a big day in Iraq

After six years, it looks like we’re finally seeing an end (or the beginning of an end) to the occupation of Iraq. US forces aren’t exactly leaving the country, but they’re pulling out of the cities, lowering their profile considerably, and turning over most authority to the Iraqi government.
The response from Iraqis is jubilant; today [...]

Oh, The Bitter-Tweet Irony

From “Jackson dies, almost takes internet with him” at CNN last week:

How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it’s just one — if that one is Michael Jackson. The biggest showbiz story of the year saw the troubled star take a good slice of the [...]

sci-fi film classics and the Bechdel test

I’ve been having some fun thinking about the Bechdel test lately, specifically how many of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy films would pass it. To pass the test a movie must (a) have two women in it who (b) talk to each other (c) about something other than a man.

on Twitter and national security

How did Twitter become crucial infrastructure? Seriously, wasn’t it just a month or two ago that Ashton Kutcher and Oprah threatened to drain all possible credibility out of the service? Wasn’t there much wailing and gnashing of teeth? So how did we get from there to the state department asking Twitter to delay a maintenance [...]

Scrippet (you know, for script snippets)

This is a test of the Scrippet plugin for Wordpress, which would help me render bits of scripts and screenplays and such. I’ll be tweaking this until it looks OK.

INT. RESEARCH OFFICE – DAY
SMITH stands next to BILLY, who is seated at his desk. Billy hands him a fat folder.
BILLY
I don’t even think you’ll need [...]

in defense of the green screen (and perhaps killing it)

Lee shared this article and photo from Gizmodo today, and it resonates:

On the left, Lucas surrounded by a ton of stuff from the first Star Wars trilogy, which ended with 1983’s Return of the Jedi. On the right, Lucas surrounded by the only object that mattered in his second Star Wars trilogy, finishing with 2005’s [...]