Batman Begins, Desktop Apollo, Headless Hillbilly, Tom Coker Interview, Jet-Propulsion Accessibility, Satanic Mickey 8/30/04

8/30/2004

Batman: A nice, tidy article in the Telegraph this weekend offers up a review of what we know about the Batman production, as well as a few new Chris Nolan quotes. The biggest wildcard for me has been how Katie Holmes will integrate with this British, somewhat older cast... but when I think about it, I always imagine her as the squirmy doe-eyed Dawson's Creek girl, but every time I've seen her in the last few years, I'm reminded that, as happens eventually with all carbon-based life forms, "she all growed up!"

UK's Telegraph

PS no, that's not racy new footage of Bruce Wayne making the moves on an unsuspecting Chloe Sevigny... it's from American Psycho... but still, take out the post-modernist filter on 80's excess, the music, the spine removal, the dancing, and it's almost the same premise.

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Geek Out Your Desktop, Space-Cadet:

"AGC" stands for Apollo Guidance Computer. The AGC was the principal onboard computer for NASA's Apollo missions, including all of the lunar landings. Both the Command Module (CM) and the Lunar Module (LM) had AGCs, so two AGCs were used on most of the Apollo missions, but with differing software. The computer and its software were developed at MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, also known as Draper Labs.

The "block II" AGC, employing the AGC4 instruction set, is the particular computer model in which we're interested. The block II AGC was used not only on Apollo 7 through Apollo 17 (including all actual lunar landings), but also on three Skylab missions, on the Apollo-Soyuz test mission, and on a fly-by-wire research project using F-8 aircraft. Nevertheless, only 57 AGCs were constructed---and 138 display-keyboard units (DSKYs) for them---and all of the ones installed in the Lunar Modules were not returned to the Earth---so they are definitely collector's items."

This one runs on your desktop. Unfortunately, no "beep bebooop!" spacey mission control sounds... but geek away.

Build it, and they WONT come...

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Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk, Especially When They're Hanging Out of the Side of the Hillbilly Pickup Truck:

"A drunken driver hit a telephone pole support wire that decapitated his passenger, then drove 12 miles home and slept in his bloody clothes, leaving the headless body in his truck, police said.

A neighbor walking with his young daughter Sunday morning discovered Daniel Brohm's headless corpse in the truck in John Kemper Hutcherson's driveway and called authorities, said Cpl. Dana Pierce, county police spokesman.

Officers found Hutcherson asleep inside his home. He was visibly drunk and his clothes were bloody, authorities said. They later found Brohm's severed head at the crash site."

More to be found here.

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Batman in Monolith- Tom Coker Interview: Newsarama has posted a nice interview with artist Tom Coker (Blood and Water) on his recent run on DC's Monolith, with a certain scallop-gloved, guest. We here at M+R are looking forward to this Batman: Year One-worthy treatment of the material. I saw the promo pieces and immediately thought of Lee Bermejo's work on the Batman/Deathblow team-up mini... and lo, it is referenced herein.

Plus, you know, it's inky, which means quality.

More to be found Newsarama: Tom Coker.

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Wheelchair Reaches Mach 0.0000056:

"Giuseppe Cannella had a big surprise for his mother-in-law when he put a jet engine on the back of her wheelchair."

Thanks to The Beat for this lunacy.

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And for this Lunacy as well: Disneyland run by Satan:

"Writing for the LA TIMES, law professor Jonathan Turley finds Satanic influences at Disneyland.
There were other portents. Who but the biblical Beast would sell bottled water in August in Anaheim for $2.75 each? And the surveillance — I've heard there are more security cameras at Disneyland than at the Pentagon. When my wife accidentally spilled a drop of milk in the lobby of our hotel, I bent down to wipe it up only to suddenly see the feet of a maid. She had a towel at the ready. We slowly backed away. John Ashcroft might want a lifetime Disneyland pass: thousands of people under constant watch, rapid disappearances of troublemakers "backstage" and mandated smiling from all employees.
On his last day, my brother, Chris, a thoroughly logical architect from Chicago, went to the front desk to note that he had been mistakenly charged $18 for six bottles of water from the refrigerator in his room. The cast member behind the counter calmly assured him that the charge was correct because the bottles had been moved; a sensor on each bottle immediately registered the shift on Disneyland's computer system. (It turns out that a leftover pizza, pushed into the fridge, was the culprit.)
"I guess it must be a lot of trouble keeping track of things in hundreds of rooms," Chris said.
"No, it is no trouble at all," came the reply."

So says...Wrongrobot!
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