I just realized… Superman has boots which are distinctly different from the regular shoes that Clark Kent walks around in. Maybe he’s wearing those tights and a cape under his regular clothes, but how does he hide those boots?

This wonderfully refined superman saga takes place after the first Superman movie (pretend the sequels never happened). It pays many homages to the original but still stands very well on its own. 4/5 stars.

You will never truly improve at something unless you think you should be doing better. This is different from merely wanting to do better, which is neither a necessary condition nor a sufficient condition for improvement.

The breaking down of physical boundaries is leading towards enhanced specialization. This may be lead to more advanced progress and more efficiency, but think about the economic impact on people who can’t afford to utilize the boundary-breaking technologies. It seems like in some ways, this heavily favors those with money (more power, more choices) and in other ways it favors those without money (lowering the cost of production, bringing cheaper items to market). But as usual, both ways favor those with money, and only some of the benefit goes to those without money.

Is this accurate at all? Maybe both effects do reach all economic brackets, but it just takes longer for it to reach the lower brackets. Any comments? This is not my specialty.

It was bound to happen… The mother of a teenaged girl has sued MySpace.com because MySpace fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators. I would love to eradicate the problem of sexual predators, but I don’t think there is any validity to this case.

Users of MySpace need to acknowledge the risk of posting their information to the public. When you post your pictures, your interests, and a list of all the cute boys you have a crush on, that information is available to anyone with access to the Internet. Not only is it available for viewing, but it is also extremely easy for anyone to duplicate it without any loss of quality. Just hit “save web page” in your File menu and it’s yours forever. It’s possible to do all of this without the person knowing who has viewed or saved any of their information.

Clearly this is an environment which sexual predators would enjoy browsing… but how can we stop them? I don’t think we can. How can you verify someone’s age over the Internet? Think about it… whatever information you ask for might not actually belong to the person who submits it. There is really no convenient way to verify someone’s identity over the Internet. This is why identity theft is such a huge problem these days.

MySpace users need to have some common sense and be wary of any strangers who initiate contact with them. Any activity involves some risk… that’s life.

Loyal readers, this is your chance to weigh in on a very important issue. Out of the blue, an “ticket broker” web site, which sells tickets for various events, has contacted me and offered to pay me $10 per month for one year if I put a few text links on my blog homepage which link to their site. I am tempted to accept the offer, but I would not want to advertise a web site that I didn’t think was trustworthy or reputable. I searched the blogosphere and I googled the name of their web site and all that comes up are splogs. They have a nice shiny Better Business Bureau logo on their homepage, but ironically when I click on it, the BBB site says that the web site in question has lapsed in their participation of reliability.

If you are reading this, please tell me what you think! Should I accept the money? They would use paypal so I am not at risk of having my money or identity stolen in the transaction.

According to this story, hip-hop mogul Jay-Z was extremely offended when the CEO of Louis Roederer, the makers of Cristal champagne, implied that he did not particularly enjoy the attention that the hip-hop community gave to Cristal. Jay-Z said:

“It has come to my attention that the managing director of Cristal, Frederic Rouzaud, views the ‘hip-hop’ culture as ‘unwelcome attention.’ I view his comments as racist and will no longer support any of his products through any of my various brands including the 40/40 Club nor in my personal life.”

The interesting thing is that Rouzaud never mentioned race, he was commenting on hip-hop culture. Needless to say, race and culture are related, but not the same. Rouzaud may be a snob, but is he a racist? This raises an interesting issue… racism is stupid, but what about culturism? That is, judging someone based on their culture. Unlike race, people have a choice about which culture they identify with. Cultures have relatively consistent values, races do not. Of course it was not nice of Rouzaud to have made the statement he did, but it was probably a wise business move. I think he should have a right to say it as much as Jay-Z should have the right to hold a boycott… but Jay-Z should have left out his unsubstantiated claim that Rouzaud is a racist.

Despite my never-ending allegience to hip-hop culture, I still plan on buying plenty of Cristal. Sorry Jay-Z!

A great indie movie about growing up and letting go. 4/5 stars.

Dune is an epic masterpiece, featuring a large cast of characters set in a brilliantly devised future setting on another planet. The scope of what Frank Herbert has conceived is staggering, and yet each character’s nuances of thought and consciousness are given the most attention. I can’t wait to see the movie (even though everyone says it sucks) … 5/5 stars.

A brave Ukrainian scientist has sacrificed himself in order to prove the eternal question of God’s existence. The experiment showed undeniably that God cannot exist. See details here.

Corny, but still iconic, Superman was epic and enjoyable. 3/5 stars.