Disney Remaking Tron

Disney Remaking Tron

Disney has hired screenwriters Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal to fashion a remake of Tron, the 1982 film about a computer programmer who gets sucked into the parallel world of a computer program, Variety reported.

The original movie, written and directed by Steven Lisberger, was considered ahead of its time. Klugman and Sterntha (Warrior) feel that the world has caught up with Lisberger's original concept, making it ripe for redo, the trade paper reported.

Sternthal told the trade paper that the new conceit is that the computer programmer gets trapped in a cyberworld, so that the film can utilize the Internet.

Bout damn time!

Tera Bots

* The TERA SECURITY — This one’s a security bot designed to keep an eye on things around the house, it can alert you if there’s a break-in or a fire in your home.
* The TERA LIFE — Gotta love a lifestyle bot, this one has a breathalyzer, a body thermometer, and a body fat analyzer and can automatically contact your doctor or call emergency services if you’re in need of immediate medical attention.
* TERA AV — Not sure why you’d want your DVD player or stereo that’s able to wander off of its own accord, but the voice-controllable TERA AV can play DVDs and CDs that you pop into its mouth, and also has a built-in projector, a hard drive, and speakers.

Can you believe they are marketing these to kids? Hell, I want 'em! Well, with a different casing anyway.

Vibrating Soap

Vibrating Soap from I Want One Of Those

This absurd, but nevertheless essential, piece of bathroom paraphernalia, is a marvel of ingenuity. Quite simply it's a bar of soap that vibrates (quite vigorously!) when lifted from its soap dish. Buried deep inside the blueberry scented soap is a little motor that whirrs away, turning a seemingly innocent bar of soap into an indispensable bath toy. When you've finished with this 'auto-wash' (or whatever) soap, simply pop it back on its dish and it'll stop jigging about all over the place.

Well, I think this one explains itself.

Pentagon Faults Iran Raid Report

Yahoo! News - Pentagon Faults Iran Raid Report

"The Iranian regime's apparent nuclear ambitions and its demonstrated support for terrorist organizations is a global challenge that deserves much more serious treatment than Seymour Hersh provides in the New Yorker article titled "The Coming Wars," the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, said in a statement.
....
Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."

Not exactly the forceful denial I was looking for. I guess the strategy is most Americans won't notice it's only one letter different. Granted it is a better target than Iraq. None of that embarrassing WMD mishaps. But, seeing as we don't have enough troops to deal with the Iraq mess, maybe starting another war isn't the best idea. Anyone remember that post on the draft?

Robosapien™ V2 – Bigger, Smarter and more fun

What a guy! Today Wowwee Robotics division gave us a first peek at Robosapien 2. As promised by Mark Tilden, Robosapien’s creator, the new version has some great new features including much more agility, improved ability to talk and interact with others, and a fun new laser tracking feature. Like it’s the original Robosapien the Robosapien V2 is destined to be a hit toy for 2005.

Well, I guess we know what Baa wants for next christmas....

Speed Up Ffirefox on Broadband

speed up firefox - hack a day - www.hackaday.com

forevergeek.com has a useful guide on speeding up firefox for broadband users. basically after getting to the hidden config settings you set the browser to request more data that it usually does.

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”'

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages MUCH faster now!

Haven't tried this yet, but looks like it would work. I thought Firefox was faster than IE anyway. Can't wait to see the effect.

To Protect and Intrude

Yahoo! News - To Protect and Intrude

SAN DIEGO -- John Phillips peered down at the computer screen. Something didn't look quite right. It was 9:11 a.m. on the West Coast, or just past noon in the East, and all the bus drivers were supposed to be on break. The map of the District of Columbia showed hundreds of red blips representing vehicles that had been parked for more than an hour. But then there was one black dot, a lone bus, moving rapidly in the northwestern quadrant of the city.

More useful stalker tools for the masses.

Canadian Researcher Invents New Solar Cell

Yahoo! News - Canadian Researcher Invents New Solar Cell

Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented a flexible plastic solar cell that is said to be five times more efficient than current methods in converting energy from the sun into electrical energy.
Team leader Ted Sargent, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, said the cell harnesses infrared light from the sun and can form a flexible film on the surface of cloth, paper or other materials.
And the film can turn 30 percent of the sun's power into usable electrical energy -- a far better performance than the 6 percent gleaned from the best plastic solar cells now in use.

30% efficiency is prettty damn good. I'm a little confused about the Canadian part though. I thought they were all lumberjacks or something...

Faster Speeds for Road Runner

Check out the email I recieved from Road Runner last night. And yes, it's true. I hit 5.03 mbits last night.

From: Bright House Networks [tampabay.infomail@mybrighthouse.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:55 PM
To:
Subject: Faster Speeds for Road Runner

Dear Road Runner Customer,

We're writing to let you know that we've made exciting enhancements to your Road Runner High Speed Online service!

We thought 3 Mbps (megabits per second) was fast, but we've made it even faster. We have upgraded your service at no additional charge to you! You can now reach download speeds of up to 5 Mbps. Download files over 100 times faster than dial-up and up to three times as fast as standard DSL. Now that's fast! This dose of lightning lets you surf the web, download music and photos, and receive email attachments faster than ever before.

We hope you enjoy your enhanced Road Runner service, and thank you for making your house a bright house.


Sincerely,

Bright House Networks Customer Service

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