JJ Abrams and his love of nicknames

(or maybe just his writers?)

NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Examples:
Alias (season 4): "Arvin Clone" (imposter of Arvin Sloane)
Lost (all seasons): anything Sawyer says
Fringe (season 2): "Walternate" (portmanteau of Walter and alternate)
Fringe (season 3): "Faulivia" (portmanteau of Faux and Olivia)

Verbification

Yes, Moe just used trompe l'oeil as a verb.

stats on tv

I just saw a Toyota ad on tv that claimed that 80% of Toyota vehicles sold in the last 20 years are on the road today. What this statement would like you to believe is that if you buy a Toyota now, chances are good that it will be drivable for 20 years.

What the statement actually tells you is that of the cars sold over the period 1989-2009, 80% of those cars are on the road today. However, the distribution of "hard" failures is unknown, at least just from these statistics. It could be the case that all Toyota vehicles fail at exactly the 16-year mark: if Toyota sells the same number of cars each year, then the cars that would be running today were sold between 1993 and 2009, or 16 years worth (80%) of cars.

Alternatively, it is highly likely that the number of Toyota cars being sold today is much higher than it was in 1989, so of those 80% that are running today, most might have been sold in the last 10 years or so, which might put the average lifespan closer to the early teens.

Missing Textbooks

Here is a list of textbooks I own that have gotten misplaced sometime over the past 3 years, possibly in the same box or something. I no longer have any hope for retrieval, but here, I will mourn their passing.

Moore & McCabe - Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4th edition - Magritte artwork on cover)
Parker - The Military Revolution
Nestler, Hyman, & Malenka - Molecular Neuropharmocology (1st edition, paperback)
Alberts et al. - Molecular Biology of the Cell (4th edition, hardcover, really just called "The Cell")
??? - Optics (blue hardcover, small silver diagram, rather old-timey: pre-color diagrams)

I will probably never have these books on my shelves again, as I very rarely buy the same thing twice. (Hey, you would buy Firefly again in blu-ray if it only cost 30 Canadian dollars, too!)

Oh, you silly Republicans

I see what you are trying to do, Sacramento Republicans. When McCain asks "Who is the real Barack Obama?", lesser people might use wikipedia. But no, Sacramento Republicans, you and I are too nerdy to do that. As TRUE Firefly fans, we turn to the works of Xiang Yu. My only regret is that active volcanoes are hard to come by in California. I guess waterboarding is the next best thing...

The HD dilemma

I have a nice computer. I have a nice monitor (23" LCD hp 2335, 1920x1200). I have a nice audio setup (Sondigo Inferno w/ optical out to Onkyo 5.1 speaker system). I want to watch blu-ray movies.

Simple, I thought, I'll just buy a blu-ray drive. I wonder how much they cost. Hey look, I can get a Pioneer blu-ray drive that also burns DVD's for $160. Great!

Oh, but I guess I need software to play blu-ray disks. Hey, there's an even cheaper Asus drive that's a retail version with software. Oh wait, that software is crap and only does stereo: that's retarded.

Oh, and my setup isn't HDCP. Wait, WTF? I need a new video card, a new monitor, and it looks like the software to decode and play might not even be XP compatible? That is RIDICULOUS. THANKS A LOT, FCC. WAY TO CAVE IN TO HOLLYWOOD INTERESTS.

Here's the problem: there are three classes of people, only one of whom actually gets screwed over by this HDCP/DRM nonsense:

1: the uploaders/pirates: DRM isn't going to stop them. AnyDVD HD is available for relatively cheap and will do the job.

2: the downloaders: DRM already removed and files uploaded by pirates, so HDCP setup is not needed, just a sufficiently fast computer and software that isn't restrictive like the commercial Blu-ray playing software. XMBC apparently will do the job just fine, even on computers with anemic video cards.

3: honest consumers: willing to buy blu-ray drive, blu-ray disks, even reasonably-priced software to play back the movies. (even after using various free software to play back plain vanilla DVD discs) Not willing to upgrade to Vista, pay $100 to PLAY BACK A MOVIE, buy a new GFX card, and a new monitor.

So, you ask, what's the problem? Just use AnyDVD HD to rip a blu-ray to your hard drive and use XMBC to play it back. Sure, except for a couple of things:

1) I shouldn't have to give up 20+ gigs and ripping time to play back a movie I own when I have hardware that is capable of playing it.

2) Oh yeah, it's illegal thanks to the DMCA. Thanks a lot Congress.

PS: filed under TV as well, cuz of Blu-Ray Firefly. Mmm, naked Nathan Fillion Morena Baccarin.

and we return to our usual randomness

This is what happens when you let sound engineers do whatever they want:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/29040/psych-daredevils#s-p1-so-i0

Right before the first commercial break, Shawn bites into a churro to a nice satisfying *crunch*. But wait, you say, churros aren't supposed to be crunchy, they're supposed to be soft and chewy, full of delicious sugaryness. Funny how I pick up on these random errors as opposed to the more glaring visual ones that get covered on wikipedia and imdb. Alas, maybe I only have food-sound synaesthesia after all...

Will someone please give the team on Psych some tickets to the fair and a batch of churros?

Dr. Horrible

Dr. Horrible is up! (Well, Act 1 anyway).

Go watch!

I'd buy it on iTunes, but I'm waiting for the DVD to drop later with all the extras. :)

Television again!

Ok, last post about inconsistencies in the new Terminator show, seriously.

Conversation between John, Sarah, Cameron, and Charlie.

Charlie: [about Derek Reese] He needs a transfusion.
Cameron: Sarah's O-, the universal donor
Charlie: It doesn't matter, he needs at least 3 units of his own type, AB- [...]
[...]
John: Test my blood. Test me.
[...]
[Later we see, John donating blood to Derek]

Yes, as someone with O-type blood, Sarah can't be the mother of John, who has (apparently) AB-. Unless of course, some weird mutations are involved. Which wouldn't be THAT surprising, considering that John's father was a time traveler.

Speaking of time travelers, the newest Doctor Who series on BBC is fantastic. Especially the 2nd series finale with a particularly hilarious conversation between the Daleks and the Cybermen:

Dalek: Identify yourself.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: State your identity.
Cyberman: You will identify first.
Dalek: Identify.
Mickey: (aside) It's like Stephen Hawking meets the speaking clock.
Cyberman: That is illogical. You will modify.
Dalek: Daleks do not take orders.
Cyberman: You have identified as Daleks.
Dalek: Outline resembles the inferior species known as Cybermen.

[...]

Cyberman: Our species are similar, though your design is inelegant.
Dalek: Daleks have no concept of elegance.
Cyberman: This is obvious.

[...]

Dalek: You propose an alliance?
Cyberman: This is correct.
Dalek: Request denied.
Cybermen: Hostile elements will be deleted.
[They fire, Dalek's shield holds up.]
Dalek: EXTERMINATE!
[Dalek fires, Cybermen fall.]

Cyberman: [...] Daleks be warned. You have declared war on the cybermen.
Dalek: This is not war; this is pest control.
Cyberman: We have five million cybermen. How many are you?
Dalek: FOUR.
Cyberman: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
Dalek: We would destroy the Cybermen with ONE Dalek. You are superior in only one respect.
Cyberman: What is that?
Dalek: You are better at dying.

Whuzza wha?

I don't think the writers plotted out the time jump that correctly...

1) There were definitely cell phones in 1999, so Sarah Connor not being familiar with the modern day version is kind of strange... (see Zack Morris phone)

2) John Connor mentions the "singularity". Heck, even as a sci-fi dork, I didn't hear about the idea of a technological singularity until a few years ago. Then again, I guess I never read the really hardcore Philip K. Dick / Neal Stephenson stuff till recently either, so I guess it would be possible for John Connor to know about something like that.

3) Do girls really go to the bathroom in such large flocks in high school?

Math in the new Terminator Show

I think I might be one of the only ones who freeze-framed the first episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" to verify the digits of pi when the flied by on a pan-through of the chemistry classroom. Ignoring for a second, why there are astronomy-related diagrams up on the wall and math constants rather than, say, the periodic table, I can tell you that the digits are probably correct. I say probably because I only know enough to verify up to the 82097 part. I used to know about 8 digits past that, but have since forgotten them. And it seems like a pretty common pi poster anyway.

Also, Summer Glau is hot:

Did I mention that she's the new "good" terminator? I almost crapped my pants when she delivered that classic line: "Come with me if you want to live."

Thank God for Fox's On-Demand Internet Streaming in not-bad high-def.