I have lots of Kindles.

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I’m reading The New New Thing by Michael Lewis about Jim Clark and his ventures, and was struck by some parallels to Google, assuming one squints through properly aligned polarized lenses. In 1981, Clark tried to sell his graphics tech to a couple of the big computer companies, but none were interested and so he had to go it alone, much like Yahoo passed on the chance to buy Google. Then in 1991 or so, SGI partnered with Time Warner to build a telecomputer for TVs and wire them up via cable. The future of interactive media had arrived. They were going to transform Orlando, FL with high speed digital awesome. Sounds a lot like Google and Google TV and Kansas City. They even built a computer for the TV that nobody bought, like the Nexus Q. Clark himself, after agitating to launch this telecomputer craze, decided that interactive media wasn’t the future, the internet was. It’s funny to think that Google has decided the internet isn’t the future, interactive TV is the future.

For today’s double movie review, we take a look at the world of cage fighting and what happens when you mix it in with a classic movie framework.

Warrior

It’s like Rocky, but the square ring is an octagon ring. There’s the rather incredulous idea that two long separated brothers are going to meet in the last round of the ultimate ultimate fighting tournament, but the storylines individually are pretty reasonable. Of course, we have unknown underdogs defeating the reigning champions, but isn’t that a requirement for these movies? I think a little more of Tommy’s motivation should have been explained, but in the end, he’s more there to provide a little excitement and the foil for his brother.

Haywire

Initially I was comparing this to The Bourne Identity, but after a little more thought, it’s really Mission Impossible with the gadgets replaced with figure fours and arm bars. Gina Carano is probably the most impressive special agent I’ve seen in a while. She looks like she could really beat people up, because, well, she really can. I would have been scared to tangle with her for one of the fight scenes, which is also something the actors mention in a special feature (actually worth watching for once). As a movie, the story is so so, and there’s nothing imaginative going on here apart from casting Carano, but that’s impressive in its own right.

Today Yuengling is having a customer appreciation toast, where you can walk into basically any bar in the city and get a free bottle, because they’re now the largest American brewery, even though they still only sell regionally. A reminder that success sometimes takes a long time. Yuengling is also the oldest brewery in America, since 1829, but much of their growth has occurred recently after the introduction of the lager. Never know when you’re going to release a homerun product.

It’s here! Three days early. I’ve barely used it, but here’s the early impressions upgrading from the iPhone 4.

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The Windows (7) Action Center announces that I have a problem. Or rather, a Lenovo 32-bit application or service has a problem. But help is on the way. I can install an update (for some reason not included in Windows Update) from ye old local Microsoft Download Center.

After I validate of course. So I click continue. I download the GenuineCheck.exe verificator. I run it. “This version of the Windows Genuine Advantage validation tool is no longer supported. Please download the newest version and ensure that your system clock is accurate” (No trailing period after the second sentence.)

hmmm. I downloaded it five minutes ago. Rather short support timeline.

hahahaha. I switch to IE. I install the Genuine Advantage ActiveX control. I finally get to download my precious msu update file. “The update is not applicable to your computer.” For serious? If the Action Center had told me that, might have saved me some trouble.

Colin Farrell played a vampire in Fright Night. Kate Beckinsale was a vampire in Underworld. Jessica Biel hunted vampires in Blade Trinity. Bill Nighy was the elder vampire in Underworld. Of course that all makes sense, since Len Wiseman directed Underworld. So Bryan Cranston only played Lucifer on the tv series Fallen, but that’s pretty close too.

What else is there to say? There’s running around, and identity changing, and shape shifting, and precisely three boobs. I don’t quite get why Beckinsale was so hell bent on killing Quaid/Hauser. She started off as kind of just doing her job, but then at some point she began taking it a little personally.

The ethics of personality replacement are interesting. I imagine Hauser only agreed to have his mind put in cold storage because he knew he’d be coming back. Does that give him the right to replace Quaid? If Quaid sticks around, is he guilty of killing Hauser? There’s two people, but the life raft is only big enough for one.

In reading about the CRIME attack and another post I thought about how this affects cross site request forgery tokens_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet) (or anti-CSRF tokens I guess). The spark really came from the second Tor blog post.

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From the time Intel released CPUs with hyperthreading until quite recently, I was a skeptic. A hater even. But now that I own some computers that feature hyperthreading, I’ve naturally had to change my mind, so now I like it.

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I’ve been using a Soekris 4801 as a router for several years now, but it’s time for an upgrade. There are a couple projects I’ve wanted to play with that require more cpu, and it appears that my internet connection will exceed 100Mbps. I looked at the new soekris models, but the 6501-50 starts at $360, plus power supply and mounting hardware. I decided to take a risk on the OEM Production 2550L2D-Mx from newegg.com. Yes, that really is the manufacturer’s name. It appears I bought the last one. It’s out of stock now (and has two bad reviews it didn’t have when I ordered it three days ago). Atom processor, fairly regular PC motherboard, but with two Broadcom gigabit chips. Perfect for a router I suppose. For $129? Done.

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