I finished Around the World in Eighty Days today and also discovered there's a movie coming out about the book. To be honest, I can't imagine that the movie will be all that good. The story was interesting, but not amazing.
In the movie, Passepartout (the main character's servant) will be played by Jackie Chan, which seems strange to me since in the book he's a young Frenchman, and Fogg (the main character) will be played by Steve Coogan and there will be appearances by Rob Schneider, John Cleese, Johnny Knoxville, Kathy Bates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wim Wenders, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson and Richard Branson... there's a trailer here if you're interested.
It doesn't look like they're taking much from the book other than the character names. In the book Fogg is not an inventor, there are no airplanes, air balloons or other strange contraptions (with the exception of a sail powered sled). Fogg in the book plays a character that does not ever show emotion rather than a passionate man set on making history as he's portrayed in the movie. There's also no sight of Fix in the trailer, the detective who, in the book, chases them around the world, but I can't imagine they'd leave him out.
It does, however look like they'll remain true to the Jules Verne's completely inaccurate and error-filled portrayal of Mormons (if not in good taste, at least in good humor), and who better to play the part than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Things are changing online. I have been known to say that all-Flash websites are all bad unless they are for movie trailers or cartoons, but I'm starting to change my opinion. At work, I have the opportunity to browse Flash sites quite a bit. I find a lot of inspiration and ideas on the Internet Tiny Awards and Favourite Website Awards sites which have links to the cream of the crop of Flash sites.
I think that within another year or two, 75% of all business-related sites will have at least some Flash on them (I'd be curious to see what the statistics are now.) The reason Flash is growing is because it has gone from being a tool for creating cool animations to a tool for creating fluid interfaces that are much more interactive and intuitive and less linear. The internet is becoming an interactive experience, and as of now, Flash is the only tool to make it that.
The only talk show on the radio on my way home from work is the Bill O'Reilly factor. I've been listening to it for a couple months now and I've come to some conclusions:
1. Bill O'Reilly is self-obsessed and insecure. Every time there is even the most minor mention of his name, he reads the article on the air. It's like he has to prove to everyone that he's famous. He's constantly saying that "you can't get away from me," and "I'm everywhere" and playing clips of people mentioning his name. I'm sorry Bill, but if it really were the case that you were everywhere, you wouldn't have to tell us.
Read more... there's a lot of it.
2. Every time there is any criticism of him, he goes ballistic--he can't take it. He is unable to let anything pass under the table without refuting it, no matter how absurd or how blatant of a lie (or truth for that matter) it may be. Anytime someone mentions Hillary Clinton and the fact that her book sold more than his, he goes nuts--he starts making excuses, accusing her of selling her book by the thousand to rich democrats (which may well be true) but he can't let it go.... even when according to statistics I've seen, his book isn't even second behind hers-- Al Franken's book (who he hates with a passion) is ahead of his! Don't even get him started on the issue of where he lived and when and some reporter lying about it. WHO CARES Bill... yet he mentions it almost every other day... get over it.
3. Bill is "looking out for you." Could you be any more condescending? Do you really believe anyone wants you looking out for them? Give me a break! Bill--how do you find time to look after all of us when you're so busy looking out for (and at) yourself?
4. Bill O'Reilly is a social liberal. I don't care what you say, but if you feel that pornography, strip clubs, gay marriage and illicit sex are not issues that have a negative effect on society, you're blind! All of these things are major factors in the deterioration of the family in America, and the family is the last thing holding the country together! Wake up Bill. Today when the Kerry intern scandal broke today he said he doesn't think it will affect Kerry's campaign and that he actually feels sorry for the guy. What?! Are you that out of touch with Americans to think that they will let a presidential candidate get away with infidelity? Sure, you can point to Bill Clinton as the exception but is he really an exception? Bill Clinton was, after all, impeached! Maybe it's Kerry's wife you should feel sorry for. Maybe it's yourself for losing your conscious.
5. He's spineless. You won't endorse a political candidate but you sure will attack them. Your personal vendetta against Howard Dean is ridiculous... what is it for? Did he insult you personally at some point? It's sure not politics. You constantly make excuses for asserting there were WMD's in Iraq saying you "weren't skeptical enough" or that it's Tenants fault or Bush's fault or whoever's fault... come on, stand up and take the blame yourself. The whole time you're apologizing, you've got excuses coming out the other side of your mouth. Whether or not there are/were WMD's in Iraq is another story... I personally believe there are or were at some point, but again, that's a whole different issue.
So I started off talking about Bill O'Reilley and ended talking to him--well Bill, you need it. Stand up and take a look at yourself. Just because you're not perfect doesn't mean you should lower your moral expectations for society in general to justify your own shortcomings. You're in the public eye, expect to be criticized, but don't get your proverbial panties in a wad over it. Deal with it. Face the facts, you're not everywhere, Rush is bigger than you and so is Hannity. Your book sold less than Hillary's and Franken's and it's because while those people are as out of touch as anyone else in this world, at least people know where they stand. And no Bill, you're not "looking out for me," that's the biggest load of spin I've heard all year.
By far, my favorite feature of Apple's OS X 10.3 Panther operating system is Exposé. If you're not familiar with it, it's a feature that allows you to see all the windows of a your current application, all the windows you have open or your desktop by using a simple keyboard combination or a hot-corner on your desktop. It achieves this by quickly and smoothly making shrinking and rearranging your windows or sliding them off the screen to expose the desktop.
The main problem with Exposé isn't so much a problem with Exposé as much as it is a problem with every other operating system--they don't include this or any similar feature. When I leave OS X and move to Windows XP or Linux, using the taskbar or alt+tab to find a window seems slow and awkward now. In my profession as a multimedia specialist, I usually have at least 5 apps running and often more than double that number of windows open on my desktop.
So. in order to fill this gap, I've started searching for software (preferably free) that will achieve the same thing for Windows and/or Linux. So far, my search has not been all that fruitful.
For Windows, there's an Expose wannabe called WinPLOSION, previously known a WinExpose (no wonder they had to change their name) which is commercial, costs $10 and from everything I've read, is less than impressive--and since there's no demo, I'll probably never try it.
There's also a freeware product that is a pain to find and download on Aqua-soft (registration required, no download area etc. etc.). It requires some external dll's and the first time I tried it, it caused my Dell Inspiron 8100 to immediately give me a blue screen of death--one of the very few crashes I've had under Windows XP. After I tried a later version, it showed some improvements (at least it doesn't crash) but it is 100% unusable in it's current condition. It's on version 0.3 now and I think I'll hold out until the 1.0 release. Currently, I don't recommend trying it unless you are willing to risk a crash (I'm writing this for the second time because of it).
For Linux there is a working Exposé clone called Exposity, made for the
Another strange phenomenon is that in certain places, I've seen any attempt to copy Expose on other operating systems harshly criticized by Macintosh users. Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Doesn't pretty much every OS and piece of software copy (at least to some extent) some other piece of software? I believe that the more others copy Apple, the more they (both Apple and the copycats) are inspired to innovate and that by this, software in general improves.
Understanding the kernel has never been one of my strong points when it comes to Linux. I've seen articles on the new 2.6 kernel and how great it is, but for me, it's never been clear exactly what is so great about it or if I should bother using it. Tonight I found a link to an article on OSnews that does a great job of explaining what's new in the 2.6 kernel and gives some very clear data as to why it's better than the 2.4. The article is on IBM's site-- read it here.
Mozilla has released Firefox (previously Firebird) for OS X, Windows and Linux. If you haven't used it, you're missing out. Among the reasons it's better than Microsoft Internet Explorer (or any other browser) are:
. Automatic popup blocking
. Right click and "block images from this server--great for quickly removing banner ad servers
. Tabbed browsing
. Consistent over 3 different operating systems
. It's fast--very fast
. Built in Google searching
. Better standards support, especially for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
. Open Source
. Extendable
. Less prone to viruses (at least so far)
. Bettter built in download manager
I really can't think of a single reason to keep using Internet Explorer, and in fact, for quite some time now, I haven't. Apple's Safari browser is a little more of a competitor and has most of the same features as Firefox, but in my experience, Firefox renders pages better, and with the GUI enhancements that came with this release, I don't think I'll be using Safari much anymore either (not that I really ever did).
Finally got around to reading the The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. It was a pretty intriguing novel. The history, facts and figures in the book are very interesting and were almost all things I had never heard of. The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the concept of Sacred Feminine, some interesting observations on the The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci to name a few.
While the history and facts in the book are interesting, and it's a page-turner , I found it a little lacking in the areas of character development, plot and dialog. Despite these things, I'd recommend The DaVinci Code to anyone who has a little time to devote to reading because of the aforementioned well researched facts and information.
Read on to see what else I'm reading at the moment.
I just started Around the World in Eighty Days. It's been in the back of my mind for quite awhile as a to-read book. I've also recently started Catch 22--another one I probably should have read in college but didn't. I recently finished The Scarlet Pimpernel--a great read and... what else, I've read several short stories, most of which I barely even remember at the moment and as soon as I save this others will probably come to mind, but that's it for now.