Here.

From CNN. Pretty cute!

Here is a good article on student loan consolidations. I recently attended a seminar by Sally Mae (the feds student loan program), urging us to consolidate. I did. Here's why. I have stafford loans, which are a variable rate. I happened to get them for a fairly low interest rate. By consolidating, they'll take the weighted average of the loans as they are now, instead of after teh grace period (July 1st) and after the new rates kick in. It works out to about a 2.5% savings. However, there are things they don't tell you, such as since it's a variable rate, it can also decrease too.

I think this is the data on the 3-month T-bill, which loans are tied to. Seems like it's all over the place, but about 2 years ago it was the lowest rate ever. Which means if you borrowed money 2 years ago, then you got a great rate. But if you consolidated 2 years ago, it doesn't matter, because consolidation is based on the weighted average of the interest rates of your loans. Anyway i guess the bottom lin e is that if interest rates of your loans are low, then it makes sense to consolidate before your grace period ends. But for some reason bankers really really like fixed rate loans, i guess it's the predictability of them. People like them too. But every time i shopped for loans, i've always been strongly encouraged to get a fixed rate loan.

Anyway you learn something new every day.

This time by politician who want to line the pockets of network providers. My view is that i am already paying alot for the privledge of DSL service, i should be able to access all of the internet. If websites have to pay a fee to internet providers (an additional fee), then content will be certainly restricted. This is certainly bad news for the free flow of information.

Official race picts are here:

Some point soon i'll have my disposable camera developed and post some of those.

From Mike Strika's column

After all, Ashlee Simpson keeps "singing," "A Million Little Pieces" keeps selling, Barry Bonds keeps hitting home runs despite being clouded in a steroids controversy, Paris Hilton became a household name after a sex tape was plastered all over the Internet, Pete Rose never admitted he gambled on baseball until he had a book to sell, President Clinton "did not have sexual relations with that woman," "Lost" star Michelle Rodriguez chooses five days in jail over 200 hours of community service for her DUI conviction, Jayson Blair got a book deal after he was fired, and, and, and.

Viswanathan will learn a lesson from this, but the lesson she'll learn is any publicity is good publicity, and the more controversy surrounding her, the more money she'll make.

One could wring ones hands abuot the 'youth of today' not taking responsibility. Or one could point to our wonderful role models ie Bill Clinton, Ken Lay, Duke Cunningham, etc. I guess my point is that young people learn their ethical behavior from older people i.e. 'adults'. And when these adults have lapses, the youth don't know how to behave. When all this stuff (mentioned above) works and makes these 'stars' money, then that's behavior reinforcement.

Same thing in science; how could a young scientist have ethics if their advisor has none? Fortunately for us we were mandated to take an ethics course, something our advisors never had. So I think the young scientists will have stronger ethics than the older scientists. Plus we haev less incentive to cheat and lie, since it won't gain us much (except expulsion if we get caught). The outrageous claims are quickly investigated and either debunked or supported. In science you can pretty much tell if something is legit or not; since a bunch of people tend to get reinforcing data.

Is here. This time he's exploring the isreali/arab relationships while in Isreal. Really good stuff, something you won't find on any media source in the US.

At popular mechanics. It's pretty good, offering a good amount of data on each alternative. Ethanol is #1 as most likely to suceed gas. The PM people point out its emission neutral, due to the very simple formula CO2+H2O = glucose+O2. The glucose is then converted to ethanol by yeast fermentation, and burning releases the CO2 into the atmosphere. They ignore the ineffiency of these processes, but the point is that it will release far less CO2 than gas.

Interesting legal background on bikes as vehicles. The gist is that anyone who says bikes don't belong on the road are against specific legislation which says exactly that.

Another concept to extend fuel effiency is to produce a battery/gas hybrid vehicle. Such vehicles are already on the market, the Toyota Prius being the best example (why weren't american companies the first to figure out hybrids?). Some people have modified their cars to have more batteries and be plug-in rechargable at night; this allows for about 20-40 miles at a high fuel effiency (80 mpg), provided you plug in every night. Seems like a good deal for daily commuting. And after 20 miles, you would get about 44 mpg which is the typical Prius highway effiency. Seems like a good idea!

Of course the car mfrs are fighting this idea; claiming that people are too stupid to figure out that some cars should be plugged in, and some don't have to. Further they think that the public is not willing to go through the hassle of plugging in. If i were to save $10-$20 a week by plugging in, i would do it readily, assuming I actually had a place i could plug my car in (I don't right now).

Bush seems to be doing 'something' about the issue, as his approval rate drops to one in three.

The president said Democrats in the past have urged higher taxes on fuel and price caps to control fuel expenses, but he said neither approach works. Instead, he called for increased conservation, an expansion of domestic production and increased use of alternative fuels like ethanol.

Bush said high energy prices are disturbing.

"Our addiction to oil is a matter of national security concerns," the president said in a speech to the Renewable Fuels Association, which advocates alternate energy sources. "After all, today we get about 60 percent of our oil from foreign countries. That's up from 20 years ago, where about 25 percent of our oil came from foreign countries."

Seems to be the right balance of the appearance of doing something and not being too involved in the market. In the long term, market forces should promote a gas alternative, as the price of gas becomes too expensive to be used.

On the other hand, high gas prices promote a switch in consumer lifestyle, which will probably be the biggest impact to curb prices. If we all dropped consumption by 5%, there would be a corresponding decrease in gas prices.

But clearly it is past time to invest in other energy sources for cars, and the bush admin has done very little to promote increased fuel efficiency or fuel alternatives. Hydrogen fuel is nice, but the energy to make hydrogen has to come from somewhere. Ethanol is better, it's renewable and clean burning, and the quantities are theoretically unlimited. Also we have a large amount of corn that can be used for ethanol. Issues of supply and transport exist however. See here for some of them. See here for some advantages of ethanol. I think the greenhouse gas emission decrease may be more than we think; I am not sure if the amoutn of CO2 consumed by corn plants is taken into the equation.

Nice article on it here. It jibs with pretty much everything I've heard and read and done. Especially the 'do not experiment with strange foods during rides', but that's hard to do when they have rest stops with strange things like coke, tea, and wierd goos and bars. Also the gatoraid is powdered and i had a hard time handling that (versus the normal stuff in stores).

Well, its done, i'm home. Not too much to talk about. I went with the GE/BikeBarn team. It was an 'okay' experience, but just that. We had to get up at 4 am on both Sat and Sun, so that seriously messed up my sleep schedule. So i got total 8-9 hrs of sleep this weekend? Anyway i achieved my objective in getting in earlier, i got into la grange at 2:30pm, starting from Tully stadium (100 miles), and i got into austin at 12:30, taking the 'short' route without the huge hills in Bastrop State Park (it was 68 miles). So total on bike 12 or 13 hours, plus rest stops, total distance 168 miles. So that's 14 mph. Minus rest stops is probably closer to 16.8 mph.

Anyway here is a chronicle story about it, the picture is of Tully Stadium at the start.

here is a 'just the facts' story.

Another color story is here and here and here

Good coverage by the chronicle (for once)!

Update: Here is my post to the pearland cycling group forum.

I guess I'll add my experience. I was with the GE/BikeBarn team. We
showed up at Tully at 5:15am to load gear and sit around and wait.
(SAW). The launch from Tully was pretty good, a few very short
speeches from higher ups, and the top 5 teams got to go first, i was
in the 5th team i guess. Every time a team went a cannon shot out
(see the chronicle story).

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3812919.html

We had a tail wind for the first 30 miles or so? I didn't pay much
attention, just noting we didn't have a headwind. Everyone did well
in that part, and I was able to see a bunch of PCC/FS people at the
Saturday lunch, including Sara & Camille, Gaye, Donny, and Melanie.
After lunch it was tougher, and the last 20 miles were erased from my
mind. I got into La Grange at 2:30 and went to the FS tent, saw
Aaron, mumbled something I think, and left. I was pretty far gone at
that point. Unfortunately the GE/BB tent was at the opposite end of
the camp, so i hung around there the rest of the time. The food was
not as good as FS, the masseuses
were working until 8pm (for $1/min), and I think like Rich said the
camradire (sp) was missing.

Sunday, wake up again at 4am, pack gear, and have a less than good
breakfast (bran muffin and a soda repackaged as an energy drink). Get
bike at 5:30 from corral. Hurry up and wait, start biking at 7:30,
the second or third group out. Took easy route because my saddle
pressure points were killing me, got to lunch at 10ish, got to Austin
at 12:30. The added 12 miles on the hill route dissuaded me. Aaron &
Daryl flying past me after the merger didn't help matters. One great
thing about FS/PCC is we have so many levels of riders, so people like
Aaron & Buzz are definate role models. Austin, again. More crowds in
Austin I think that 2004. But less people on the roads enroute
cheering us on; it wasn't as inspring as '04. I didn't think the
hills were a problem at all, Chappell Hill has steeper gradients. Of
course I didn't do the hill route. One guy I talked to said he
thought the hills approaching austin were worse than the hills in the
park route. I guess everyone has their personal demons. Seeing the
capital/capitol was definately motivating. All in all a good ride but
not memoriable. The training helped alot, the Brazos bend and
Chappell hill rides particularly. Knowing you can get through it is a
big comfort when your body is threatening to shut down.

Best food: lunch the second day, with a mountain dew. Worked wonders
for my energy level. Best memory: fiddler on tractor (see chronicle
story)

That is,air in your bike tire. It's shocking, really, in 2002, gas was about $1.35, now it's predicted to be $2.75 average for this year. Currently its close to $3 here, in the heart of oil land. The current problem is a switch from MTBE to ethanol. Things will get better though, and hopefully at some point we can switch to more ethanol (produced domestically) and less gas (from oil pumped out of raghead territories, mostly). Maybe this will be a gradual thing. I predict in 10 years this energy crisis will be over. I predict in 50 years we won't be using gas any more.

Short trip, lots of trouble. I wonder what the region will be like in 5-10 years?

But why is a porn giant the first to offer this? Points to the major movie studios being completely clueless about the new digital age.

Finally some good news on the political front. The sooner the Iraqis can form a legitamite govt the sooner unrest will die down, that is if the govt is not corrupt and serves the will of the people.

(link)

Like most people, i have the opposite problem. However since graduating i managed to lose about 20 lbs

Sigh. More violence, except it strikes 'closer to home'

J & I watched a House episode yesterday in which a patient had bubonic plague. House is a great show on Fox, essentially it's a medical mystery show. Every episode a wierd case comes in and starts to die, and House and his team have to figure out what's wrong with the patient. Its usually complicated and funny.

Today a news report showed that the bubonic plague is still around. Surprisingly it's still around after centuries, but no longer the killer that it was (Bubonic plague is thought to be the Black Death that decimated Europe).

Just got this forward:

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.
Join the resistance! I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.
Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May!
The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!
By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is Super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS can Troll the marketplace not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.
HOW?
Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.
Here's the idea:
For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY PRODUCTS especially GASOLINE from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.
Their Brands include the following:
ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Esso
Mobil Delvac SpeedPass Mobil1 On The Run
If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.
It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point... Keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!
I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) . And those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)... And so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.
If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people.
That's all!
How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!
I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.
If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 Range and keep it there.
THIS CAN WORK!!

Hmm, color me sceptical. The reason oil companies are making money hand over fist is simple: DEMAND. If we reduce our demand, prices will go down, because supplies will go up. It's really quite (quite) simple. But of course demand always goes up. Recently the oil traders are jittery b/c of the iraqi war (thanks bush), and the Iran nuclear confrontation (thanks raghead).

But the main reason is a soaring demand from China and other newly industrialized nations. Demand from the US has been constant (About 9.2 million barrels per day for the last year, up from 7.6 mbpd since 1991, about a 25% increase). But demand from China has soared (double car production in a year). Also see this article, oil demand in china has QUADRUPLED (4X) since 1991.

Also in Iraq demand has soared, and they actually import gas, because there aren't enough refineries to convert oil into gas.

Anyway the bottom line is there is little we as US consumers can do about this, except reduce fuel usage. Be smart about the car, commute via mass transit or bike if possible, etc.

A place where soldiers can go to write stories of their world. First post seems pretty cool.

I agree w/ this republican. Gridlock is better than the current situation.

Check it out. Interesting picts. Looks like small town America.

South Park, that loveable show, ran an episode showing Jesus and defecation (i'm not sure what the link is), and what was supposed to be an image of Mohammad (presemedly doing nothing). They censored the Mohammed piece but not the Jesus piece. WTF?

Fran's is legendary (in milblog circles) for allowing wounded troops to eat there every Friday at a big banquet gathering. Now it's in danger of losing its lease, for no apparent reason. Seems like a political motive on behalf of the lease holders (Hilton). Or it could be just the usual swarmyness of leaseholders, not giving a rats ass about their tenants and their clientel, if they can get a better price from someone else.

On Friday the world lost a great teacher and mentor, GRI. She was whom I affectionately called my godmother, who in part reared me through my critical adolescent years. I guess that was her calling, to raise adolescents to become adults. If she could see me now, she would be very proud; with a great wife and with a PhD. When I first went off to grad school she read my palm and said i was destined to spend a long time in school. She was right! It has been a long long struggle, and in the process i lost contact with both my home in Hawaii and in Arizona, and forged a new life here in Texas. I regret it profoundly, but i guess i am not the great socializer, I could not keep up relationships easily with the huge stress that was grad school. And it was stress, it was like walking through the pits of hell. No one who does not have a PhD will understand, nor could they. Those who walked the path and emerge on the otherside are transcended to another level of life. Nothing will be the same, nor should it. But you emerge strong, resilient, confident. I suppose its like other crucibles, like being in the military, or whatever.

I really regret losing contact with her, I especially regret not telling her about the good news in my life, and not taking my wife to see her. Now I will not have that opportunity. I think the lesson here is that you only have a limited time to make things right with yourself and your family. Grace was truely instrumental in my life, and she gave selflessly. In some ways I am glad she went quietly, she would not have wanted to linger on for decades. She lived the life she wanted to live, and at the end went peacefully. Of course if she lived a healthier life, she could have lived alot longer, but that wasn't what she wanted. Anyway I miss her alot.

She lived the life she wanted, and went quietly. I think we can all aspire to such a life, and end. We must be content knowing she is at peace, while the rest of us mourn her loss.

Below is my master's thesis, and here is a link to the full thing (PDF)


THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE MAJOR HISTOCOMPATIBILITY COMPLEX IN MURINE MODELS OF BLEOMYCIN-INDUCED PULMONARY FIBROSIS

Pulmonary fibrosis is a late and dose-limiting effect of bleomycin-based chemotherapy. Using a mouse model in which two strains differ in susceptibility to fibrosis (C57BL/6J (B6), fibrosis-prone; C3Hf/Kam fibrosis-resistant), previous studies have found genetic linkage to loci on chromosomes 11 and 17, the latter within the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). The goal of this study is to further characterize this locus within the MHC by several approaches. First, the size of the linkage region was established by genotyping of 359 F2 individuals of a C57 x C3H cross using polymorphic microsatellite markers. This established significant linkage to a marker within the MHC with a LOD score of 18. Second, linkage of the MHC haplotype of the C57 and C3H strains to fibrosis was tested by phenotyping with bleomycin two congenic strains; the C3H.SW-H2b congenic having a C3H background and a H2b MHC haplotype like the fibrosis-prone B6 parental, and the B6.AKR-H2k congenic having a B6 background and a H2k haplotype like the fibrosis-resistant C3H parental. The fibrotic phenotype was found by testing these two congenic strains and the B6 parental strain as a control with bleomycin using 7-day mini-osmotic pumps (dosage: 100 mg/kg males, 125 mg/kg females) implanted subcutaneously in the mice. This study showed that the C3H.SW-H2b congenic was fibrosis-prone, while the B6.AKR-H2k congenic was fibrosis-resistant. Third, the maximal locus size was reduced by crossing the C3H.SW-H2b congenic strain to the C3Hf/Kam strain, which has a similar genetic background, and creating strains with a reduced congenic region; C3H.SWBlmf2 and C3H.SWBlmf 3. Phenotyping of the C3H.SWBlmf 3 strain showed it was fibrosis-resistant, indicating that the fibrosis susceptibility locus is not within this congenic region, encompassing 1.5 cM at the distal end of the MHC. Lastly, the hypothesis was tested that the tumor necrosis factor gene Tnf was involved in bleomycin-induced fibrosis by phenotyping of mice null for the Tnf gene. This result showed that the Tnf-null strain was not more fibrosis-prone than the C57 inbred parental strain, which has a similar genetic background. Together, these studies position a locus controlling bleomycin-induced fibrosis to a 6 cM region including the MHC.

Below is the abstract for my dissertation. Here is a link to the full thing (PDF). I am publishing this in the hope it will be useful to other students; I had a hard time finding dissertations online.

XP95 IS PHOSPHORYATED WITHIN THE PROLINE RICH DOMAIN DURING XENOPUS OOCYTE MATURATION

Robert Edward Dejournett, B.S., M.S.

Supervisory Professor: Jian Kuang, Ph.D.

Xp95 is the Xenopus ortholog of a conserved family of scaffold proteins that have in common an N-terminal Bro1 domain and a C-terminal proline rich domain (PRD). The regulation of this protein family is poorly understood. We previously showed that Xp95 undergoes a phosphorylation-dependant gel mobility shift during meiotic maturation of Xenopus oocytes, the only natural biological system in which post-translational modifications of this family has been demonstrated. Here we characterized Xp95 phosphorylation via two approaches. First, we tested a series of Xp95 fragments for the ability to gel-shift during oocyte maturation, and found that a fragment containing amino acids 705-786 is sufficient to cause a gel-shift. This fragment is within the N-terminal region of Xp95’s PRD (N-PRD). Second, we purified phosphorylated Xp95 and by mass spectrometry found that a 5080 Da peptide which maps to N-PRD (amino acids 706-756) contains two phosphorylation sites, one of which is T745, within the conserved CIN85 binding motif. By in vitro protein interaction assays, we that T745 is critical for CIN85/Xp95 interaction, and that Xp95 phosphorylation correlates with loss of binding to CIN85. We also show that an Alix fragment (amino acids 604-789) also undergoes a gel-shift during oocyte maturation and during colcemid-induced mitotic arrest of HeLa cells. These findings indicate that Xp95/Alix is phosphorylated on the PRD during M phase induction and that the PRD phosphorylation regulates partner protein interaction.

As they say...Anyway research has been going well enough, i'm doing experiments and learning new techniques, but no dramatic breakthroughs since two weeks ago. Then I showed that I could finally get the two proteins I am studying to interact in vivo, using a special cell line. Well the cells managed to get infected, and today i just got a new sample of cells, so i can split them and do a bunch of experiments. I'm also doing alot of visualization type experiments, but these have not yet born fruit (interesting fruit anyway).

Bike training is going well, i just read a good book on long distance cycling. I don't think it is revolutionary in terms of what my current training is, but it helped to cement my ideas, to get on the bike more, to do different things, to take the training to the next level. So as far as that goes it is pretty good. I did a 40 minute intense workout on a stationary bike on tuesday, and a 60 minute less intense workout yesterday. I'll skip today (or go briefly), and may do a light workout on friday. Saturday i'll do 55 miles at a good pace, and sunday go to chappell hill for 40-50 miles of brutal hill training. And next week is the MS150! I'm really pumped up about it. I think i'll do better than i did two years ago, better training, better seat, better shorts, all will help. At some point I am wondering if i can handle the full distance to Austin in one day. THere is an elite group of riders than can do this. There are also riders who participate in what are called brevets, which start at 200 km, and go to 400, 600, 1000, and finally a 1200 km race (in boston and paris) every year. I surely have no interest in doing that, being on my bike for 40+ hours, but it's good to know it can be done. Anyway yesterday i picked up my team jersey; this year I am riding with Team GE/Bike Barn, along with 200+ people i guess. It'll be a big team, should be fun. They had good logistics when i did the MS150. Team UT also looks good, but i missed out on them b/c I graduated and lost my email for 3 months, and couldn't find a way to contact the team captains. Anyway back to work.

This seems like good news, but i'm pretty cautious. Tradiationally many deadly influenza outbreaks were thought to be initially transmitted by birds. And this strain has been around a long time (50 years). But our public health system is good, and we are basically informed about public health events. A continent-wide pandemic is possible, but we haven't seen any virus spreading to millions of people with high lethality; i'm not sure such a virus exists. Basically viruses evolve to be less virulent and thus spread themselves more. More virulent viruses tend to 'burn out' quickly, ie Ebola. Anyway, we'll see how it goes in the next few years.

Mike Totten has a nice long photoessay about his journey through turkey and into Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan is doing much better than Turkish Kurdistan, probably b/c the govt isn't trying to kill Iraqi kurds (any more).

This is from an early classic game, Civilization. ANyway, Iran has confirmed they are well on the path to develop nukes. Hope someone stops them. So now or soon two of our worst enemies (N Korea, Iran) will have nukes, and neither is known for stability or enlightment. It's one thing if a democractic govt has nuclear weapons, ie Isreal and India, its another if some tinpot dictator has the keys to the nuke in his hands and has no checks placed on him. Can you imagine what Saddam would do with nukes? He would surely use them, as he did chemical and biological weapons.

Which he calls a civil war. Call a spade a spade I guess. His latest post is riviting. If it's worth a tip, send him some dough. I did, and got redirected to this page with lots of cool picts.

It was not, happy happy fun fun day. Interesting read!

here. I only got 10 right.

This is a serious global problem due to recent global warming. Since the trend is likely to continue, the entire ecological system of the coral reef is in danger of collapse, very soon. Sorry to be so alarmest, but that's what the data are showing currently. In time the coral might be able to adapt to the increasing water temp. but right now it doesn't seem to be the case. And coral grow so slowly, that decades or centuries might go by before the adapted coral can successfully migrate to other parts of the ocean. We probably won't lose the entire biome, but 90% or 95% is likely within a decade (my prediction, a guess).

The Army Corps of Engineers is not looking good, again. Even sea lions have a right to a feast.

Paul Thurrott over at connected home makes raves about the ability of recent internet movie services (CinemaNow and MovieLink) to download recently released movies. These movies have also been released on DVD of course. Here's the punch line.

As for pricing, it's a mixed bag. At MovieLink, for example, King Kong costs $26.99 (although early shoppers could have snagged it for $19.99 on Monday). Compare that price with the price of the King Kong DVD, which you can find for $19.99 at Best Buy. The DVD version of the movie comes with no playback restrictions and includes a number of special features. With MovieLink, you get just the movie. Shouldn't the film cost less in digital format?

Actually you can get it for about $10 plus $2.70 for shipping at half.com

I guess my question is, why would you pay retail ($19.99) for any dvd? And why would you pay $27 for the ability to download it, but not burn it to a DVD? This is ludacriously stupid. And finally, why doesn't the internet movie industry embrace Divx, a compressed video format which can reduce file sizes by 10 fold (so that 1.7 gig King Kong is now 170 MB), and more importantly reduce your download time by 10-fold. They just dont' get it.

woo hoo. This is a race within an urban area, usually a smallish course with a bunch of laps. Anyway it's coming in May. This will bring much needed attention of the cycling world to houston and hopefully promote houston cycling. I plan to be there.

Could you imagine paying for a blanket and pillow? Or bulkhead seats? Or the horrid food? I couldn't. But many airlines are doing just that to 'reduce costs'. I'll stick with Continental, who doesn't charge for this stuff. I am willing to pay extra for these 'conveniences', and the multitude of flights continental has. But continetal flights were on time only 70% of the time in February. While Southwest was ontime 78% of the time. (data here)

Everyone wants one. Seriously, this is a pretty cool advance in the ability to generate organs. This is as far as I know the first theraputic use of cells to regenerate organs.

You don't say?. Ebay is addicting, definately. Its nice to 'win' stuff. It's nice to get presents in the mail all the time. But at a certain point you have to ask yourself why you need all this crap. I used to buy alot on ebay (4-5 yrs ago), now I'd be happy to sell everything I bought. I still remember my piece of junk 8 yr old printer (that still worked) that some guy bought for $80, and I went out and picked up a new one for $150. Not alot of logic there. As far as getting new stuff cheaply, that's a myth, at least as far as computer electronics goes. It's like gambling. Why is gambling a growth industry? Because the house makes money, and you lose it. Why do ebay 'stores' sell all that stuff? Because they make money. So usually ebay is no better than your local bestbuy, or your local swap meet.

Certainly looks cool. Kesher Talk has much to say about this not-yet-released movie (It will be released April 28th 2006). New Yorkers had strong reactions to the trailer.

My aunt also had a strong reaction:

The trailer is absolutely chilling, I almost cried during the trailer! The director had every passengers family sign off on the project and he went down to the details of what they were wearing. It is said to be completely non-political and as factual as possible. I will definetley see this although I don't look forward to it...

Yahoo movies has it in their databank, as well as a forum. Forum members are decidely mixed on the subject appeal.

Discovery channel had a separate documentary on the subject, aired on Sept 11 2005.

Apple has the trailer.

This is the IMDB page.

Seems like Universal studios can't make up their mind for the movie title (United 93 vs Flight 93). This link (Flight 93)also leads to the movie site.

I wonder if the airline people retire such infamous flight numbers.

Update: Jim Geraghty has much about what the 9/11 commission found on the passenger revolt. Rivetting.

Heh, indeed.

At the box office this weekend, Ice Age 2 clobbered Basic Instinct 2 hauling in $70 million dollars, compared with less than $3 million for the Sharon Stone movie. One film is about a prehistoric creature’s struggle to survive and find love, the other is the animated sequel to the movie Ice Age.

Contact Right is a soldier wounded in the line of duty. But he agonizes about returning to civilian duty, but not for the reason you might think. He is the definition of a hero.

William Easterly explores what has happened to the billions of dollars spend in foreign aid to the poorest countries. His thuoghts are similiar to my own, and by this piece, his book (on the same subject) looks like an interesting read.

If you look at places like Nigeria, where there is a decent oil economy, and Zaire, which has lots of mineral wealth, they could be potential (small) United States or Indias. Instead they are mired in the usual problems of the African continent; disease, corrupt government, lack of education, etc etc. I don't have any answers, but know that giving a poor person a loaf of bread is meaningless; teaching him to fish is priceless. I think this is from the bible; the axiom is still true today.

Michael Young has a summary of what happened. In essence, not much. What is astounding is that with all the oil wealth in the mid-east, the Arab states have deigned not to help Iraq, not to help Palestine, not to help Lebanon. They did pledge $150 million for an African Union force in Darfur to inhibit further genocide, but that money is allocated to be used a day after the AU mandate expires. So what are they doing with all that money they get from us gas-guzzling Americans?