May 2000 Archives

You can now buy DVD players with a serial digital interface (SDI) port, and the movie industry is worried. SDI allows the transmition of a 270 megabits per second uncompressed digital signal, and is accepted by big fancy televisions (esp. plasma screens). Because it's a pure uncompressed digital signal, you can theoretically make straight digital copies of DVD movies--and it's perfectly within the DVD-CCA DVD player manufacturing license. The license forbids Firewire ports (which would do something similar), but makes no mention of SDI. Yet another example of how the DVD-CCA's restrictions that hurt the consumer in the name of copy protection are in vain.

DVD-CCA's FAQ, and their CSS page.

EFF's DVD-CCA case archive.

Incidentally, that analog video output you're getting from your DVD player is not the best picture quality available from the DVD. But you'd need a new TV to see the better picture anyway. ("Mother of God! There's a picture in that picture!" -- Third Rock from the Sun)

The "low quality analog signal" is due in part to the DVD-CCA making Macrovision manditory in DVD players. Macrovision, as you probably know, poisons the analog signal so when fed to a VCR gets recorded garbled (often appearing as an ugly red band). Check out the official Macrovision home page, and their analysis of the DeCSS case.

Bookmark dumping ground (unsorted territory):

• Pixture Icons.
• Conversational Terrorism, how NOT to talk.
• Peanuts FAQ.
• HumanClick, live chat for sales and customer service.
• Icons.
• IF Magazine, independent film zine.
• Incompetech, uh, stuff.
• Interactive Fiction Review Conspiracy, group of volunteers willing to test and review your (non-IF-competition) interactive fiction game.
• Internet Oracle Resource Index, home of the greatest source of wisdom on the Internet for many, many years.
• The Freedom Papers.
• Java Camera Page, with resources on Super 8, 16mm and 35mm film cameras.
• JavaScript cookie functions.
• If the Great Movies had been Websites.
• Linux Knowledge Base.
• Audio files of angry customers.
• Living Internet, comprehensive source of information on the history of the Internet.

A while ago I mentioned the new Little Shop of Horrors DVD, where Amazon had made the curious distinction between it and an earlier version which included an alternate ending. Bill informed me that the previous (discontinued) DVD release is one of the few available records of this test-audience-despised unhappy ending, and that the DVD is going for $60-$100+ on eBay. I made sure to check the local DVD retailers likely to have older buried treasures, and sure enough, I found it for $22 at Scarecrow Video. (I'm pretty sure I got the only copy, but it wouldn't hurt to give 'em a call.)

Wooo! Ikea, the chain of Swedish furniture warehouse stores, is inexpensive, and huge. I went looking for a piece of furniture for my printer small enough to meet my needs--which no other store had--and not only did Ikea have what I was looking for, but for the money I was expecting to pay for the one piece of furniture, I got the piece, two very nice and badly needed TV trays, some great plates and bowls, a kitchen grater, a vacuum flask and some wine glasses. Oh, and some excellent children's blocks, which were too cool to pass up. But of course, Ikea is yet another store ideal for an Internet storefront and lacks one.

Timex: Ridiculously Easy To Use, directed by Tim Burton. (Thanks schmarley of MetaFilter.)

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, with Rene Russo, Jason Alexander, Randy Quaid, Janeane Garofalo and Robert De Niro, among others. Live action with ILM 3D animated characters. See also the Movies.com page. (Trailer contains a few too many 1999 pop culture references for my taste.) In theaters June 30.

Try on virtual sunglasses at Ray-Ban Virtual Preview. Send them a photo of yourself, they'll scan it in and give you an access code. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Bookmark dumping ground (unsorted territory):

• The Annotated American Pie.
• FastIO free libraries for creating PDFs.
• Frames Just Want to be Loved, by Derek Powazek.
• Figlet text graphics generator, with many "fonts".
• Flying Crocodile web hosting (big fancy plans only).
• Freewriting and freewriting techniques.
• Geekboys customizable geek news aggregation portal thingy.
• Alternative Entertainment Network, with lots of old TV shows streamed online.
• Google web directory (dmoz mirror).
• Greatest Films, the site of the guy doing what I've always wanted to do but never had the time.
• Guess the Dictator/Sit-Com Character.
• Sun's Guide to Web Style.

Kudos to twernt for exceeding his promise, "50% twerntier than the leading brand," this past week.

First it was TextPad, then PHP. Now I have a new crush: the OXO Good Grips Y Peeler. I'm actually in love with all OXO Good Grips utensils, but the Y peeler particularly warms my heart.

Ooh, LAN furniture.

Apparently I was one of the first 100 people to enter a survey at iFilm.com, so they sent me a mousepad. Nothing really interesting about that, just rubbing it in your face.

"Hello, and welcome to AOL Moviephone!"

Bookmark dumping ground (unsorted territory):

• Microsoft's Channel Verdana.
• CNN Millennium special.
• Ooine's Constructing a Logical Argument.
• DeCSS mirror list and, uh, a "DeCSS" mirror.
• DeCSS Resource Site.
• U.S. Dept of State International Information Programs publications.
• Dice.com high tech job search.
• Don Quixote, complete text.
• DopeWars, for Windows and now for Mac!
• Using Samba, complete text.
• Dull Men's Club.
• Eclair ACL 16mm Camera Manual.
• Edge.org: important unreported stories.
• Electronic Editions of UC Press Books.
• Electronic Telegraph, UK.
• Interview with Ethan Coen.

Says Cokie Roberts: "I know you don't think of Sam as a pixie, but there is that quality."

Mr Showbiz interview with John Woo in MI:2.

Hey neat, the RPM database at rufus.w3.org has its own domain name: rpmfind.net. I had worried that it was likely to disappear, but it looks like the opposite. (Maybe I'm clueless, but it's a good resource for RedHatters.)

USPS list of accepted abbreviations.

The bookmark dumping ground is entering unsorted territory! No longer will we be grouped by subject in our journey into the depth of my bookmarks. In fact, I could probably drop the 15-in-a-list format and just run through all of these as blog fodder, as if I just found them. But that would be dishonest. And much of this is stuff I found on blogs--or blogged myself--in the last couple of months anyway.

• CD Recordable Factory Store, with lots of CD-R-related merchandise. Labels, CD-Rs in fancy colors and large quantities...
• I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman.
• Glossary of Film Terms.
• Abrupt Edge Film and Video Resource.
• Alan W. Pollack's Notes On Series of notes on Beatles songs.
• The All Music Guide.
• The All Movie Guide.
• The All Game Guide.
• Internet Industry strategic alliance and partnership map and database.
• The Anonymizer, anonymous web browsing.
• DVD Reviews at BigStar.com.
• Zone Selector, lets you change the region code on a Hollywood Plus DVD card.
• Blue Mountain online greeting cards.
• Books In Print.com.
• Case Depot, very nice computer case site.

This is Andy Richter's last week on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Say goodbye.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• The Procmail Home Page.
• Webmonkey article Roll Your Own Search Engine.
• ROT13 converters in many programming languages, which oddly omits a link to a web converter.
• Old Slashdot Feature: Getting DSL.
• Slashnet.org.
• SWISH++, a Simple Web Indexing System for Humans.
• TOAST.net connection performance test.
• Robot Wisdom's Bookmarklets page.
• Uncensored-News.com.
• State of Washington's Anti-Spam bill page, recently decided virtually impotent by a judge claiming anti-interstate trade and jurisdictional issues.
• WebReference tutorial on Using RSS feeds.
• Web Server Performance Measurement FAQ.
• CORENIC WHOIS.
• NetscapeWorld article on "XML Expectations".

Oops, I did it again,
I invented movable type,
It led a printing revolution,
Oops, the peasants can read...
-- Marty Culp (Will Farrell) and Bobbi Moughan-Culp (Ana Gasteyer) at the Alta Dena 8th grade all-day mandatory Renaissance Fair, Saturday Night Live

Pathé (see also their "UK" site) is an interesting multifaceted production company. (I haven't had time to research them, so this shall be left a really boring write-up of their web sites. They own theaters, do TV, and have their hands in a few films popular in the states. :)

Mmmm... X Files Season One DVD boxed set, with extras... I'm not a big enough fan to pay $100 for it, but I'm in full support of the concept of releasing complete collections of TV series on DVD.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• List of access log analyzers.
• Analog, a popular and rather powerful log analysis tool.
• The Webalizer log analysis tool.
• APNIC: Asia Pacific Network Information Center.
• Ask Mr. DNS.
• Blink server-side global bookmark system.
• Digital Space.net, a low-cost web hosting service. A friend tells me customer service is poor, and occasional outages can be frustrating, but at a starting rate of $24/year, it's worth a shot.
• The DSL Sourcebook.
• DSL Reports.
• htdig Search Engine software under the GPL (free!).
• Joker.com domain registrar; so far my prefered registrar; $20/year, CORENIC.
• LATTE, language for transforming text.
• LightRealm DSL and hosting.
• Netscape's RDF How-to.

Movies.com launches today. While I only came on in the last month, I'm very proud to have contributed to development of this exciting new movie portal. I seriously believe Movies.com is of a higher caliber than similar sites, especially for browsing and repeat visits. But don't take my word for it, check it out yourself. (And hey, if something isn't working on the site, let me know! ;)

The Quantum Project, a 32 minute sci-fi romance film, is being hailed as the first "big" film developed and produced specifically for Internet distribution. Visit SightSound, pay $6, and wait, wait, and wait to download 60+MB. A 6MB free trailer is also available, so you can check out the video quality (hires ain't bad at all). Not Mac compatible as it's an encrypted Windows Media Player file (copy protection reasons, I imagine). Stephen Dorff, Fay Masterson, John Cleese.

Seattle's new local comedy show The John Report with Bob has a new website. Check out the bios, and the interactive section with video, audio, message boards and other crap.

Inside Media on US Weekly's printing--and retracting--the story of Tom Cruise dropping Scientology.

Being John Malkovich is out on DVD, "special edition", with documentaries and interviews.

A new DVD release of Little Shop of Horrors (the movie musical), will be out May 23. Includes director's commentary (Frank Oz), deleted footage (with commentary), and a making-of featurette (not that those are any good). "NOTE: This disc does not contain the alternate ending found on the previously-issued DVD." Does anyone know anything about the alternate ending? Is it more like the play? Where can I get the previously issued DVD?

Terry Gilliam's commentary for Brazil, Criterion Edition, is brilliant and entertaining. Let's see, what other Gilliam DVDs have commentary?

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, no...
• 12 Monkeys, Collector's Edition, yes!
• The Fisher King, no...
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, no...
• Time Bandits, Criterion Edition, yes!
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail, no...
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, no...
• Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Criterion Edition, yes!

onfocus's what-do-you-want-for-dinner i-don't-know-what-do-you-want? dialog generator. (Everyone blogged it, but I liked it too much.)

Bookmark dumping ground:

• ftape, the Linux Floppy Tape project.
• gd 1.8.2, a graphics library for fast image creation. (Now creates PNG instead of GIF; the GIF version is no longer available. Grr!)
• Hardening a Unix computer for Internet use.
• Linux User Group at the University of Washington.
• NetAdminTools' section on Linux.
• nmap Network Mapper, Stealth Port Scanner for Network Security Auditing.
• OpenSSH.
• Phrack.com.
• Sendmail.org.
• SSH info from Berkeley.
• Linux Documentation Project.
• The WWW Security FAQ.
• Notes from Dittrich's Unix System Adminsitration course.
• Unix System Administrator's Reference Library, a bibliography.
• TuxFinder, Linux software search tool (excellent!).
• O'Reilly's UNIX section.
• Virtual Hosting with Sendmail.
• The Open Book Project.
• wwwstat logfile analysis software.

This is for my non-blogger readers, since all of us already know about it: public radio's The Connection, a call-in show, spent a whole hour talking about weblogs with some of my more popular blogger friends. I can't think of anyone more qualified to talk about weblogs than Brad Graham and Rebecca Blood, as evidenced by this show.

And hey, I made it into The Connection's blog list. No hits from it yet, but still. :)

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Alt.Movies.Visual-Effects FAQ.
• TimeTrack, the official page for the moving-camera-in-frozen-time effect (and the patented hardware that accomplishes the effect).
• Interview with George Murphy, Visual Effects Supervisor, "First Union - Launch" Commercial ('cuz I like those First Union commercials).
• Glidecam Industries.
• American Cinema Editors.
• Wellington Camera and Dolly.
• Writer's Exchange at About.com.
• Writer's Guild of America, East.
• Yahoo Filmmaking category.
• Yahoo Movies and Film in Seattle category.
  
  

• Article on customizing Apache log files, from Apache Week.
  
• Article on user authentication in Apache, from Apache Week.
  
• Apache Week.
  
• ARIN Whois, look up who controls which IP addresses.
  
• 10 tips to lock up Linux.
  
• comp.unix.admin FAQ (good stuff!).
  
• Dave Dittrich's home page (must see for anyone even remotely interested in UNIX/Linux/general computer security).
  
• DevShed category on MySQL.
  
• DevShed.
  
• Expect home page (a UNIX system to script interactive telnet connections).
  

Sitting on top of my VCR is my new special Apex DVD player. This puppy has the hidden menu and everything. I don't have any non-region-1 discs to test it with, though I'll probably order Eyes Wide Shut from Amazon.co.uk sometime soon. I couldn't get a CD-R of MP3s I made to work with my first try--though I suspect it was the way I made it that's tripping up the player. I played a DVD in it too, of course, and that worked just fine. (So much better than VHS! So much!) My only complaint so far is that it seems to obliterate what little reception I get of 4 of my 7 TV channels, but who needs TV when you have DVDs?

If you want one with the hidden menu, they're going for about $300 on eBay, and prices continue to go up as supplies dwindle. I bought mine from Oobgarm, who still has a bunch left. (He offered to sell me one off auction for $320, I'm sure he'd do the same for you.)

Of course, if you don't need the ability to change the region code or disable Macromedia copy protection (and who does?), you will always be able to get a new one at Circuit City for $180. You get the MP3 functionality, as well as Karaoke! (It even has mic jacks on the front!) It plays DVDs, too.

Work is hard!



It'll be worth it, though. Just you wait.

North by Northwest will be released on DVD August 29, and is available for pre-order.

The Birds is out on DVD now, widescreen with tons of extras.

Why there is no multiple inheritence in Java like there is in C++.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Screenwriting at About.com.
• Writers Guild of America.
• ScriptShark on-line screenplay trading. Not sure I'd trust anyone buying my script over this thing, but you never know.
• SOFIA: Study of Film as Internet Application.
• Pro 8mm from Super8Sound.
• Super-8and 16mm Filmmaking Sync Sound FAQ.
• 8mm Film Format Metadirectory.
• The Film Editing Home Page (actually part of a site I linked yesterday.
• Motion Picture Editors Guild.
  
  

• Syntrillium Software, makers of Cool Edit Pro audio editing software for Windows.
  
• UltraEdit text editor for Windows. (I much prefer TextPad these days, but UltraEdit is good too.)
  
• The very unofficial dotemacs home--on customizing Emacs.
  
• Virtual Uni*x, commands for Windows.
  
• Virtual Network Computing, the famous desktop sharing program for many platforms.
  
• WebCam Control Center.
  
• WinAmp.
  
• Using the Windows 9x System Policy Editor to Enhance Workstation Security.
  
• WinZip, ultimate archive utility for Windows. Now at version 8.0.
  
• Icecast, audio streaming under GPL.
  

Get your own animated replica of Robbie the Robot from Fred Barton Productions Inc. Tons of features! Limited run of 10 of the Artists Proof series, so get yours today. Also check out the rest of the site, like the Robby the Robot FAQ.

Ya gotta love web sites that tie in to fictional universes. Last week's King of the Hill episode featured a foot fetish website called PeggysFeet.com. And Zannah points me to Mutant Watch, which is probably one of the most complete such sites I've seen.

Zannah has a dangerous habit of introducing me to addicting web games.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure has a web site, of the usual high PBS caliber.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Kodak's Super 8 page. They still make and process the film, though only a couple of companies still make cameras (and it's only worth getting 'em used, anyway).
• Kodak's Professional Entertainment Imaging page.
• Michael's Cutting Room, editing resources.
• Next Wave Films guide to ultra-low-budget digital filmmaking.
• PBS's Special Effects: Titanic and Beyond documentary website.
• Santa Barbara Film and Audio.
• Screen Actors Guild.
  
  

• MusicMatch MP3 player/recorder software, with some nice features. (I like its CDDB integration, so it automatically names your MP3s with the song title.)
  
• NoteTab Light, a free Notepad replacement for Windows.
  
• ZDNet article on OCR software (text scanning).
  
• PNG2HTML, that little proggy that turns pictures into colored HTML text that looks like those pictures, and crashes most browsers.
  
• Pure Mac's list of telnet/ssh clients for Mac.
  
• Shoutcast.
  
• SpyCam webcam software (excellent!).
  

Slashdot recently linked an article entitled "General Relativity without Black Holes" which apparently appeared in the April issue of the "science fiction and fact" mag Analog. Slashdot's blurb talked a bit about the author, John Cramer, a University of Washington physics prof I happened to have taken a course from. Cramer is also a science fiction author, of Twistor and Einstein's Bridge, the latter of which I actually bothered to read after Cramer announced its publication in class. Check out his Alternate View articles published in Analog.

John Cramer's self-posted plot description of Twistor at Amazon.com:

David Harrison, a young physics postdoc and and Victoria Gordon, a graduate student working together on a "table-top" experiment in a small lab at the University of Washington stumble on a world-spanning breakthrough discovery, the Twistor Effect. Soon, because of dirty tricks by industrial spies, David and two small children are trapped in a "shadow" world, an Eden-like twin of the Earth with its own ecology of strange plants and animals, including a peculiarly colorful "tree-bird", a dextrous six-legged "shadow kitten", and a giant tentacle-mouthed "shadow bear". David has most of a laboratory full of custom-built equipment but no electrical power. Vickie has the technical knowledge, but her hardware has gone with David and the industrial spies are closing in. Can David and the children ever get back to their own world, or are they trapped forever in the the beautiful but dangerous shadow world?

Myst III: Exile trailers are now available.

A preview trailer is up for Ron Howard's live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey.

MacInTouch reports Microsoft has discontinued development of IE for Mac.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• The Internet Filmmaker's FAQ, an excellent resource.
• Intervalometers' Film Resources list.
• The Beginning Filmmaker's FAQ.
• Filmmaker.com (not necessarily a great site; using Slashdot software without changing the images? :).
• Final Draft, the gold standard of screenwriting software.
• The Free Film Project, dedicated to developing free software to assist in filmmaking.
• Desktop Video: A Starter's Guide to Video Editing from Hardware Central, of all places.
• Director's Salon.
• Independent Feature Project.
  
  

• Creating Secure User Profiles in Windows 95.
  
• Review of n-Track audio software.
  
• GNU Emacs FAQ.
  
• Jabber, an open-source alternative to instant messaging software.
  
• NiftyTelnet, the only SSH client I could find for a Mac that's usable outside the U.S.
  
• JPSoft, home of the 4DOS enhanced shell for Windows.
  
• Mac OS X software FTP server.
  

Pearl Jam concert goers won't need to bring their tape recorders this summer. Rumor has it that the group will be selling CD-Rs of direct-to-DAT soundboard recordings of every show (sixty-something shows) on the tour through the fan club for $10 each. Newsgroup freaks are already plotting to acquire the whole tour. (Can someone post a more official source on this?)

Sarah Vowell will be on Late Night with David Letterman tonight, in addition to the much-hyped appearance of Richard Simmons. I guess Dave wanted balance.

Wow. Anyone can read your cookies if you use IE. This means someone can check your SubHonker Filter cookie, simulate your computer and see your favorites list! (OK, it's more serious than that. But it's true.)

Why aren't you reading Mr Pants? Read Mr Pants. (Yes, I mention Mr Pants a lot, but I mention any blog whenever I see so many links I want to steal that I might as well just blog the whole page. That happens a lot with Mr Pants.)

Old Navy has opened their on-line store! Being male, I don't have to try anything on when I shop for clothes. Now I don't have to leave the house.

NetFlix.com lets you rent DVDs by mail, with no per-movie charges, no shipping and handling costs, no due dates and no late fees. (Read that again.) $20/month membership. They arrive in your mailbox within a couple of days, including a label to return it (by mail). First month and 6 rentals free with sign-up, cancel anytime with no obligation. (Actually, they'll bill you a one-time $4.95 charge for shipping during your free month; afterward, shipping is included in the monthly fee.) (And I think "6 rentals free" just refers to the trial month; no per-movie charges.)

Bookmark dumping ground:

• 911 Media Arts Center, Seattle.
• Abrupt Edge Film and Video Resources.
• The Filmmaker's Handbook (book at Amazon.com--ultimate reference).
• American Cinema Editors Educational Center, from the ACE.
• Bono Film and Video Services.
• Cinema Seattle, home of the Seattle International Film Festival.
• Cyber Film School.
• Digital Media Net, home of many excellent resource centers, from digital audio, to game development, to DVD production.
  
  

• ecasound for Linux, a full-featured audio package for free.
  
• Audio Editors for Windows 95/98 category at Tucows.
  
• CDex for Windows, a full-featured audio package for free.
  
• CoolEdit audio package for Windows.
  
• Cygwin, GNU + Cygnus + Windows; UNIX commands for Windows!
  
• n-Track studio for Windows, another audio package.
  
• Flashback Abandonware.

24FramesPerSecond.com, featuring user-contributed film articles and lists of favorite films. The articles are better than it sounds, though the lists are a bit disappointing.

Growing Up Brady, a new miniseries about the making of the Brady Bunch, based on the book, is being teased with a scene of what appears to be the actors that play Marcia and Greg in a swimming pool alone together, if you know what I mean. See a behind-the-scenes clip of the behind-the-scenes miniseries.

This year's Tony Award Nominations.

The NIC for the .ws domain has an inspiring Flash movie.

I enjoyed Challenge of the Child Geniuses too much not to blog it. With that Millionaire show, not only are the questions easy, but I could care less if they win or lose. Something about these being kids and the questions would be difficult for many people, especially kids under 12, made it much more fun to watch. $300,000+ grand prize, too. Oh, and it's time for Dick Clark to retire; his senility has finally kicked in enough that he can't do his job.

Join the contestants in a live chat on Fox.com Wednesday, 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. Afterward, head on over to irc.skunkworkz.com #blogirc and play Challenge of the Weblog Geniuses.

Arooooo! This Internet beagle owners club is not accepting new members. Warning: music on every page. Cute pics, though! (Thanks wetlog.)

The Jaws: 25th Anniversary Edition DVD will be released July 11. Only $17 at Amazon.com.

American Beauty will supposedly be out on video and DVD this week. Amazon doesn't seem to know about it, though...

Limited edition Volkswagons, sold only on-line. 2,000 Reflex Yellow, 2,000 Vapor Blue. Starting at $18,875.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Ain't It Cool News.
• Auteur film industry newsletter.
• Film.com.
• Eraserhead FAQ.
• The Real Guide to Grad School, Chapter 9: Film Studies, from Lingua Franca.
• Movie Critic.
• Movie Review Query Engine.
• The American Widescreen Museum.
• ScreenIt Entertainment Reviews for Parents.
• The Silents Majority, the Online Journal of Silent Film.
• The Criterion Collection.
• Yahoo's Best Films Lists category.
• Movie times for theaters near my house. :)

Audio of introduction to This Is Cinerama.

Cinerama Adventure (the new Cinerama documentary) home page.

Cinerama 2000 article at DVDResource.com.

I now have tickets to How the West Was Won at the Seattle Cinerama. (!!!) This will be the first use of the Cinerama screen and projectors since it was restored by Paul Allen for this very purpose. There are only a few working Cinerama theaters in the world, and prints of Cinerama films such as How the West Was Won are equally scarce.

HTWWW is part of the Seattle International Film Festival, showing on June 2 at 11:00am and 8:30pm. $15/ea. Buy tickets for the 8:30 show and receive free tickets to the 2:45 showing of Cinerama Adventure, a new Cinerama documentary on the medium. Also showing that day: This Is Cinerama, at 5:15, a 140-minute demo film--which I also have tickets for. (Most of the films available in the 3-projector format are demo films; HTWWW is one of the few fictional features done in the format.) Call (206)-324-9996 for ticket sales or more information.

I've been waiting for this ever since I heard the Cinerama was going to be restored. Newsgroup movie nuts (like me) have been talking about flying to Seattle from Australia just to see HTWWW.

So it's a big deal.

What Was Cinerama? from the rec.arts.movies.tech FAQ (at Cinematography.com).

Check out: An Internet Tribute to Seattle's Martin Cinerama Theater (warning: music) with tons of great old pictures; the tribute site's list of Cinerama links, notes on This Is Cinerama, and Widescreen Museum's Cinerama page, including a filmography.

Magnolia on DVD now available for pre-order, to be released July 25. Amazon's description probably isn't complete; it seems likely that it will be released with director's commentary.

Red Rock Eater Digest on Microsoft and ILOVEYOU.

Clinton's The Final Days is now hosted on AdCritic in a high-quality QuickTime. Check it out if you haven't yet.

Eskimo.com's Seattle BBS list. I've been looking for this for a while now, nice to actually find it. Alas, all my favorite BBSes are long gone...

IMBot.com lets you send a typed message to someone's telephone, for free. Just tried it, works fine. You can set the message delivery time; I can imagine using it for reminders and wake up calls.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Tidy your HTML with HTML Tidy.
• ClipArt for Free at ClipArtResource.
• DJ Quad's Ultimate HTML site.
• Dack.com's Best Practices for Designing Shopping Cart and Checkout Interfaces (see also dack's web section).
• Netscape's DevEdge Online, example JavaScript and many articles (careful! many are NS-only!).
• WebReference DHTML Diner (see also WebReference).
• WebReference DHTML Lab.
• Dr. Watson, one of my favorite HTML validators (especially for the calculate download times feature).
• GIFWorks free online GIF tools.
• How to use HTML META tags.
• Directory of HTML validation tools.
• irt.org JavaScript Knowledge Base (see also irt.org).
• Advice on HTML IMG tag ALT attributes.
• Webmonkey.
• ZDNet Developer: XML.
• XML.com.
• Slashdot: Commercial Use of Apache and SSL.

The cookbook showed a picture of someone chopping hot peppers wearing protective gloves. We figured that was just so you don't touch the peppers then rub your eyes or something, so I ignored the advice. Six hours and several thorough hand-washes later, I can still burn my tongue by running my teeth under my fingernails.

Wow, bidding is fierce on Apex DVD players on eBay. I've been bidding for one that's already running up to $300. The seller, who has sold many of these Apexes in the last few months, offered to sell me one directly for $319. On eBay they seem to be topping off at about $250, but it seems quite random. At least this seller seems to have plenty, so if I can't win at a reasonable auction price, I haven't completely lost out.

I've heard "MySQL is not a database" a couple of times now, but I could never find an explanation. This is a good one, though I think in the end it mostly goes to show that all most people need is a fast SQL interface to a file system, and not a real database.

Strange Brew calls it quits--in favor of content creation, of all things. We'll miss you, Alice!

This afternoon the University of Washington will officially open the long-awaited Mary Gates Hall with a dedication ceremony. Funded in large part by donations from Bill Gates (named after his mother), this very large building will house huge computer labs, computer classrooms and other facilities. The building was partially restored from an old building, partially built from scratch. Project budget: $48 million, plus $3 million for technical equipment. Check out the web cam as well as a movie of the past day's images.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• C++ FAQ Lite.
• Sites and files of interest to C++ programmers.
• The C++ Annotations.
• The C++ Virtual Library.
• Notes on using the C++ String class.
• Available C++ Libraries FAQ.
• Mumit's STL Newbie Guide.
• Standard Template Library Programmer's Guide.
• STL Online Reference.
• C++ STL FAQ (at HP.com).

So what is the freaking deal with my blog design and Netscape for PC (and I think for Mac also)? It's been like this for weeks now: The first day's worth looks fine, then the second day is too big, with white-on-white links. Then all days after that is in the browser default fonts and colors. It's clearly related to the loss-of-style bug, and changes seem to happen with my div and font tags. Maybe someday I'll experiment a little... But it shouldn't happen... grr...

Woohoo! The New BrainLog is even newer! :)

You're now looking at a PHP+MySQL rendition of BrainLog. This includes a spiffy new comment system, which you'll find at the bottom of each entry. Note that, ala Slashdot or MetaFilter, the "permanent URL" of an entry is its comments page. Because I know you're going to be linking all my stuff on your own blogs.

I've imported all of my archives since October 22, 1999, the day I started. All imported data are lumped by day, one entry per day. Future entries will each have their own entry and set of comments.

Please let me know if there are any problems, or you find any bugs. I want to stomp them swiftly.

As with any blogger discovering PHP and MySQL, more features are to come. Search engine almost definitely ('cuz I'd use it frequently), and I'm considering category icons so you can skip over the boring tech geek stuff (or the boring movie geek stuff). Any other ideas? Send 'em my way, or heck, post 'em publicly in a comment!

Twernt thinks Flash is poo. I think this banner ad is quite clever. In context (shrunk to actual banner ad size), it uses the gimmick to get your attention, but it's so smoothly implemented that it actually isn't annoying. But it appears that's just me...

No doubt you've heard by now of the ILOVEYOU email virus. We were hit pretty hard at work, taking up some ops people's entire work day today. I was impressed how crudely the text was written--too suspicious to anyone who's knows what an email virus is. But sure enough, people were opening that attachment--but it also spreads by replacing JPGs and CSSes and other files with itself. Meaning, if you have a web server's wwwroot mounted (like everyone at my workplace did), it can cause a great deal of damage.

Like with any poorly written email forward, someone along the way has rewritten it to be less obvious. According to (unconfirmed) reports, if you receive a message with the subject "FW: JOKE", don't open it, it's a mutation of ILOVEYOU.

Surprisingly interesting summary article on the Dogme '95 rules of filmmaking, from Time's Richard Corliss, who I remember deciding years ago (perhaps on a whim, I don't recall) was a schmuck for reviewing films without seeing them.

New Woody Allen film to be distributed by DreamWorks. That Amazon link appears to be the only official page, at least according to DreamWorks' home page. Woody Allen writes, directs and stars:

Woody Allen wrote, directed, and stars in this light, romantic comedy that follows the illegal misadventures of an ex-con dishwasher and his wife, a manicurist who dreams of becoming rich by way of a bank robbery in New York City. Allen and award-winning comedy actress Tracey Ullman (Bullets over Broadway) are paired as the crooked husband and wife team. The all-star ensemble cast also includes Hugh Grant (Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral), Jon Lovitz (The Wedding Singer), Michael Rapaport (Mighty Aphrodite, Deep Blue Sea) and Oscar-nominated screenwriter and actress Elaine May (Primary Colors). Jean Doumanian, Allen's longtime producer, is producing Small Time Crooks, marking their eighth collaboration.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Internet Primenet Server, distributed project to find large prime numbers.
• Mersenne Prime Search.
• JediNet, the ultimate network of Star Wars fans.
• My friend Jeremy's home page.
• My father's home page.
• The Unofficial Jim's Journal Home Page.
• KING FM Seattle, nice new web site for one of the oldest Internet radio feeds (classical music).
• La Pulcina Piccola, the great puppet opera.
• Subbrilliant News.
• Landover Baptist Church.
• Clean Sheets Erotica Magazine.
• Erotica at Scarlet Letters.
• Nerve.com (now in print form!).
• mired (see for yourself).
• rTMark (see for yourself).
• The Brunching Shuttlecocks.
• SatireWire (formerly FNWire).
• The Complete Bastard Operator From Hell.
• The Big List of Movie Mistakes.
• Jorge Luis Borges Center for Studies and Documentation.
• The Pat Pack, fan page for The Pat Cashman Show, KOMO 1000 Seattle.
• The Simpsons Archive.
• The Smoking Gun.
• The Sondheim Review.
• Can you tell I'm going alphabetically?
• The Sync, Internet Broadcasting.
• Geeks In Space, Slashdot radio show.
• The Uncle Willy Archive of Williams Pinball.
• McSweeney's.
• TVParty!.
• Wally Dug's Home Page, including his articles in JAM on the Commodore Amiga.

Hit or Miss implements category icons before I get a chance to. The race is on to implement cool PHP+MySQL features!

Where was everybody last night? Not at #blogirc, that's for sure. (Well, I was gone for most of the time too, I guess, so I shouldn't talk. But some regulars didn't even show up!)

Instead, I was at Time Code. It was successful in many ways, especially the way the unusual format was used and experimented with. The story was a bit lacking, as seems typical for Figgis' films. Whatever else the movie lacked did not seem at all to be the fault of the format, or the skills of the actors and crew involved. Color me impressed. Definitely a film experiment for the books, and, dare I say, the National Film Registry.

I love my new WarGames DVD I got with a gift certificate from Vividence. It occurs to me that this is one of many films central to my youth that I have never seen in its original widescreen format (!!). And director+writer commentary is more than I've ever dreamed of having for this film. The DVD menus (which my video card won't let me take a snapshot of) are a fully animated NORAD war room; really neat. No need to gush about the film itself, I'm sure we're all in the same boat there, but I will take the opportunity to say how much I like the music by Arthur Rubinstein. WarGames is one of the first films to turn me on to the magic of movie music. (Something tells me I've blogged about WarGames before, but I'm too lazy to grep for it...)

The Gladiator opening on Friday at the Seattle Cinerama will feature ushers dressed as gladiators. Fun! "Also, one lucky member of General Cinema's CREDITS(TM) frequent moviegoer program who sees the movie at a General Cinema theatre around the country will win the actual gladiator helmet worn by Russell Crowe during the battle fights in the movie." Maybe that GC frequent flyer membership will come in handy after all. (I'm quoting a press release I can't find on the web right now.)

Bookmark dumping ground:

• BrickShelf, complete Lego instruction and catalog scans.
• Craig's Shyness Resource Page.
• Encouraging Suicide FAQ (again I must mention that if you take any of this seriously, please consider talking to a professional counsellor).
• FameTracker - must-see entertainment site.
• Forum2000 "artificial intelligence" question engine.
• Get a Cable Modem... Go To Jail (last updated April 21, 2000).
• Hatrack River - Orson Scott Card official web site.
• How to Write Unmaintainable Code.
• Interface Hall of Fame, Shame.
• Internet Oracle Resource Index.
• Traffic analysis for rec.humor.oracle.d.

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman abandon Scientology, or so it's rumored. The article claims, counter to my previous assumption, that Cruise was introduced to Scientology in 1987 by Mimi Rogers, his wife at the time. Kidman apparently stated on a radio show that she was (still) Catholic. Unimportant gossip, all of it. Fun, though.

Travolta whips it out in this June 1999 Mr Showbiz article, saying Battlefield Earth is "the pinnacle of using my power for something." Something is right! It is something!

Konqueror is a web browser/file manager/viewer for the KDE windowing environment. From the looks of it, it's running competition for Netscape et al. Hmmm... Windows port? :)

Seattle Public Library has a new Java applet interface to their catalog system. Place holds, manage your account and everything. Of course I can't use my spiffy Telnet macros that remember my card number...

If you like film, you should see Timecode. If you're going to see Timecode, you must see it on a big screen. I'm kinda hoping the DVD release will be a big boxed set with a split screen on one disc, then the four individual strips spread across other discs, with full audio (maybe an additional track to include mixed audio so you can set it up with four TV screens :). The Seattle run closes this Thursday night at the Neptune, catch it while you can.

Tired of solicitations? Well, it takes a lot of work to get off most lists. The Center for Democracy and Technology offers on-line opt-out forms and further instructions and information to keep your phone quiet and your mailbox empty.

Oh, blog chat tonight. irc.skunkworks.cx #blogirc, 5:30pm PDT. Not sure I'll be there; seeing Timecode tomorrow. I'll try to stop by, though.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Cast Recording Resource Guide.
• Playbill Online.
• Talkin' Broadway.
• Theatre.com.
• TheaterMania.com.
• The All Music Guide.
• Always on the Run Lyrics Page.
• The Meaningful Lyrics Area.
• The Abridged Guide to the Kubrick Soundtracks.
• FilmTracks Modern Soundtrack Reviews.
• Score Soundtrack Reviews.
• List of Stations Broadcasting the Dr. Demento Show (including some with Internet feeds).
• Be Mine MIDI Gallery.
• They Might Be Giants FAQ.
• TMBG.net - For Fans, By Fans.
• We Might Be Giants, Too! Tribute Album.

I now know the joys of PHP + MySQL. BrainLog isn't finished yet (damn I have too little free time), but it's coming along. As are all the other projects I have going right now.

By the way, Weblogs.Com broke 1000 blogs recently. Brig's Portal broke 800 recently as well.

Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense, "Daily Web Site Turns the Tables on Mean People." No fighting spite with spite, this site seeks to defuse the emotional charge of commonplace verbal abuse. (I'm having a tough time determining how this site is supposed to be used, but it's big and browsable.)

America's Ten Most Wanted Words, an interactive column from The Atlantic "Unbound".

Radio Islam.

Since I last visited (which was a long time ago), I, Cringely redesigned. I'm still rather fond of the old design, but this is nice, too. Not that I read him any more...

Aw, HP isn't making the LaserJet 1100 any more? Used to be a nice $300 8ppm laser printer. Their SE series is expensive. Thankfully, the Xerox P8, which also used to be $300, is now $199.

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Pueblo MUD client for Windows, now with source code!
• SimpleMU MUD client for Windows.
• LambdaMOO Programmer's Reference.
• LambdaMOO FTP site.
• ifMUD FAQ (Interactive Fiction MUD).
• ComMOOnity home page.
• SlashMOO.
• EvanMather.com, the (new) home page for all your favorite Star Wars action figure films, and then some.
• tv.yahoo.com.
• ClickTV TV listings.
• TVGrid at Excite.com, TV listings.
• epguides.com, the ultimate TV episode guides archive.
• Red Dwarf FAQ.

The Final Days at the White House. I dunno about you, but I liked it. Would have been cool to have seen this on CSPAN, to be as taken by surprise as everyone else seemed to be...

Gladiator opens on Friday. Woo!

I Am Canadian. (Well, I'm not, Joe is.)

Lyrics Dot, a new unlicensed lyric database in Russia.

Songfile, a licensed lyric database, part of Snap.com (NBC's Internet search/portal).

Free Aeron Chair Giveaway from an online furniture store. I think you have to subscribe to their mailing list to enter. $1,200 value. (The chair, not the mailing list.) So are these the chairs everyone was talking about months ago? Every chair at my workplace is one of these, and I can see why they're popular.

Can't win one? Buy one for $765, "fully loaded".

Bookmark dumping ground:

• Hardware Central.
• Case Survey, reviews of PC cases.
• Ask Slashdot: Keyboard Video Mouse (KVM) Switches.
• Belkin home page.
• Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM, $119 at CDW.
• Belkin OmniView SE 4-port KVM, $159 at CDW.
• IBM's Refurbished PC Warehouse (cheap ThinkPads!).
• Memory Express -- see "Industry Standard Search" to find compatable --> -- memory for building your own PC.
• PFU America, home of the Happy Hacking keyboard and Palm cradle.
• Think Outside, makers of the foldable Palm keyboard.
• Tecmar Technologies, Inc., new owners and manufacturers of the old Iomega Ditto drives.
• User reviews at SysOpt, user reviews of hardware in various categories.