-That" or "She-Something".
Corollary Solution: Any property -- any property -- is subject to acquiring a partner/kid sidekick.
I even get that. I have to admit I wondered what kind of powder is in the sugar bowls in the DC breakroom when I saw Miss Martian, but dang it, she grows on me. (If only her breasts didn't grow and shrink from page to page, but then she IS a shape-changer.)
Here's what I don't get.
Did nobody at DC actually read Kingdom Come before they decided to make it happen? It was a dystopia. It was a nightmare. I always interpreted it as a commentary on Marvel Earth as well, since Stan Lee really wrote (heh) the book on leaving the villains out of the story completely and having alleged heroes whomp on each other for whole issues at a time. (Maybe Civil War was inevitable, at that.)
Specifically, it was hell on earth for non-metas, who appear to be drifting out of comics, even as supporting characters.
Over on The Absorbascon, Scipio has been keeping a running list of "Things that made me happy" in the week's comics. Taken as a group, they are proof that the rumors are true, and the DC comics universe is getting brighter. Even Bruce Wayne, the poster child for abandonment issues, is learning (in Superman/Batman #33) that it's OK not to be an a**hole all the time.
I don't know what's more interesting, the fact that this letter has been lost in the mail since September 1943, or that it's junk mail.
Organ donor? Cremation? Traditional burial? Why not place your loved one in a unique resting place? (He always wanted to be a writer...)
Playboy comes to my alma mater, only thirty-two years late. Go, you Brazilian dawgs.
It may not be green so much as a slightly greener shade of brown.
Is it possible to be on the Billboard list if you don't have an album? Well, yes, now. (NY Times story requires registration.)
Receiving fines and points had no significant impact on the risk of repeat [traffic] citations. Great, now you tell me.
Organ donor? Cremation? Traditional burial? Why not place your loved one in a unique resting place? (He always wanted to be a writer...)
Playboy comes to my alma mater, only thirty-two years late. Go, you Brazilian dawgs.
It may not be green so much as a slightly greener shade of brown.
Is it possible to be on the Billboard list if you don't have an album? Well, yes, now. (NY Times story requires registration.)
Receiving fines and points had no significant impact on the risk of repeat [traffic] citations. Great, now you tell me.
I don't think I dislike April Fool's Day as much as Sleestak does, but it has lost a lot of its charm for me. On the Internet, it means you can't trust anything you read...but that's different from the other 364 days how, exactly?
I don't think I dislike April Fool's Day as much as Sleestak does, but it has lost a lot of its charm for me. On the Internet, it means you can't trust anything you read...but that's different from the other 364 days how, exactly?
