43 years of Doctor Who (fantastic vid)

And then there’s this nostalgic take… Love it. I grew up with Dr. Who, and remember clearly the first Dr. Who I saw–Leela walking over a pit filled with grub-like monsters. I must have been 3 or 4 years old–and I think that I did indeed hide behind the couch, as it were.

Of course I realize that being a fan qualifies me to hang with the geekier elements (fringes?) of society, but I’m an unapologic and inveterate fan. He’s the biggest humanist of all, has had some very fetching companions (lots of crushes on these gals as I grew up, Romana, Nyssa, Sarah Jane), is a true Brit (and now Scot) and a true gentleman…

Enjoy:

Granted, the show historically suffered low budgets and special effects, but the writing now, despite the untraditionally very believable and modern effects, is as faithful as ever to the ethos that developed from 1963 through the early 80’s–corny, humanist, British, and apolitical. Few Americans really understand just how much of a British national institution Dr. Who is, such is the fondness over there. With Chris Eccleston’s Doctor and now David Tennant’s, the show’s writing is fantastic, and I think fans have high hopes that we’ll make it through all 12 lives, despite the three or so sadly squandered ones thus far.

Lime

A.O. hails new crewmember

A.O. hails its latest crewmember, Aiydn. Aidyn is a [REDACTED] by trade, a gamer, and a fine writer. Welcome, Aidyn: we hope your tour aboard A.O. is rewarding, and we’re just glad to have you.

Aidyn will grace A.O.’s pages with erudite commentary on games and the games industry, as well as fulfilling A.O.’s task of commenting on, well, everything.

Lime, Fredegar, and yojoe

(Damn, I hate that small “y”. Makes you look like the token liberal on staff.)

10,000

Thanks to you, we now have had 10,000 “reads.”  Woot woot!

Thank all of you for visiting and reading our daily prattle, humor, thoughts, and occasional deeper thoughts.

We’re just glad to be here.

Cheers,

H Lime, yojoe, and Fredegar.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald to be sued for causing ADD?

Well, not really. But the incomparable fellow Law Professor Ann Althouse does indeed claim, tongue-in-cheek, that this bloke’s posts give her bouts of ADD (as I think they do me), and I venture that perhaps a well-timed lawsuit might be one way of finally ridding ourselves of this biting midge.

Greenwald and his daily self-affirmation

Many of you are aware of my appreciation of Professor Althouse’s judicious analysis. In deference to fellow (and apparently truant) editor Fredegar, I have refrained from posting my own thoughts on Salon’s Glenn Greenwald’s daily spoutings. (Well, that, and I don’t see any need to dignify Greenwald’s spoutings with any additional links or airtime.  Others have astutely dubbed him He Who Must Never Be Noticed.)

Vacatio-blogging

I’m on vacation for 2 weeks, and hope to keep it up from here.  I’m gonna kick back with a gin and tonic, suffer withdrawal from my 360, and (without real appellate filing deadlines looming over my head) get you some meaty posts.

Of course the good yojoe and the truant Fredegar respectively will, or may, fill in the gaps!

Bis spater mein liebschens,

Lime

Review: Xbox 360 Elite

Now having had my 360 Elite for just over one month (I bought it on release day), I’ve developed a good sense of its performance over the 360 Premium, enough so that I can give a true hands-on review with some depth of use.

Roleplaying (Video?) Games Lead America’s Children Directly to Satan

Or so people used to say back in the day… dating myself here, but that means the ’70s and ’80s. Well, Cyber Moon Studios has a hilarious animated recreation of exactly what it was like for young roleplayers in the day. I was the GM in almost all of these sessions, and let me just say, this might even be taken from secret recordings from our own sessions–hits too close to home. (But now we’re all grown up. Riiiiiight.)

If it’s not spot-on accurate and in your case Satan actually appeared in your gatherings, well, perhaps I just missed out on the fun. Here’s the link.

On a more serious note, I think there’s a similar movement (to the wacko anti-D&D movement that sent some parents into a foaming-at-the-mouth frenzy) going on currently in New York, where both the Senate and Assembly have passed bills that make it a Class E felony (3-4 years in prison) to sell or distribute “violent and indecent video games to minors.” The law is not yet

Global warming = super-allergies? U.S.Dept of Ag thinks so.

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal reports on scientific studies suggesting strongly that the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in hardier, larger, and more potent allergens from allergy-inducing vegetation. For the 35 million people in the U.S. that suffer nasal allergies, none of this is good news.

Giant Ragweed

Dr. Lewis Ziska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, interviewed for the article, has conducted studies that have revealed that most likely due to the warmer temperatures and 20% higher concentration of carbon dioxide in urban areas, the same pollen-producing plants produce five times the pollen of otherwise identical plants grown in rural areas. Dr. Ziska’s studies under controlled circumstances bore these more general studies out: cultivating ragweed under varying controlled amounts of carbon dioxide concentrations produced increasingly larger and more prolific pollen as the carbon dioxide concentration was increased. His field studies found that urban ragweed plants in Baltimore produced humongous ragweed plants, 190% larger than the rural ragweed plants 40 miles outside the city, and the pollen production followed size closely.

Among the changes occurring:

• Peak season for allergens from vegetation has been arriving 10-15 days earlier over the past 30 years, a trend expected to continue. (source: August ’07 report from the International Panel on Climate Change)
  • Pollen season in Europe for birch, a major hay fever producer, has arrived 5 days earlier per decade over the past 30 years
• Ragweed, which was next to completely absent in Europe 10 years ago, is now prevalent in Hungary, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.
• In 2004, asthma affected more than 6% of the U.S. population, compared to 3% in 1980 (source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC))
• Childhood asthma jumped to 9% of children in 2005, versus 3.6% in 1980 (source: CDC)
  • Inner city youth asthma linked to higher city/urban carbon dioxide concentrations which produce increased plant pollen, fungal growth, and opportunistic weeds (source: 2004 Harvard Medical School Study)
  • Pre-school asthma rates grew 160% between 1980 and 1994, more than double the general U.S. population’s asthma rate of increase (source: Ibid.)

What’s bad news for allergy sufferers is bad news for me.

But count me on a team with growing ranks. Anecdotal evidence of the increased potency these allergens carry I’ve found during the past two weeks: pollen counts have been in the thousands, extraordinarily high, and I have both one relative and one co-worker who, now in their thirties and never having suffered nasal allergies before, have been “taken down” by the recent pollen onslaught, and definitively so: fearing illness both visited the doctor, and both were told, to their amazement, “it’s allergies. Deal.”

So misery loves company, but let’s hope we all have the wherewithal to do something about it.

Lime

GYM GYM WEIGHTSOLUTION! (Break it down!)

When I lived in Japan, one of the thrills of the weekend (cheap thrills, to be sure) was to go to the local Japanese video arcade and see the throngs of Japanese teens dancing “Padda Padda,” as I recall the game was called, or as we call it here, “Dance Dance Revolution.” Since then, the craze has crossed the Pacific and invaded American shores.

A 5-year-old Padda Padda star (“Sugoi!” (“Cool!”))

 

As this New York Times article makes clear, the J-pop / Japanese cultural invasion continues. (And I love that it does.) Children in Morgantown, West Virginia are now shakin’ their booties to the pulsating beats of J-pop in middle school gym classes, with the full endorsement of the school administration and staff.

Apparently West Virginia, which has one of the highest childhood obsesity rates in the US, looked for an innovative solution to the ill health of its young’uns and found one that works, gratis Land of the Rising Sun. West Virginia has 185 middle schools currently using Dance Dance Revolution, and will have the game installed in all 765 of its public schools by 2008. Hawaii and California are other states heavily pushing the game as a solution for childhood obesity.

The Times cites a Mayo Clinic study from 2006 that found that “children playing Dance Dance Revolution expended significantly more energy than children watching television and playing traditional video games.” After installing the games and dancemats in hundreds of schools across 10 states, the Times reports, word on the street is that the solution is working. The plan is to have the physically demanding videogames installed in 1500 schools by 2010.

I love video games, and I’m concerned greatly about US childhood obesity — is this the holy grail? We’re going to have to see some more studies, but it might be. My main concern is that the game might be a little like energetic line-dancing, but it’s not a team sport — it’s competing against the computer, and it’s not a contact sport. This might be good, as many are saying, as a stepping stone towards interest in physical fitness, but it’s just that. As a stepping stone, though, why not? Sounds good to me. I might buy a copy for those special little kids in my life and show’em just how good a dancer HL is.

Links to reviews and purchasing links: Xbox 360 and PS2.

Lime

The Music Man

Last week Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, one of my favorite columnists, wrote about a little experiment he conducted in D.C. He managed to convince Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated American violinists, to play for quarters in the D.C. Metro. For 45 minutes, dressed in jeans and a ballcap, Bell played some of the greatest Classical music of all time.

Weingarten wanted to see what the reaction of commuters was. He had no preconceived notions. In the end, almost nobody stopped to hear Bell play. Out of thousands, only eight took even a moment of their time to stop and listen to his music.

Weingarten did not intend this to be an indictment of Washingtonians, although he felt the result said something sorrowful about the human condition. Mail poured in. Many were defensive, others replied that they had had a strong emotional response to the piece. I fall into the latter category, and I felt I should write a little about it.

Obesity: Another Inconvenient Truth

The 29 Mar 07 Wall Street Journal reports World Health Organization (WHO) figures that indicate obesity is only getting worse in the States, and around the world. Estimated obesity rates for people aged 15 and older have grown since 2002:

• United States. 2002: 34.9%. 2005: 39.2%.
• UK. 2002: 20.0%. 2005: 22.9%
• Germany. 2002: 19.5%. 2005: 20.7%.
• France. 2002: 6.6%. 2005: 7.2%.
• China. 2002: 1.3%. 2005: 1.7%.
• Japan. 2002: 1.5%. 2005: 1.6%.

As you may recall, I’ve lived in Japan and as I’ve argued previously, it’s no surprise that with the deeply engrained eating habits that culture has, no one is obese. Upon my return to the States after several years in Japan, the culture shock was in some ways greater than when I left: T.G.I.

Xbox 360 Elite vs. 60 gig PS3: Xbox 360 arguably the best value

[UPDATE 4, 9 July 2007: Xbox 360 Price Drop Coming Soon? And, PS3/Xbox 360 News Roundup, HERE.]

[UPDATE 3, 7 July 2007: the extended warranty and the “Red Ring of Death.”  Is the 360 still the better value?  Analysis HERE.]

[UPDATE 2, 11 June 2007: Despite denials by Microsoft, indicators are that a price drop is forthcoming, likely by holiday season ’07, that would see the Core dropping to an even more reasonable $199 (far less likely, but even more compelling, would see the Premium drop to $199–which would all but kill the PS3. I’m being hyperbolic, but it would be an exceedingly strong strategic move that would likely quickly cut into the PS3’s hopes to accelerate gains in the market)]

[UPDATED 8 June 2007: A.O.’s new Xbox 360 Elite Review is posted HERE, examining MS’ new 1080p HDMI, 120 gig, top-of-the line Xbox 360 in detail]

Interesting comparison over at 1up.com, chart format.

If you compile all the costs of the 360 Elite vs. the 60 gig PS3, souping up each to meet the experience offered by the other, the 360 Elite is cheaper, even including the $179 cost of the HD-DVD player on the 360 side.

That’s right, a fully souped up 360 Elite (base price $479) matching all that the PS3 offers costs $849.95, while a fully souped-up PS3 (base price $599) matching everything the Xbox 360 Elite offers costs $857.70. The 360 Elite is cheaper by about $10. Factor in the new $179 price point of the HD-DVD drive, and you get a $829.95 price point, making the 360 Elite “complete package” $30 cheaper.

The fact that you’ve got to toss an additional $400.00 into each system to reach a point of equality demonstrates just how strategic Sony and Microsoft’s choices were in manufacturing these boxes — they’re hedging their bets about what consumers want. And off the bat, Sony decided that the Blu-Ray was non-negotiable — at significant cost to the consumer, and to the significant benefit (albeit possibly temporary) of Sony’s own Blu-Ray DVD format. (We’ll see if the console wars level out as PS3 adoption continues, or if the benefit seen to the format since the PS3’s release continues.)

Of course if you ditch the goal of making “exactly comparable” gaming systems and simply get the eminently playable 360 Elite, with 120 gig HD on its own, and purchase a 12-month Gold Card for Xbox Live, your total is $529.98. The PS3 has only a 60 gig HD, but has the Blu-Ray player — and it

IslamTube: Snipers and Destruction

Now this is interesting. Everybody knows YouTube, but who knows IslamTube?

Allow me to take a step back to our own majority religion. Yes, there’s also GodTube (catchphrase: “Broadcast Him.”). Looks like the top videos include titles such as “Lyrical,” “Heart for the Lost,” “Baby Got Bible,” and “Creation Short Film.” I nearly forgot “Easter Bunny vs. Pastor Al: Is Easter a Holy Day or a Holiday? You Decide.”

Right, but IslamTube is something completely different. Check out the top-viewed videos and… well, you’ve got, among the top five, “Sheikh Osama ibn Laden” (you can guess the topic,” and “Iraqi Sniper” (ditto). There’s a video mocking President Bush, and a few farther down, “Jihad in Iraq: Destruction.”

Americans don’t eat the right foods: Well, duh! Look at all the fat people! Get back to Plato’s advice.

Center for Disease Control reports that Americans still don’t eat right:

March 15, 2007 — Fewer than a third of U.S. adults eat enough fruits and vegetables, according to the CDC.From coast to coast, no state (or Washington, D.C.) meets the CDC’s goals for adult fruit and vegetable consumption.People should eat at least five daily servings — two or more servings of fruit, and three or more servings of vegetables — as part of a balanced diet, says the CDC.But today the agency reported that in 2005, fewer than 33% of U.S. adults reported eating at least two daily servings of fruit and barely 27% claimed to eat three or more daily servings of vegetables.

Americans Skimping on Fruits, Veggies

As I’ll evangelize ad nauseam, we need to eat more like the Japanese: lots of vegetables, and a good amount of protein in the form of poultry, fish, and tofu/beans, and pull far, far back on the red meat and fats.

Xbox Live Achievement Sound Files: WMA and MP3 format

I just finished teaching a class to smart law students.  I took the train home, talked about how impressed I was with the amount of preparation some of my students did for class, and now I’m blogging about Xbox Live.

What a contrast.   To tell the truth, Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 are some of the sweeter paths technology has taken recently, and if I didn’t have a job and family, I’m sure I’d spend more time online with friends developing a killer Halo 2/ Gears of War strategy.  As it is, I have about an hour or two a week.

So here, without further ado, for your downloading enjoyment: the Xbox 360 Achievement Sound files:

Achievement Unlocked sound (MP3)
Achievement Unlocked sound (WMA)

Thanks to Major Nelson for these.

Lime