Robin Hood (2010)

The reviews were lackluster, so we weren't expecting much, but we were pleasantly surprised at this new take on the Robin Hood legend.  Maybe it's because we watched the director's cut.  Robin's not much of an outlaw in this version, and there's much more politicking at the national level -- I'm used to it just being John usurping the throne from Richard, and everything being okay once Richard returns from crusade.  Here, we get Eleanor of Aquitaine, William Marshal**, Isabella of Angoulême, and a First Barons' War-inspired conflict that plays hell with the historical timeline and makes the origins of the Magna Carta more noble sounding than the reality, but definitely worth it for art's sake.  Aside from the introductory scrollwork text, which really should have been cut, this was fun to watch.  Frankly, I liked this (and the Kingdom of Heaven director's cut, for that matter, looking through the list of Ridley Scott historical epics) better than Gladiator.

** and William Hurt is amazing.  I definitely preferred his performance here to Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right.

Australia (2008)

We were expecting to have to fast-forward through Australia, and it lived up to our mediocre expectations.

The first hour and 45 minutes plays like some hideous offspring of Out of Africa and City Slickers, with Kidman in the mashup role of Karen Blixen and Mitch Robbins (I had to look that up), and Hugh Jackman in the mashup role of Denys and Curly (though he manages to not die).  While I'm slightly intrigued by the idea of Billy Crystal and Jack Palance making out, let's move on.  So anyhoo, they drive the cattle to Darwin, and I'm like, what are they gonna do for the next hour?  And Sarahmac (who reads the netflix movie description before putting the disc in, even though we know these descriptions are often misleading) says, "WWII has to happen".

So the next hour is some horrible ripoff of how I imagine Pearl Harbor, and interspersed throughout the entire film are these poorly coded messages about the nobility of the aboriginals and What Harm We've Done Them that were better examined in Rabbit Proof Fence.

All in all, nothing new to see here, and very disappointing for a Baz Luhrmann effort.

Apples to Oranges?

Good:Transparency compares the cost per gallon of several different products.  The difference, of course, is that we don't use any of these other items by the gallon.  Tap water costs a lot less than $4/gallon, for example.  To do better, you would need to try to determine the utility/$ you get for each of these.  Coming up with a way to convert between the utility of a gallon of gas (20 miles traveled) and a gallon of coca-cola (1 all-night gaming session?) is the real trick.

Accidentally waking a sleeping giant

Audiosurf is a great, cheap game that has maintained its interest for me for 2 years now.  The other day I was playing some R.E.M. songs and hit the top score on "The Wrong Child".  The problem is that artma3bk is a truly elite player who must have simply had a bad game. 

artma3bk quickly rectified the situation, and then went on to play some other R.E.M. songs that they hadn't played before...

Reactors

The Japan earthquake/tsunami and ensuing nuclear power plant problems have caused another round of teeth gnashing in Vermont over the impending closing of the Vermont Yankee power plant (which is being challenged by Entergy), presumably because we get so many earthquakes and tsunamis on the Connecticut River.  As part of this, there is a photographic exhibit in Montpelier on Chernobyl.  I have to admit that my favorite (if such a word applies to this) Chernobyl photo collection is still Filatova Elena Vladimirovna's.  My BIL pointed me to her "Ghost Town" collection years and years ago, and she's slowly added to it since.  If you haven't browsed it since it first made internet waves 8 years ago, it's worth another look.

Flowing Data posted about the NYT Rock, Paper, Scissors article, and while I work for the company that works hard to crush the humans in competitive games, there is no way a machine is going to be me at RPS**, even with a significant amount of training, because I'm learning about it while it's learning about me.  Results after 11 shakes against the expert machine below:

After snookering it rounds 4 and 5, I was impressed that it learned enough to go for paper instead of rock, and then to go for paper again, and then for scissors, and then to actually have the gall to get me in round 9.  I'm fairly confident I could stay slightly ahead of the machine (until mental exhaustion hit, which of course wouldn't be a problem for the machine), but I don't think it would be by much.

Undergraduate Grades

In my reader, I saw the Daily Princetonian reported on a recent Daily Chronicle editorial (the Duke University student paper) on grade inflation.  I thought perhaps Val's time had finally come to have his ideas implemented at Duke, but but this particular Chronicle editorial was just the latest in a long-term discussion on grades -- search on grade inflation and you get results going back to at least 1997, when Val proposed the achievement index and was shot down by fearful humanities professors.