King Arthur

We went to see King Arthur in theaters yesterday. I won’t even bother to rate this movie — don’t see it. At all. Here’s why:

  • I yawned through half of it. This is never a good sign (and no, I wasn’t tired before we walked into the theater, either).
  • The characters are so one-dimensional that you never establish any connection to them.
  • The plot is somewhat predictable.
  • Battle scene followed by battle scene followed by battle scene interrupted by an inconvenient love scene followed by glorious battle scene…
  • Jeez, how much damage to the environment did they do in that last scene shoot? (Okay, so this is a dumb one, but still…)

The only thing I can really give this movie some credit for is a moderate amount of ingenuity in designing the execution of the more major battle scenes. They had interesting tactics.

All in all, I repeat my conclusion here — don’t bother seeing this movie unless you have some desire to enjoy a one-dimensional battle fest for about two hours.

Additional Links

Seattle Times Review: King Arthur
Roger Ebert’s Review: King Arthur

Computers and Cars

So I’ve had a shift in scenery to Bellingham since yesterday, which is, as usual, quite welcome. It’s interesting to go somewhere else for a little while and just sit around doing nothing but observing and relaxing. Well, not entirely true — we’re still doing some things, Amanda and I, though perhaps not as much as we could be doing. Not that I’m complaining or anything!

I’ve been thinking the last little while about the implications of being a licensed driver. I came into it later than most people, though that’s not all that uncommon judging from other people I’ve talked to. Obviously, it’s a great responsibility, both for the safety of others and for your own mobility. If there’s one thing that not getting my license officially for a few years showed me, it was that driving isn’t something to be toyed around with. That’s probably a lesson I had already learned by being in a head-on car accident back when I was about 15, but it’s driven home to me now that I’ve finally gotten a license rather than still sitting around with a permit for two or three years.

The fact is, I now have some measure of freedom with that license, even if I don’t have a car and I’m not a perfect driver. Everyone can improve, of course (some more than others, and some never improve). I somehow feel like I still have a long way to go before I can consider myself a “safe” driver. Perhaps that’s a misconception on my part about my driving skills and my comfort behind the wheel. Only time will tell.

Someone said the other day that I was crazy to switch all my computers to Linux, that I’d never be able to run anything. That’s one of the major misconceptions about Linux today. While it was once true that you had little or no accessibility to common Windows programs, the fact is, I’m running Macromedia Dreamweaver MX on this system (which itself is a SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional laptop). In addition, I will be loading Adobe Photoshop 7 for my graphics work in the near future. For the Linux people out there, I’m not relying on Gimp simply because I’m used to Photoshop and I’ve always been taught to use what you know. Granted, running Linux may lower the number of options I have in running Windows software, but that’s not that big of a deal — I’m not much of a gamer, so my Windows games don’t matter much. I may, however, research getting SimCity 4 and Civilization 3 on this system, just for fun.

It’s funny, there’s almost an overlap in my interest in computers and getting my license — switching to Linux has brought me a measure of freedom from having to pay higher prices for software, and has also allowed me a greater flexibility in tinkering with my systems. My license has given me physical freedom without tying me to other people to get me places. Granted, in the short term, I am still relying on others, but I hope for that to change quickly.

We’ll see what happens on both fronts.

Prius In Stock

Toyota of Kirkland apparently now has a Seaside Blue Prius 2004 in stock, with the perfect options. Shame it’s about $27,000 and I’m not around to test drive (or necessarily even ready to test drive).

Happy day-after-July 4th (which would make it July 5th)!

Raving about the Prius

Anyone who doesn’t care about advocacy for a cleaner environment can probably skip this entry (he says with tongue in cheek).

Okay, so I admit that the 2004 Toyota Prius is now my hybrid car of choice. It’s got the highest ratings through Car and Driver, some damned good safety ratings from Consumer Reports (last I checked, at least), and has some really interesting statistics. I particularly like the dashboard. Coool.

A really, really nice Prius site is john1701a.com. John was once an owner of a 2001 Prius but now owns a 2004 Prius. Of particular interest to me were the Prius Misconceptions, the Prius Selling Points document (PDF), and the Prius Info Sheet (also PDF). The Selling Points document still seems to reflect the 2001 Prius, but seems like it’s still applicable to the 2004.

In addition, there are IntelliChoice reviews, a US Department of Energy article on the Prius’ technology, and a review from The Car Connection.

Bottom line: test drive, anyone?

Update (11:46PM): I got bored and priced my ideal Prius through toyota.com, just for fun. Never let it be said I had nothing better to do.

MSRP
4-Dr Gas/Elec ECVT (1224) $20,295
Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee $515
Exterior / InteriorSeaside pearl (08S2)/ Ivory/brown (FA08)
OptionsPackage #7 (AM) includes: Intermittent Rear Window Wiper, Driver & front passenger
seat-mounted side airbags and front & rear side curtain airbags, Smart Keyless Entry
System, Vehicle Stability Control, front foglamps, HID headlamps, 50 state emissions		 $2,255
Total MSRP $23,065

Hybrids

I’ve been reading up on hybrid cars lately — mostly the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius (forget the Honda Insight — it’s a two-seater transport car, which isn’t what I’d need). Car and Driver rated the Prius and the Civic Hybrid, with the Prius coming out ahead in reviews and user tests. Apparently, the braking is a little screwy on the Prius, but this is hardly your normal car, and this choice seems to have been intentional. Perhaps this is a fantasy debate, but it’s interesting reading nonetheless.

In other news, we need to be increasing the number of available petroleum alternatives. Duh.

Violence and Presidential Politics

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

— Isaac Asimov, Salvor Hardin in “Foundation”

I came across this quote a few days ago while browsing through quotation pages. It strikes me how true this is surrounding the current situation in Iraq and the leadership that caused it. I’m not trying to point fingers here — merely suggesting that we don’t always listen to history or the things that others tell us when it comes to making historic decisions on the behalf of entire nations.

With the President losing backing from previous supporters and yet still being very highly ranked in this year’s Presidential race, this is definitely something to consider. There’s no question at this point that there are only two votes to consider here: Kerry or Bush for the next President of the United States. Don’t bother with Kucinich (who’s in it for his own image more than vested interest in this country’s future) or Nader (as my father put it, “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush”, well evidenced in the 2000 elections). It’s down to those two — to me, it seems unquestionable that Kerry is the best choice, what with Bush’s track record on the war.

Is it too late for a write-in campaign for Joe Lieberman?

Gmail as Status Symbol

It’s interesting to look at the status symbols of society — such as it is — and to see what is “all the rage”. At the moment, this seems to be accounts on Google’s Gmail service — at least online. This service is actually one of the best-sounding opportunities in free e-mail anywhere — minimal advertising, and even when there is advertising, it tries to be related to the messages you read and the content of e-mails.

Now, to offset the people who are saying this is an invasion of privacy: quite frankly, bullshit. By that logic, virus scanners or spam filters are an invasion of privacy. Oh, but we’d hate to have our privacy invaded in order to stop our computers from crashing, wouldn’t we? In my eyes, this is no different than Hotmail doing virus scanning or spam filtering, and that could be argued to be a violation of privacy as well, since it also scans the body of messages. We don’t hear about Microsoft being sued (at least, not on that issue).

Anyway, back to the point. Gmail accounts are, at this point, very much a status symbol — Google has been somewhat secretive about it, and those who use it could almost be concieved as an elite cadre. When Google opens the service to the public, it would be interesting to see if they keep the current system of requiring people to be allowed in via referral from another member. This would greatly reduce the chances of spammers being able to use legitimate accounts on the system to send out e-mail. They can still spoof, but there is an implicit trust relationship in relying on a referral sign-up system. LiveJournal used this kind of a system for a while, but switched off of it. It doesn’t perpetuate very fast, and to become a member, you have to know someone who is already a member. But once the number of users gets high enough, this isn’t really an issue.

The question that comes to my mind is what can be said of this group of beta testers. Are they simply beta testers, or the first ones in the door for what is quite possibly one of the biggest service launches in the history of the Internet? Do they report bugs, or are they somehow assuring that this service takes off? Being secretive while still allowing people in has this sense of enticing people into the middle of a mystery novel. You can’t really be sure where the story has been; all you can be sure of is that you’re a part of where it’s going. Of course, sooner or later the glitter will wear off and Gmail will simply be another free e-mail service, but until then, it’s a badge of social status. Let’s see what happens.