Blackmoor Vituperative

According to Reporters Without Borders, Microsoft (along with Yahoo, Cisco, and Google — et tu, Google?) is helping the Chinese government oppress its people.

“Reporters Without Borders has been able to check that, as reported by several news agencies, when a Chinese blogger attempts to post a message containing terms such as “democracy”, “Dalai Lama”, “Falungong”, “4 June” (the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), “China + corruption”, or “human rights”, a warning displays saying, ‘This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression.’

Generally, “subversive” messages are displayed on Chinese-hosted forums and blogs but the banned words are automatically replaced with blank spaces.

The Chinese version of the MSN portal, along with the blog tool, were launched as a joint venture with a local state-controlled company, Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd (SAIL).”

Okay, so Microsoft is helping Big Brother oppress the people by censoring what they may read and write. So? That’s nothing new. Microsoft has always been happy to get into bed with the government, and use as much power as the law will let it get away with (such as using the police in Kenya and Brazil to prevent students from studying its code, or preventing competitors from starting new companies). I think it’s only natural that Microsoft would want to get on the good side of one of the most successful dictatorships on the planet.

Jason And The Argonauts was last night’s installment of the Doctor Madblood Presents. Ray Harryhausen considered it his best film. Personally, I prefer the various Sinbad movies, but it was still a lot of fun. Everyone talks about the skeletons, but for me the best scene was with Talos, the enormous bronze statue. The folks at Madblood Manor haven’t picked the movie for the next installment yet. Keep an eye on the NARO Expanded Cinema (757-625-6276; 1507 Colley Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517) for more information.

It’s that time again: Fantasmo Cult Explosion at the Chesapeake Central Library:

Coming July 1st – Chesapeake Central Library, 298 Cedar Road – Fantasmo Episode 4: The Films of Tobe Hooper

While the name Tobe Hooper may not be as familiar as those of George A. Romero, John Carpenter, or Wes Craven, he still ranks as one of the most influential horror directors of all-time. While the casual viewer will be familiar with his more prominent films, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, Hooper was responsible for a number of innovative horror and sci-fi movies during the 1980’s. Although a string of high-profile box-office misfires eventually relegated this great director to working on straight-to-video obscurities, Team Fantasmo invites you to spend an evening discovering two of this underappreciated maverick’s finest epics! In addition to the spectacle of seeing two classic Hooper films on the big screen, Team Fantasmo is also pleased to welcome as guest host John Kenneth Muir. Mr. Muir is the author of THE definitive text on Tobe Hooper, Eaten Alive At A Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper.

The evening’s schedule is as follows:

7:00 p.m. – Meet the Author & Book Signing

7:30 p.m. – Author Talk

8:30 p.m. – The Funhouse (1981) – Team Fantasmo’s favorite Tobe Hooper film. Four teens decide to spend the night in a traveling carnival’s funhouse. Bad idea. This funhouse just happens to be inhabited by a deranged, mutant killer (isn’t that always the way). Hooper injects the 80’s slasher genre with a dose of creativity and atmosphere, creating one fun and unique rollercoaster of a movie! (Note: This film is Rated R and may be inappropriate for our younger Fantasmo fans).

10:30 p.m. – Invaders From Mars (1986) – Our second feature is a remake of the 1953 alien invasion classic . . . Tobe Hooper style. Featuring a great B-movie cast and top notch effects from John Dykstra (Star Wars) and Stan Winston (Jurassic Park), this update is non-stop action from beginning to end. Although it bombed at the box office in the wake of James Cameron’s Aliens, this underappreciated classic was meant for the big screen! Don’t miss this rare chance to see it as it was meant to be seen! Rated PG.

Be sure to join us for what promises to be a very special evening – if you attend one Fantasmo this year, make this that Fantasmo! See you on July 1st!

Tavmjong Bah is writing A Guide To Inkscape. Inkscape, in case you did not know, is an excellent open source drawing tool with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw, which uses the W3C standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG).

Check it out.

There’s a really good article by Peter Coffee in this week’s issue of eWeek. How do you do quality control when you are manufacturing something that’s as small as you can build something out of atoms?

I’m not in the mood for another convertible (yet), but if I was, this is what I would buy: the Pontiac Solstice. Not only is this the first car Pontiac has made in the last decade or two that I don’t consider butt-ugly, but it’s the sleekest, sexiest roadster I know of that’s available in the USA for under $50,000 (the MSRP for the Solstice is around $20,000). It’s a hell of a lot prettier than the Chrysler Crossfire, that’s for sure.

As I said, I’m not in the mood for a convertible again. Not yet, anyway. I’m currently very pleased with my 2003 Tiburon V6 GT (in black, naturally). I’ll probably drive that until it starts needing maintenance more than once every six months. If you’re looking for a Tiburon, I highly recommend Laurel Hyundai, in Laurel, Maryland. I got a great deal (around $3,000 less than I would have paid in Virginia Beach), they were very helpful, and they don’t stick ugly dealer stickers on the back of the car up there like they do here in Virginia.

I found a great site which walks you step by step through setting up Fedora Core 3: Fedora Core 3 Installation Notes. This is the clearest, most complete walkthrough I have seen so far. Well done, Stanton Finley, whoever you are.

While I’m at it, here’s a very helpful how-to for setting up a Linux server on a home network to connect to your broadband provider’s SMTP server. Marvelous!

Hootie-hoo! I just received the MST3K Collection Volume 7 from Deep Discount DVD. There are some great episodes on this one:

• Hercules Unchained
• Hercules Against The Moon Men
• Prince Of Space
• The Killer Shrews

Of course, I have all of these on DVD already, thanks to the MST3K Digital Archive Project, but the quality on these Rhino DVDs is much higher. I’ll definitely keep buying the Rhino DVDs as long as they keep releasing them (and hopefully the next generation of DVD players will still play them!). Aside from the quality of the movies themselves, the packaging on these Rhino sets is just awesome. Whoever designs these things obviously has a lot of fun doing it, and I appreciate the effort.

Here’s a factoid for you: my Creative Zen Touch MP3 player has 40GB of storage. In the year 1956, that would equate to a stack of punch cards roughly 56 miles tall.

Windows patching: cheaper than open source?

Excerpt: “And if you believe that, Microsoft has a nice bridge in Brooklyn it would like to sell you.”