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Serenity Sequel? -- Please?!?!?!

Posted by Stephen Waits Fri, 30 Dec 2005 23:12:34 GMT

A Serenity Sequel would be my personal heaven.

I recall reading recently though, that Whedon said it was done, over, caput. Fingers crossed.

Via Cinematical.

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Is it Troy Corser's turn to have an asshole for a teammate?

Posted by Stephen Waits Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:10:34 GMT

According to rumorvangelist Dean Adams, it’s possible that Biaggi is heading to World Superbike to join Troy Corser on the Alstare Suzuki team.

It’s a little bit sad to me for several reasons. Mad Max plays a decent antagonist in MotoGP – I’ll miss that. Also, he’s part of the fading “old guard”. And, I’m a tiny bit sad for Troy. Though, I know he can deal with it as well as anyone, he’s one of the coolest cats around. Too, I wonder if Max will have more respect for Troy than he did Nicky; afterall, nobody can doubt Troy’s talent. He’s been around the block more than a few times.

Via superbikeplanet.com.

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Java-ization of schools, from Joel

Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:07:00 GMT

Joel rambles on The Perils of JavaSchools.

I completely agree with him. Maybe it’s just because I’m old? But maybe it’s because I’ve seen it first-hand too.

One time, when I worked at Stormfront Studios, Inc., I accompanied our HR Manager on a recruiting trip to Harvey Mudd. We arranged our visit with the career center and asked them to line up 20 or 30 appropriate candidates. I didn’t really know anything about Mudd, though I guess I should have, it’s apparently a top SoCal engineering school.

I also had no idea that they’d switched their curriculum to “all Java all the time”, an exaggeration to be certain. I learned about the switch as I interviewed the first few candidates. These Senior level students basically, well, they knew Java.

Without getting too nasty, I’ll just say that we left with no second interviews planned. It may be a great school, and I’m sure some bright kids come out of there (after all, you truly get out of your education what you put into it); however, we sure didn’t get any glimpse of it on our visit.

I headed back home disgusted with the Java-switch, appalled, and thoughtless as to why any university actually believed it to be a good thing for their students.

Joel’s put a lot of sound thought into that why in his article. There’s an undercurrent of great advice in there. Forget Java, learn how to freaking program.

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More common sense that few will follow

Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:54:50 GMT

A report links Fructose consumption with obesity. To me the key to weight maintenance is still primarily caloric intake versus calories burned. I’ve witnessed this first hand, in myself, and in observation of others. However, eating the right things has to be a good thing too, and I’m certain processed sugars like fructose aren’t on the “right things” list.

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Mel Gibson is DUMB

Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:31:53 GMT

Check out these snippets of Mel Gibson’s Playboy Interview, from July 1995. It’s an older interview, and this is only a snippet, but it’s still new to me and still appalling. The whole thing is stupid. Instances of stupidity that don’t even need explanation to any rational person:

How come apes aren’t people yet?

Or how about:

There’s a big credibility gap. The carbon dating thing that tells you how long something’s been around, how accurate is that, really?

Well, read something about it, and you’ll find out!

But, one particular piece of idiotic ignorance really jumped out at me:

I’ve got one of Darwin’s books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves.

He’s saying that Darwin was mostly wrong, but got some of it right. As evidence of what Darwin got right, Gibson mentions something that he might have actually gotten wrong!

The thing is.. The giraffe’s neck gets in the way of eating and drinking. Sure, it can reach higher leaves, but it makes drinking water and eating lower leaves very difficult (no, it can’t just bend its neck down). And lots of animals survived on eating the lower vegetation alone, so why not the giraffe? And why just a long neck? If being tall was key to survival then it seems that it could have evolved to be generally tall, rather than just having a long neck.

Yah, Darwin got a lot of things right, as did his predecessors, and he made mistakes. However, I’m certain that he got much more right than Mel Gibson.

He goes on to trash women as basically inferior. Smart guy, this one.

Gibson’s words scream of ignorance and a very low mental capacity. The bottom line is, Mel Gibson is DUMB!

I won’t ever watch another of his movies again. I’m sorry I’ve already watched some of his crap in my past. Now, I’m completely done with him.

Now, there’s a chance that these excerpts are illegitimate; regardless, I stand by my own opinions of him.

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Sudoku Time

Posted by Stephen Waits Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:29:16 GMT

Finished today’s in 15:22.

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