The Thai are Harsh...

Yahoo! News

We knew that, after that whole incident with caning the American, and I think they may apply the death penalty a little loosely, but this...? Beyond the pale!

Really Lapped

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070711/od_afp/entertainmentbritain_070711230038

So the guitarist from Queen has managed to finish his PhD in physics before I did. I feel vaguely shamed...and vaguely like I'm in cool company.

Amazon Unbox

I tried out Amazon Unbox for the first time tonight/yesterday--the ambiguity will be explained later. For those who haven't noticed it before, Amazon Unbox gives you video downloads with three choices--download to a computer, a portable media player, or a TiVo. The TiVo thing is what caught my attention. It allows me to easily watch from my TV which I just prefer.

Yesterday I paid 4 bucks for a rental of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Downloading takes forever. I can certainly see myself emailing Gwen in the morning and say "hey, do you want to watch suchandsuch tonight", but I doubt it'd be useful for spur-of-the-moment things. Still, the video quality was excellent and the entire process was seamless.

The selection wasn't up to Netflix' quality, most likely because I don't think every studio is unboard. For TV series, the selection isn't stellar, but it has Voltron, which is a pleasant surprise. I've managed to find enough that I keep busy through a long weekend. Woe to anime fans--you get three choices of Gundam and a lot stuff I haven't heard of.

Overall? It's a nice option, and one I've used and will probably use again.

Defending a Big Tall Athlete

Allow me to speak up for Yao Ming. Even though a headline on Yahoo! said he's marrying his "teenage sweetheart", it's not what it sounds.

They met when they were teenagers.

Looking for My Muse

Honest, I've just had a case of writer's block.

So, what's new around here.

Aw, very nice. So...hmmm....awkward silence...hmmm...

Best Article Ever

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

So it might not be the best article ever. However, it does have the phrase "you get a nice curve with a big hump in the middle! And we all know what humps mean! Humps mean local maxima! Or camels. But here they mean local maxima!"

And that is good.

Three Goats

So, for those of you who didn't know, the Wikipedia article on The Three Billy Goats Gruff has a spoiler warning about the battle between the third goat and the troll...