That the Internet is a big, scary place is hardly worth mentioning. For every respectable site, there are three or four seedy places that you wouldn't want to be seen surfing by relatives. While LiveJournal has a reputation as an angst-fest, there are many individuals using the power of self-publishing to impressive ends. Every once in a while, one of those self-publishers even moves beyond the confines of the electronic medium to the world of dead-tree publishing. Movies in Fifteen Minutes (M15M) is just such a project, born on the Internet to high acclaim, with the core idea transferred extremely successfully to a traditional book format. Read on for my impressions of the only book on the market today to feature a hilarious version of Braveheart's evisceration scene. Good times.

aicrules writes "Yahoo news is reporting that the great works of literature often read and discussed by the brighter of our up-and-comers could be the latest victim of reaching the lowest common denominator at the potential expense of everyone. The article describes the efforts of Dot Mobile to make such literary masterpieces as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet more accessible. From the article, 'We are confident that our version of 'text' books will genuinely help thousands of students remember key plots and quotes, and raise up educational standards rather than decrease levels of literacy,'"

Press the Buttons has up a look at the Nintendo game comics that were published in the early 90s. He includes some scans of the truly excellent writing and storytelling that could be found in those four color masterpieces. From the article: "Five series of comics were published: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Captain N: The Game Master, Game Boy, and the compilation series Nintendo Comics System that consisted of reprints of stories from the other comics. Sold in limited quantities in comic book shops and an occasional K-Mart, the Nintendo comics never took the world by storm and today are mostly forgotten. When I was in the second grade my father would drive me to the local comic book shop each month so I could buy the latest issues."

PizzaFace writes "Saturn V: The rocket that took man to the moon remains a totem of its time and a magnificent memento of youthful superpower. Yet Slashdot reported a year ago on the neglect suffered by the Saturn V rockets that were not launched into space. Some progress is being made toward preserving these awesome vehicles. The Kennedy Space Center has already brought its Saturn in from the rain; Houston and Huntsville are putting shelters up this year and working on funding for restoration and more permanent indoor exhibits. These gigantic masterpieces of 20th century engineering deserve a visit - maybe a pilgrimage."

Michael Jennings writes: "Here is a review of the Game On exhibition that is on at the Barbican centre in London, and which will tour Japan and the US in 2003." Here are two previous mentions of the exhibit. Below are Michael's detailed impressions of the exhibit.

Danny Yee writes with the perfect background reading (once you've finished the Tolkein books, of course) before checking out the new LoTR movie: "For something completely different, reviews of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf. Essential background reading for serious Tolkien fanatics! You might also want to check out my other medieval literature reviews."

If you need to escape Hype Sunday, or even if you don't, go see Shadow Of The Vampire.The odd and the slightly twisted will go nuts over this film by E. Elias Merhige. William Dafoe is astounding as the vampire Count Orlock, and John Malkovich is his wonderful icky and obsessive self as the director whose only moral value is getting his film made at any cost. Spoilage warning: plot is discussed, no endings. A brief and useful Nosferatu primer is included, free of charge.

There's almost no political discussion offline about the fuzzy boundaries between human and other "lifeforms" -- clones, cyborgs, mutants, AI. That topic has mostly fallen to Hollywood, which has taken up the issue in a series of movies -- Blade Runner, Gattaca, The Matrix, X-Men. Some of these movies are masterpieces. Some, like "The Sixth Day" are less ambitious. They are just entertaining. (Note: As some of you have noticed, we're doing a regular Sunday tech culture column devoted to certain movies, TV programs, music and books with tech themes.)

Rick Moen writes "Some very sad news: Nick Petreley's good-beyond-hope magazine NC World has folded, as you can read on the InfoWorld site. While the NC World site is still up, do browse its simply amazing series of articles on thin-client computing, and the merits of the NT/Hydra/Citrix/WinTerminal kludge versus open-source and *ix-based alternatives. These are masterpieces of analysis and explanation. Let's hope that these very talented people (the NC World staff) land on their feet somewhere where they can, once again, show the trade mags how to do it competently and with integrity. " Hey Nick! Want a job? The pay is terrible but at least the hours are bad *grin*. Seriously, good mag. I'll miss it.