- Summer of 2005 was a big season of movies (at least it was for me.) We got a new Batman movie, and a new Star Wars movie. Sounds like summer 2008 will also be a big season of movies. We finally get an Iron Man movie, and now Time-Warner has annnounced The new Batman movie. It will be titled "The Dark Knight." The word "Batman" does not appear anywhere in the title. I like it, but it's not all good news. Heath Ledger will play the Joker. Ugh. Yes, the Heath Ledger from Brokeback. I think this is horrible casting, but it's not quite enough to completely ruin my enthusiasm. I am hearing that the new Batman movie will be darker than Batman Begins, and the Joker is going to be really nasty. Personally, I thought Jack Nicholson was the quinessential Joker; a twisted monster with no regard for human life. Others thought Nicholson's Joker was too soft and fuzzy. Here is the official press release for the new movie:
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060731n.php

- Famous sports traditions:
Famous Sports Traditions

- Strange, little test I found on the net. How quickly can you click a series of boxes using your mouse? Look on the right-hand side of the following website to test yourself. The best I could do is 30 clicks in the time given:
http://www.lookuptables.com/

- I love stories about home-made jetpacks. Especially the ones where the inventor operates it for the first time, and runs into a high-voltage power-line. The following inventor didnt make that mistake, but he did give the jetpack a rather familiar, and cliche'd name:
http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/skywalker_jet_packs_it_works.html

- Supposedly this is one of the hardest, yet most rewarding puzzles on the internet. There are 137 parts to it. Definitely need to think "outside the box" to solve these puzzles. One afternoon I worked up to page 8 before I stopped. I might give it another crack:
http://www.deathball.net/notpron/levelone.htm

- The top 100 name brands, according to Business week:
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2006/

- FilmCritic.com picks the top 50 film endings:
Top 50 Film Endings

- The following website asks you a series of questions to determine which superhero you are most like. Apparently I am most like Green Lantern, which disappoints me. I have never cared for Green Lantern:
http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/superhero/

- Is there a certain word or speech pattern that you repeat far too often during conversations? For example, do you use the word "like" too much? Maybe you use "uh" or "um" too often to pause in between sentences or thoughts? Personally, I use the word "just" far too often when I am talking. It's a passive-aggressive trait, but I have never tried to stop doing it. Here is a website which gives you tips on how to curtail those annoying verbal habits we all have:
http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=417

- A few months ago I wrote about how your cell-phone, TV signal, internet signal, and every other digital signal you use every day will all come from one source. The following article explains how this could all happen in just three years time. Soon we will think of the internet in the same way we think of the radio; free, always available, and accessible from everywhere:
Nation-wide access in three years

- What kind of genius are you? According to this article, there are two kinds:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html

- A few days ago marked the 150th birthday of Nikola Tesla, America's 2nd greatest inventor. If it wasnt for Tesla, you wouldnt be reading this website, I would be out of a job, and you wouldnt even be sitting in a well-lit room. Over 100 years ago, the great and all-knowing Thomas Edison was too stubborn to give up on Direct Current (DC), but Tesla knew that Alternating Current was the wave of the future. Tesla proved to the world that if you want to wire an entire city with electron-goodness, you had to use Alternating Current. Here is a biography of Nikola Tesla:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

- How the heck did I miss this? It's now official, Marvel is doing an Iron Man movie! The movie will be released on May 2nd, 2008. Jon Favreau (Swingers) will direct it. No cast yet. The movie will start filming in January.

The picture to the right is the very first teaser poster for the movie. The armor will probably not look like this picture, although the person who will be partially responsible for designing the armor, Adi Granov, drew this picture.

The obvious question is who will play Tony Stark? Darn good question. For years I have thought about who should play Iron Man. Here is my list of current actors who would make a good Tony Stark, and my ultimate list of people who should have played Tony Stark at some time in their careers:

Current List:
1. Jim Caviezel
2. Billy Cruddup (maybe too short. He is only 5'8" according to IMDB.com)
3. Ron Livingston (I think he is great, but maybe too under-stated for Tony? Tony is a babe-hound, alcoholic, larger than life, supra-genius.)
4. Timothy Olyphant (from Deadwood. Not brunette enough?)
5. Jeremy Northam (British, but one of my favorite actors.)

Ultimate List:
1. Tom Sellect (duh)
2. Burt Reynolds
3. Circa 1965 Robert Goulet! I aint joking. He has the voice, and the cheesy moustache.
4. Gregory Peck.
5. Kevin Kline (remember the scene in Soapdish, where he walks onto the set in the white suit? Perfect Tony Stark.)
6. Clark Gable
7. Errol Flynn (the character of Tony Stark was largely based upon Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes.)

I will add more actors to these lists as the weeks and months pass by.

They better use computer-animation to create the Iron Man armor, otherwise he will look silly. Spider-man looks great animated (Tobey McGuire is hardly ever actually in the costume), the Hulk looked reasonably good. The Thing, since he wasnt computerized, looked absolutely absurd, and so did Juggernaut. Computerize Iron Man! I beg of you Marvel!

Perhaps my biggest question about this movie is who will be the villain? Tony Stark has plenty of enemies, but none of them are very interesting. His greatest enemy, the Mandarin, is pretty lame, and can sometimes come off as stereotyping Asian people. Not exactly the kind of villain which will pack movie-theaters.

Here is an article with Jon Favreau about the new Iron Man movie, and a link to a MySpace website Favreau created so fans can talk about the new movie:
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1532303/story.jhtml
http://groups.myspace.com/ironmanmovie/

- A website which will teach you how to play blackjack. Use this website for a few hours, and I guarantee you will improve your play. Now, if you are looking to go beyond regular blackjack strategy, and learn how to count cards, I cannot help you there:
http://hitorstand.net/

- The president is experiencing a slight bounce in the polls, after killing Zarqawi. Fred Barnes, Mr. White House insider, explains why and how Georgie can keep the bounce:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/409wtshp.asp

- Why knuckles crack, and joints creak:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060710_mm_joints_crack.html

- This is my cubicle at work. The first thing that jumps out at you regarding my cubicle is the lack of decor. When it comes to my job, I live by the axiom Neil Mcauley (Robert De Niro) expounded in the movie Heat..."Do not get attached to anything you cannot walk away from in 30 seconds. That's the discipline."

Besides, there are hidden treasures located in my cubicle. This small rectangular area, encased by grey walls is actually a window into a much larger world.

You cannot see it, but my computer chair has arms on it. I am the only non-manager in the company that has a chair with arms. A computer chair without arms is the ultimate insult to a computer programmer.

My mouse, as of this writing, is located on the right side of my keyboard. Every two or three weeks, I switch my mouse to the left side of the keyboard, and use it left-handed. I am just as proficient using a mouse left-handed as I am right-handed. I even have software on my machine which switches the mouse buttons. When using the mouse left-handed the primary button becomes the right mouse button. This technique helps cut down on the dreaded carpal-tunnel syndrome.

I hardly ever use the speakers connected to my computer, except during the late afternoons. I listen to Detroit Tiger baseball via the internet. During the fall I listen to press conferences with Lloyd Carr.

A woman I have recently been dating said to me that my cubicle is too barren. Too boring. She said I should put up my favorite Bloom County cartoon, or a picture of my family. Well, I have those things, but they are located on the hard-drive of my computer, and spring to life when my screen-saver starts.

If someone sends an email to my Gmail account, a message immediately pops up on my screen, and my cell-phone also rings! Pretty neat huh?

I have complete, unfettered, T-1 access to the internet. It's a must for my position. My job would be impossible without it.

- Famous Doctors who tried their own medicine on themselves, before they tried it on their patients. Brave people indeed (or certifiable.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-2217159,00.html

- Look at the following animated image. Do you see a shark swimming? I didnt either, when I first looked at it. The key to seeing the hidden shark is to barely cross your eyes, which will create two images of the animation. Then slowly cause the two images to cross each other. You will then see the 3-D swimming shark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stereogram_Tut_Animated_Shark_Small.gif

- The Big Ten is forming its own TV network. The NFL and NBA did it a few years ago. This is the wave of the future for any form of mass media. Avoid the middle-man, and bring the profits directly to your organization:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/SPORTS06/606220344/1054

- Classic movies its OK to hate:
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/49630

If the following picture doesnt terrify you, nothing will...

- What would the founding fathers do about America's current problems? Beats me, but Richard Brookhiser, famed American historian, takes a shot at it. Long article, but worth the read:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/3/2006_3_31.shtml

- Top 10 engineering mistakes:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/start.html?pg=9

- Top 10 most common grammar mistakes. I think I have already committed three of them in today's update:
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39273376,00.htm

- Listen to almost any radio station in the world, via the internet:
http://www.live-radio.net/info.shtml

- Darn good week for G-Dub. We pop Zarqawi, the special prosecutor says he wont indict supreme master-mind Karl Rove, and Georgie makes a surprise trip to Iraq. To learn how the media is reacting to all of this good news, check out the following site:
http://media.nationalreview.com/

- Christopher Hitchen's makes a wonderful case for the importance of killing Zarqawi:
http://www.slate.com/id/2143305/

- The Feds are digging for Jimmy Hoffa again. This time, they are digging near a farm 35 miles northwest of Detroit. They searched this same farm-house 30 years ago, and didnt find a thing.

If the Feds wanted to find Hoffa so badly, all they have to do is ask my brother or me what happened on that sunny, fateful afternoon, at the Machus Red Fox restaurant on July 30th, 1975. I remember as if it were yesterday (fade to new location...)

My brother and I, age three, were playing in the parking lot of the Machus restaurant with our newly signed Rick Leach U of M nerf football. My parents were inside, convincing the store manager that the strange doodles I had carved into the table using my dinner knife, where we had just previously eaten, was not vandalism, but instead profound religious symbols related to the local Huron Indian community (which still thrives to this day.) According to my folks, my doodles were protected by first amendment privileges, so the restaurant could not rightly sue my parents for the damage I had done to the table. I had no idea if my parents were actually having any success. I assumed they were having success...they had used this excuse before.

My brother and I were tossing the nerf football back and forth. My brother eventually tossed the football over my head, so I spun around to chase it down. When I turned around, I saw three men, all dressed in black and brown suits, standing behind me. An older man, who looked like boiled leather, was holding my nerf football. He said to me, "Son, is this your football?" I said to him, "Yes." He then said, "Do you know who I am?" I just stared at him. I was a nervous child, and rarely answered anyone. He followed with, "I am Jimmy Hoffa, head of the UAW." It was then that I realized I would never get my football back. Even at the tender age of 3, I knew the horrors of unionized labor. I then futilely said to Hoffa, "Mister, could you give me back my football?" I would normally have said 'please', but you have to be tough with these union guys. Dont give them an inch. Hoffa then said to me, "Son...did you know that this football was made in Japan? Look at the label. I am keeping this football. I will get you a real football, made by American workers. Proud, American union-workers who pay outrageous union dues, feel threatened when they vote their conscious, and who purposely create inferior products to keep management from making huge profits." My brother had already run back inside the restaurant. The UAW always gave him gas.

Suddenly, Mr Hoffa's head exploded! There was blood everywhere. I didnt care though. As Mr. Hoffa's body fell to the ground, he dropped my beloved football. I picked it up, and ran back inside. I didnt tell my parents. I didnt tell anyone. I figured this is what happened to people who joined unions.

Here is an article about the recent dig for Hoffa, and a biography of Hoffa:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060518/NEWS11/60518014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa

- A website devoted to letting you know when stuff (like movies, DVDs, video games, books, etc.) will be released:
http://www.releaseguide.com/index.php

- Been meaning to upgrade your computer, cell-phone, or TV? How about you upgrade yourself? It will happen in our life-times:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/medicine/2713146.html?page=1&c=y

- The NY Times asked a couple hundred writers, scholars and editors what is the best fictional book of the past 25 years:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/fiction-25-years.html

- Like every other human-being on the planet, I read the Da Vinci Code a few months ago. A truly mediocre experience. The movie comes out in a few weeks. The movie must be better than the book. The casting for the movie is perfect. There is an online game you can play related to the movie. A few friends and I have been playing it. You answer 24 questions (one question each day) and at the end of the 24 puzzles you get entered into some kind of prize-drawing. The puzzles are fairly easy. They make for a nice diversion each day. You need to create a google account to play, but making the account is completely free, and you should have one by now anyhow:
http://flash.sonypictures.com/movies/davincicodequest/

The Da Vinci Code book is reknown for its puzzles, which teases the reader to push on with an incredibly outlandish, yet surprisingly boring story. The author of the book, Dan Brown, seems to make up the rules for the puzzles as he goes along, doesnt give enough information to solve the puzzles, or simply makes the puzzles too easy (hint...if you are reading the book, to solve one of the easier puzzles, hold the book up to a mirror, then read it.)

If you want to read about a true-life mystery, which has never been solved, and has all the intrigue and potential of the Da Vinci Code, try reading about the Voynich Manuscript. Over 500 years ago, some madman (or supra-genius) wrote a bizarre book containing undecipherable text and common 15th century illustrations. Scholars, cryptologists, and historians have tried to crack the bizarre writing and pictures contained in the book, but no one has succeeded. Some experts feel the book is an elaborate hoax, but most cryptologists agree that there are definitely patterns to the strange text, and it does indeed contain actual writing...its just a matter of breaking the cipher. Read more about the Voynich Manuscript here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_Manuscript

- Oil prices dropped below $70 a barrel today, but they will go back up again. I wouldnt be surprised if we are paying $4 a gallon for gas in the next few months. Georgie unfairly gets all the blame for this. The President of the United States has very little, if any power over the price of gasoline. Free-market forces and geopolitical trends are what affect the price of crude oil. Here is a website with a map showing the average price of gas for every county in the USA. The price of gas in our area of the country is typically higher than other parts of the U.S.:
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

- Follow along...this gets a little complicated, but if you can wrap your mind around it, you will have discovered a wonderful mathematical paradox: Ever watch the TV show Lets Make a Deal? It was on during the 1970s. I never watched it, but I have certainly heard of it. The host of the show, Monty Hall, would offer contestants a chance to pick a prize hidden behind one of three doors. Only one door contained a prize. The other two doors always had some kind of embarrassing item behind them. The contestant picked a door, and then Monty would show them a door that DIDNT contain the prize the contestant was hoping to win. Finally, Monty would ask the contestant if they wanted to stick with the door they originally chose, or switch to a new door. Regardless of if they switched to a new door, or stuck with the old door, this would be their final pick. Now, according to simple intuition, it seems perfectly logical that switching to a new door doesnt increase your chance of winning. Since there are only two doors left, switching to a new door, or sticking with your old door seems to give you the idea that you have a 50/50 chance of winning the prize with either door. Unfortunately, this is not the case. If you switch your pick to the other door your chances of winning increases to 2 in 3! How is this possible? How can you have a 67% chance of winning if there are two doors left, and the prize is behind only one of those two doors? Read the following article to learn about this amazing mathematical quandry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

- The news just hit the streets today...Uncle Lucas is releasing the original Star Wars movies (the un-mastered ones, the ones without the new special effects, the ones where Solo shoots first) onto DVDs. Now fans can once again watch the movies as they originally appeared in the theaters. I never had a problem with Lucas modifying his movies. They are his possession, he can do whatever he wants with them:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/rumormill.html

- Take the following test to learn how evil you are. Actually, the quiz monitors how closely you believe in the ideas of Machiavelli. Gee, among the people who read this site, I wonder who will score the highest? I scored 62 out of 100:
http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/09/13/machtest/index.html

- Has there ever been a time-capsule which was opened when it was suppose to be opened? I have always felt that time-capsules are a rather pompous idea. Here is a list of the nine most wanted time-capsules. Apparently these time-capsules were either lost, or forgotten about:
http://www.oglethorpe.edu/about_us/crypt_of_civilization/most_wanted_time_capsules.asp

- A unique way of looking at each country's population, population density, and comparing those results to other countries:
http://www.hivegroup.com/world.html

- We cant use rocket fuel to travel to the stars, because it isnt efficient enough to meet our needs. We cant use fusion or fission, because it's too messy and too difficult to accomplish. How about anti-matter? I always thought anti-matter was merely a sci-fi term, but apparently it does exist, and scientists have made small amounts of it. The following article explains how it might fuel a trip to Mars:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/antimatter_spaceship.html

- 100 science facts. #49 is a load of bunk:
http://www.ibzi.net/d100facts.htm

- A few months ago I wrote about how your computer will eventually no longer need a hard-drive. All your data and programs will be stored off-site. Rumor has it that Google is working on a website which will give users free, unlimited file storage via the internet. Now Microsoft is working on the same thing:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1951172,00.asp

- Remember the terrifying tylenol poisonings of 1982? Some maniac in the Chicago area killed seven people by filling tylenol capsules with cyanide. It's the single reason why almost every product in the U.S. is now wrapped in plastic and sealed in glued containers. Back in 1982, you could grab a box of Tylenol off the shelf, open it like a normal box (the ends weren't glued shut), pop the top off (you had a choice of child-proof or non-childproof), and the pills were right there without any plastic shrink-wrap around the bottle or any thick seal under the cap. If you went to grab a bottle of ketchup, you could just pop the lid and start pouring. How times have changed. They never did catch the psycho who committed those crimes:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/tylenol_murders/index.html

- Expiration dates for common house-hold items, foods and beauty products. If this list is accurate, then according to my approximations, I have endangered myself 58 times in the past two years:
http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/print/0,22304,676079,00.html

- The Top 87 bad predictions about the future. My favorite quote is from Charles H. Duell, in 1899, "Everything that can be invented, has been invented." Mr. Edison should have smacked this guy up-side his head.
http://www.2spare.com/item_50221.aspx

- If you put the 20 tallest skyscrapers in the world, all in the same city, what would the skyline look like? Well, here is what it would look like. Note: the scale of some of these buildings is clearly incorrect. For example, the Empire State Building definitely is not the tallest building in the world, but it looks slightly taller than the other buildings in this picture:
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/wtb1.jpg

- You have until 2029 to finish that book you are reading, or finally watch those shows you Tivo'ed the other night. There is a 1 in 6250 chance a giant asteroid will smack into the earth in 2029:
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20060316230330846

- We are one step closer to creating an actual Steve Austin and Jamie Summers. Scientists have given a man robotic arms, which he can control with his mind. They have also given a blind woman the gift of limited sight:
http://rdu.news14.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=82612

Steve Austin

- When you ask for a carbonated beverage, do you say "soda", "pop", "coke", or something else entirely? I have always asked for a soda or pop, but my parents only use the word pop. The following map shows how people from different regions of the U.S. have a different way of referring to a carbonated beverage:
http://www.popvssoda.com/images/smalldrawn.gif

- Casper Weinberger and Lyn Nofziger died today. Lyn was 81, Casper was 88. Lyn Nofziger, as one of the Ronald Reagan's closest advisors, was a big reason for Reagan's rise to national prominence during the 1960s and 70s. Casper Weinberger was Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration. When I think of Casper Weinberger, I am reminded of a famous quote from the cartoonist Berke Breathed (whom I wrote about a few months ago on this website). Breathed wrote, "Ah Casper Weinberger...there's a man who knew the value of a billion."

Casper Weinberger is one of the many reasons why the carbon, nitrogen, potassium, iron and hydrogen which make up your body arent floating around in the upper atmosphere. You see, Casper had the big idea of dramatically increasing the cold-war arms race with the Soviets, thus forcing the Russians to ramp-up their own production of nuclear weapons. Not coincidentally, this ruined the Russian economy and ultimately destroyed Soviet communism. So, you can thank good ole' Cap for keeping you from getting vaporized during the 1980s. Thanks Cap! Here are articles about Casper Weinberger and Lyn Nofziger:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189335,00.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3752008.html

- Changes to the earth's surface normally take tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of years to happen, but on the east coast of Africa, geologists are watching a large chunk of the African continent split into two, at an accelerated rate. It will still take several millions years to see the final outcome, but for scientists, this type of geological upheaval happening so rapidly is a unique boon:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,405947,00.html

- The twenty greatest tools of all time, according to Forbes magazine, and one extra item that shouldnt have been omitted: duct tape!
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/03/14/technology-tools-history_cx_de_06toolsland.html
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/03/14/tools-duct-tape_cx_de_0315ducttape.html?partner=rss

- Since I know a good deal about computers, people often ask me, "Is it better to turn my computer off when I am not using it, or leave it on all the time?" Surprisingly, there is no easy answer to this question. Leaving your computer on obviously costs you more money (even if you leave it in power-saving mode) because the computer is constantly drawing electricity from your power outlet. Leaving it on also generates more wear and tear on the few moveable parts inside your machine, like your hard-drive and CPU fan, which both constantly spin even if you arent using your computer. On the other hand, turning off your computer isnt a great idea either. Every time you turn on your computer, you send a shock of electricity into every part of the computer that depends on electricity to function. The constant on/off status to any electrical device creates heat and friction, which will eventually cause a computer component to fail. Ever notice how light-bulbs usually fail when you turn them on? Same principle.

So, my answer to the question is this...when you go to bed at night, turn off your computer. If you plan on leaving your house for more than two hours, turn off your computer. If you dont plan on using your computer for several hours, turn it off. Here is an article which will give you further guidelines on when you should turn off your computer:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question328.htm