Hulleye Comes By!

Seinfeld on Halloween

Why DC comics kicks Marvel comics butt when it comes to it’s films, storylines and comics. Chris Nolan says it best.

The Los Angeles Times has posted the final part of their interview with Christopher Nolan, who took the time to speak out about the crossover potentials of the Nolanverse and the DC Comics universe:

“I don’t think our Batman, our Gotham, lends itself to that kind of cross-fertilization. It goes back to one of the first things we wrangled with when we first started putting the story together: Is this a world in which comic books already exist? Is this a world in which superheroes already exist? If you think of “Batman Begins” and you think of the philosophy of this character trying to reinvent himself as a symbol, we took the position — we didn’t address it directly in the film, but we did take the position philosophically — that superheroes simply don’t exist. If they did, if Bruce knew of Superman or even of comic books, then that’s a completely different decision that he’s making when he puts on a costume in an attempt to become a symbol. It’s a paradox and a conundrum, but what we did is go back to the very original concept and idea of the character. In his first appearances, he invents himself as a totally original creation.” … “It’s a different universe. It’s a different way of looking at it. Now, it’s been done successfully, very successfully, in the comics so I don’t dispute it as an approach. It just isn’t the approach we took. We had to make a decision for Batman Begins.”

So don’t expect Superman to team up with Nolan’s Batman any time soon, or at all. Nolan also answers a question about the potential studio pressures to make another sequel:

“They’re being extremely gracious. I have a very good relationship with the studio. They know that I really needed to go on holiday and take some time to figure what I want to do next. They’ve been very respectful of that, which is terrific and one of the reasons I enjoy working with Warner Bros.”
I think Warner Bros is playing it smart, which is very unusual for a Hollywood studio. But I’m willing to bet that Warner Bros’ graciousness will disappear as time moves on.

For anyone who has been under a rock and does not know who Nolan is, watch Memento, Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, and The Prestige immediately.

for the military and techo geeks within, here’s how to disappear.

AS A special-forces agent in the French Navy, Michel Malalo has clandestinely entered several African countries by sea to extract endangered French nationals. Almost all the enemy fighters he encountered carried the AK-47, a widely used assault rifle renowned for its rugged reliability. But the AK-47 has a serious drawback: glint, which gave Mr Malalo an advantage in firefights. Made with steel, the AK-47 reflects light. “It’s flashy—and from afar,” says Mr Malalo, who took advantage of glint giveaways when shooting at the enemy. Mr Malalo, who left the special forces uninjured six years ago, says the French assault rifle, the Famas, is superbly non-reflective even in bright light.

The Mathematician in Love
William John Macquorn Rankine

I.

A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.

II.

He measured with care, from the ends of a base,
The arcs which her features subtended:
Then he framed transcendental equations, to trace
The flowing outlines of her figure and face,
And thought the result very splendid.

III.

He studied (since music has charms for the fair)
The theory of fiddles and whistles, –
Then composed, by acoustic equations, an air,
Which, when ’twas performed, made the lady’s long hair
Stand on end, like a porcupine’s bristles.

IV.

The lady loved dancing: — he therefore applied,
To the polka and waltz, an equation;
But when to rotate on his axis he tried,
His centre of gravity swayed to one side,
And he fell, by the earth’s gravitation.

V.

No doubts of the fate of his suit made him pause,
For he proved, to his own satisfaction,
That the fair one returned his affection; — “because,
“As everyone knows, by mechanical laws,
“Re-action is equal to action.”

VI.

“Let x denote beauty, — y, manners well-bred, –
“z, Fortune, — (this last is essential), –
“Let L stand for love” — our philosopher said, –
“Then L is a function of x, y, and z,
“Of the kind which is known as potential.”

VII.

“Now integrate L with respect to d t,
“(t Standing for time and persuasion);
“Then, between proper limits, ’tis easy to see,
“The definite integral Marriage must be: –
“(A very concise demonstration).”

VIII.

Said he — “If the wandering course of the moon
“By Algebra can be predicted,
“The female affections must yield to it soon” –
– But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.

John McCain on Technology:

- Ban Internet Taxes: “We must make a farsighted, robust, and fervent commitment to innovation and new technologies to sustain our global competitiveness, meet our national security challenges.“

- Answering a question on whether he would “police the Internet culturally, such as for predators & pornography”. His answer: “Absolutely not, but I also want to point out this Internet child pornography is a terrible evil. It’s got to be addressed. And everybody knows the way you stop it is go after the money.“

- Answering a question on whether he “Uses Internet to read news & to get donations”. His Answer was: “Not nearly as well as I should. My wife Cindy is a whiz. And when I want to find out what’s on CNN, or The NY Times, or other communist periodicals, I always go to it. But the phenomenal thing about the Internet [is that] we’ve gotten like $7 million in contributions over the Internet. It’s been marvelous. $7 million, because they want reform, they want the government back.“

- Should we spend government funds to address the “digital divide?” His answer: “No, I wouldn’t do it directly, but there’s lots of ways that you can encourage corporations who, in their own self-interest, would want to provide — would receive tax benefits, would receive credit, and many other ways for being involved in the schools and upgrading the quality of the equipment that they have, the quality of the students, and thereby providing a much-needed, well-trained work force.“

- Introduced bill for “No government control over computer encryption” in 1999:

- Legalize development, sale, and use of encryption.
- Prohibits government from requiring an encryption key (solution) or other computer access.
- Prohibits the government from adopting any standard that establishes an encryption standard for use by businesses other than for federal computer systems.
- Prohibits restricting the export of encryption products.

To highlight John McCain’s campaign promises on technology:

- Encourage investment in innovation
- Develop a skilled work force
- Champion open and fair trade
- Reform intellectual property protection
- Keep the Internet and entrepreneurs free of unnecessary regulation
- Ensure a fully connected citizenry

Sources: 1 -2

Barack Obama on Technology:

- On research funding in technology, “We can’t just focus on preserving existing industries. We have to be in the business of encouraging new ones–and that means science, research and technology. For two centuries, America led the world in innovation. But this Administration’s hostility to science has taken a toll. At a time when technology is shaping our future, we devote a smaller and smaller share of our national resources to Research and Development. I’ll double federal funding for basic research, and make the R&D tax credit permanent.“

- Talking on Broadband in heart of inner cities and rural towns, “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let’s set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let’s recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let’s make college more affordable, and let’s invest in scientific research, and let’s lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.“

- Obama co-sponsored ensuring net neutrality: No corporate-tiered Internet (Jan 9, 2007).

- Broadband service providers shall not interfere with the ability of any person to use a broadband service to access or offer any lawful content via the Internet;
- Only prioritize content or services based on the type of content or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization.

- Obama sponsored website for competitive federal awards: A bill to strengthen transparency and accountability in Federal spending. Key elements of the bill includes:

- Recipient performance transparency.
- A unique award identifier that identifies each individual award vehicle.
- The date that the financial award was made.
- The agency and department as well as subagencies and suboffices that have authorized the Federal award.

- On creating “Google for government“, he said, “I worked with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans, who John already mentioned, to set up what we call Google for Government, which says that we are going to list every dollar of federal spending to make sure that the taxpayer can take a look and see who, in fact, is promoting some of these spending projects that John’s been railing about.“

To highlight Barack Obama’s campaign promises on technology:

- Ensure an open Internet.
- Create a transparent and connected democracy.
- Encourage a modern communications infrastructure.
- Prepare all of our children for a 21st century economy.
- Improve America’s competitiveness.
- Employ science and technology to solve our nation’s most pressing problems.

Sources: 1 -2

I have left Dubai’s spiralling towers, man-made islands and mega-malls behind and driven through the desert to the outskirts of the neighbouring city of Abu Dhabi. Turn right before the Zaha Hadid bridge, and a few hundred metres takes you to the heart of Mousafah, a ghetto-like neighbourhood of camps hidden away from the eyes of tourists. It is just one of many areas around the Gulf set aside for an army of labourers building the icons of architecture that are mushrooming all over the region.

Behind the showers, in a yard paved with metal sheets, a line of men stands silently in front of grease-blackened pans, preparing their dinner. Sweat rolls down their heads and necks, their soaked shirts stuck to their backs. A heavy smell of spices and body odour fills the air.

Next to a heap of rubbish, a man holds a plate containing his meal: a few chillies, an onion and three tomatoes, to be fried with spices and eaten with a piece of bread.

…

How is life, I ask.

“What life? We have no life here. We are prisoners. We wake up at five, arrive to work at seven and are back at the camp at nine in the evening, day in and day out.”

Outside in the yard, another man sits on a chair made of salvaged wood, in front of a broken mirror, a plastic sheet wrapped around his neck, while the camp barber trims his thick beard. Despite the air of misery, tonight is a night of celebration. One of the men is back from a two-week break in his home village in Pakistan, bringing with him a big sack of rice, and is cooking pilau rice with meat. Rice is affordable at weekends only: already wretched incomes have been eroded by the weak dollar and rising food prices. “Life is worse now,” one worker told me. “Before, we could get by on 140 dirhams [£22] a month; now we need 320 to 350.”

The dozen or so men sit on newspapers advertising luxury watches, mobile phones and high-rise towers. When three plastic trays arrive, filled with yellowish rice and tiny cubes of meat, each offers the rare shreds of meat to his neighbours.

All of these men are part of a huge scam that is helping the construction boom in the Gulf. Like hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, they each paid more than £1,000 to employment agents in India and Pakistan. They were promised double the wages they are actually getting, plus plane tickets to visit their families once a year, but none of the men in the room had actually read their contract. Only two of them knew how to read.

while i’m thinking about forwards, theres a huge repository of email forwards that have been running around the nets for donkeys years. you can find it at the forward garden.

Just do it - don’t cheat!!!!!!!!!!!!
Try this ..
This will blow your mind…!
Just do it - don’t cheat!!!!!!! !!!!!

Try this its actually quite good. But don’t cheat! Count the number of F’s in the following text in 15 seconds:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

Managed it?

Scroll down only after you have counted them! OK?

How many?

Three?

(You r definitely male!!!)

Wrong, there are six - no joke!

Read again!

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

The reasoning is further down… The MALE brain cannot process the word “OF”. Incredible or what?

Anyone who counts all six F’s on the first go has a brain of a Female You can test this by asking a Guy/Girl near you to work it out.

So, a neutron walked into a bar and said “I’d like a drink, please.”

After the bartender gave him one, he said “How much will that be?”

“For you?” said the bartender “No charge.”

though the ‘S’ will be reflected backwards in the clouds, i still find it funny. maybe bizarro did it.

you fell asleep you bugger!

a short history of the 21st century by chuck klosterman. every entry is worth the read.

DEC. 31, 2014: Billed as “the floating Dubai,” the inaugural space hotel opens its doors. Financed by Google, the cost is $2 million per room, per evening. Kanye West performs in the ballroom on opening night.

MAY 24, 2029: Eighty-eight-year-old Bob Dylan celebrates his birthday with the online release of “Oh, By the Way,” a fourteen-minute song explicitly explaining the details of his 1966 motorcycle crash, his brief conversion to Christianity during the seventies, and what it was like to have sex with Joan Baez. When asked why he chose to release such personal material at this point in his life, Dylan cryptically replies, “That seems like a question you should be asking Bob Dylan.”

A short film by a friend’s cousin about Obama-Biden and the war in Iraq. Thought I would share.

warren buffet on the bailout.

QUICK: One of the things we’d like to get straight to…is what you see happening in the economy right now. We’ve been talking to you for some time about what you see as some significant problems in the economy. And, from your perspective, have things gotten any better? Have they gotten any worse?

Mr. BUFFETT: No, they’ve rippled out some, and that’s what you’d expect. So the excesses in credit, the deleveraging that was required, the weak credits that are exposed, all that is–we’re seeing manifestations out as the ripples go out, and I think I said one time that, you know, you only find out who’s been swimming naked when the tide goes out. Well, we found out that Wall Street has been kind of a nudist beach.