dsandler.org

Salon.com on evangelical Christians, dispensationalism, and the land of Israel:

The vast majority of Jews desperately want to avoid a full-scale conflagration between Israel and the Arab world. Dispensationalists don’t. In the dispensationalist narrative, Christians will be raptured to heaven before all the fighting between Jews and Muslims starts. Everyone left will face mass death and destruction.

Sweet lord, they’re showing Zelda GameCube at E3. I’ll see if I can rustle up some details tomorrow. Oh, sweet, sweet joy…

I just received my copy of the June 2002 Mac Power magazine (Japanese), in which Message is reviewed (briefly). So exciting! [closeup; page 105]

I’m hardly a celebrity, of course, unlike this guy.

An article on fightcloud.com.

Closure, sort of.

Giles as bad-ass sorcerer. Xander as Christ. And, as promised, Spike gets his soul back. I was wrong before; this is now the Best. Buffy. Episode. Ever.

Gummy-bears foil biometric security.

The sum of Wolfram’s new book seems to read like the last paragraph in a Bradbury novel:

And indeed in the end the [Principle of Computational Equivalence] encapsulates both the ultimate power and the ultimate weakness of science. For it implies that all the wonders of the universe can in effect be captured by simple rules, yet it shows that there can be no way to know all the consequences of these rules, except in effect just to watch and see how they unfold.

I heard a shocking story on NPR this morning: Japan, along with Norway, Iceland, and other countries, is trying to lift the moratorium on whaling. Whaling! It’s simply inconceivable to me, an 80’s kid, that there are still countries out there that hunt whales. (Evidence: [1] [2]. Whoa, that was Ben Affleck?)

Cough, Cough. Ahem. Dave is back.

This just in… [article]

A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.

As Erin and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary two week-ends ago, we happened to have a perfect overhead view of a local fireworks show from our room on the thirtieth floor of the Westin St. Francis. It turns out that Amar was actually at the pier, watching the fireworks from below.

Kurzweil on Wolfram’s new book.

i: look around most people at work and i refuse to let my life be about ordering a triple espresso at starbucks, trading stocks on e*trade, fretting over the performance of my portfolio, picking mutual funds, buying bigger entertainment systems, watching jerry bruckheimer movies, pining for a new bmw, getting the newest cell phone, becoming a premiere customer at united airlines, and scheduling my life on the latest palm.

If you’re looking for information on andrei morant, you might ask Angi. She may or may not be able to tell you about andrei morant, but she’s certainly a andrei morant fan.

My mini-review of 18:

18 is kind of like going back to your favorite restauraunt after a few years, outwardly professing that you want change, but inwardly hoping that they’ve kept your favorite dish exactly as you remember it. And you get there, and you order your dish, and it’s just like you remember it, but somehow it’s better. They changed something, and you don’t know what, but it’s just a little better than it used to be. And no worse for the parts that haven’t changed, either.

California vs. Texas.

“You’ve got these two cultures opposing each other,” says Kevin Starr, the state librarian of California. “Wine and cheese against beer and nachos, greenfields vs. brownfields, skeptics against practicing believers, the uprooted and the traditionalists . granola against grits.”

A helpful link from Moby. Also, I note that when he first mentioned the record release party he pointed out that it would “be happening on the 15th at an UNDISCLOSED LOCATION.” That’s so cool — Moby is playing at Dick Cheney’s old club!

Moby on his release: “’18′ is finally out. released. free from my wily clutches.”

dsandler << 18

I bought the new Moby, 18, today. I brought it home, pressed the “eject” key on the iMac, inserted the CD. I asked the Internet if it had seen this one before, and “yes,” it said, “I’ve seen this one and I quite like it. here are the track names, by the way, if you’re interested.” About five minutes later, iTunes chimed politely, and as i removed 18 from the drive I realized that I had taken 18 and owned it. I bought it earlier today, but by taking those bits and adding them, subsuming them into my music library, that I have fully taken ownership of Moby’s work.

And I haven’t listened to it yet.

But I will, right now, straight through. Because he’s been nice enough to let me listen. And somehow, I don’t think he’ll mind that I’ve decided to copy the music onto my hard drive, any more than he’d mind me wanting to hang his art on my wall. But this way, everyone else can have it on his wall, too.

My father-in-law on Clones: “Overall, enjoyable, but not breath-taking or memorable…with the exception of Yoda, MY MAN!!!”

at the fray, Adam Rakunas’ Star Wars memories. “To this day, I can still do a great R2-D2 screech.”

Scott Kurtz (attached to today’s PvP): “If you don’t like ATTACK OF THE CLONES, you have no one to blame but yourself. George Lucas didn’t ruin Star Wars for us. I think we ruined it for him.”