1. This story just came to my attention: apparently "little-known writer" Sophia Stewart claims that she was the originator of the story for the Matrix trilogy, and there is substantial evidence to back up her claim. Even more incredible is the media's failure to cover this story -- some have blamed it on Stewart's race, while others point to the fact that the defendant in the case is AOL-Time Warner.
2. The New York Times has a little travel feature on Oak Park, IL. I live in Oak Park, so I've been to most of the places mentioned, and I'd like to put in a good word for Mama Thai on Madison over perennial favorite Amarind's. Mama Thai is cheaper, lighter, tastier, and more vegetarian friendly -- and the decor is less larded up with kitschy foreign artifacts.
3. stAllio! has a couple interesting papal tidbits. Here's the new pope's statement on whether communion should be denied to politicians holding views contrary to those of the church (eg John Kerry); and here's why he may have some difficulty getting his papal website set up.
4. Here's an article about a study showing the deleterious effect of excessive emailing on IQ. My first reaction is to think that the notion of IQ must not be formulated very well if "constant changes of direction" mean you have a less supple mind.
5. Yesterday Mark Liberman posted a telling excerpt from 19th century British poet Arthur Hugh Clough on the sorry state of the English language in his time. I'm an enthusiastic proponent of the idea that variation indicates linguistic change, but somehow I still cringe when I hear or read certain kinds of grammatical errors. Why is this? And whence the complete breakdown of rationality on these questions (see eg Heidi Bond's flame war with Witty Sex Kitten)?
6. And thanks to the friend who spotted me a flickr pro account. These suped-up hot rod accounts (along with the push to give them away) are totally sweet, and I'll be updating mine with some frequency.
She's claiming to have been ripped off for The Matrix *and* The Terminator? Whoa. Then again, the first Matrix movie came out 8 years after the second Terminator, so why no attempted lawsuit before the Matrix came along?
Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding that, since supposedly she gave them her story in the late 80s. The first Terminator movie came out in 1984 and would have had to have been written long before. But apparently there's at least some good evidence that they stole the Matrix story.
I have been looking for Oak Park's "World-Class Zoo" for years. I will keep trying since the NY Times says that...Oak Park has galleries, boutiques, restaurants, live music and a world-class zoo...It must be here.
Ha! Those who don't know Oak Park will miss Ted's sarcasm in the above comment. But that world class zoo the article mentions is actually about three suburbs over...
if there is evidence, where is it? put it online? one of those sites (the one with the horrible song that auto-plays) has a bunch of documents, but i didn't see any of any substance, anything that resembled evidence. i looked through the "court documents" and they're garbage. not only that, but the woman can't write! her syntax is muddled and unclear; never mind the simple grammatical errors.
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