Tag Archives: batman

Another weekend, another bunch of stuff to alleviate stress

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Why, yes, you continue to get a proliferation of fluff in the feed. But it’s good fluff!

At least I think it is.

Creative. Witty. So wrong it’s awesome.

It’s the stuff that helps alleviate the stress that my life has been lately.

But have no fear! There are also some gems of real content in there.

Interesting bits of science. Some very insightful comments on items. Actual world happenings that we should all be aware of.

Check it out, enjoy what you can, maybe jump in and participate in a conversation (even if you’re coming across this months later… don’t hesitate to comment, I’ll see it and it may get things moving on that post again).

Here’s the feed.

So Many Teeth, Bunches of History, Scifi and Comic News, and Good to Help Balance Out the Bad

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Right now, a bunch of people I know are out on the West Coast at San Diego Comic Con.

Another few are bouncing around various European countries.

Still more are heading off for two weeks of Pennsic War.

And, in another month, some mix of those same bunches of people will be heading to Dragon*Con.

I won’t be doing any of those things. It’s just not possible. Won’t be for a while.

That makes me a little sad.

But, things are what they are, and only time will open some doors again.

(I should also be asleep right now…. speaking of time…)

Here’s the feed…

Heroes (in real life and otherwise), A Bad Way to Kill a Spider, Questionable Editorial Decisions, and Just Plain Bad News

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

The week continues to be… odd.

The rapid oscillation between lull and panic at the day job just kind of left my head spinning. I’d been hoping to make a bit of progress on some other projects, but one just refused to die quietly. I’m sure it will resurface again soon enough… likely right when I need to be doing something else.

That lead to the continued trend of just zoning out when I got home.

So now I’m not at all where I want to be on any number of non-day-job things (including clearing out my lingering TV episode queue from Hulu and other places). Doing nothing ceased to be actually relaxing when it became the only thing I could manage to do.

And, based on the news reports coming through various feeds, it looks like things are heating up again between Israel and the Gaza Strip area. That’s unpleasant, to say the least. Especially when, a few thousand miles away, a civilian plane seems to have been shot down by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine.

I really don’t want any more large scale wars for a little while (at least). We still haven’t finished pulling all the way out of the last bunch of messes in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere that we were involved in.

Anyway, there’s some good news and fun stuff in the feed, too… but.. well.. yeah…

Tarot History, Takei Respect, DRM Woes, Work Tunes, Illusions in Motion, and Comic Book Stuff

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Hopefully, after today’s utter insanity and stress, things will fall back into a more “schedule-friendly” rhythm at work. We should be past the point where a project that should have ebbed has continued to flow… right over top of a new project that was planned to start in the down-time.

In the feed, there’s what I consider a nice story about the insistence on DRM (Digital Rights Management) has come back to bite the company that insisted upon it in the ass. Seems a publisher that vehemently insisted Amazon only sell it’s ebook editions with DRM in place, is now in the sticky situation where it’s no longer happy with Amazon’s terms and charges, but can’t pull out without more or less using it’s entire customer base–because they’re locked into only being able to read the books on Amazon readers… because of the DRM.

Even more “fun” is the tidbit in the article that mentions Tor Books, which dropped DRM from it’s ebooks a couple years back. Ostensibly, DRM is in place to prevent piracy. Well, it seems that since dropping DRM, not only has Tor not seen an increase in piracy, they’ve actually seen an increase in sales.

Same thing happened when Amazon really jumped into the MP3 game… challenging iTunes by offering DRM free downloads. That may not have been a clear-cut victory, but Amazon’s music sales aren’t too shabby.

DRM has always treated legitimate customers like criminals and done little to nothing to deter, let alone stop, actual criminals. In most cases, it seems that it’s created more who break the law–by stripping out or otherwise circumventing the DRM so they can use their products freely.

People pirate stuff because they can’t get it legally in the form they want to make use of it. This is a lesson you’d think everyone would have learned when Napster was the biggest thing. People went there to effectively steal music because there was no legal way to get it in that format.

Ebooks are popular because people love the format. It’s bad enough that there are so many competing formats (which offer very few differences when it comes to the actual content… outside of which device you can use to read them). Adding serious DRM to them does nothing but open the door for things like a content producer getting screwed over by their DRM provider.

Maybe this time around, companies will learn.

Probably not.

Giger Passes, Giant Critters, Batman, Daredevil, Furry Walls, Cool History, Science, and a few really funny things

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This entry is part [part not set] of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Sometime, my mind does really awesome things at night. Like craft amazing worlds and situations that put any movie to shame with their expanse and visual wonders.

Last night was not one of those night.

Last night the dream that my mind generated was, at best, a B-grade rode trip rock ‘n’ roll farce. Likely brought on by going to bed really wanting to watch Get Him to the Greek.

Mine involved some wild huge group trip to a big deal concert by some big name band. A total experience thing that involved staying up all night before in an airport before getting on board the secret plane to the concert location.

Well, hilarity ensued and there were baggage problems, missed connections, and a lot of running from point A to point B only to find out we actually needed to be at point C. Two of my friends made an appearance in the dream, on definitely as themselves, the other cast by whatever third rate casting director my brain employed for nothing more than their enthusiasm (because the character they played most certainly didn’t have the brains my actual friend does).

And just when all seemed lost, the hero arrived to save the day.

Billy Joel!

As played my Michael Keaton.

Seriously.

WTF mind? You couldn’t use the actual celebrity? It’s not like dream him is busy somewhere else. Right?

So, yeah, I woke up right before the (inevitable) big turn around in the brain film, so I was even cheated out of what would surely have been an epic (or epicly bad) grand finale… likely on the level of Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

~sigh~ Here’s hoping there’s more of a budget for tonight’s slumbering entertainment.