Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:55 PM

The only Christmas carol you need to hear this season:

A-Cappella by Straight No Chaser, recorded December 7th, 1998.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:12 PM

By the way, the reason why the notion of being "governed by corporate lords [such that] creative freedom is strictly forbidden" resonated so strongly with me is that I've been following the recent founding of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) and the monster discussions that event has spawned.

I may have more on this matter later, but for the moment I'm just glad the organization exists.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:50 AM

Ian's already blogged his gripes over the commercial bombardment modern movie theaters subject audiences to. [I don't mind trailers -- I like movie trailers; it's all the rest of the crap that we're supposedly buying tickets to avoid.]

But, as much as I tried to ignore them, two stuck in my memory.

Anybody care to study the semiotics of Citizen/Soldier, the music video being used as National Guard recruitment fodder?

Then, we saw a bizarre cyberpunkish dystopian ad parroting rhetoric that seemed straight out of Cory Doctorow's advocacy:

Enter behind these city walls into a dark nation governed by corporate lords.
Profit and greed rule.
Creative freedom is strictly forbidden.
But one will be chosen:
   The journey: into the underworld of democracy
   The quest: to unearth the elixir of freedom
   The calling:to restore the spirit of man
Now a new generation has risen and must fulfill its destiny.

Pretty heady words.

Certainly caught my attention, though I found it hard to believe the MPAA would permit anything so transgressive to be shown alongside their pictures.

Of course not. Here's the punchline:

Create the ultimate soft-drink: the next Mountain Dew.

And what kinds of creative freedom are they offering? Why, you can

create the next color, flavor, name, and label

And all within some online game, meaning your choices are constrained even further by PepsiCo's programmers.

Forest Whitaker (who's involved in the project) makes further grandiose claims:

"This is about voting," he said. "This is about taking a stance and making things happen. It's about empowering people and allowing them to express themselves and create something that represents who they are."

But blogger dailybiz seems to have a much better perspective:

Mountain Dew is allowing consumers to create, within guidelines, a drink flavor and packaging and then letting them vote on the three brand-acceptable options. That is not consumer choice, it's a giant focus group.

Ew.

No links to the ad or official site, though they're easily found online.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:50 AM

I know it's probably futile to blog anything previously posted at Eschaton, because everybody reads Atrios, but I love this story too much not to share:

"Who is your favorite author?" Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

At least he didn't say Siegfried Engelmann.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:30 PM

After work this evening, Ian and I went to the movies to see Juno.

Delightful and funny film.

Theater wasn't full, but the audience ranged from teens to people our parents' age, and... well, as Ebert wrote: "So rare to feel the audience joined into one warm, shared enjoyment." There were times when I could hear the ripple of shared understanding.

Ellen Page, playing the lead, nails it perfectly. I hope she gets an Oscar nomination -- she deserves it, because the movie wouldn't work if you couldn't love this character.

She's eminently witty and quotable -- Ian thinks this could be the new Napoleon Dynamite with certain phrases entering the zeitgeist.

Of course, the whole cast is terrific. Characters are neither stupid nor perfect.

Let's see if I can manage to embed the trailer:

Ebert dubbed Juno his best film of the year. Not only would I recommend this to all my friends and readers, but Ian and I agreed we'd gladly see it again, though we may wait for the DVD.

Several more short clips are available online @ Yahoo. I'm particularly fond of the clip called "Genetic Gifts."

Two other trailers that caught my eye and look entertaining. Penelope, produced by Reese Witherspoon and starring Christina Ricci looks like a modern fairytale. [summary and trailer]

And in the theater, we saw a trailer for In Bruges featuring comedy and mayhem of hit men hiding out in Belgium. [link]

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:42 AM

Been watching promotional video clips from Sweeney Todd this morning.

They look great.

Alan Rickman fangirls will want to check out Clip 9 - 'You Gandered at My Ward' [QuickTime required]

Earlier this week, New York Times ran a short series, "Sondheim Dismembers 'Sweeney'", delving into the modifications made in adapting the stageplay to film. Fascinating.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:36 PM

After several months missing, the whereabouts of the winning ball from this year's World Series has finally been revealed.

Jonathan Papelbon told all to The Hattiesburg American, and it's not a pretty picture:

"My dog ate it," said Papelbon ...
"He plays with baseballs like they are his toys. His name is Boss. He jumped up one day on the counter and snatched it. He likes rawhide. He tore that thing to pieces. Nobody knows that. I'll keep what's left of it."

Tania says it best:

Well, yeah.  Of course you'll keep what's left of it, dog slobber or no dog slobber.  ...  What I'd really like to know is why the ball was on a counter where the dog could reach it.  Bad dog owner.  Bad, bad, bad...
So, to one Jonathan Papelbon - I'm offering my services as a trainer to you.  Given my history I certainly know what it's like to mess up and leave my dogs in a situation where they have no choice but to be naughty.  However, it only took one chewing of my shoes to train my dogs to never, ever touch Mommy's pretty things.  I can help you too.  And it won't even involve a shock collar... For the dog.  You might be a different story.  I mean, really.  Who's the "Boss" in your house?

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:01 PM

From TV Guide's Ask Ausiello:

Heroes creator Tim Kring debuted a new Heroes trailer over the weekend at the Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival of Los Angeles (huh?!), which features never-before-seen footage from Volume III, "Villains." (A wonky version of the trailer can be viewed here.) Where'd the footage come from, you ask? Well, it turns out that the show managed to shoot a bunch of scenes for Episodes 12 and 13 before production ground to a halt. But those episodes are incomplete and, therefore, can't air until the conflict is resolved. "Hopefully," says my spy, "the strike will end, they'll finish those two -- and a few more -- and have a proper end of the season."

The video on YouTube was clearly shot from the audience with a handheld camera, but some cool character interation potential nonetheless...

[As seen on Newsarama]

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:30 PM

I'll confess, when I first saw the trailer for Prince Caspian, I felt let down.

Why?

No sign of Reepicheep, who's one of my favorite characters in the series.

But just now, I see that AICN and NarniaWeb are saying that producers have cast the voice of Reepicheep:

Eddie Izzard

My faith is renewed...

[On the NarniaWeb discussions, some people have expressed concern that Izzard's career in stand-up comedy dooms Reepicheep to comic relief status. However, I have seen him in dramatic character parts (such as Revengers Tragedy) and the man is an actor, not a one-note jokester.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:21 PM

This week on Machinist, Farhad Manjoo has been focusing on odd kitchen gizmos, such as a brownie-edge pan (I prefer the gooey centers), an egg and muffin toaster, and an automated indoor herb garden.

But today, I found something that's got them all beat:

I just discovered that Waring (the kitchen appliance manufacturer) now offers:

An Electric Martini Maker!

It can shake or stir, all for $99.95.

I will confess that I've rarely before found myself so impressed by a company's part-numbering scheme. This is model # WM-007.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:33 PM

Battle of competing commercial claims:

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the classic Timex commercial in which a wristwatch was attached to the blade of an outboard motor, which would probably be most relevant in a head-to-head showdown.

I am aware know that Timex dropped that motto several years back.

But I don't think that will stop me from suggesting it to Blendtec. They'll just have to obtain a vintage model.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:25 PM

Followup to yesterday's entry on found wallets, entrapment, and the efficacy of official channels for lost property.

Well, I just stumbled upon WalletTest.com

[They] presented 100 randomly selected people with an ethical dilemma and then video taped their behavior. This is what was done:
Step 1: 100 identical wallets were dropped in various public places. (See: Wallet Page)
Step 2: Hidden cameras recorded the people who picked up the "lost" wallets. (See: Main Page)
Step 3: Then we waited to see who returned the wallets and who kept them. (See: Results Page)

Needless to say, private individuals have a far better track record than the professionals.

PS: If you want to read the original MTA Inspector General Reports, rather than the abbreviated versions provided by the media, they're available from this page.

[Via the Freakonomics blog]

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:34 PM

Catching up on the blogs while I'm snowed in at home...

Many people are busily dissecting the flaws in Jonah Goldberg's newly published collection of words, Liberal Fascism.

Particular kudos to the folks at Sadly, No who are actually giving it a close reading, so you don't have to.

But I think this passage shows why any further critique of the work is futile:

I don't think Humpty Dumpty could've put the matter more succinctly.

Impenetrability!

[Dave Neiwert, who's something of an expert on the subject of fascism, is planning his own detailed critique, but for now settles for debunking the publisher's blurb as "one of the right's oldest, hoariest, and most clearly false canards."]

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:15 PM

State Senator Susan Tucker (D-Lawrence) on the possibility of casinos in the Commonwealth:

"Why are we welcoming an industry that requires addiction counselors?"

From yesterday's Boston Metro.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:40 AM

You know, several blizzards dumping inches of snow in the last few weeks didn't keep me from work.

But this morning's flurries have turned my driveway into a sheet of ice which the car cannot get out from, even with traction control.

This sucks.

Fortunately, one of the big projects I've been working on shipped yesterday, so my workload's not quite so overwhelming today, but still. I don't really like having to take unpaid snow-days.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 AM

Yesterday's Morning Edition discussed the effects of global warning on Tibetan village which worships the snowcapped Kawakarpo peak as a god.

With the influx of tourists, age-old practices are being neglected. Traditionally, certain areas of the mountain were off-limits to everyone, and the glacier could not be touched. The belief was so strong that the villagers tried to prevent a Sino-Japanese expedition from climbing the glacier in 1991. They failed - and an avalanche buried the climbers, killing 17 people.

The locals believe that this was the revenge of the gods.

I mean, they were warned...

How does the old quote go?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:40 AM

Been meaning to blog this pair of stories for a while:

1) NYPD punish good samaritans:

Police in New York City are leaving baited wallets and purses around the city, then arresting people who pick them up and walk by a police officer without turning them over. If the wallet or purse contains a credit card, the thief/possible-good-Samaritan could get four years in state prison. Never mind that walking past a police officer with found property isn't even a crime.

2) yet authorities have a worse record of returning items:

Metropolitan Transit ... had subway riders turn 26 personal items to transit authorities, then tracked how many of the items made it back to the rightful owners. It didn't turn out so well. Only three of the 26 were properly returned.

More at the links.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 AM

Last week, NPR reported on Las Vegas, interviewing David Schwartz -- director of the Center for Gaming Research, UNLV.

Talking about the celebrity superstar extravaganzas (such as Celine Dion's, which just closed), he notes that:

[G]ambling itself was becoming less and less important. If you look at the numbers back in the early '80s, the casino itself on the Las Vegas strip, all the casinos accounted for about 60 percent of the total revenues. And they made the rest from the hotel and the restaurants and things like that. Today, it's less than 40 and it's going down further and further, so there's really been a reversal.
     ...
It used to be that casinos would go out and get people like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin because they would appeal the gamblers. And that was really the sole judge of an entertainer's success in Las Vegas, you know? They brought Elvis in in 1956 and he did his two weeks of shows but he didn't bring a lot of gamblers so he was considered a failure. Now, it's looking at the more, more the total economic impact and they're using entertainment to bring people who wouldn't usually come in.

Sounds pretty cut-and-dried.

So why are so many people getting all hot-and-bothered trying to push casinos into their localities?

Governor Deval Patrick has been relentless; I think he perceives casinos as a legacy he wants to leave the state.

Illinois is going even further: According to NPR, Chicago is poised to become the first city to directly own and operate a casino. Not just have one within city land, but to run it outright.

The money quote comes from Jim Wagner, former chief investigator of the Illinois Gaming Board, and before that, head of the FBI's organized crime unit in Chicago:

Wagner says, as a lawman, he is not just worried about what a casino might do to the city of Chicago, but what the city of Chicago might do to a casino. This is the city that spawned a sprawling federal investigation by corrupting a program to rent work trucks, leading to obvious questions about what it might do with slot machines and blackjack tables.

Can the regional casinos really account for the drop in Las Vegas' gambling revenues? Or is gambling actually on the decline and nobody outside Nevada wants to recognize that?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 AM

Petflix was a cute joke on the name of the service:

I can't believe anyone would seriously consider implementing such a service, as a front page story in today's Globe suggests.

FlexPetz, a California-based company, will open a Boston branch of its dog rental service this spring with a fleet of 10 dogs available for romps on the Common or weekend sleepovers. The company bills itself as an "unique alternative to full-time pet ownership" that will even drop off a dog when you're ready for it and pick it up when you've had enough.

The story tries to defend the practice, with analogies to

"Dog ambassador programs" are used at hotels such as the Fairmont Copley, where a Labrador retriever, Catie Copley, is available for walks with guests. At The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, a cat is available to stay in rooms with guests longing for company.

But in those cases, the pet has a stable home, which the humans are visiting.

"Dogs need stability in their lives, they need a long-term commitment, and they need a secure environment," said Ray McSoley, a local trainer who called [FlexPetz] a "four-legged escort service."

Especially with dogs, who are pack animals and whose sanity generally depends upon an owner establishing and maintaining alpha.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:05 PM

Two very important questions:

1. Have you held a Visa/MasterCard/DinersClub branded credit/charge/debit/ATM card issued in the United States as of November 8, 2006?
2. Have you made any charges in a foreign currency or with a foreign merchant using any such card between February 1, 1996 and November 8, 2006?

If you can answer "Yes" to both of these, I have some bad and good news for you.

The bad news is that your credit card overcharged you by inflating the exchange rate.

The good news is a class action lawsuit has been filed regarding this practice. Not only have the companies been forced to stop it, but you may be entitled to your share of the damages.

This is not a hoax. Snopes has written it up as true.

Listen to NPR's interview with Bonny Sweeney, co-lead-counsel for the case, who provides a very simple explanation of the issues and options.

Further information about the litigation and settlement is available at CCFsettlement.com.
If you're eligible, you can file your claim for refund directly from the website or request exclusion from the settlement (which means you won't be bound by the terms which release the Defendents from further claims).

Look for the notice in your regular mail and spread the word.

[When I went to London, I phoned the credit card companies, who assured me I'd be assessed no additional fees for using my cards overseas. They lied and shouldn't profit from their lies.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:30 PM

[Using the weekend to catch up on some reading -- and writing.]

Ezra Klein quoted by Kevin Drum:

Still, it's a bit misleading to say "she" is more polarizing. Polarization isn't a character trait; it's the outcome of a process. And that process is American politics. ... Fifteen years in the hothouse of national politics will leave you "polarizing" as surely as 15 minutes in a tanning bed will leave you bronzed. ... As pollster Scott Rasmussen tells me, all the other candidates are going to see their negatives go up during the course of the campaign -- and if one of them ultimately wins the race, their negatives will go up even further. "The next president will get to where she is no matter who we elect," he said. It's not that the others are necessarily less polarizing than Clinton. It's that they're not as polarizing yet.

Greg Sargent quoted by Steve Benen:

[P]undits and commentators have a strange and widespread tendency to talk about their profession's collective failings -- but without displaying any desire to change them, without showing any awareness that these failings could be changed with a little effort, and even without betraying any awareness or concern that they themselves might be contributing to the problem.

Dan Froomkin quoted by MahaBarb:

[S]o far, no one from Bush on down has come up with a single documented example of American lives saved thanks to torture.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:00 PM

People unclear on the concept?

TV Week: Fan Fiction and the Writers Strike

Here's a solution for the writers strike. Let the people create shows.

After all, we are living in the consumer-generated age. And as any fan of Harry Potter knows, fan fiction is a fast-growing content category online.

Fan fiction refers to the creation of ongoing storylines for popular characters, series and TV shows by, you guessed it, fans.

Online audience measurement firm Hitwise reports that the leading fan fiction site, fanfiction.net, has increased its Web traffic 42 percent in the last year and 59 percent in the last two years. It's also the top-ranked site in Hitwise's rankings of traffic for Web sites in the books category.

So if you've got a hankering to keep the storylines going for your favorite TV shows, head on over to fanfiction.net and you can pen new scripts for "CSI," "Lost" or "Grey's Anatomy."

Turning to fanfic (as a reader or writer) to get your regular fix of favorite characters is one thing.

But the opening line makes it sound like fans are potential scabs, which couldn't be farther from the truth.

On the parts of the internet I gravitate towards, I'm seeing widespread support for the WGA. Watch the video to the right to see who else is joining the strike.

Check out Fans4Writers.com which suggests (and is trying to help coordinate) effective means of activism.

Meanwhile, from today's Boston Globe:

What happens when hundreds of professional writers have time on their hands and bile in their guts? The writers get a (free) boost in the public-relations war. As the Hollywood writers' strike drags on, renegade members of the Writers Guild of America have taken to the Internet to plead their case and skewer the opposition. Here's a handy guide to some of the highlights.

And some of the strike captains established a weblog, United Hollywood, where they post the latest news and videos. Or go directly to their YouTube page for all the clips.

As John Scalzi wrote:

This is why it's not smart to get into a snit fight (or labor dispute) with a writer. Because they write. Which means they know how to make you look bad.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:45 AM

By now, most people have heard about Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007:

1. w00t (interjection)

expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"

w00t! I won the contest!

But is this really a new word? Popular wisdom has it that Shakespeare coined more English words than anyone else.

So, I checked the concordance, and... w00t, there it is -- two plays, three characters, seven uses:

Hamlet, Act V Scene 1, spoken by the title character:

'Swounds, show me what thou't do.
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up esill? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't.

In Antony and Cleopatra Act IV, both title characters utter the word:

Antony in Scene 2:

Woo't thou fight well?

And Cleopatra in Scene 15:

Noblest of men, woo't die?

Okay, fine, maybe Shakespeare is using the same letters, but it appears to have a different definition. Must be the apostrophe.

Well, let's try the an earlier source for authoritative English: Chaucer. Sure enough, it's in The Wife of Bath's Tale:

But wel I woot, expres, withoute lye,
God bad us for to wexe and multiplye;
That gentil text kan I wel understonde.
Eek wel I woot, he seyde myn housbonde
Sholde lete fader and mooder, and take to me.

Or, maybe not.

[Merriam-Webster's] choice did not make Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, say "w00t."

"It's amusing, but it's limited to a small community and unlikely to spread and unlikely to last," said Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill.

[Source]

Still, if this word does persist beyond the fad, it could provide intriguing new interpretations to classic works.

And for a more serious look at the history and origin of the word, here's a blogging lexographer who gets to the root of w00t.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:10 AM

Seven to ten percent of men experience red-green colorblindness.

Paul Martin provides a series of images: originals beside ones adjusted to simulate colorblindness. To him, they look nearly identical; to me, there's a huge difference.

He also links to Vischeck, a tool which can conduct similar transformations on any image or website.

Recommended for artists or UI designers.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:05 AM

Well, it's not the bulbes song, but it does have hobbits: