Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Cold Fusion, Star Wars and Jackson

Scientists at UCLA have acheived Cold Fusion, though the process still requires more energy than it actually uses. As this makes for a relatively (read: entirely) inefficient energy production system, they're going to have to tweak it a bit. Still, it's a scientific victory, which, in the tradition of scientific victories, isn't actually useful.

Most news stations are too busy switching between the TOP (which is to say, more unimportant but more watched) stories, involving respectively a whackjob who had decided to stop traffic in LA in the tradition of those that have possession of big white cars, an Alabama woman who may have been kidnapped and killed in Aruba though they haven't actually determined that she was either yet (though investigation seems to point to her actual disappearance...the Aruban government seems to have dropped whatever on earth it was doing to look for this young woman and authorities and the media have been wrong about things like this before). Finally, most of 24 hour news channels is now devoted to staring at a courthouse. It's incredible. Media players, who more recently have decided to play themselves off as not actually in the media (as evidenced by the fact news personalities are grabbing blogs at this moment, have started to talk about how much they don't care about the Jackson trial.

Yes.

They're filling space that could be spent not discussing the Jackson trial by talking about how much they don't care about the Jackson trial, which presents the viewer/listener with the question of why in the hell they should care about the Jackson trial. Then they laugh because everyone still watches.

Yay!

So as not to be hyprocritical, let's move on.

Maddox has taken a blowtorch to Episode III, and it's actually quite funny. Though the plot holes he points out aren't, in fact, holes and the entire review is actually much milder than most, prompting me to believe his heart just wasn't in this one, he does make a few good points. On the other end of the spectrum, I've begun to travel even farther into dorkdom by reading over the philosophy in the Star Wars movies. Nothing like reading an essay on whether or not the young Anakin Skywalker is more or less morally ambiguous than Darth Vader to confirm that you are, in fact, a science major. Incidentally, according to Richard H. Dees, whose entire essay involves moral ambiguity at large in the saga, an interesting subject for a series of movies that is so obvious as to include the good and the bad being called "Light" and "Dark" respectively with little to no middle ground, Anakin as a young Jedi is much less morally ambiguous (his actions in slaugtering the people that have killed his mother, while understandable to the audience and perhaps even evoking sympathy considering his recent loss, are indefensible and establish him as an agent of evil) than Darth Vader (who clearly struggles with the moral implications of killing his master in Return of the Jedi, and though the reasoning behind his action, namely to protect a familly member, is nearly identical to his rampage, the result is infinitely more positive).

But enough with that topic.

The "I have one summer before I start going to grad school and just want to make some money at a shitty job" project continues, with three more applications submitted and one faxed all over the goddamn place. Hopefully, this will work itself out soon.

And, lastly, the Pirates were able to scrape together a win against the AL East leader in an impressive come-from-behind victory. Doumit got his first hit in the majors as well as his first start as catcher, and all is right with the world.

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