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Yesterday, the California court declared same-sex marriage legal; this is a good thing, as a society whose ideals include equality and fairness simply cannot deny same-sex couples access to the respect and security that marriage provides. California is the second state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage, Massachusetts was the first.

Press Conference about the announcement, with some words by Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco (who also handed out marriage licenses in San Francisco a few years ago to gay couples):




Press Release

Joss Whedon's latest project is about a bunch of genetically engineered humans who have their memories wiped after each assignment. Eliza Dushku stars as Echo, one of the Dolls.

Dollhouse Trailer: (Hopefully the video works, it seems as if FOX is going through a lot of effort taking down the trailers, which I believe is a big mistake, as this is definitely a lot of free hype and publicity for a new series)

I'm really surprised that FOX is giving a Joss Whedon show a chance, after it canceled Firefly so quickly.

It appears that Blizzard is having yet another BlizzCon. Still in Anaheim, and tickets will still be $100. While that ticket price sounds steep, it's essentially to pay for the venue, the goodie bags of phat loot and the software developers for not working on their projects and talking about them. For me, BlizzCon is the MOST profitable of the conventions I attend year long; unlike last time, this convention is well past the summer convention season, in October, which means that those cosplayers can also use the costumes for Halloween. Cosplayers take note: the Blizzcon costuming prizes are better than ANY other cosplay masquerade contest in the world -- last year's grand prize was a computer system worth several thousand dollars.

Official BlizzCon 2008 Press Release.

Just the other day, I was talking with littlestar about how Amazon kindly sent me a notice that Absolute Sandman Vol. 3 had a new release date (June 17, 2008) and she asked me whether or not there would be a fourth Volume. It turns out there is a fourth volume, due in November, but available for pre-order now: Absolute Sandman Vol. 4; those interested may want to place an order now, as Amazon is offering a 5% pre-order discount on top of their regular price of 62.37, for a total price of $59.25.

In addition, Subterranean Press also has a special limited edition (numbered $250, lettered $900) of The Graveyard Book featuring illustrations from Dave McKean.

The mass market hardcover of The Graveyard Book features different illustrations (also by Dave McKean), and is much cheaper.

The edition of the book I am most interested in is actually the Bloomsbury children's edition illustrated by Chris Riddell. The Graveyard Book has a special place in my heart, as Gaiman first read a portion of the book at a reading in San Jose in 2006.

Recently at our apartment, we've been using the projector for watching movies and playing video games, but the problem we've had is that the Wii sensor bar is simply too short, and won't reach from the projector to the screen, and so we've had to situate the Wii sensor bar on top of some boxes in the middle of the room. This solution led to the Wii tripwire, , in which anyone attempting to cross the room would snag their leg across the Wii sensor bard cord and take it down, and so after a quick trip to Radio Shack this morning, I made a battery powered sensor bar as a replacement.

Materials:

• 2 High Intensity Infrared LEDs (@$2.39 each)
  
• 1 4 AAA Battery Pack with on/off switch ($2.99)
  
• 1 47-ohm resistor (a pack of 5 for $0.99)
  
• a couple feet of insulated wire (a spool of 50 feet for $5)
  

The Wii sensor bar is simply two groupings of powered infrared LEDs which the Wii remote uses to triangulate its position relative to the screen; as such, a homemade sensor bar will also have two groupings of LEDs. I went ultra cheap and only used 2 LEDs, but it is possible to have more, the Nintendo Wii sensor bar uses 5 on each side, for a total of 10. The reason for this design is to create a bigger LED source for the Wii remote to detect. From my experimentation, the Wii remote seems to use ANY two LED sources to use to triangulate, meaning that if you space the LEDs too far apart, the control feedback of the Wii will not be smooth, because it will attempt to triangulate using the two LED points.

Other notes: IR LEDs can be viewed using a digital camera with a live view screen, and make sure they are wired correctly (on my LEDs, the long end is the positive end, the short end is the ground).

The sensor bar I built is a little bigger than the Nintendo supplied one, and actually looks quite slapped together (it's mounted on a cardboard box lid at the moment). I'll make a more polished sensor bar later, but for now, this works fine.

How to build the bar is actually pretty simple; from the power source, attach the resistor, and then run the LEDs in a series, and then complete the circuit by attaching the ground.

Much to the amusement of everyone around me, I actually wanted to see Speed Racer, even after Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a of 35. I was never a fan of the original cartoon, as I was a bit too young to have ever seen the series in the United States. Unlike Transformers, this childhood cartoon making the transition to live-action keeps much of the source material intact, almost to the detriment of the movie; the antics of Spritle and Chim-Chim will delight young children, but will not be appreciated by adults. Much of this movie is computer generated, and the colors are super saturated, to give the film a quality that is vaguely reminiscent of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The racing in the movie feels like a Super Mario Cart track -- the one known as Rainbow Road, in which there are physics-defying elements to the course. I found myself entertained by the film, and bedazzled by the art direction; but this film is not for everyone. Speed Racer is solidly a children's film and will likely not appeal to those past the age of 12. The major problem of Speed Racer, and probably the major criticism of most film critics is simply that it is too juvenile.

Speed Racer definitely lacks the more sophisticated humor that makes children's films entertaining for adults. Speed Racer is definitely a film that is not to be taken seriously at all, but to be enjoyed just for the pure eye candy.

Go Speed Racer Go Music Video

• A Crushing Issue: How to Destroy Brand-New Cars - WSJ.com
  When the Cougar Ace nearly capsized two years ago, 4703 Mazdas were aboard, and rather than risk them finding their way onto market, Mazda devised a way to massively disassemble the damaged cars.
  (tags: cars mazda cougarace)
• Empire: Features
  50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time... too much current and modern stuff in the list.
  (tags: bestof entertainment film tv television)
• makerfaire.com: Maker Faire
  Maker Faire is this weekend
  (tags: make diy crafts)

The news this morning in the tech world seems to be that Apple has managed to negotiate the same date of release on iTunes as DVD retail release; new titles are 14.99, and older catalog titles are 9.99. Part of the reason this is such a major victory for Apple is that when this was done on the music side, there was a noticeable increase in iTunes sales, and a decline in retail sales of albums. For music, I can understand the appeal; consumers were buying music, ripping it into MP3, and then copying it onto their music player; iTunes managed to save them the work and know-how of putting their music CD into a format their music player could use. For movies, it isn't quite as simple; iTunes Movies aren't a format TiVo or other DVRs understand, and putting a movie onto an iPod takes up a substantial amount of space.

One of the small victories that Apple has won by doing this, of course, is making it easier for consumers to get the latest releases. Apple's rentals business is certainly interesting; most consumers want to pay to own their media, not rent it, and it is especially true for movies, but until Apple can get the AppleTV capturing the living room market, the way the iPod has captured consumers on the go, I just don't see downloadable video replacing DVD sales anytime soon; it may be for this reason that movie studios have gone ahead with this agreement; previously, DVD sales had a 30-45 day head start on iTunes, in order to preserve the revenue stream of DVD sales. I never saw this as much of a problem, as those who download and those who purchase DVDs are two entirely different audiences; the customers who purchase a DVD are different from those customers seeking to download a movie to watch on their computer. Until Apple can get iTunes onto the living room television, iTunes isn't really competition for DVD sales.

Last week, TIME: Nerd World blogger Lev Grossman broke up with Kotaku, giving some awesome reasons for why he's not going to read Kotaku anymore. I haven't looked at Kotaku in months for many of the same reasons; while the writers on Kotaku are really good, they just cover too much stuff that I don't care about.

Which brings me to the two gadget blogs that I once read on a daily basis: Engadget and Gizmodo. As gadget blogs, they tend to cover the same stories, but the editors and writers put different spins on how the news is presented; Engadget tends to present their stories in a much more journalistic style, while Gizmodo news tends to be presented like a bad stand-up comedy routine.

Wired did a story on the rivalry between these two blogs, entitled Gear Blog Rivals Engadget and Gizmodo Turn the Competition Up to 11, ending with the turmoil that Gizmodo caused at this year's CES with the TV-B-Gone remote control. Gizmodo is just too much like gadget news run through a juvenile filter, and I've had enough. This month I've barely touched the Gizmodo feed, letting the numbers pile up, and today, it's unsubscribed from Google reader;

• Why Bother? - The New York Times
  Michael Pollan on environmentalism
  (tags: environment nytimes)