Click here for HD trailer.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
WEEK IN REVIEW
Highlights from Harper's Weekly Review
[Titles added.]
HOLY JURIS DOCTOR, BATMAN!
Patrick Leahy, the 67-year old Democratic senator from Vermont who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is pressing the Bush Administration to turn over documents relating to its warrantless wiretapping program, revealed that he has a small part in the upcoming Batman movie, and that he had to let his remaining hair grow out for the role.
GET YOUR FLAGS READY...
Melting ice in the Arctic revealed previously unknown islands that have yet to be claimed.
YOU MEAN PEOPLE MAGAZINE DOESN'T COUNT?
Studies in the U.S. showed that one in four adults read no books last year.
HAVE YOU TRIED E-BAY?
After waiting 55 years for a Purple Heart, Nyles Reed, a 75-year-old Korean War veteran and former Marine, received a form letter from Navy Personnel Command saying the medal was out of stock and suggesting that he buy his own.
ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, TERESA
Previously unpublished letters by Mother Teresa revealed that beginning in 1948 and continuing until the end of her life in 1997 she was unable to sense the presence of God. "Repulsed--empty--no faith--no love--no zeal," she wrote. "Heaven means nothing."
[Titles added.]
HOLY JURIS DOCTOR, BATMAN!
Patrick Leahy, the 67-year old Democratic senator from Vermont who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is pressing the Bush Administration to turn over documents relating to its warrantless wiretapping program, revealed that he has a small part in the upcoming Batman movie, and that he had to let his remaining hair grow out for the role.
GET YOUR FLAGS READY...
Melting ice in the Arctic revealed previously unknown islands that have yet to be claimed.
YOU MEAN PEOPLE MAGAZINE DOESN'T COUNT?
Studies in the U.S. showed that one in four adults read no books last year.
HAVE YOU TRIED E-BAY?
After waiting 55 years for a Purple Heart, Nyles Reed, a 75-year-old Korean War veteran and former Marine, received a form letter from Navy Personnel Command saying the medal was out of stock and suggesting that he buy his own.
ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, TERESA
Previously unpublished letters by Mother Teresa revealed that beginning in 1948 and continuing until the end of her life in 1997 she was unable to sense the presence of God. "Repulsed--empty--no faith--no love--no zeal," she wrote. "Heaven means nothing."
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Life Is Beautiful
Super Mini RF Wireless Optical Mouse
User Manual
Welcome
Thank you for selecting this product! Your RF wireless optical mouse uses a newly developed wireless technology that replaces the traditional wired mouse. You can use your wireless optical mouse freely and improve your efficiency and enjoy your beautiful life from the high technology.
Product Features
1. Radio frequency 27MHz, enjoy your freely wireless spacs
2. It has 256 ID code, there is no interference even many mice being used at the same time.
3. Automatically save power sleeping functions, battery life be prolonged.
The Steps of Install Battery
1. Please prepare for two PCS new AAA alkaline batteries.
2. Press the button of the mouse upper cover and pull the battery cover rearward.
3. Please insert the batteries.
4. Pull the battery covers forward, when you heaf "crack" sound which shows the battery cover is locked successfully.
Receiver Installation
1. If you use PS/2 connector, please use the USB to PS/2 adaptor and connect with the connector before your computer start-up.
2. If you use desk PC, there is a little far between the case and your working surface, suggest you use an extended USB cable to connect your case and the receiver, so you can place the receiver on your working surface conveniently.
ID Setup
1. Please move the mouse near to the receiver
2. Press the ID button of the receiver by your hand, the receiver light begin to flash
3. Press the ID button of the mouse bottom with some hard and acuate object within 10 seconds, the receiver light will flash successfully to finish the digital transmission between the mouse and the receiver. You may start to use it.
4. Working distance:within 1-2 meters.
Attention Please
1. Please don't make the mouse far away from the receiver in order to work more smoothly.
2. You'd better use the mouse on the white desk, in this way the batteries can be used longer time. Please remove thebatteries if the mouse will not be used for a long time.
3. This mouse with save power sleeping functions, Please press any key or scroll the wheel to wake up the mouse when it is sleeping.
4. If you want to take off the mouse power, please continue to press the ID switch of the mouse bottom over 3 secons.If you want to take on the power,please click the ID switch once again.
5. The optical mouse will not work freely on a smooth desk, glass, any reflecting surface,3D mouse pad.
6. No need to check the digital connection within 10 seconds when change the batteries, if more that thatplease according to the above way to re-operate.
Caution
Any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate the equipment.
User Manual
Welcome
Thank you for selecting this product! Your RF wireless optical mouse uses a newly developed wireless technology that replaces the traditional wired mouse. You can use your wireless optical mouse freely and improve your efficiency and enjoy your beautiful life from the high technology.
Product Features
1. Radio frequency 27MHz, enjoy your freely wireless spacs
2. It has 256 ID code, there is no interference even many mice being used at the same time.
3. Automatically save power sleeping functions, battery life be prolonged.
The Steps of Install Battery
1. Please prepare for two PCS new AAA alkaline batteries.
2. Press the button of the mouse upper cover and pull the battery cover rearward.
3. Please insert the batteries.
4. Pull the battery covers forward, when you heaf "crack" sound which shows the battery cover is locked successfully.
Receiver Installation
1. If you use PS/2 connector, please use the USB to PS/2 adaptor and connect with the connector before your computer start-up.
2. If you use desk PC, there is a little far between the case and your working surface, suggest you use an extended USB cable to connect your case and the receiver, so you can place the receiver on your working surface conveniently.
ID Setup
1. Please move the mouse near to the receiver
2. Press the ID button of the receiver by your hand, the receiver light begin to flash
3. Press the ID button of the mouse bottom with some hard and acuate object within 10 seconds, the receiver light will flash successfully to finish the digital transmission between the mouse and the receiver. You may start to use it.
4. Working distance:within 1-2 meters.
Attention Please
1. Please don't make the mouse far away from the receiver in order to work more smoothly.
2. You'd better use the mouse on the white desk, in this way the batteries can be used longer time. Please remove thebatteries if the mouse will not be used for a long time.
3. This mouse with save power sleeping functions, Please press any key or scroll the wheel to wake up the mouse when it is sleeping.
4. If you want to take off the mouse power, please continue to press the ID switch of the mouse bottom over 3 secons.If you want to take on the power,please click the ID switch once again.
5. The optical mouse will not work freely on a smooth desk, glass, any reflecting surface,3D mouse pad.
6. No need to check the digital connection within 10 seconds when change the batteries, if more that thatplease according to the above way to re-operate.
Caution
Any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate the equipment.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Reading and Writing
From an essay titled "Defeating the Poem" by Denis Donoghue, which appeared in the New Criterion in April 2006:
When I started teaching, at University College, Dublin many years ago, I urged students to believe that the merit of reading a great poem, play, or novel consisted in the pleasure of gaining access to deeply imagined lives other than their own. Over the years, that appeal, still cogent to me, seems to have lost much of its persuasive force. Students seem to be convinced that their own lives are the primary and sufficient incentive. They report that reading literature is mainly a burden. Those students who think of themselves as writers and take classes in "creative writing" to define themselves as poets or fiction writers evidently write more than they read, and regard reading as a gross expenditure of time and energy. They are not open to the notion that one learns to write by reading good writers.
In class, many students are ready to talk, but they want to talk either about themselves or about large-scale public themes, independent of the books they are supposedly reading. They are happy to denounce imperialism and colonialism rather than read "Heart of Darkness" Kim, and A Passage to India in which imperialism and colonialism are held up to complex judgment. They are voluble in giving you their opinions on race and its injustices, but nearly tongue-tied when it is a question of submitting themselves to the languages of The Sound and the Fury, Things Fall Apart, and A Bend in the River. They find it arduous to engage with the styles of Hard Times and The Wings of the Dove, but easy to say what they think about industrialism, adultery, and greed.
When I started teaching, at University College, Dublin many years ago, I urged students to believe that the merit of reading a great poem, play, or novel consisted in the pleasure of gaining access to deeply imagined lives other than their own. Over the years, that appeal, still cogent to me, seems to have lost much of its persuasive force. Students seem to be convinced that their own lives are the primary and sufficient incentive. They report that reading literature is mainly a burden. Those students who think of themselves as writers and take classes in "creative writing" to define themselves as poets or fiction writers evidently write more than they read, and regard reading as a gross expenditure of time and energy. They are not open to the notion that one learns to write by reading good writers.
In class, many students are ready to talk, but they want to talk either about themselves or about large-scale public themes, independent of the books they are supposedly reading. They are happy to denounce imperialism and colonialism rather than read "Heart of Darkness" Kim, and A Passage to India in which imperialism and colonialism are held up to complex judgment. They are voluble in giving you their opinions on race and its injustices, but nearly tongue-tied when it is a question of submitting themselves to the languages of The Sound and the Fury, Things Fall Apart, and A Bend in the River. They find it arduous to engage with the styles of Hard Times and The Wings of the Dove, but easy to say what they think about industrialism, adultery, and greed.
Amazon Don
From an essay titled "Literary Entrails: The boys in the alley, the disappearing readers, and the novel's ghostly twin" by Cynthia Ozick, which appeared in the April 2007 issue of Harper's.
Less innocent is the rise of the non-professional reviewer on Amazon--though "rise" suggests an ascent, whereas this computerized exploitation, through commerce and cynicism, of typically unlettered exhibitionists signals a new low in public responsibility. Unlike the valued book club reviewer, who may be cozily challenged by companionable discourse, Amazon's "customer reviewer" goes uncontested and unedited: the customer is always right. And the customer, the star of this shoddy procedure, controls the number of stars that reward or denigrate writers. Amazon's unspoken credo is that anyone, or everyone is well suited to make literary judgements--so that a reader of chick lit (the term defines the reader), perhaps misled by ad hype (the term defines book marketing), will howl with impatience at any serious literary fiction she may have blundered into. Here is "Peggy of Sacramento (see my other reviews)" grudgingly granting one ill-intentioned star to a demanding contemporary novel: "boring slowness, hard going, characters not even a mother could love." Or Tim: "A thoroughly depressing book. The home life was not a pleasant atmosphere in which to raise children." Most customer reviewers, though clearly tough customers when it comes to awarding stars, are not tough enough--or well-read enough--for tragic realism or psychological complexity. Amazon encourages naive and unqualified readers who look for easy prose and uplifting endings to expose there insipidities to mass audience. It is true that one can, on occasion, find on Amazon a literate, lively, penetratingly intelligent response: an artful golden minnow in a fetid sea, where both praise and blame are leveled by tsunamis of incapacity.
(Academic theorists equipped with advanced degrees, who make up yet another species of limited reviewers, are worthy only of a parenthesis. Their confining ideologies, heavily politicized and rendered in a kind of multi-syllabic pidgin, have for decades marinated literature in dogma. Of these inflated dons and doctors it is futile speak, since, unlike the hardier customers reviewers, they are destined to vanish like the fog they evoke.
Less innocent is the rise of the non-professional reviewer on Amazon--though "rise" suggests an ascent, whereas this computerized exploitation, through commerce and cynicism, of typically unlettered exhibitionists signals a new low in public responsibility. Unlike the valued book club reviewer, who may be cozily challenged by companionable discourse, Amazon's "customer reviewer" goes uncontested and unedited: the customer is always right. And the customer, the star of this shoddy procedure, controls the number of stars that reward or denigrate writers. Amazon's unspoken credo is that anyone, or everyone is well suited to make literary judgements--so that a reader of chick lit (the term defines the reader), perhaps misled by ad hype (the term defines book marketing), will howl with impatience at any serious literary fiction she may have blundered into. Here is "Peggy of Sacramento (see my other reviews)" grudgingly granting one ill-intentioned star to a demanding contemporary novel: "boring slowness, hard going, characters not even a mother could love." Or Tim: "A thoroughly depressing book. The home life was not a pleasant atmosphere in which to raise children." Most customer reviewers, though clearly tough customers when it comes to awarding stars, are not tough enough--or well-read enough--for tragic realism or psychological complexity. Amazon encourages naive and unqualified readers who look for easy prose and uplifting endings to expose there insipidities to mass audience. It is true that one can, on occasion, find on Amazon a literate, lively, penetratingly intelligent response: an artful golden minnow in a fetid sea, where both praise and blame are leveled by tsunamis of incapacity.
(Academic theorists equipped with advanced degrees, who make up yet another species of limited reviewers, are worthy only of a parenthesis. Their confining ideologies, heavily politicized and rendered in a kind of multi-syllabic pidgin, have for decades marinated literature in dogma. Of these inflated dons and doctors it is futile speak, since, unlike the hardier customers reviewers, they are destined to vanish like the fog they evoke.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
INDEX
Highlights from Harper's Index
June 2007
[Interested in a career in print media?]
Percentage change since 1990 in worldwide demand for newsprint: +18
Percentage change in North America: -26
Minimum number of different books sold in the U.S. last year, as tracked by Nielson BookScan: 1,446,000
Number of these that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000
Number that sold more than 100,000: 483
[Mudslide]
Number of months that mud has been erupting from the ground in eastern Java, Indonesia: 10
Amount that is currently emerging per day, in gallons: 36,900,000
[Flying Objects]
Grant that NASA has given an Arizona astronomer to study how to block solar rays with a cloud of small spacecraft: $70,000
Number of two-foot-wide spacecraft he says would be required: 16,000,000,000,000
[Published in Harper's, June 2007. "Harper's Index" is a registered trademark.]
June 2007
[Interested in a career in print media?]
Percentage change since 1990 in worldwide demand for newsprint: +18
Percentage change in North America: -26
Minimum number of different books sold in the U.S. last year, as tracked by Nielson BookScan: 1,446,000
Number of these that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000
Number that sold more than 100,000: 483
[Mudslide]
Number of months that mud has been erupting from the ground in eastern Java, Indonesia: 10
Amount that is currently emerging per day, in gallons: 36,900,000
[Flying Objects]
Grant that NASA has given an Arizona astronomer to study how to block solar rays with a cloud of small spacecraft: $70,000
Number of two-foot-wide spacecraft he says would be required: 16,000,000,000,000
[Published in Harper's, June 2007. "Harper's Index" is a registered trademark.]
Thursday, August 09, 2007
SECTION IV, Part B
LOGIC/REASONING
Following a refreshing dip in Central Park's Lasker Pool, you discover, much to your dismay, that you forgot to remove your cell phone from the cargo pocket of your new swim trunks.
Oops!
Oberto, the technical specialist at the Gramercy Park Verizon Wireless Retail Center, is pleased to report that your SIM card survived the flood. He assures you that, after purchasing a new LG VX9400 phone ($199.99 after 2-year service agreement and $50.00 mail-in rebate), you will be able to make and receive calls with no trouble at all.
Here's what Oberto doesn't realize: Due to its prolonged submersion, your SIM card has short circuited, and--perhaps a mere freak occurrence--it now operates in a manner similar to that of the Flux Capacitor. (See SECTION XI, Part A. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FILMS SET IN 1985.) Each time you place a call, you find that the recipient is trapped in the past--somewhere between 1992 and today.
Moreover, Oberto--who is probably just trying to be courteous; he probably doesn't want to embarrass you--fails to question the fact that you only have 3 telephone numbers stored on your SIM card. Again, however, what Oberto doesn't realize is that, because of your SIM Card's prolonged exposure to public bathwater, out of your 126 contacts, you are only able to access 3 numbers at any given time.
Finally, it should be noted that some of the numbers that appear in your address book (which will, as mentioned before, invariably connect you to a different hour, day, month, or year) are numbers you have never seen before--though they may belong to people with whom you're quite familiar. (This, too, seems to be the result of the chlorine marinade.)
Below, you will find a series of situations in which you might need to place a phone call. After each scenario, you will see a list of the only 3 contacts your phone will display at that given time, coupled with a brief description of the circumstances in which each of these contacts finds him or herself.
For each scenario, pick the person who you think would be the most helpful. Include a brief explanation (no more than 65 words) of your choice in the space provided. You are allowed just one selection per scenario. Note: There are no "right" answers.
1. You have a flat tire and your Aunt Mary's Volvo station wagon doesn't seem to have a car jack. Your AAA membership expired four months ago. Who do you call?
a) MRS. O, who has just discovered that her son Nick appears in the Winnetka Talk Police Blotter for the second time in two weeks. (He was caught with two ounces of Marijuana in the glove box of his car, and a spelling error in last week's blotter resulted in a reprint of the entire section.)
b) DICK DURBIN moments after he inadvertently confused the name "Osama" (as in Al Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden) and "Obama" (as in fellow Illinois Senator Barack Obama), replacing the latter with the former.
c) ELLIOTT G., your best friend from high school, who has just taken the first three bong hits in his life (part of a hazing ritual for a secret society at Yale University). He is now marching in a circle chanting: "We want the Cooks! We want the Cooks!"
2. You've broken up with your girlfriend of two years after discovering that she has, for quite some time, been attending weekly Catholic Mass (it makes her feel "welcome") in spite of the fact that both of your fathers are Rabbis at Temple Beth Torah in Nyack. You need some support, who do you call?
a) WHITNEY D., your ex-girlfriend's best friend, who is lip-locked with the boy of her dreams (second dream-boy in three years) on her Birthright trip (fourth trip in five years) to Tel Aviv.
b) CHAD LIBERMAN, your little sister's ex-boyfriend, who was expelled from his birthright trip yesterday, after repeatedly referring to his group leader as "Yasser Arafat." He is waiting for his father to pick him up at Kennedy International Airport.
c) THE REVEREND TED HAGGARD, who has just graduated from a three-week gay conversion course, and is now 100% heterosexual.
3. You're writing an essay about Shakespeare's use of the subjunctive mood in "Macbeth." The essay, your final assignment for the semester, is due in twenty-five minutes, and you can't seem to remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Your Internet access is down and your reference books are already in storage for the summer. Who do you call?
a) AL GORE, two minutes after the United States Supreme Court delivered its per curiam opinion on "Bush v. Gore"--ultimately ruling that a manual ballot recount in Florida would be unconstitutional.
b) H. MEYERS, who, moments ago, walked in on her seventeen-year-old son, Arthur, lying naked on his bed, masturbating. (She just wanted to tell him that dinner would be ready in five minutes.)
c) RONALD REAGAN.
When you have made your selections, please put your pencil down and wait for the proctor to deliver additional instructions. You MAY NOT return to previous sections of the exam.
Following a refreshing dip in Central Park's Lasker Pool, you discover, much to your dismay, that you forgot to remove your cell phone from the cargo pocket of your new swim trunks.
Oops!
Oberto, the technical specialist at the Gramercy Park Verizon Wireless Retail Center, is pleased to report that your SIM card survived the flood. He assures you that, after purchasing a new LG VX9400 phone ($199.99 after 2-year service agreement and $50.00 mail-in rebate), you will be able to make and receive calls with no trouble at all.
Here's what Oberto doesn't realize: Due to its prolonged submersion, your SIM card has short circuited, and--perhaps a mere freak occurrence--it now operates in a manner similar to that of the Flux Capacitor. (See SECTION XI, Part A. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FILMS SET IN 1985.) Each time you place a call, you find that the recipient is trapped in the past--somewhere between 1992 and today.
Moreover, Oberto--who is probably just trying to be courteous; he probably doesn't want to embarrass you--fails to question the fact that you only have 3 telephone numbers stored on your SIM card. Again, however, what Oberto doesn't realize is that, because of your SIM Card's prolonged exposure to public bathwater, out of your 126 contacts, you are only able to access 3 numbers at any given time.
Finally, it should be noted that some of the numbers that appear in your address book (which will, as mentioned before, invariably connect you to a different hour, day, month, or year) are numbers you have never seen before--though they may belong to people with whom you're quite familiar. (This, too, seems to be the result of the chlorine marinade.)
Below, you will find a series of situations in which you might need to place a phone call. After each scenario, you will see a list of the only 3 contacts your phone will display at that given time, coupled with a brief description of the circumstances in which each of these contacts finds him or herself.
For each scenario, pick the person who you think would be the most helpful. Include a brief explanation (no more than 65 words) of your choice in the space provided. You are allowed just one selection per scenario. Note: There are no "right" answers.
1. You have a flat tire and your Aunt Mary's Volvo station wagon doesn't seem to have a car jack. Your AAA membership expired four months ago. Who do you call?
a) MRS. O, who has just discovered that her son Nick appears in the Winnetka Talk Police Blotter for the second time in two weeks. (He was caught with two ounces of Marijuana in the glove box of his car, and a spelling error in last week's blotter resulted in a reprint of the entire section.)
b) DICK DURBIN moments after he inadvertently confused the name "Osama" (as in Al Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden) and "Obama" (as in fellow Illinois Senator Barack Obama), replacing the latter with the former.
c) ELLIOTT G., your best friend from high school, who has just taken the first three bong hits in his life (part of a hazing ritual for a secret society at Yale University). He is now marching in a circle chanting: "We want the Cooks! We want the Cooks!"
2. You've broken up with your girlfriend of two years after discovering that she has, for quite some time, been attending weekly Catholic Mass (it makes her feel "welcome") in spite of the fact that both of your fathers are Rabbis at Temple Beth Torah in Nyack. You need some support, who do you call?
a) WHITNEY D., your ex-girlfriend's best friend, who is lip-locked with the boy of her dreams (second dream-boy in three years) on her Birthright trip (fourth trip in five years) to Tel Aviv.
b) CHAD LIBERMAN, your little sister's ex-boyfriend, who was expelled from his birthright trip yesterday, after repeatedly referring to his group leader as "Yasser Arafat." He is waiting for his father to pick him up at Kennedy International Airport.
c) THE REVEREND TED HAGGARD, who has just graduated from a three-week gay conversion course, and is now 100% heterosexual.
3. You're writing an essay about Shakespeare's use of the subjunctive mood in "Macbeth." The essay, your final assignment for the semester, is due in twenty-five minutes, and you can't seem to remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Your Internet access is down and your reference books are already in storage for the summer. Who do you call?
a) AL GORE, two minutes after the United States Supreme Court delivered its per curiam opinion on "Bush v. Gore"--ultimately ruling that a manual ballot recount in Florida would be unconstitutional.
b) H. MEYERS, who, moments ago, walked in on her seventeen-year-old son, Arthur, lying naked on his bed, masturbating. (She just wanted to tell him that dinner would be ready in five minutes.)
c) RONALD REAGAN.
When you have made your selections, please put your pencil down and wait for the proctor to deliver additional instructions. You MAY NOT return to previous sections of the exam.
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