Something about the movie that bothered me a bit is the use of the Voigt-Kampff test near the beginning to establish replicants can't feel empathy, but then we keep seeing examples of replicants feeling empathy. I do remember Captain Bryant saying replicants might start to develop their own emotional responses after a a few years (so the 4 year lifespan), but I disliked such a major plot from the book point being tossed away.

Venus. Carbon dioxide.

You're right, let me go back and amend my earlier comment where I say such people have absolutely no control over their weight rather than less contr... oh, I didn't say that. Never mind.

Not to sound pointlessly pedantic, but in some cases, people honestly do not have as much control over being fat as the next person, such as people with thyroid disorder or polycystic ovary syndrome. Although you weren't referring to these kinds of people.

I also agree with this. Frank Frazetta learned to paint with his left hand after a stroke impaired his right.

I played Trader Wars. That was a fun experience for me. I remember a team mate ran out of moves and he wanted to destroy a generally disliked team because it was so aggressive, so this person actually called my house so I would get online and finish what he couldn't do.

Does anyone remember Star Drek? That was a game played from the perspective of the bridge monitor in 3D space. Everything was in ASCII graphics and real-time. A photon torpedo headed your way would be redrawn as a larger and larger group of maybe it was asterisks. There was a bug where you could indicate to use a large negative number for the amount of energy to spend on phasers, which would both let you use a powerful phaser blast and you wouldn't lose energy from your ship. The game had tractor beams, a planet called Blish and a Death Star, only it wasn't out and out called a Death Star. This was either in the late '70s or early '80s. When you created an account for the game (this was on unix, I think), you'd be asked various questions as though going through an application form ("Have you ever been arrested for a felony?") and if you said no, it'd proceed normally, but if you said yes, it'd ask how many times. If you gave some low number, it would tell you to be more careful next time. If you gave a high enough number, it'd say anyone stupid enough to be arrested that many times was too stupid to run a starship, or something like that.

Yeah, it's a little depressing to me. I will curse occasionally (especially alone and in an aggravating traffic condition) but the "Who cares?" attitude bothers me. Like, when I used to hang out on Second Life, someone admitted to being a minor and thus wasn't supposed to be on the main grid but in a place for teenagers, and in response to this, the person she said this to typed out "Holy #^#@%@!" except without the Q*Bert filter. I sighed and the older (twenty-something) kept asking in whispers why, so I explained myself and she had an attitude of, well, they can hear it on so many places, so who cares whether I say it or not?" and in some other online place where a room had a set of guidelines about allowable behavior, someone who would promote the rules as long as they were particular rules she favored used the f-bomb (against the rules) on someone who was a registered minor, who immediately disconnected. I feel that whether it's common in schoolyards is beside the point and I wish strangers around children would care more.

Maybe you would be amused by this Dresden Codak comic. http://dresdencodak.com/2005/11/29/secular-heaven/

I'm glad your bicycle wasn't stolen. One time, the bicycle of a sibling was locked up tightly but someone wrecked the bicycle in such a state, presumably out of spite that it couldn't be stolen.

The coffee part is confusing to me. I live in California and I don't think I have ever seen a cup of coffee at any size costing as much as $4. Maybe the writer meant that people have a tendency to buy the largest possible size of flavored, espresso-based steamed milk drinks, but I'm not sure.

I think the news article is wrong/has outdated information. See http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41848

This sound wrong to me. The last I read was that the two movies would just be the Hobbit, broken into two but with some segments of the book expanded upon. I know there was talk earlier about a non-Hobbit sequel for the 2nd movie, but I don't think that's the way things stand right now unless things have changed again for some bizarre reason. Okay, here's one link: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41848 "Where as many months ago, writers Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh were contemplating the first films as essentially being the Tolkien book, and the second film being a bridge movie between THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Jackson told a select group of online journalists a couple nights ago that that clearly wasn't going to be the case. The two films will be the novel stretched out and supplemented by material from appendices, and other background source material written by Tolkien."