I’ve seen the trailers for the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight.  The thing that strikes me about the movie, is it’s so dark.  Dark when Syndrome intones “Don’t you think that’s a little dark for you?” when rebuffing Mr. Incredible when he’s threatening to break his administrative assistant like a took pick.  The Joker is so unlike the laughing joker in a prior Batman movie where he’s throwing money out of a blimp before gassing people.

However, I really like the Tumbler.  I watched the whole Batman Begins movie just for the few Tumbler scenes.  That was a lot of fighting and long boring back story, just to watch a car chase.

I want to get the Hotwheels version of the Tumbler.  I only saw action figure size or radio-control versions at Walmart.  One model was impressive.  The box is labeled, two-in-one.  It has the pop-out motorcycle and the Tumbler.  All I got from that trip was another miniature Mach 5; this time die cast metal by Jada Toys.

You might over analyze if you answer a simple email as follows:

Yesterday was smelly people day. I wanted off the bus early, and the bus was early enough for the extra walking. Kinda’ nice walking under the trees near [the theater], though the bird-bomb marks kina’ makes me worry. Was barely on-time yesterday. Still five minutes early today. Thought it’d wake me up, but was tad sleepy afterwards. I think I’ll go back to the [other] stop. —–Original Message—– Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 2:17 PM Subject: Bus What way do u walk now? Is it quicker?

Visiting the dealership again recently, I walked over to used cars to see the prices for used Aura, I thought about a used Sky.  However, the Corvette fits me better.  Amazingly, the Saturn dealership has a used Le Mans blue Corvette.

It could use a wash a little polish, but it certainly does fit me better than the Saturn Sky.  I have head room in the Corvette.  It even has trunk space.  The Sky has no trunk space with a hump in the trunk to hold the rear glass when the top is down.  A new Sky is still cheaper than a used Corvette.  It also has better gas mileage.

The Corvette is more intricate.  It has push button door releases.  Push the release, then the window nudges down.  Close the door, the window nudges back up.

The Sky’s styling is impressive.  It’s a clever blend of flared fenders and angularity.  Where as the Corvette has reduced it’s curves over time.  I have a model with after market fenders attached to the quarter panels.  The modern Corvette are more subdued.  The most recent iteration I think has a faint hint of Dodge Viper styling.

I tried Microsoft’s Outlook Express successor, Windows Mail Live Desktop Edition, what ever that thing was called. That was just too garish. Microsoft is chasing Apple. While Apple was criticized for being cartoony, called a gum drop interface and parodies as the iFruit, Microsoft produced what I consider a garish interface with Windows Mail. See also What You Expected, What You Got (WYE, WYG)

Sometimes sticking to the simple is better. I like the idea of HTML email for light formatting, clean rewrapping of text in e-mail. However, OE will display plaintext in a larger font size is so configured. It, like IE, won’t enlarge some HTML text. Besides, there a retro/geeky coolness to plaintext. Maybe it’s nostalgia for the command line. You can even get plain text WordPress themes at Plaintxt.org. There are even themes inspired by the BASH (Bourne Again SHell) commandline.

Ironic, when Windows 3.1 came out, I went and got it thinking it’s the future of computing. Yeah, it is and companies who didn’t jump on the bandwagon got left behind in the complacency in competence, like Novell and Word Perfect. However, I prefer Linux at work for the convenience of the command line. It has many handy utilities, too. Too bad RFC 1523 a light weight compromise between HTML and plaintext didn’t catch on. I think Apple Mail supported it, but apparently Apple dropped it, boosting about it’s glitzy email stationary. HTML does pretty up URL. Markdown is a markup syntax that provides readable plaintext, marked up for converting to HTML. BBcode may be familiar to those on discussion boards, but it’s not as readable.

Here are some plaintext signatures from the ASCII Ribbon Compaign.

()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments

                       _
ASCII ribbon campaign ( )
 against HTML e-mail   X
                      / \

O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org

And an argument against HTML email

Ramin Setoodeh interviews Gillian Anderson for Newsweek: Gillian’s Still a Bit Spacey.

Seeing the picture in the print magazine, not available online, I though Gillian Anderson as a blonde looks like a Jennifer Aniston look-alike.

Anything more beautiful than the blues and greens of the tropics?  This slideshow includes beautiful pictures of a coral reef. I’m just enamored by the blues and greens of the tropics. I’d like a mural size poster of a tropic beach on my wall. It’s be like a picture window.  Of course, the real scene would be even better.

Some how I don’t think they mean what I think when I read:

More bars in more places

Finally smaller and cheaper form factors.  Now if Cherry Pal will offer a laptop version.

I’ve been waiting for a cheaper laptop with full size keyboard and a lid filling.  The

EeePC has a lot of buzz for being compact and affordable.  However, I’ve seen 15″ Asus laptops for about the same price of the Eee.  I find the Eee unattractive.  The EeePC is just too small, and not incredibly cheaper.  The XO OLPC

laptop targeted $100, however, the US price in the Buy One, Give One was $400.  That’s targeting a totally different marget, but Palm PDAs and conventional laptops whose prices decend below $500 make the XO and Eee harder sells.

Even the iPhone, at $199 shows capable computer can be affordable.  iSuppli estimates the cost of materials in the iPhone 3G at $174.

Hear about Zonbu earlier.  Nice, but tied to a plan, and again, not enough cheaper than conventional computers.

The biggest obstacle to this market is the economy end of the product spectrum is difficult to profit in; margins are thin, customers price sensitive.  It’s especially hard to profit is cost-of-goods isn’t lower than the selling price.  OLPC assumed mass production would lower costs.  OLPC also lost focus, and the price crept up; scope creep.  Apple simply avoids this end of the market, selling premium products, like BMW and Porsche.  However, Apple is also good and keeping cost-of-goods below the price sold.

Seeing a hurricane storm tracker chart display stand at Kroger yesterday, my pun-erific self thought, Apocalypse Tracker.  Today I see this Aug. 9, 1945 picture taken the exact moment of detonation at Nagasaki of a nuclear bomb.  The people in foreground are not even away of the bombing yet.

Wall-E is a beautiful movie.  I was most facinated with the graceful movement of the robots.  The story revolves around the simple love interest between the last man on earth, and the first woman on earth, er, robot.  All the characters were robots, except for the human who were just foils, or extras.

The setting of Wall-E was probably the least beleivable of the Pixar movies.  A cruise ship with a five year itenerary was to server as a multigenerational space vessel.  The ship had a well developed robot repair shop, but discarded great quantaties of trash.  There was no depiction of acquiring raw material.

The people formed a mono-culture.

The only corporation depicted was the ubiquitous Buy-N-Large.  The CEO’s press room suggests the government and this one corporation were merge into an indistringuishable single entity.  This is not lasseiz faire capitalism.