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It's been great, but I am going to be concentrating on my primary blog http://www.netfarious.net, so please check that for my current ramblings. If crossposting becomes a little easier in the future, I may ressurect this one.

Thanks for all the fish!
-luis

Thank You for Smoking

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

Finally went to see “Thank you for Smoking” which presents us with the life of Big Tobacco lobbyist Nick Nailor. Here is a trailer :

The movie was very funny, entertaining, and smart. The movie had the potential to get preachy due to its subject matter but it never did and was very intelligiently irreverent. It got applause from everyone in the theater at the end of the show.

This is a thumbs up in a “go see it in a theater, rent it, or buy it, but find some way to see it” kinda way.

Write a Story and get asked for you fingerprints and DNA by UF police

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

According to this article on Boing Boing, a University of Florida English graduate students was asked to provide fingerprints and DNA after publishing a story involving a murder on his blog where he publishes his stories. The murder as well as his stories are fiction. To make the story even weirder, apparently this seems to be some kind a backlash for his use of his admin blocking priveleges on Wikipedia.

AT&T NSA Spying Evidence

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

Wired has acquired and decided to publish the evidence that is currently under Seal in the EFF vs AT&T lawsuit.

To see why they did it, please go here :

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70947-0.html?tw=wn_technology_2

To see the evidence itself, please go here :

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.html

Google Notebook

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

Today Google launched, Google Notebook. It is essentially an extension to Firefox/IE that allows you to highlight text, images, etc on a website and add it to a “notebook”. You can then create notebooks on different subjects, annotate your snippets, and also make these notebooks publicly viewable if you choose. The best part is that the notebook is stored on google so you can access it from anywhere. Suddenly, research, at least for me, has gotten a whole lot easier to manage.

You can try notebook out by going to :

http://www.google.com/notebook

I have already sent in a suggestion, for them to add a feature so that you can automatically generate a bibliography based on your snippet URLs. Try it out and enjoy, although, I think I am officially becoming a Google fanboy. (Although Google desktop search still makes me a little queasy.)

The Davinci Code : The Movie (Pre-Show)

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

Well “The Davinci Code” opens on Friday and I plan on seeing the movie sometime next weekend, you can take a look at the latest trailer here :

And of course you can take a look (or another look) at my review of the book here. But, before anyone gets in a tizzy about this movie, please take a breath and remember that it is very much a work of fiction meant to entertain, not meant to convey any hidden truth, even if the author gets a little antagonistic at points (remember Dan Brown is a writer who wants to sell books and movies and controversy generates buzz). That being said, if you are still a “believer”, please take a look at the inaccuracies in the book (and presumably the movie based upon it) :

Time : The Ways of Opus Dei

How Stuff Works : How the Davinci Code Doesn’t Work

US Conference of Catholic Bishops : Jesus Decoded

Opus Dei : Theological issues raised in the Davinci Code

So you may be wondering if I think the book (and maybe movie) are so wrong, why am I going to see it? Two reason, it should be an entertaining and well-acted movie (Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and Hans Zimmer score, come on, the score itself will probably be worth it), and if it is bound to get people’s feathers ruffled across the world, I would like to be knowledgeable so that I can know what I am talking about.

Etc : May 5 -12

This entry was originally published at My Slice of the Globe

It’s been about a week since I’ve updated my blog, so here are a bunch of things I’ve been thinking about this week, that didn’t quite make a blog entry of their own :

The RIAA/MPAA broadcast flags are once again making their rounds through congress. If you think that these flags will actually stop piracy and not just stifle innovation, you may want to read up on them or if you would like to take action, write you senators here.

The NSA is apparently going fishing, through your phone records, that is, with voluntary cooperation from some phone companies, You can read all about it here :

Washington Post

ABC News

CNN

There is also the story of a Ohio priest convicted of a 1980, Holy Saturday, murder of a Sister. Just generally sad all round. You can read about it here :

CNN

Reuters

And finally, something a little less severe, I meant to put a link to the Stephen Colbert Roast of President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner at Google Video but didn’t get around to it either, until now.

Feliz Weekend!