IMAX Censors Evolution

This is great - now the fundies are demanding evolution not be presented at museums. That's right: a number of IMAX theaters (mostly in the South) are refusing to run movies that hold any mention of evolution, the Big Bang, and anything else that runs counter to their beliefs (hopefully they believe the Earth is round and revolves around the sun).

Hyman Field, who as a science foundation official had a role in the financing of "Volcanoes," said he understood that theaters must be responsive to their audiences. But Dr. Field he said he was "furious" that a science museum would decide not to show a scientifically accurate documentary like "Volcanoes" because it mentioned evolution.

"It's very alarming," he said, "all of this pressure being put on a lot of the public institutions by the fundamentalists."

What's the most disturbing about this is the fact that science centers are making this decision. Can you imagine what the fundies would do if scientists tried to forbid them to mention creationism in their churches?

Holy Crap - Fish Dudes!

I confess to a soft spot in my heart for H.P. Lovecraft and his histrionic tales of Cthulu and pals, so this chance to travel to doomed Innsmouth via the XBox is a no-brainer for me. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth lets you assume the role of a P.I. investigating a missing persons case, only to stumble across a dark secret in a secluded fishing village.

Of course, I already know the plot, but it still looks like fun!

Tivo Dodges A Bullet

Well, beleaguered DVR pioneer Tivo might be out of the woods. Today, an announced partnership with Comcast sent Tivo shares climbing. This could be a sweetheart deal for Tivo after being dumped by DirecTv - Comcast has a much larger customer base. Hopefully this will also lead to HD Tivo development - Comcast would be kind of stupid if they didn't.

Daily Show Archive

Now this is why the interweb was invented: someone wrote a script for all the Daily Show clips from Comedy Central's site and streamlined it for easy access. Let the viewing begin!

South Park Studio 2.0

An update to the incredibly addicting South Park create-a-character site. More stuff, more backgrounds, more ways to waste time!

PSP Crap On The Way

Brace yourself (and your wallets) - official 3rd party stuff is coming soon for Sony's upcoming Playstation Portable U.S. release. Logitech has announced new products for the PSP including a hard case, powered speakers, and custom earphones. Let the accessories begin!

MGM vs. Grokster

Your consumer rights will be decided very soon by the Supreme Court - March 29th is the court date for the contentious MGM vs. Grokster case. If you haven't been following this, it's essentially the entertainment industry's last-ditch, no holds barred attempt to destroy peer to peer technology once and for all. Very informative article in today's Technology Review.

Another Mini/Car Installation

Here's a sweet Mac Mini car installation in a Volkswagon GTi, complete with Firewire/USB hubs, an Alpine deck, touchscreen and an iPod dock. Really professional installation. I'm always amazed at someone who isn't afraid to dissasemble complicated electronics. Nice job!

The same guy also came up with a solid iPod dock for an Infinity M45. Bonus points!

Still Posting

Sorry about the slim postings this week - I've been sick, and haven't felt like posting much. I'm feeling better, so back to it.

Artificial Muscles

It's not exactly Big Blue vs. Kasparov, but researchers from around the globe are getting ready to test artificial muscles in an arm-wrestling contest against a human opponent. Artificial muscles are pretty cool - they're basically stretchy polymers which expand and contract via electric current.

The possibilities for electric muscle are straight out of sci-fi: working replacement limbs, robotics, vehicles with legs instead of wheels for planetary exploration. And of course, killbots.

Sony Shakeup

Sony's board of directors has named the first non-Japanese leader in the company's history. British executive Howard Stringer will be the first foreigner to head the company, who has always gone with Japanese execs. Kudos, Howard!

However, don't look to Sony to reverse it's disastrous handling of home electronics just yet:

Stringer's election is expected to lead to more cooperation between Sony's disparate electronics and entertainment divisions. The company has been trying to take advantage of its position as one of the leading companies in the entertainment and electronics industries--getting its music and movies onto its gadgets. However, that strategy has been slow in developing.

Stringer is expected to push that strategy harder.

"Without content, most devices are junk," Stringer said in late January.

So, it sounds like business as usual - the media arm will keep telling the electronics arm what to do, and Sony will keep falling behind in the home electronics market. Apples got nothing to worry about.

Martin Denny, 1911 - 2005

The king of lounge music passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 94. In Hawaii, naturally.

Let's everyone hoist a Zombie in his honor.

Evolution TV

Well, this is Mac day - all kinds of neato stuff for my favorite OS. This time it's Evolution TV, a DVR solution for the Mac. Unlike El Gato's EyeTv, the Evolution records tv shows directly to either MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or DivX formats. This allows you to drop your shows directly into iMovie to edit out commercials (or overdub American Idol with 60's novelty songs), or copy them in DivX to play on your laptop without a lot of conversion.

It's also cheaper than EyeTv ($279 for Evolution vs. $329 for EyeTv) and features iCal integration for scheduled rercording. Nice!

Even More Mac Mini Madness

Yes, that's OS X running on the Pioneer touchscreen deck in this guy's Lexus. A Mac mini in the dash, complete with Bluetooth, WiFi, and a Firewire/USB hub. Damn! Damn!!!

Stream Any Audio With AirFoil

Rogue Amoeba Software is offering AirFoil, software that lets you stream audio from any application over Apple's Airport Express, instead of just iTunes. Mac only at the moment. Of course, there isn't a whole lot of audio I'd consider streaming besides iTunes, but you can now use RealPlayer, Safari, Quicktime, etc.

Rouge Amoeba makes excellent audio hacks for Mac OS X, their best being Audio Hijack Pro, which allows you to record audio from any application (including internet streams and DVD audio). They're a swell indie software company!