Random Flickr Blogging: 5705

Is it wrong that I instantly and instinctively hate this person?

Original

The Schizoid Women

Ok. We have here seven examples of the faces of two different women combined together in "morphing." Your job: Name them.

Rolling your cursor over the pictures, BTW, will give it away and is considered cheating.

R.I.P; Miss Moneypenny

Lois Maxwell, 1927-2007.

Here. with the aid of the "Memorable Quotes" section of their respective IMDb pages, are my favorite examples of "the customary byplay with 007."

From Dr. No:

[Slaps Bond's hand away from the papers on her desk]
James Bond: Moneypenny! What gives?
Miss Moneypenny: Me, given an ounce of encouragement. You've never taken me to dinner looking like this. You've never taken me to dinner...
James Bond: I would, you know. Only "M" would have me court-martialed for... illegal use of government equipment.
Miss Moneypenny: Flattery will get you nowhere - but don't stop trying.

From Diamonds Are Forever:

Bond: What can I bring you back from Holland?
Moneypenny: A diamond? In a ring?
Bond: Would you settle for a tulip?
Moneypenny: [Bond leaves; she sighs longingly] Mm, yes.

And from Moonraker:

Miss Moneypenny: Why are you so late, James?
James Bond: I fell out of an airplane without a parachute. Who's in there?
Miss Moneypenny: Q and the Minister of Defense.
James Bond: You don't believe me, do you?
Miss Moneypenny: No.

Oh joy.

Who's your punk/rock/emo soulmate?

Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day

You and Billy Joe Armstrong, lead singer and guitarist of Green Day, are the perfect pair of american idiots

Y'know, a year or two back, this would have had me going crazy (in a good way)

News flash-

"24" will launch its season with a two-night premiere event. It will kick off Jan. 13 with two hours before settling into its regular time period with a new episode at 9 p.m. the following night.

The premiere will be exciting for "24" fans, but that's nothing compared to confirmation of the return of Tony Almeida. The CTU veteran, played by Carlos Bernard, was left for dead at the hands of a terror suspect in Day 5.

Emphasis mine.

You longtime "DiD" fans may remember my saying that Tony Almeida's death

...was was what I think of as a "click" moment. It's the moment when a TV series or movie pushes me just that one step too far and seems to be saying to me, "fuck you."

After a click moment, it's hard for me to care.

And I cared about that character.

But that was (seemingly) a long time ago, before much of the cast & crew-including Bernard-decided to kiss up to the Republicans. And before the show itself turned to snot.

I bailed out of the last "day" about eight hours in, and I doubt I was the only one who couldn't make it to the end.

So will Tony's return get me to try again? Maybe-if only to see how they explain it away (my theory: Chloe built a robot twin).

But you'll understand if I don't have my hopes up.

Oh yeah

PJ reminded me that it' s about time for my semi-annual "tell me who you are" post, which goes a little something like this...

I'd just like to know a little bit about who you are and where you came from. Or what you like or not about the blog.

So if you wouldn't mind, tap on the comments line down there to the right and introduce yourself. Tell me anything and everything you want me to know, or you think I might like to know about you.

A few suggested questions to answer follow. Use as many or none of them as you like. BTW, this is strictly for my own curiosity, I'm not conducting a demographic survey or anything.

• When and how did you find my blog?
• When you're not reading this blog, what are you trying to do with your life?
• And how's that going for you?
• Where did you grow up, and where do you live now?
• Children?
• Pets?
• Have you noticed that this blog has grown increasingly cynical about religion of late? I ask because I have, and I'm not sure why it is.
• You think I hold a grudge too long?
• You think I post too many pictures of women who are nude, nearly so, or wearing tight-fitting clothes?
• Do you really give a damn what I think about some new sitcom, or what I've been reading lately?
• Do I post too many 1980's electro videos?

And one more to be on the safe side

Dan Hartman: We Are The Young

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tags: Product Information, Pricing , Make an Inquiry ,video conferencing

Two cuts of soul

One:

Here's a late-period Hall & Oates song (with a rare lead vocal by Oates), "Possession Obsession."



I always liked this song, certainly best of the few with Oates on lead.

Two:

I apologize in advance for the sophomoric ad you'll have to watch, but I think you'll forgive me when you see what's on the other side: Jazz saxophone legend and smooth jazz music artist David Sanborn, with "Love And Happiness"

Enjoy.

I shoulda learned to play the guitar. I shoulda learned to play them drums.

You Should Play the Guitar

You're very independent - both in spirit and in the way you learn. You can teach yourself almost anything, even if it makes your fingers bleed. You're not really the type to sit patiently through a music lesson - or do things by the book. It's more your style to master the fundamentals and see where they take you. Highly creative and a bit eclectic, you need a wide range of music to play. You could emerge as a sensitive songwriter... or a manic rock star. Your dominant personality characteristic: being rebellious Your secondary personality characteristic: tenacity

What Musical Instrument Should You Play?

Fetch me Lucille.

The big shows last night ratings-wise were The Bionic Woman, which I didn't even try to watch, and Private Practice (ditto).

It's a reminder of how rare it is that my taste is in line with the millions. Only Tuesdays at nine, really, do I ever feel at one with my culture.

This has been a real week for unintentionally (?) odd turns of phrase in television announcements. As Kathy observed on her blog, Ken Burns’ The War is introduced each night with the phrase: Corporate funding for The War is provided by...

And last night brought the philosophical amusement of hearing, in the middle of trying a new show, the announcement, "Stay tuned for more...Life." All right.

Life, you see, is a new show on NBC, the premise of which is that Charlie Crews, a police detective, has recently been released from prison after serving 12 years for a crime it's now been established (by DNA evidence) he didn't commit.

As part of his settlement, he has his old job back, as well as a cash settlement in the millions. Now he takes his "Zen" approach (developed while he was serving time) to solving crimes week-to-week, while also trying to solve the big one: Who framed him and why?

I liked the off-kilter feel of the drama (created by Rand Ravich); it seems to spin out organically from its lead actor, Damian Lewis, as Charlie.

Lewis is good at suggesting someone whose beat is just a little bit off from everyone else’s. The pilot necessarily focused more on him, but Sarah Shahi, formerly The L Word's Carmen, easily embodies her character's own dark side: Charlie's newly assigned partner, she's 20 months drug-free.

There are definite possibilities for untapped depth in both-if the characters are given a chance to develop (more on that later). However, they also have two counts against them, neither of which is really their fault, but I'm gonna call the show on it anyway.

Lewis looks enough like Hugh Laurie to be his brother, and so far at least, this is a distraction.



One hopes that with a few more hours to impress his performance upon my brain it will become less so. Neither the performance nor the character is an imitation of House, I should say, but probably not coincidentally, Lewis is also a Brit affecting an American accent. Which is extraordinary, by the way-I didn't know it was fake until I Googled him.



As for Shahi, I freely cop to this being a sexist observation, it's just that I happen to know she's much hotter (see above) than she was presented as being in last night's episode. Which was only appropriate for the character and logical for the show.

A professional woman on the job isn't likely to style her hair or wear her clothes as if she was going to a singles bar (unless of course, she's Dr. Cuddy on House. Not that I'm complaining).

I guess I'm just saying, I hope as the show goes on, we see some more of that side of Shahi's character's..."life."

That is, if the show goes on...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

More than a few of the other actors are also talented but we saw less of what they will bring to the series, again, this is necessary in a pilot.



Robin Weigert, who I remember vaguely from Mike Nichols' mini-series version of Angels in America, is the police captain who seems willing to get rid of either of the cops if they screw up.

Adam Arkin is Charlie's friend, proving once again that any series I like will, sooner or later, feature someone who also appeared in The West Wing.



Melissa Sagemiller is the lawyer who got Crews out of prison, and who may be just slightly warm for his form.

Although the show has received generally favorable reviews, and NBC is claiming victory in the demographics...well, that's what networks claim when their shows lose in the ratings.

So. A show airing at 10:00 pm, that I like, with connections to The West Wing, that most of the critics like. But with ratings that almost immediately caused concern.

It's The Nine (and S60) all over again.

Droooooooooooooooooool

Disney's 1967 movie of The Jungle Book has its detractors. In his book Of Mice And Magic Leonard Maltin said it "...lacked heart and soul...and substituted for it a gallery of characters whose strongest identification was with the stars who provided their voices." In The Disney Films, he calls it "...too easygoing."

And John Grant said "...the story seems to exist solely for the purpose of linking the song-and-dance items," in his Encyclopedia Of Walt Disney's Animated Characters.

I suppose these charges and possibly more can be supported, but I've never cared. I hold the movie to be one of Disney's finest. Which is why I'm quite dizzy with anticipation after learning of the shortly forthcoming Two-Disc "40th Anniversary Platinum Edition."

Quoting directly from Amazon.com:

This Platinum Edition includes everything from the standard bonus features like...deleted songs to exciting and sometimes rare commentaries by everyone from modern day animators to Walt Disney himself, multiple featurettes about specific aspects of the film and its production, and a lengthy deleted scene featuring lost character Rocky the Rhino. Especially interesting for adults and Disney fans are "The Bare Necessities: The making of The Jungle Book" featurette, which explores Walt Disney's commitment to developing strong characters and his insistence that writers, animators, and song writers create a light version of Jungle Book that followed his own personal interpretation of the story, and the "The Lure of The Jungle Book" featurette, which discusses Frank Thomas' and Ollie Johnston's amazing contribution to the film as prolific animators and the inspiration and influence that their work provided for future animators including Brad Bird (The Incredibles), Andreas Deja (Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King)...and Eric Goldberg (Fantasia 2000). The full length commentary by Bruce Reitherman (voice of Mowgli), animator Andreas Deja, and composer Richard Sherman with its interspersed archival commentary of Disney greats from the original creative team (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Woolie Reitherman, and others is also very interesting and insightful.

God, I love DVDs.

"and have them not be affected. that's what would frighten me."

We have here one of the more meaningful (and surprising) big chart successes of the mid-1980s. Built around soundbytes from a television documentary on the Vietnam war, it seized on one chilling factoid: The men (and women) who die in war seem to be getting younger and younger.

Doesn't seem like a very likely basis for an electro-funk-pop tune, now does it?

Yet somehow, it was, and the record never loses its sting or social comment.

Here's "Nineteen" by Paul Hardcastle.



Unfortunately, I could only find a video for the 7", shorter mix. The 12', longer mix has one of the most memorable bytes on the record:

" You're 18 years old and you're wearing somebody's brains around in your shirt because they got their heads blown off right next to you. And that's not supposed to affect you. I've never understood that. What would scare me...is if we were to send a group of 18 year olds 12,000 miles away...and subject them to, a year of that obsenity...and have them not be affected . That's what would frighten me"

Dell to Sell PCs Through Retail Chain in China

BEIJING (AP) -- Dell Inc. announced a deal Monday to launch a retail presence in China by selling computers through the country's biggest chain of electronics stores as it struggles to capture a bigger share of the booming market.

The deal extends Dell's strategy of expanding beyond its traditional Internet- and phone-based sales model into retail to cope with competition from Hewlett-Packard Co. and other rivals. Dell also has targeted China with a low-cost PC unveiled in March and aimed at rural customers.

Sales will start in 50 Gome Group stores next month and expand to more stores early next year, said Michael Tatelman, vice president of marketing and sales for Dell's global consumer business.

''Our market share in China is obviously well below our global average. So we hope to be successful here and get our rightful share of the business,'' Tatelman said. ''We think this partnership gives us a platform to certainly expand our business here.''

Tatelman declined to give any sales projections.

Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, used to lead global PC sales with its lower-cost direct sales model. But since being overtaken by HP last year, Dell has started to turn to retail sales, including recent deals with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the United States, Bic Camera Inc. in Japan and Carphone Warehouse PLC in Britain.

Dell says it has about 18 percent of China's PC market by revenue and 10 percent by number of units sold. Worldwide, its market share is 16.1 percent, according to consulting firm Gartner Group.

In China, Dell trails Beijing-based rival Lenovo Group Ltd., which bought IBM Corp.'s PC business in 2005, and Hewlett-Packard.

The new China sales plan calls for putting Dell employees in some Gome stores. The chain has about 700 outlets in 210 cities in China.

Gome already sells home computers from a wide range of brands, said Wang Junzhou, the company's executive vice president, who joined Tatelman at the news conference. He said some outlets have more than 200 different models on display.

Dell models to be sold at Gome include the XPS M1330 and Inspiron 1420 notebooks and XPS 720, Dimension 9200 and Inspiron 530 desktop, according to the company.

Dell plans to continue with its Internet and phone-based sales in China, Tatelman said. He declined to say which method was expected to be more profitable.

The low-cost basic desktop PCs designed for China that went on sale in March are priced at about $300, he said.

Gome Group is the parent company of Hong Kong-listed Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd. Gome's rapid expansion has made its founder, Huang Guangyu, one of China's richest entrepreneurs, with a fortune estimated last year by Forbes magazine at $2.3 billion.

Tags:dell,china,IBM,computers

Buy a Laptop for a Child, Get Another Laptop Free

One Laptop Per Child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month.

Orders, however, are slow. “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written,” said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the nonprofit project. “And yes, it has been a disappointment.”

But Mr. Negroponte, the founding director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, views the problem as a temporary one in the long-term pursuit of using technology as a new channel of learning and self-expression for children worldwide.

And he is reaching out to the public to try to give the laptop campaign a boost. The marketing program, to be announced today, is called “Give 1 Get 1,” in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399.

One of the machines will be given to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. The donated computer is a tax-deductible charitable contribution. The program will run for two weeks, with orders accepted from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26.

Just what Americans will do with the slender green-and-white laptops is uncertain. Some people may donate them to local schools or youth organizations, said Walter Bender, president of the laptop project, while others will keep them for their own family or their own use.

The machines have high-resolution screens, cameras and peer-to-peer technology so the laptops can communicate wirelessly with one another. The machine runs on free, open source software. “Everything in the machine is open to the hacker, so people can poke at it, change it and make it their own,” said Mr. Bender, a computer researcher. “Part of what we’re doing here is broadening the community of users, broadening the base of ideas and contributions, and that will be tremendously valuable.”

The machine, called the XO Laptop, was not engineered with affluent children in mind. It was intended to be inexpensive, with costs eventually approaching $100 a machine, and sturdy enough to withstand harsh conditions in rural villages. It is also extremely energy efficient, with power consumption that is 10 percent or less of a conventional laptop computer.

Staff members of the laptop project were concerned that American children might try the pared-down machines and find them lacking compared to their Apple, Hewlett-Packard or Dell laptops. Then, in this era of immediate global communications, they might post their criticisms on Web sites and blogs read around the world, damaging the reputation of the XO Laptop, the project staff worried.

So the laptop project sponsored focus-group research with American children, ages 7 to 11, at the end of August. The results were reassuringly positive. The focus-group subjects liked the fact that the machine was intended specifically for children, and appreciated features like the machine-to-machine wireless communication. “Completely beastly” was the verdict of one boy. Another environmentally conscious youngster noted that the laptop “prevents global warming.”

Still, the “Give 1 Get 1” initiative is mainly about the giving. “The real reason is to get this thing started,” Mr. Negroponte said.

He said that if, for example, donations reached $40 million, that would mean 100,000 laptops could be distributed free in the developing world. The idea, he said, would be to give perhaps 5,000 machines to 20 countries to try out and get started.

“It could trigger a lot of things,” Mr. Negroponte said.

Late last year, Mr. Negroponte said he had hoped for orders for three million laptops, but those pledges have fallen short. Orders of a million each from populous Nigeria and Brazil did not materialize.

Still, the project has had successes. Peru, for example, will buy and distribute 250,000 of the laptops over the next year — many of them allocated for remote rural areas. Mexico and Uruguay, Mr. Negroponte noted, have made firm commitments. In a sponsorship program, the government of Italy has agreed to purchase 50,000 laptops for distribution in Ethiopia.

Each country will have different ideas about how to use the machines. Alan Kay, a computer researcher and adviser to the laptop project, said he expects one popular use will be to load textbooks at 25 cents or so each on the laptops, which has a high-resolution screen for easy reading.

“It’s probably going to be mundane in the early stages,” said Mr. Kay, who heads a nonprofit education group, whose learning software will be on the XO Laptop. “I’m an optimist that this will eventually work out,” Mr. Kay said.

Tags:Laptop,free,reviews,machine

Random Flickr Blogging: 2582

Garçonhommdebattesm: A rare sexual kink whose practitioners (known for their telltale green eyebrows) can only attain gratification in threesome situations with men dressed as Batman and women dressed as Boy George.


(photo credit)

Um...no, not exactly.

James Truman, then of Details Magazine, as quoted in Stiffed by Susan Faludi:

"Tom Cruise was the biggest sex object in [Risky Business]," Truman said, sounding as if this were a moment of conquest for all men, "whereas she [the main hooker in the film played by Rebecca DeMornay] was just the whorehouse tramp. The body you remember in that film was Tom Cruise's."

What Mark said

Y'know...as will come as no surprise to most if not all of you, I can be an arrogant guy. But I'm not so arogant as to think that I can rewrite Irving Berlin on any grounds whatsoever.

A few years ago, Rosie O'Donnell insisted on doing just that before allowing a song to be performed on her television show. It was one of the things that made me, to put it mildly, not a fan of hers.

And that was in support of an agenda-O'Donnell didn't want to be seen to be promoting hunting-with which I actually agree, however self-important and tasteless I think her advancement of it was.

How do you suppose I feel that a bunch of anti-separation-of-church-and-state"Christian" "right-to-lifers" have taken it upon themselves to rewrite "God Bless America"?

With, as Mark Evanier says,

no concept of meter or rhyme...[not even] the amateur lyricist's trick of just counting syllables.

Sheesh...

Has Google Plans to Lay a Pacific Cable?

Google may be the ultimate do-it-yourself company. From the start, Google’s sense of its own engineering superiority, combined with a tightwad sensibility, led it to build its own servers. It writes its own operating systems.

It is now threatening to buy wireless carrier spectrum and it is getting ready to hire ships that will lay a data communications cable across the Pacific, according to a report from Communications Day, an Australian trade news service.

Google would plan to be part of a project called Unity that would also include several telecommunications companies. Unity hopes to have a cable in service by 2009, the publication wrote. It would own a dedicated portion of the multi-terabit cable, giving it a significant cost advantage for trans-Pacific data transmission over rival Internet companies.

Barry Schnitt, a Google spokesman, didn’t confirm the plan, but did tell the publication the company is interested in the area, saying, “Additional infrastructure for the Internet is good for users and there are a number of proposals to add a Pacific submarine cable. We’re not commenting on any of these plans.” Communications Day also noted that Google has advertised to hire people who would “be involved in new projects or investments in cable systems that Google may contemplate to extend or grow its backbone.”

Google has long been buying up data communications capacity. Its search engine works by making copies of nearly every page of the Internet in its own data centers. That requires Google move no small amount of data around the world on a regular basis. And its new plans to deliver applications over the Internet will use even more bandwidth.

Dave Burstein, the editor of DSLPrime, who tipped me off to the CommDay report, explained even though there is a lot of unused fiber capacity across the Pacific, there are few players, and prices are seen as unusually high. He adds that there is a glut of cable-aying ships, so the cost of building a new link to Asia has come down.

This new move puts Google in competition again with Verizon, which has fought Google’s approach to the new wireless spectrum auction in the United States. Verizon is part of a group of Asian carriers that is building a $500 million cable between the United States and China.

Tags:Google,Pacific,cable,United States

One Anti-Piracy System to Rule Them All

Hollywood appears to have a preliminary winner in its bake-off of anti-piracy technologies.

For the last year, the film industry, through its Palo Alto-based R&D joint venture MovieLabs, has been testing a dozen so-called “digital fingerprinting” technologies. The technology purports to scan file sharing sites, Internet providers and peer-to-peer networks to identify copyrighted material.

Yesterday in Los Angeles, people affiliated with the Motion Picture Association of America talked about the ongoing tests at a day-long anti-piracy workshop that the MPAA co-hosted with the University of California. In his introductory keynote at the event, UCLA professor and Internet pioneer Leonard Kleinrock showed a single slide that suggested that one of the anti-piracy filtering companies had outperformed the other 11, with the highest number of matches of infringing content and lowest number of false-positives. But professor Kleinrock and MPAA execs declined to name the participating companies or who had scored best on the test, saying that secrecy was a precondition for their participation in the tests.

Nevertheless, afterwards, executives from Santa Clara, Calif-based Vobile were crowing in the hallways of the Universal Hilton Hotel.

The two-year old company’s technology, called Video DNA, has apparently bested others from the Royal Philips Electronics, Thomson Software & Technology, and the highest profile digital fingerprinting company, the Los Gatos, Calif.-based Audible Magic, which has deals to filter video sharing sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox.

The MPAA told Business Week in the spring that Vobile was doing “very well” on the tests.

Movie Labs stress-tested the anti-piracy systems by loading hundreds of hours of copyrighted video content into the databases of the various filters, and then by flooding them with thousands of video files, some distorted, darkened and cropped, to try to scuttle their ability to find matches.

In the next phase of the ongoing tests, MovieLabs will see if the systems can handle ever larger quantities of copyrighted works. Theoretically, adding more songs, TV shows and movies in their databases could slow down these systems—and the Internet video sites that use them— since it could take longer to find possible matches.

MovieLabs has been sharing tests results with its member movie studios since the summer. MovieLabs chief executive Steve Weinstein says the technology is ready for prime time. “In a year you’re going to see many Internet companies using it. This technology has shown its viability.”

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

Yes!

Ok. As you may have heard, comedian Kathy Griffin won an award at the Creative Arts Emmys a week or so back. Accepting it, she said,

"A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus...This award is my God now."

As you can well imagine, the conservative, Christian community was not best pleased. But then, they never are, are they? They couldn't even laugh when Pat Boone released a heavy metal album.

But, I haven't had anything to say about the Griffin thing because frankly, it just seems all so predictable: Her comments, the reaction to her comments, the tut-tutting college newspaper editorials on the importance of the first amendment. Yawn.

But this afternoon, came the news that a christian theatrical group had spent a reported $90,000 to buy a full-page ad in USA Today condemning Griffin.

Hold a moment, gentle readers.

Putting aside for the moment the question of what you or I would do with $90, 000 (Do you have any idea what I could do with $90,000?).

Putting aside the question of what a theatrical group is doing wasting $90, 000 on something like this (except to ask Mr. Klemow: If Sacred Fools had $90, 000 to spare, what would they spend it on?)

Putting all that aside. WTF is "Christlike" about being so thin-skinned that a joke from an only fitfully funny comedian (Emmy notwithstanding, there's a reason why Griffin's show is called "...the D-List") wins your condemnation?

I would define myself as an Agnostic. But if there is a God, and a Jesus, I'm quite sure they have sufficent self-esteem not to sweat it when people make a little fun.

And speaking of fun.

Still and all, this dumbass move probably still wouldn't have gotten me to write a post. Conservative Christians work themselves into a lather about the darndest things, wow, film at 11.

Let me ask you, dear and gentle readers.

...in what state...

...do you suppose...

...this christian theatrical group is located?

(come to papa...)

That's right, Tennessee.* The state that keeps on giving.












*Also, it turns out, the home of the "Leave Britney Alone Guy."

This is kind of cool

Someone has put together a program where you type in a word or words, and it searches flickr to find images to represent each letter of that word (or words).

What did I ask it to spell? What do you think?

Couldn't find, find a place to go

This is one of my favorite Fixx recordings.

In general Fixx are something of a guilty pleasure of mine. If I really listen to them critically, I have to admit they're not terribly significant. Yet I do listen to, like, and know well a number of their singles.

If nothing else, it can always be said that they had a distinctive sound (based around guitarist Jamie West-Oram and vocalist Cy Curnin).

Here's "Red Skies" (the redone version)



When I reviewed their Millennium Collection I said that the redo added "nothing to the original...in arrangement or performance," but I've changed my mind. I now feel it's much preferable to the 1982 original.

(the video's not great, but it gives you the idea)

My favorite color gets lucky.

...is worn by Eva Amurri.

If you really bug me then I'll say goodbye...If you wanna be my sitcom, you gotta get with my friends

Just watched the premiere of Back to You, the new sitcom with Kelsey Grammer as a TV anchorman returning to a smaller market after he loses his job at a big Los Angeles station.

Also starring are Patricia Heaton, Fred Willard, Ayda Field and Laura Marano. Jim Burrows is directing, and Christopher "not that one" Lloyd and Steve Levitan are the creators. That's enough star talent both in front of and behind the cameras that you'd think it would be, if not a sure thing, then certainly a safe bet.

But somehow, I had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy. And sure enough, although about a dozen critics have really liked the show, it's mostly been getting average reviews.

Based on the pilot, it really doesn't deserve much better...this was pretty laugh-poor. There were a few, but they were small and far-between....and the "big guns" didn't land any of them. Even allowing for the reality that Grammer has typecasting issues beyond most actors' wildest nightmares or that I've never really been a fan of Heaton's...that's not good.

(In Grammer's case, he's also not helped by the idea that crossed my mind of what a wonderful part this would have been for the late Phil Hartman. But obviously, we can't blame anyone on the show for that.)

Willard was funny once or twice...but he's also playing the same character he's been playing, with different names, since roughly 1974. Another bright spot is Marano, an 11-year-old performer who looks like she might be that rare child actress worth watching.

But poor Ayda Field-formerly Jeannie on Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.



The role she's playing could be filled (and I use the word advisedly) by any Stuff model willing to mouth sub-Kelly Bundy gags. She certainly has the body for it, but I take it as an article of faith that an actress who's been on an Aaron Sorkin series deserves better. Even a failed one (noble though it was).

And stage vet Josh Gad's youthful news director character smells like it wants to be Murphy Brown's Miles Silverberg with computer nerd and fat-guy jokes larded on.

Really, the whole thing feels like nothing so much as a "wannabe" sitcom. The jokes are fresh only inasmuch as they're about what I would expect a college freshman to come up with. Shortly after we learn that Heaton and Grammer had a one night stand 10 years ago, he uses the newsman's announcement "This just in."

Do you really need me to tell you what her response is?

Even with Burrows textbook direction ("it's always funnier moving") as a guide, jokes like that can't be saved.

The plot mechanics are, if anything, even less subtle, including one "twist" that I saw coming just from reading some of the reviews. It's not they gave much of anything away...it was just that easy.

I dunno. Maybe Benson's satirical novel is still too fresh in my memory for me to laugh at anything other than the most wonderful sitcoms (ah, NewsRadio, how I miss you). Or maybe the sitcom really is dead this time.

But, I'm old enough to remember the first time I read people were saying that...it was just before a little series called The Cosby Show hit.

Aisha Tyler is a goddess

If further proof is desired, click on above thumbnail to see the image in original size.

Thanks, Alicia. I'll just email this to 1993, when I might have cared

Alicia Silverstone has filmed an ad for PETA in which she appears in the nude.

Pride.

This blog is currently the second result if you do a Google search for "katharine mcphee stupid."

First result is video of Tyra Banks playing "honk honk" with McPhee's boobies.

Pride.

IPhone Introduced to Europe, Where Standards Differ

LONDON, Sept. 18 — Apple introduced the iPhone to Europe on Tuesday, hoping to entice consumers with a sleek design and the power of the Apple brand, even as it flouts some of the technological and marketing conventions of the European mobile business.

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple chief executive, said the iPhone would become available to British consumers in November in an exclusive arrangement with O2, a mobile network operator owned by Telefónica of Spain. Similar deals are expected to be announced with the T-Mobile subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom in Germany and with the Orange unit of France Télécom.

The iPhone, which allows users to make calls, browse the Internet, check e-mail and play songs and videos by running their fingers over a touch-sensitive screen, has been a hit in the United States, where more than one million were sold in the first three months of its release.

But analysts say Apple may have a tougher time in Europe. They expressed disappointment that the iPhone to be sold in Europe was identical to the one in the United States, meaning that it would be unable to take advantage of faster European wireless networks for Web browsing and media downloads.

Mr. Jobs said Apple had decided against making the phone compatible with the faster third-generation mobile networks because the chip sets for 3G-compatible phones used up battery power too quickly. “They’re real power hogs,” he said in London, adding that it might take until late next year for the technology to advance enough to make a 3G iPhone.

Mr. Jobs said the iPhone would overcome this hurdle by relying heavily on Wi-Fi technology, which provides broadband Internet access for laptop computers and other devices, though only when they are stationary. When iPhones are on the move, they will shift to a mobile technology called Edge, which is also use by AT&T, Apple’s exclusive network partner in the United States.

But Matthew Key, chief executive of O2 in Britain, said Edge would be available in areas covering only about 30 percent of the British population when the phone is introduced in Britain on Nov. 9.

Also, 20 percent of British mobile users already have 3G-enabled phones, according to M:Metrics, a research firm. “There’s no doubt it’s going to be an obstacle for Apple,” said Paul Goode of M:Metrics. “You’re going to be asking people to downgrade in terms of capability.”

Apple is also going against the grain of the European mobile business by charging £269 ($538) for the phone in Britain, and locking customers in to 18-month contracts at monthly rates of £35 to £55 ($70 to $110). Typically, carriers discount even high-end cellphones in Europe.

“Sometimes you get what you pay for,” Mr. Jobs said.

O2 customers will also get unlimited data transfers with their iPhones, an effort to stimulate use of the mobile Internet and multimedia services.

T-Mobile planned to announce on Wednesday an exclusive agreement to sell the iPhone in Germany, according to a person briefed on the negotiations. There, the phone will sell for 399 euros ($555), this person added.

Carolyn Owen, a spokeswoman for Orange, declined to confirm reports that Apple would soon announce a similar agreement in France.

Europe has generally been a trickier place than the United States for Apple to do business. The company’s iPod music player has a roughly 20 percent market share in Europe, including 40 percent in Britain, compared with 60 percent in the United States, according to M:Metrics.

Regulators and consumer groups in several countries have also objected to some of Apple’s business practices.

This week, for instance, the European Commission plans hearings on a complaint that Apple’s iTunes online music store violates competition rules by charging Britons more than other Europeans for downloads. Apple has said its agreements with music companies and the organizations that oversee musical copyrights are to blame.

Despite Apple’s struggles in Europe, analysts say the region could still turn into a lucrative market for the iPhone.

Europeans, for instance, are more likely to opt for high-end multimedia phones than Americans. In June, according to M:Metrics, only 6 percent of cellphones sold in the United States were so-called smartphones, compared with 12 percent in Britain and 24 percent in Italy — a market where Apple has not yet indicated its iPhone plans.

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

Google Program Enlists Mini-Sites as Selling Tool for Advertisers

Google is seizing on the popularity of widgets — small online tools that function like mini-Web sites — for its latest push into advertising.


The online giant will announce today a Gadget Ads program that will provide tools for advertisers to run widget ads in Google’s AdSense network.

Marketers can use space within these display ads on Google’s network to show videos, offer chats with celebrities, play host to games or other activities. If consumers like the widget ad, they can save it onto their desktops or on their profile pages online on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

The new widget ads represent a more aggressive push by Google to attract big brand advertisers who like flashy ad units rather than the simple text ads commonly run in Google’s ad network.

One big advantage of the technology is that the consumer does not have to click through to a Web site. A weather widget, for example, would constantly update the weather report in a particular area. Similarly, marketers could feature content to attract consumers while constantly updating their own messages.

More than 48 percent of Internet users in the United States — over 87 million people — now use widgets, according to comScore, the online measurement company. Some of the most popular widgets on Facebook, for example, are the “Top Friends” tool, which allows people to go to their best friends’ profiles with a single click, and iLike, which lets users add music to their profiles.

“Consumers are pulling in content from multiple sources” said Christian Oestlien, a business product manager at Google who is overseeing the new ad program. “It is what we are calling the componentization of the Web. The Web is sort of breaking apart into smaller pieces.”

Many widgets have been built by media outlets, like Lucky Magazine’s shopping widget, which features hot fashion and beauty products. And some companies like Slide are developing networks of widgets made by individuals that advertisers can place ads within.

But consumer brands like Sierra Mist and Honda Civic have also been creating their own widgets as a way of providing content or tools to potential customers. Google is hoping marketers will pay to place these widgets throughout its AdSense network.

Advertisers bid for keywords to place their widget ads in Google’s network in the same way they do other Google ads. Since many users will interact with the ads within the ad units and not click through, Google has developed a new interaction measure to document the interest in the ads.

Google tested its Gadget Ads program this summer with a group of 50 marketers. To encourage more advertisers to make such ads, Google is offering to be host of videos for the ads in YouTube’s servers — a cost-saving for advertising agencies. And Google provides tools for updating the ads, even if marketers do not bid for ads in Google’s network. Marketers pay Google only for the ads that run in its networks and not for any downloading or saving of those ads that consumers may choose to do.

“We’re not trying to monetize every single event that happens in a creative,” Mr. Oestlien said, adding that they wanted advertisers “to make rich creative ads that are really useful to the end user.”

Google’s tools are convenient for ad agencies because they make it easy to create a widget quickly, said Dimitry Ioffe, chief executive of Media Banners, a division of the Visionaire Group, a digital agency based in California. Mr. Ioffe ran a widget ad for Paramount Vantage’s movie “A Mighty Heart” this summer in Google’s new program.

Mr. Ioffe said that Google’s tools to help marketers make widgets more easily may also help them cut expenses. Instead of paying news sites to run videos from a movie’s premiere, for example, studios can make it easy for consumers to post the movie videos on their own sites or social network profiles, providing free advertising.

“Widgets are a dream for marketers,” Mr. Ioffe said. “They allow them to extend their brand off of their individual sites and allow their brands to live as long as consumers want them to live.”

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

Seriously: God is stalking me or some such shit (Zork III: The Dungeon Master)

Things I've Found In Books:

Just now, between pages 174 and 175 of the Seattle Public Library's copy of Jane Wyman, A Biography by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein: A religious tract "cunningly" disguised as a $1,000,000 dollar bill.

Which is a terrible thing to do to someone in the financial situation I'm in at the moment.

There's addresses for two different (but related) web pages written on the bill, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Written around the borders of the back of the bill is:

The million-dollar question: Will you go to heaven? Here's a quick test: Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything or used God's name in vain?

Jesus Christ, no!

Jesus said, "Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Have you looked with lust?

You damn Skippy. Let's face it, if that's the criteria, I'm commiting adultery like a superbad pimp with a huge cock...

Will you be guilty on judgement day?

Guiltier than some, less than others.

If you have done these things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer-at-heart.

Geez. And I thought we were friends.

The Bible warns that if you are guilty you will end up in Hell.

That's my understanding of the way it's supposed to work, yes.

That's not God's will.

Even if I'm a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer-at-heart? Cool!

He sent His Son to suffer and dies on the cross for you. Jesus took your punishment upon Himself: "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Yes, I do seem to remember something about that from Godspell.

Then he rose from the dead and defeated death. Please, repent (turn from sin) today and trust in Jesus, and God will grant you everlasting life. Then read your Bible daily and obey it.

Okay, but which parts? The parts about having faith? Turning the other cheek? I don't think so. Why? Because, moving onto the web pages I mentioned earlier...I almost didn't visit them, but when I did, oh, the smile that came to my face...

Because: This religious tract comes to us from the good offices of...Kirk Cameron. Yes, Kirk Cameron.

Sitcom actor, Tiger Beat coverboy. Christian of today. Disbeliever in evolution. Believer in the provable existence of God "without the use of faith," which I kinda thought was the whole point.

Clueless born-again who insisted that a woman should be fired because she didn't live up to his high moral standards (she'd been a Playboy centerfold).

That Kirk Cameron. His pupils reduced to slipping play money into library books, oh me, where hath the opulence of Growing Pains fled?

Microsoft Ruling May Bode Ill for Other Companies

LUXEMBOURG, Sept. 17 — Europe’s second-highest court delivered a stinging rebuke to Microsoft Monday, but the impact of the decision upholding an earlier antitrust ruling may extend well beyond the world’s largest software maker to other high-technology companies.
Software and legal experts said the European ruling might signal problems for companies like Apple, Intel and Qualcomm, whose market dominance in online music downloads, computer chips and mobile phone technology is also being scrutinized by the European Commission.

“The decision is a strong endorsement for what in the United States would be considered aggressive policy on dominant firms,” said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. “And that’s going to continue to play out in other kinds of cases.”

The 13-member European Court of First Instance, in a starkly worded 244-page summary, reaffirmed that Microsoft had abused its market power by adding a digital media player to Windows, undercutting the early leader, Real Networks.

It also ordered Microsoft to obey a March 2004 commission order to share confidential computer code with competitors. The court also upheld the record fine levied against the company, 497.2 million euros ($689.4 million).

But the court decision comes as the center of gravity in computing is shifting away from the software for personal computers, Microsoft’s stronghold. Increasingly, the e-mailing or word-processing functions of a computer can be performed with software delivered on a Web browser. Other devices like cellphones are now used as alternates to personal computers.

The real challenge to Microsoft, after more than a decade of dominating the technology industry, is coming not from the government, but from the marketplace.

The direct impact on Microsoft is small, said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. But there may be a longer-range consequence of having Microsoft under constant, open-ended scrutiny from Europe.

“If you end up handicapping a major player in new markets, you may actually not enhance competition but hinder it, and help create new monopolies,” Mr. Yoffie said. “The obvious example is Google in Internet search and Apple in digital music.”

Indeed, the Justice Department issued a statement expressing its concerns with the European decision, saying that tough restraints on powerful companies can be harmful. Thomas O. Barnett, assistant attorney general for the department’s antitrust division, said that the effect “rather than helping consumers, may have the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition.”

Consumer welfare, not protecting competitors, should be the guiding standard in antitrust, Mr. Barnett said.

Antitrust enforcement has often been criticized as too slow to grapple with fast-moving high-technology markets. Indeed, the media player market changed drastically during the years-long investigation in Europe. When the European Commission ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows in Europe without its media player, but at no difference in price, few people wanted the stripped-down version of Windows.

Still, the Luxembourg court’s ruling poses a threat to Microsoft’s traditional way of doing business by bundling new features and products into its Windows operating system. The court decision sets a precedent, at least from Europe. For example, if Microsoft wants to put handwriting- and speech-recognition features or stronger security software into Windows, European authorities might listen to competitors’ complaints.

In the United States, the Justice Department chose to settle the Microsoft antitrust case in 2001 without challenging the company’s freedom to put whatever it wants in its operating system.

Microsoft’s allies said the court’s decision would have a chilling effect on the business strategies of many global technology companies.

“This ruling is certainly going to introduce a lot of uncertainty,” said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, a Washington-based group that supported Microsoft in its legal case in Europe. “What the court is basically saying is that if you develop a successful product and get too big, the European Commission is going to force you to give away your intellectual property.”

The European ruling’s widest impact on technology companies, legal and industry experts say, will probably be on Microsoft’s ability to guard some of its intellectual property in software for servers. Server software, running on data center computers, powers corporate networks and the Web.

The court upheld the commission’s order that Microsoft must share technical information with competitors so their server software works smoothly with Microsoft’s Windows desktop.

The order applies only to Europe, but Microsoft may have a difficult time containing the impact to the European market only.

Because the Internet runs on server software, industry analysts say the court’s ruling could have a lasting impact.

“The Internet has opened a really good door for the industry and society to walk through to enjoy a far more rapid pace of innovation and growth than in personal computing, where Microsoft controls things,” said Timothy F. Bresnahan, an economist at Stanford University and a senior official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Clinton administration. “Europe is pushing to ensure that the higher pace of innovation on the server is allowed to continue.”

Bradford L. Smith, the general counsel for Microsoft, who was present for the reading, said the company would follow the ruling but did not say specifically whether the company would appeal it. In a statement issued by the company, Mr. Smith said: “I would note that a lot has changed since this case started in 1998. The world has changed, the industry has changed, and our company has changed.”

The decision followed a five-day hearing on the issues under appeal in April 2006. Microsoft had indicated in the past that it would appeal any negative ruling to the European Court of Justice, the highest court in Europe. But an appeal by the company, a process likely to take at least two years, would focus only on whether the appellate court erred in procedure and points of law in reaching its decision, not on the facts in the case.

Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, said at a news conference in Brussels that while the decision set an “important precedent,” the judgment “is bittersweet because the court has confirmed the commission’s view that consumers are suffering at the hands of Microsoft.”

In the course of the case, which began with a complaint in 1998, Ms. Kroes noted that Microsoft’s share of the market in server software has risen sharply and that Windows Media Player has come to dominate the market.

She highlighted the fact that Microsoft has 95 percent of the world market for desktop operating systems and said she would like to see this shrink. “You can’t draw a line and say exactly 50 percent is correct, but a significant drop in market share is what we would like to see,” she said. “Microsoft cannot regulate the market by imposing its products and its services on people.”

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

And then, Ben went out to play in the traffic

From the "Fall Books Preview" in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. Discussing Jenny Downham's Before I Die.

Random House snapped up the TA heartbreaker a week after Downham finished.

!

(Only good sign: Downham is 43, and this is her first novel)

I never thought I'd say this, but god bless Robby Benson

...if for no other reason, then for writing a book about Hollywood that was better (much, much better) than Hollywood Car Wash.

According to "The Hollywood Dictionary," definitions from which are sprinkled throughout Benson's book:

Theater In L.A.: Baseball in Canada.

Hi, Corey.

Random Flickr Blogging: 1237

There's something in this about all women.

Damned if I know what, though.

Source

Emmy one-liners

1. Thank god for mute control.
2. I really wanna know who thought: The Sopranos: Musical number!
3. I still hate 30 Rock, that doesn't change just because it found favor with Emmy voters. I'm hoping it'll be like Arrested Development, a show that all the insiders (or people who want to feel themselves inside) love, but that no one else actually watches.
4. Yo, Emmy show producers: Since Jon Stewart already has the Oscars next year, give this show to Stephen Colbert or Steve Carell. Jon and Stephen "giving" Ricky Gervais' Emmy to Steve was the best, biggest laugh of the night. Or, give it back to Conan, who did a much better job last year.
5. Thank god Christina Aguilera didn't give Tony Bennett a heart attack.
6. I know a lot of people are going to be whining about James Spader winning over Gandolfini. Fuck 'em. I'm already wondering how Alan Shore will refer to it in one of Boston Legal's trademark breaking-the-fourth-wall lines, though.
7. And once again: I know this isn't a new question in life. It's not even a new question on this blog. But what has happened to the women in Hollywood? All those stiff, stiff faces...I can think of very few women on the show tonight that I would even want to kiss, much less do anything below the neck...

It identifies errors in the PC through the Sounds of the BIOS, the Beeps celebrities!

The staff has many doubts to interpret beeps of that the computer makes when initiating, either normal it or some error




Below apresneto one lists with beeps, the problem and I diagnosis

It When the Windows is twirling, is easy to identify errors. But what to make when the PC it does not arrive nor to initiate? For cases as this, it has sonorous messages, a set of bips short and long that make possible the diagnosis of a same problem if the plate of video not to function.

These sounds are generated by the BIOS, an internal program of the plate-mother who always makes the verification of the hardware that the machine is on. If something will be missed, you is knowing in the hour. A time that has a BIOS manufacturer more than, the messages can be different of a computer for another one. Here you confer the more common sonorous messages of the BIOS of the Award and the AMI, most used in Brazil.

BIOS Award

Problem: the machine does not initiate and you hear a long beeper after to bind the Disgnostic hardware: the error indicates that it has a memory problem RAM. Recommendation: it opens the computer, it removes the memories and pass a soft brush to eliminate the dust of the sockets. Recoloque the combs and verifies if the problem was solved. In case that the error persists, it changes to the memory combs RAM.

Problem: the short machine does not initiate and you hear a long beeper followed by two bips Diagnosis: problem with the video plate Recommendation: it opens the computer, it takes off the plate and pass a soft brush to remove the dust of slot. Recoloque it and it verifies if the problem was solved. In case that the error persists, it substitutes the video plate.

Problem: the short machine does not initiate and you hear a long beeper followed by three bips Diagnosis: problem with the video plate Recommendation: the same one of the previous case. Problem: the machine stops in the high and low continuous initiation and you it hears bips Diagnosis: problem with the processing Recommendation: it enters in the BIOS and it verifies if the processor is configured correctly. If the problem to persist, substitutes the processor.

Problem: the machine functions normally, but you hear bips low continuous Disgnostic: problem of heating of the processing Recommendation: it opens the computer and it verifies if cooler is turning correctly. If necessary, it substitutes the component. It also uses to advantage to add a little of thermal folder between the processor and the spendthrift of heat. These folders easily are found in store specialized in computer science.

BIOS AMI

Problem: the machine does not initiate and you hear a short beeper, three bips short or a long beeper and three short ones.

Diagnosis: memory problem
Recommendation: it opens the computer, it removes the memories and pass a soft brush to remove the dust of the sockets. Recoloque the combs and verifies if the problem was solved. In case that the error persists, it changes to the memory combs RAM. But as reference, a beeper means error of refresh, three bips na means error memory RAM below of 64 KB and a long bit and three short ones mean error na memory RAM above of 64 KB.

Problem: short the two computer does not initiate and you hear bips Diagnosis: error of memory parity Recommendation: you probably have two or more incompatible combs of memory. He opens the computer, he removes all the combs and he has tested them, one by one, until finding the comb incompatible.

Problem: the short PC does not initiate and you hear five bips Diagnosis: error in the processing Recommendation: it enters in the BIOS and it verifies if the processor is configured correctly. If the problem to persist, substitutes chip.

Problem: short the 11 machine does not initiate and you hear bips Diagnosis: cache L2 fails in the memory Recommendation: it substitutes the plate-mother.

Problem: the machine does not initiate and you hear short two a long beeper followed of bips Diagnosis: problem with the video plate
Recommendation: it opens the computer, it takes off the plate of video and pass a soft brush to remove the dust of slot. Recoloque the video plate and verifies if the problem was solved. In case that the error persists, it substitutes the plate.

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

I'm sure you don't

A post in the Christian worldmagblog from a couple of years ago says...

We're often told how uncomfortable and awkward nude scenes are. So why does Kate Winslet say she was thrilled with her scenes in the upcoming film Little Children? According to Ananova:

"If you had said to me 15 years ago that when I was nearly 30, and had two children, I would be doing some very explicit sex scenes, I swear to God, that literally would have been my worst nightmare.

"But I got to a point where I thought: “For God's sake, screw it. I'm always gallivanting around the place, going 'be who you are, be who you are'. I should just get over myself and get on with it”, and I did.

I'm still not sure I understand what was so thrilling.

In Bush Speech, Signs of Split on Iran Policy

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — While scrutiny this week focused on the debate over troop strength, President Bush also used the occasion to turn up the pressure on Iran, using his speech on Thursday to stress the need to contain Iran as a major reason for the continued American presence in Iraq.

The language in Mr. Bush’s speech reflected an intense and continuing struggle between factions within his administration over how aggressively to confront Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been arguing for a continuation of a diplomatic approach, while officials in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office have advocated a much tougher view. They seek to isolate and contain Iran, and to include greater consideration of a military strike.

Mr. Bush’s language indicated that the debate, at least for now, might have tilted toward Mr. Cheney. By portraying the battle with Iran as one for supremacy in the Middle East, Mr. Bush turned up the language another, more bellicose, notch. “If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened,” Mr. Bush said. “Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region.”

The debate between the factions in the administration will play out soon in other ways, including the decision over whether to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or a unit of it, a terrorist organization and subject to increased financial sanctions.

The tensions between Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney have existed for a long time; they began during the administration’s first term, when, as national security adviser, she had to mediate turf battles between a coalition of Mr. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, and Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state.

Now, as secretary of state, Ms. Rice has increasingly come to reflect the more diplomatic view advocated by the State Department, which has pushed for a more restrained tone in America’s dealings with the world in general, and Iran in particular.

Mr. Cheney and hawks in his office, however, have become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of progress in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Allies of Mr. Cheney continue to say publicly that the United States should include a change in Iran’s leadership as a viable policy option, and have argued, privately, that the United States should encourage Israel to consider a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The testimony this week of Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, that the diplomatic talks with Iran have done little to restrain what he called Iran’s “malign” influence in Iraq, also fueled the disquiet in Mr. Cheney’s office, one administration official said.

That is intensifying the debate over the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While some White House officials and some members of the vice president’s staff have been pushing to blacklist the entire Revolutionary Guard, administration officials said, officials at the State and Treasury Departments have been pushing a narrower approach that would list only the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, or perhaps, only companies and organizations with financial ties to that group.

The designation would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the group.

The administration is still pressing ahead with other efforts to turn up the pressure on Iran. The State Department has asked top officials from the five other world powers seeking to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions to come to Washington on Friday for a meeting in which R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, will press for stronger United Nations sanctions against Iran.

On Sept. 28, Ms. Rice will meet with her counterparts from Europe, Russia and China to discuss the Iran sanctions issue.

Beyond its nuclear program, Iran has emerged as an increasing source of trouble for the Bush administration, American officials said, by inflaming the insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, where it has provided military and financial support to the militant Islamic group Hamas.

In its report to Congress on Friday, the administration accused Iran of providing Shiite militias with training, money and weapons, including rockets, mortars and explosively formed projectiles, which the administration said accounted for an increased percentage of American combat deaths. The report said that “coalition and Iraqi operations against these groups, combined with a growing rejection of Shia violence by top government of Iraq officials, has led to some progress in reducing violent attacks from Shia extremists.”

The American military in Iraq still has custody of several Iranian officials who were detained there on suspicion of involvement in providing aid to Shiite militias.

Iran’s government has denied the charges. Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Mr. Bush’s Middle East policies had failed and that Mr. Bush would one day be put on trial for the “tragedies” he had created in Iraq.

But a belief has been growing in Iran, which administration officials have pointedly not tried to stem, that the Bush administration was considering military strikes against Iran. An Israeli airstrike in Syria last week kicked up speculation in the Iranian press that Israel, in alliance with the United States, was really trying to send a message to Iran that it could strike Iranian nuclear facilities if it chose to.

“If I were the Iranians, what I’d be freaked out about is that the other Arab states didn’t protest” the airstrike, said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Arab world nonreaction is a signal to Iran, that Arabs aren’t happy with Iran’s power and influence, so if the Israelis want to go and intimidate and violate the airspace of another Arab state that’s an ally of Iran, the other Arab states aren’t going to do anything.”

During the talks next week, the United States, France and Britain will try to get Russia, China and Germany to sign on to a stronger set of United Nations Security Council sanctions against members of Iran’s government.

The sanctions are aimed at getting Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium. The international efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been complicated by America’s conflict with Iran in Iraq, which Russia and some European countries argue should take a back seat to the nuclear issue.

Further complicating things has been a dispute over a pact reached last month between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to answer questions about an array of suspicious past nuclear activities.

Gregory L. Schulte, the American delegate to the agency, suggested that Tehran “has no intention of coming clean.”
More Articles in Washington »

I guess, then, the answer is not to read any books, not go to any movies, and not watch television.

All these things make me feel dumb, dumb, dumb every time I see what gets published, talked about, made, produced, while I can't find a publisher/director/producer, or even any gullible, high traffic bloggers.

Only one thing saves me from the feeling that I need to walk through a car wash-Hollywood or any other type-in hopes it erases the stain of having read this. And that's the knowledge that I didn't actually pay for it and put any money in the author's pocket, I got it from my library.

Otherwise, I've got nothing to be proud of.

Great Paragraphs In Literature

To paraphrase the story of the bishop and the monkey, "It's a filthy little mania, but it's mine, all mine."

--From Joshua Logan's Movie Stars, Real People, And Me

Microsoft and Accenture sign contract of outsourcing of USS 185 million dollar

The Microsoft this week deepened its partnership with the Accenture by means of the signature of an agreement of outsourcing of seven years in the total of 185 million dólare, that he encloses services of finances, accounting and of purchases that can be to become a case notable for applications ERP of the Microsoft. The Accenture plans to house a number of services in the platform Dynamics AX ERP, of the Microsoft, whom it offers has reported, statisticians and capacities of budget and forecasts. The AX also combines with the component of business intelligence of the SQL Server, the SharePoint Server and the server of infrastructure messages Exchange, among others serving of the Microsoft. The financial services and of accounting, according to Accenture, go to allow the Microsoft to cover payable accounts, trips and expenditures and functions of have reported, including resources, general accounting, treasure-house fixed and have reported of status. These services today are spread between contracts that the Microsoft has of some offered services. For example, in the contract of the Microsoft with the American Express for services of trips. The development - so far about 30% he is complete - goes to cover the offices of the Microsoft in 92 countries around of the globe and can be offered in 36 languages by means of the Global Delivery Network, of the Accenture.

Contract goes to center services of the Microsoft and could be offered in 92 countries thanks to the capillarity of the Accenture.

Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science

It's such a feeling that my love, I can't hide

Roger Ebert reviews the new movie Across the Universe, which tells a story of the Vietnam era set almost entirely to Beatles songs.

Yet when I say "story," don't start thinking about a lot of dialogue and plotting. Almost everything happens as an illustration to a Beatles song. The arrangements are sometimes familiar, sometimes radically altered, and the voices are all new; the actors either sing or sync, and often they find a mood in a song that we never knew was there before. When Prudence sings "I Want to Hold Your Hand," for example, I realized how wrong I was to ever think that was a happy song. It's not happy if it's a hand you are never, never, never going to hold.

The story sounds a bit like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the movie, mixed with Hair, the movie, one hopes a little bit (or a lot) more the latter than the former. I've always said the problem with Sgt. Peppers was not that making a musical out of the songs of the Beatles is an inherently bad idea.

If I start listing what the problems were with Sgt. Pepper's, we'll be here all afternoon. But Hair is a pretty great movie, even though it loses its way once or twice (including with an ending which, though heartbreaking, is staggerly unlikely))

Other reviews of Across the Universe have been pretty evenly mixed, but I still want to see it. Paul McCartney likes it, supposedly.

Somehow, this girl is my daughter

I know that comes as a surprise to many of you. Certainly it comes as a surprise to me. But just look at the facts.

(some of these come from her comments on YouTube)

Cute kid, seems healthy; sweet.
Watches Monty Python.
Egotistical enough to keep not just a blog, but a video blog.
Listens to Thomas Dolby, and thinks he's "like, GOD!!"
Musician.
"Really into retro," wishes she knew how to do the robot dance.
Uses the word "awesome!" in a sentence.

Clearly, this is some child of mine that I was previously unaware of.

` Ciber vagrancy ' in the work grows in Brazil

To each week, the Brazilians spend 5,9 hours sailing in personal sites during the work. The number comes of the research carried through for the Websense to mapear the behavior of the InterNet users. 400 employees of companies based on Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico had been interviewed. The number is almost three times the average divulged for the company in 2005: 2.1 hours. In September of 2006, the research pointed the index of 4,7 used hours with respect to ends not-professionals. Visits the news, financial sites, accounts of personal email, blogs and use of instantaneous communicator to talk with friends are activities that if fit in "the not professional" territory, in accordance with the research. The average of "lost time" in the four searched Latin American countries was of 7,3 hours per week. Mexico appears with biggest "wastefulness", with average of 9,6 hours, and Chile presents index of five hours.

Change of habit

The financial sites had monopolized the attention of the Brazilians in the navigation for content not related to the work. The subject economy, including pages of banks, represented 76% of accesses - 20% than in 2006 more. Fernando Fontão, executive of the Websense, says that the increase of traffic in financial sites is justified by the praticidade of the services. "He is faster to pay accounts for the InterNet of that to face line of the bank", affirms. The sites of notice had fallen for as the place. In 2006 they were responsible for 74% of the accesses, index that fell for 40% in 2007. In third place they continue the sites of personal email, with 32% of the preference. The visits blogs had grown of 4% for 14%, tying up to with the use of VoIP communicators (voice on IP), as the Skype.

Unsafe company

Beyond the possible risk to the productivity in the work, the alert Websense for the security of the companies, who can be victims of the personal navigation of its employees. Sigilosas information of a company, for example, can leak for e-mails personal and cause damages - accidentally or not. But the limit enters the rights of the employee and the duties of the company nor always are clearly. Adauto de Mello Junior, senior director of vendas of the Websense for Latin America, admits that "the mixed staff and professional are each time more". 100 people in each country had been interviewed, being 50 users and 50 controlling of Technology of the Information. The Websense says that the answers had been spontaneous and they had not involved monitoramento.


Tags:bios,tips,memory,computer science