Random Thoughts

Via Various and Sundry comes a link to examples of why Widescreen is better than pan and scan for movies. After seeing these, I can't understand why anyone would want a pan and scan version.

Amy Langfield asks why cattle producers don't have better tracking when they knew things like Mad Cow might eventually hit them. I agree. I also wonder what idiot first decided it was a good idea to feed livestock ground up bits from other livestock. I know it's an old practice, but it's a stupid one and now we have proof of that. Banning the practice in 1997 is all well and good, but it takes years for the diseases to develop in both livestock and in humans. That's pretty scary.

Here's another reason to not go to Wal-Mart. Take note of the reaction of Wal-Mart to the attack. Basically... no reaction. Scumbags.

The Modulator points out a dodgy method that the US government is using to avoid a draft. He also directs us to a website listing ten ads America won't see... unless you go visit the website.

From Boing Boing, Kevin Kelly makes some good suggestions for how to donate to charity for maximum effect. His first is Heifer International, which I think I had money donated to in my name one year as a present. His next is Opportunity International which offers micro-loans, and has a simply incredible payback rate. A little money to them ends up going a long way. His last is Trickle Up, which gives grants instead of loans.

On the home front, I'm still working on setting up the laptop (which has now been dubbed "Abe"). I discovered the most pleasant thing early in my setting up: the laptop can play quicktime movies without annoying lags and delays! This means I can actually watch movie previews now! And so I immediately went out trailer hunting. First I found the Apple QuickTime Movie Trailers site and watched the ones I'd seen poorly on my desktop: Hellboy, Harry Potter, Spider-Man 2. Then I pulled down a few more to watch: Return of the King (No, I haven't seen the movie yet), The Polar Express, Big Fish, Shrek 2... Wow. I can actually watch the video as it was meant to be watched! I found a good place to download trailers, at Movie-List and put some on my harddrive. I'm sure my 20 gigs will run out soon enough, then I'll delete them. But for now I'm enjoying the ability to watch them.