If you liked the first Narnia movie, go see this one. It has the same cast (plus a tall dark and handsome Caspian), it follows the plot from the book (mostly), the CGI talking animals are beautifully done. Sets, props and costumes are superb. Susan and Lucy wear floor length medieval gowns that are very becoming. Peter and Susan look much the same, but Edmund and Lucy are noticeably taller and older.
The movie makers sort of assume that the audience has seen the first Narnia movie and/or has read the book. Continuity is a little shakey, if I hadn't seen the first movie and recently reread "Prince Caspian" I might have failed to follow all the plot twists. (The Ring movies had this problem too) . The transition from the London Underground to Narnia happens so quickly, and with so little foreshadowing that the audience is left wondering how that happened. The surprise air assault upon evil King Miraz's castle fails because Caspian goes to revenge himself upon Miraz rather than opening the castle gate to let the main force of Narnians inside, a duty he had been assigned in the pre-mission briefing. Somehow this gross dereliction of duty on Caspian's part is overlooked by all.
The Talking Mice are wonderfully done, the dwarves have a lot of good lines, and there is plenty of action. The evil King Miraz looks the part, complete with pointed beard and a low forehead. Susan gets to kiss Caspian goodby right at the very end, just before she and her Pevensy siblings step thru an interdimensional gate that takes them back the the London Underground station.
I enjoyed it. Today I got a "join Netflix" junk mail. I looked thru the 100 movies on Netflix and decided that "Prince Caspian" was a better movie watch than 99 out of 100 on the Netflix list.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
What does "Bush's third term" mean?
Obama has been calling John McCain "George Bush's third term". It's a nice sound bite, but what does it really mean? Cannot Obama name the McCain policies to which he objects? Obama's biggest objection to George Bush is starting the Iraq war. But that is not a reason to object to McCain. There is no way McCain can start the Iraq war, that's history now, the war is started. The issue now is how to end it. McCain stands for winning the Iraq war, Obama has called for retreat ("withdrawal") which will turn the country over to Al Quada or Iran or some bloodthirsty miltia.
The presidential campaign would be better if the candidates would talk about real and specific things rather than meaningless sound bites.
The presidential campaign would be better if the candidates would talk about real and specific things rather than meaningless sound bites.
Democrats block US Shale Oil development
The US contains oil shale reserves that dwarf the Saudi oil reserves. The deposits all lie on federal land in the west. With conventional crude oil at $120 a barrel, oil shale is economically competitive. Bringing the vast US oil shale reserves to market could be enough to lower the price of gasoline and home heating oil. Shell Oil company has a process that might bring oil shale to market at competitive prices. They are ready to start making the enormous investments needed to create an oil shale industry.
Shell needs to strike an agreement with the land owner over many things, first most, money. Then come environmental requirements, terms of lease, taxes, permits, and other paperwork. Without agreement on these matters, Shell cannot estimate their return on investment. In simple terms, Shell needs to know how much money they will make from shale oil. Should the landowner (Uncle Sam) demand exorbitant royalties, or make unreasonable environmental restrictions, then Shell will loose money on the project. In short, the project is on hold until Shell can reach an agreement with Uncle Sam.
The Democrats in Congress just passed a law prohibiting the Dept of Interior from "making any new regulations" which is a code phrase meaning "Don't make a deal with Shell". With a stroke of the pen, Congressional Democrats have killed American oil shale development.
The Republicans ought to make a fuss about this. We need to do everything in our power to increase fuel supplies, especially domestic supplies.
Shell needs to strike an agreement with the land owner over many things, first most, money. Then come environmental requirements, terms of lease, taxes, permits, and other paperwork. Without agreement on these matters, Shell cannot estimate their return on investment. In simple terms, Shell needs to know how much money they will make from shale oil. Should the landowner (Uncle Sam) demand exorbitant royalties, or make unreasonable environmental restrictions, then Shell will loose money on the project. In short, the project is on hold until Shell can reach an agreement with Uncle Sam.
The Democrats in Congress just passed a law prohibiting the Dept of Interior from "making any new regulations" which is a code phrase meaning "Don't make a deal with Shell". With a stroke of the pen, Congressional Democrats have killed American oil shale development.
The Republicans ought to make a fuss about this. We need to do everything in our power to increase fuel supplies, especially domestic supplies.
Baseball bat makers sued after terrible accident
A boy playing Little League baseball was struck in the chest by a ball. The impact stopped the boy's heart and serious brain damage occurred before emergency treatment restarted the heart and saved the boy's life. The parents are suing the maker of the bat, claiming that metal bats are dangerous. They claim that metal bats drive balls faster than wooden bats and thus caused the injury to their son. And the maker is liable.
The case made Fox News this morning, and the Fox commentators seemed to agree that the parents have a case and the bat maker should pay.
How is this? The bat maker manufactured a standard product, which worked as designed, and is authorized for Little League play. In baseball everything is regulated by the league, the composition of the ball , the gloves, the size of the field, the amount of spit allowed on a pitcher's hands, everything. Metal bats are league authorized, and so the bat maker is making a legitimate piece of sports equipment that met Little League requirements. How does that make him liable for anything?
I understand the parents have suffered a terrible loss and deserve sympathy and support. But does that entitle them to endanger the existance of the sporting equipment company that made the bat, possibly driving them out of business and putting all their employees out in the street? Just defending against a law suit is fantastically expensive, and paying off a damage award is just as bad. Just because the parents are suffering, should they impose more suffering upon totally innocent parties?
You can also bet that the lawyers looked at the other parties that might be liable, the Little League, the owner of the ball field, the sponsors of the Little League teams, whoever, and decided that none of them had any money worth suing for. The sports equipment maker at least has enough money to meet payroll.
The case made Fox News this morning, and the Fox commentators seemed to agree that the parents have a case and the bat maker should pay.
How is this? The bat maker manufactured a standard product, which worked as designed, and is authorized for Little League play. In baseball everything is regulated by the league, the composition of the ball , the gloves, the size of the field, the amount of spit allowed on a pitcher's hands, everything. Metal bats are league authorized, and so the bat maker is making a legitimate piece of sports equipment that met Little League requirements. How does that make him liable for anything?
I understand the parents have suffered a terrible loss and deserve sympathy and support. But does that entitle them to endanger the existance of the sporting equipment company that made the bat, possibly driving them out of business and putting all their employees out in the street? Just defending against a law suit is fantastically expensive, and paying off a damage award is just as bad. Just because the parents are suffering, should they impose more suffering upon totally innocent parties?
You can also bet that the lawyers looked at the other parties that might be liable, the Little League, the owner of the ball field, the sponsors of the Little League teams, whoever, and decided that none of them had any money worth suing for. The sports equipment maker at least has enough money to meet payroll.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Are Polar Bears Democratic?
The global warming folk are attempting to get polar bears declared an endangered species. By doing this, they hope to have judges place restrictions upon oil exploration in the Arctic, and perhaps even impose CO2 emissions quotas upon US industry and citizens.
They are pursuing this path toward their objectives because they lack the votes in Congress to pass their program by legislation. They hope a green thinking judge will bypass the elected Congress and impose their policies by judicial fiat.
This is profoundly undemocratic. Under democracy, new laws are passed only by the will of the majority. Right now, a majority for restricting oil exploration and imposing CO2 limits does not exist. In short, the greens don't have the votes to impose their will upon the country. So they try an end run around the Congress thru the courts.
They are pursuing this path toward their objectives because they lack the votes in Congress to pass their program by legislation. They hope a green thinking judge will bypass the elected Congress and impose their policies by judicial fiat.
This is profoundly undemocratic. Under democracy, new laws are passed only by the will of the majority. Right now, a majority for restricting oil exploration and imposing CO2 limits does not exist. In short, the greens don't have the votes to impose their will upon the country. So they try an end run around the Congress thru the courts.
Windows sluggishness, Icon variety
Today my computer came down with the icon slows. The desktop would open after boot but all the desktop icons were trash for a minute or two, and then would slowly paint one by one. Open an explorer window to view your files on disk, and again, the icons for each file painted one by one and slowly.
How does Windows paint all those icons, a different one for each program? The simple way is to put up a temporary icon, and then find the program to which the short cut points, open it, extract the icon pixels and paint them on the screen. This is slow. So, windows keeps a "shell icon cache" file, containing all the icons, so it only has to open one file, in a known place, to fetch every icon. Windows, being Windows, occasionally manages to mess up its own icon cache file. The messed up file do longer works, and so Windows reverts to the old slow "find each icon in the program file" process.
Fix. Run the CCleaner program. This is freeware/shareware which Google will find for you on the net. To fix just icons, select "Start Menu Shortcuts" and "Window size/Location Cache" and click on "Run Cleaner".
CCleaner is a general purpose cleaner upper, and can remove all sorts of un needed files. A CCleaner run can easily free up 100 megabytes of disk space. The program has two modes of operation. Analyze, which finds un wanted files and displays them to you, and "Run Cleaner" which finds unwanted files and deletes them. The cautious user will first analyze and carefully inspect the displayed files just to make sure they really are unwanted.
Some applications choose bad file name extensions which make CCleaner think the files are unwanted when they are indeed wanted. I remember ClearCase (a very expensive professional software source control system) which used the extension ".tmp" for its working files. Disk cleanup people and programs will always delete anything with "tmp" or "temp" in its name.
How does Windows paint all those icons, a different one for each program? The simple way is to put up a temporary icon, and then find the program to which the short cut points, open it, extract the icon pixels and paint them on the screen. This is slow. So, windows keeps a "shell icon cache" file, containing all the icons, so it only has to open one file, in a known place, to fetch every icon. Windows, being Windows, occasionally manages to mess up its own icon cache file. The messed up file do longer works, and so Windows reverts to the old slow "find each icon in the program file" process.
Fix. Run the CCleaner program. This is freeware/shareware which Google will find for you on the net. To fix just icons, select "Start Menu Shortcuts" and "Window size/Location Cache" and click on "Run Cleaner".
CCleaner is a general purpose cleaner upper, and can remove all sorts of un needed files. A CCleaner run can easily free up 100 megabytes of disk space. The program has two modes of operation. Analyze, which finds un wanted files and displays them to you, and "Run Cleaner" which finds unwanted files and deletes them. The cautious user will first analyze and carefully inspect the displayed files just to make sure they really are unwanted.
Some applications choose bad file name extensions which make CCleaner think the files are unwanted when they are indeed wanted. I remember ClearCase (a very expensive professional software source control system) which used the extension ".tmp" for its working files. Disk cleanup people and programs will always delete anything with "tmp" or "temp" in its name.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
So how expensive is a nuclear power plant?
Wall St Journal reports that utility companies (electric companies) are cringing from the $5 to $12 billion dollar quotes on new nuclear plants. The article goes on to say that the existing nuclear plants built in the 60's and 70's cost about $3 billion. Hmm. There's been a bit of inflation since the '70s. In the '70's a new Caddy went for $10K. A 2008 Caddy goes for $43K. If the cost of a nuclear plant is only up from $3 to $12 billion, that's no big surprise to me, and it shouldn't be a surprise to electric companies or the WSJ.
Second, you gotta wonder how much gold plating has been done on the designs. The word "nuclear" raises the cost of things. For instance, the mess tables on nuclear aircraft carriers cost more than the mess tables on oil fired carriers. What with the current population of ambulance chasing lawyers, to say nothing of skittish insurance companies, every conceivable safety device will be incorporated whether it does any good or not. Nuclear safety people make Alice in Wonderland look rational. As you may remember Alice once met a white knight. The knight's horse had spiked steel anklets on all four legs. When Alice inquired about them, she was told that the spikes protected the horse against shark bites. Alice asked how often the knight's horse had been attacked by sharks. The knight replied the horse had never been bitten which meant the spiked anklets were doing their job. I'm sure the new nuclear designs have plenty of expensive spiked anklets protecting against shark bite.
If the plant cost $10 billion, it will take a long time to pay itself off. I pay $0.10 per kilowatt hour, of which half goes to the generating company and the other half goes to PSNH who owns the power poles, transformers and electric meters. A nuclear plant will generate 1000 megawatts. Run the plant for an hour, and you bill $0.05 times 1,000,000 kilowatt/hours, or $50,000 an hour. $10 billion divided by $50,000 an hour means 200,000 hours (about 22 years) to pay off the construction costs. That's a long time, and this back of the envelope calculation ignores operating costs, fuel costs, taxes, and interest on the debt, all of which would stretch out the repayment time. Better go for the low end $5 billion dollar plant.
Second, you gotta wonder how much gold plating has been done on the designs. The word "nuclear" raises the cost of things. For instance, the mess tables on nuclear aircraft carriers cost more than the mess tables on oil fired carriers. What with the current population of ambulance chasing lawyers, to say nothing of skittish insurance companies, every conceivable safety device will be incorporated whether it does any good or not. Nuclear safety people make Alice in Wonderland look rational. As you may remember Alice once met a white knight. The knight's horse had spiked steel anklets on all four legs. When Alice inquired about them, she was told that the spikes protected the horse against shark bites. Alice asked how often the knight's horse had been attacked by sharks. The knight replied the horse had never been bitten which meant the spiked anklets were doing their job. I'm sure the new nuclear designs have plenty of expensive spiked anklets protecting against shark bite.
If the plant cost $10 billion, it will take a long time to pay itself off. I pay $0.10 per kilowatt hour, of which half goes to the generating company and the other half goes to PSNH who owns the power poles, transformers and electric meters. A nuclear plant will generate 1000 megawatts. Run the plant for an hour, and you bill $0.05 times 1,000,000 kilowatt/hours, or $50,000 an hour. $10 billion divided by $50,000 an hour means 200,000 hours (about 22 years) to pay off the construction costs. That's a long time, and this back of the envelope calculation ignores operating costs, fuel costs, taxes, and interest on the debt, all of which would stretch out the repayment time. Better go for the low end $5 billion dollar plant.
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