Obfuscated code sigs are terribly passe. I'm thinking of changing it to something my daughter said at the weekend, which pleased me in a Rugrats meets Star Trek (the original series) kind of way.

"NO WEDGIE I"

Old sig was

--

non est jam dicere, ut populus sic sacerdos, quia nec sic populus ut sacerdos - St. Bernard

New sig is:

--

int x=354583890,y=43836;main(){putchar(x);x>>=y&7;y>>=3;y ?main():exit(0);}

Prior art on Mickey Mouse

The BBC has this story about a 700 year old fresco in Austria that is remarkably similar to Mickey Mouse. Even under current law, that copyright would have expired long ago.

After my Star Wars review gets posted I'll take down the current sig:

Have you seen <A HREF="http://slashdot.org/~Rupert/journal/15829">Attack of the Clones on an IMAX screen?</A>

and replacing it with this one, which I saw quoted in Francis Bacon's essay "On Atheism":

non est jam dicere, ut populus sic sacerdos, quia nec sic populus ut sacerdos - St. Bernard

Translation in an anonymous reply to this journal entry, so keep your threshold high and you won't spoil your own translation efforts.

I submitted this as a /. story, but I'm sure it'll be rejected.

Since it was my wife's birthday today, last night I took her to see Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones: IMAX edition. Notwithstanding the overuse of colons, this is a movie worth seeing, even if you think you already saw the movie.

If you haven't already seen AotC, you no doubt have your reasons, and there isn't anything in this edition to make you change your mind. Likewise, the plot still has gaping holes and Anakin is still moody, so if those were enough to make you hate this movie, you won't want to see it again. The action sequences gain little from the new presentation, as objects move too fast across the large screen to follow.

On the other hand, if you want to see the pores in Natalie Portman's skin, or the individual hairs in Christopher Lee's beard, this is the movie you've been waiting for. I suspect that some time was spent re-rendering the digital characters. Yoda, Wattoo and Jex Dexter stood out in close up, looking more real than the human actors.

Some scenes were cut from this edition. Some I didn't miss, such as Ani and Amidala frolicking in the meadow with the giant bed bugs. Others, such as almost all the scenes in Palpatine's office, and many of the Jedi Council made it even harder to follow what was going on.

You might be wondering where you can see the movie.

Small Planet Discovered! (Space/Articles)

The BBC is reporting that a new method of planet detection involving changes in a stars dust cloud has identified a planet with one tenth of Jupiters mass and orbiting Epsilon Eridani once every 280 years. It's too far out to be the planet Vulcan, but Epsilon Eridani now has two known planets (story about the first one) - could there be more?

#import "StandardDisclaimer.dll"

Old sig was:

Jim Ramstad
Now maybe he'll take spam seriously.

It hasn't been rejected yet!

Basically this link to a downloadable QT Harry Potter trailer. Also at \\jadnt\lizards\hp2_trlf-5_qt_300.mov for the bandwidth conscious.

Google turns 4

Everyone's favourite search engine is apparently four years old today. There's no article, but the Google Doodle drops some heavy hints. It's amazing how fast a company can grow to dominate its industry.

Greek Gaming Fiasco Continues

According to an article at Ananova, a Greek appeals court has reinstated the case against two cybercafe owners accused under the new law that bans all computer games. Slashdot carried news of the earlier case here.

Quote from today's Pioneer Press that I quite liked.

"There is Little League in hell, and your child is not playing." - Tom Powers

TIPS got you down? Now Brad Templeton helps you fight back with TIPS-TIPS, where you can enter the names of people you suspect of being an informant. The Register has the story here.

Second Law of Thermodynamics falsified

The BBC is reporting that scientists at the Australian National University have conducted an experiment in which the entropy of a closed system decreases. According to the article, the finding has implications for nanotechnology - the design and construction of molecular machines. They may not work as expected.

The Security Scam

There's a good report over at The Register of Gweeds' presentation at H2K2. He exposes some of the hacker-pimping going on on BugTraq, and the way security companies drive up demand for their product.

According to this article at the Beeb, the US Dollar has reached parity with the Euro and is still falling. Next milestone: the Canadian Dollar.