Don't write celebrity TV historians off just yet – as long as they don't stray from their expertise.

History continues to have a broad popular appeal, and long may it continue to do so. Good publishers and television producers know that history works best when written or presented by a historian who really knows the subject, such as Thomas Asbridge on the Crusades or David Reynolds on postwar international summits. It's when historians leave the territory of their expertise, get things wrong, appear on Question Time, host chatshows or write newspaper columns, that they become real celebrities; and, as some of them have found out, you become a celebrity at your peril.

On admitting error: Allan Massie does it RITE.

[W]hen we lesser mortals screw up, we should admit it, say sorry, and eat a portion of humble pie.

The other day, writing here about Professor Orlando Figes and his Russian publishers’ decision to abandon plans to bring out a Russian translation of his book “The Whisperers”, I hazarded the suggestion that they might have been leaned on by the Kremlin. I had no evidence for this. It was merely a hunch or suspicion that non-publication of a work of oral history culled from the memories of relatives of Stalin’s victims might not please President Putin.

It seems that I was wrong. The decision not to publish was taken, purely for professional reasons, by the publishing house Corpus, in association with co-sponsors the Dynastia Foundation, which had provided a grant for the translation of the book into Russian.

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http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/05/my_last_post_ab.html

Remember my rebuttal of Sam Harris's essay advocating the profiling of Muslims at airports? That wasn't the end of it. Harris and I conducted a back-and-forth e-mail discussion, the results of which are here. At 14,000+ words, I only recommend it for the most stalwart of readers.

Must-have for the coming weekend:
Lydia Leith Diamond Jubilee Sick Bags - Bling It Up!

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1658208.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View comments.

• Sun, 18:09: I'm at Subway (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/hoe6Cvza
• Sun, 21:38: Lend us your voice to help children recover from trauma ~ donate a tweet a day! http://t.co/j5uIQxRM #DT @operationSAFE
• Sun, 22:23: I just attended an awesome concert by Banquo Folk Ensemble at the Church of Truth in #yyj.
• Mon, 09:07: I just ousted @grantpalin as the mayor of McDonald's on @foursquare! http://t.co/XXQ6jFNK
• Mon, 09:07: Don't like the new remodel. (@ McDonald's) http://t.co/Elv3qkie
• Mon, 09:54: I'm at Legislative Assembly of British Columbia (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/iTUKY4nb

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/28/redshirts-at-wireds-geekdad-and-geekmom/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18718

Today Redshirts gets a double dosage of geek parental attention at Wired.com: GeekDad runs an interview with me about the book, in which I talk about writing about red shirts and the role of humor in science fiction, while GeekMom notes Redshirts in an article about what the site’s contributors are reading. The takeaway from the brief review:

Laugh out loud funny, this book is a must read once it is released June 5, 2012, especially if you are a true fan of science fiction television.

Excellent.

Hope your Memorial Day is going well.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/28/planet-joco-nears-its-climax/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18715

The wife just came into the room and said: “I am doing things today. You are going to help me. There’s a lot of stuff. It will take up most of your day. Say goodbye to your Internet friends.”

So, uh, goodbye, Internet friends.

Whilst I am away, helping out the wife in the many tasks she has planned for me today, why not check out the latest installment in my conversations with Jonathan Coulton about his work? Today we are discussing his latest album Artificial Heart and his upcoming tour, which starts this next Friday. And if you’ve missed any of the interviews to date, here’s an index of every day so far.

Remember that the “Journey to Planet JoCo” feature concludes tomorrow, 9am with the debut of a brand-new song from Jonathan Coulton. I’ve heard it. I think it’s one of his best. You don’t want to miss it.

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2012/05/28/part-four-page-twenty-three/

http://mightygodking.com/?p=6291

Click on thumb to see full

http://xkcd.com/1061/

Welcome! The San Jose Heritage Rose Garden is an unexpected jewel in the midst of a revitalized downtown San Jose, California; a five-acre rose garden that contains 3,500 plants.

In 1987 San Jose Mayor McEnery initiated turning land cleared for airport safety, a weed infested eyesore, into a central park for San Jose. In 1988, Tom Liggett was approached by Lorrie Freeman, an avid rosarian, to develop a competitive proposal for a rose garden in the area. His concept grew from an initial half-acre plot to a full city block. In 1992, Tom's proposal for a San Jose Heritage Rose Garden was selected and funded by the San Jose City Council. Local Councilmember David Pandori steered the garden safely through the political shoals. In March 1995, the garden was planted after five years of procuring and growing plants in a field over 40 miles away. More than 750 volunteers showed up over 3 weekends in spite of record rains! Since that time, we continue to collect and grow additional varieties. It was dedicated by city officials in September 1995.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/27/the-class-of-12-flings-their-caps-into-the-air/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18712

Because, you know, high school. Done with. Somewhere in there is my niece. It was a good day for her and for the family.

Paging Nicola Marlow?
First woman to command Royal Navy frigate takes helm.

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1657793.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View comments.

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2012/05/27/fandom-is-jointly-owned/

http://mightygodking.com/?p=6289

Recently…well, probably not recently because it’s a very old debate but here’s another recent iteration of it…the discussion once again came up regarding slash fiction. In this particular case, for those of you not clicking the link, it’s a woman stating that she has just as much of a right to remix canon as anyone else, and any guy (and they do always seem to be guys) who gets creeped out, personally offended, emotionally disturbed, or just generally defensive on behalf of poor straight Captain America and Iron Man who can’t do anything about some gurl making them make out and stuff can lump it.

Which is, of course, 99% correct. (It’d be 100%, except that I’ve always felt like Cap and Iron Man’s arguing doesn’t mask a simmering romantic tension between the two men that could erupt at any moment. Cap and Iron Man’s arguing actually masks a much deeper and more fundamental dislike that the two have for each other based on the fact that Iron Man really is a dangerous control freak whose actions, while well-meaning, betray the fact that he actually is so elitist that he thinks that he should be allowed to run other people’s lives, and Cap finds that morally abhorrent. A much better slash pairing would be Cap and Hawkeye, whose macho banter practically screams, “We’re boning each other in the locker room after missions.” But I digress.) The point is, arguing that “this isn’t canon!” or “these characters wouldn’t do that!” is a disingenuous mask that this particular breed of fanboys use to attack fiction that makes them uncomfortable. The same people are probably writing Black Canary/Oracle slash, or at the very least nodding approvingly at it while saying, “Yes, exactly. Good for you for having the courage to show what DC can’t show on the printed page regarding these two characters and their mutual love of kinky bondage games!”

People like that know (perhaps, if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, you could say that they’re aware on a subconscious level, but I suspect that most of them are perfectly knowledgeable on a conscious level) that if they say, “Ick! Seeing gay male characters being physically affectionate makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I think that only sexy women should be publicly sexualized because that’s the sort of thing I enjoy and fandom is all about servicing me and people like me,” then they will get a pointed lack of sympathy. They also know that fans care deeply about canon, because we read comics as much to inhabit the fictional universe for a brief period as to read any particular story, and as a result we’re very bothered when that fictional universe lacks internal consistency. So by hiding behind, “So-and-so wouldn’t do that!”, they divert the discussion away from their own homophobia and dislike of females behaving as though they have just as much of a right to enjoy comics as males, and towards the question of whether or not Captain America would really sleep with Iron Man. (A discussion that, as shown above, I am not entirely immune to participating in.)

But, as the blogger above pointed out, that is not an honest argument. They don’t run around pointing to every single piece of non-canonical fan art or fanfiction and tell the people involved that they shouldn’t be coming up with a different interpretation of the character than tradtionally done. They don’t even go up to Frank Miller and say, “Hey, your relentlessly angry, anti-social, ruthless Batman is actually pretty fundamentally at odds with the character’s history, and is depressingly unsympathetic and one-note.” They save their ire for women, minorities, and alternative sexualities who insist that they should be represented in fandom as well. They are, in short, practicing enforcement of white male privilege, and that’s actually pretty pathetic.

So, to “Pathetic Avengers Fangirl”…you’re right. You should totally keep enjoying the Avengers in whatever way makes you feel happy. Because that’s what being a fan is about.

• Sat, 15:28: Here for @vipetexpo (@ Pearkes Recreation Centre) http://t.co/qAr9CoxV
• Sat, 15:29: I'm at Pearkes Arena (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/rWroqK5f
• Sat, 17:03: Doggie at the @vipetexpo @ Pearkes Recreation Centre http://t.co/0e0VM9C2
• Sat, 17:44: Lacey the horse at @vipetexpo http://t.co/XDBysrDF
• Sat, 18:16: I'm at Safeway (Saanich, BC) http://t.co/hdFuGify
• Sat, 22:25: I donate one tweet a day to help children recover from trauma. You can too! http://t.co/j5uIQxRM #DT @operationSAFE
• Sun, 09:40: RT @HuffPostCanada: Ryder Hesjedal becomes first Canadian to win Giro d'Italia http://t.co/WfrdT8qO
• Sun, 11:33: You can't bleach autism out of a child http://t.co/0WzIo2KF This organization promotes bleach enemas. #autism

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/27/graduation-song/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18708

Away from the Internets for most of the day because my niece Cecilia is having her high school graduation ceremony. See you all tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s “The Paper Chase,” one of my favorite graduation-themed songs, from the (now defunct) The Academy Is… (the ellipsis is part of their name).

I wrote about Fast Times at Barrington High, the album this song is on, here.

Have a good Sunday.

And then, they're disappointed and can't seem to understand why casual SFF readers don't give a shit about the John Clute, M. John Harrison, and James Nicoll of this world?

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2012/05/27/time-travel-shouldnt-make-your-head-hurt/

http://mightygodking.com/?p=6274

I’m not a movie guy.  I’m the guy who would watch Avengers at home, alone, on my 36″ TV if I didn’t have to wait four months to do it.  So I mostly only read movie reviews to see if some movie that actively annoys me is being panned.  Usually movies that annoy me are the ones that air too many obnoxious commercials, but in this case it’s Men in Black 3, which is a completely unecessary sequel to a completely unecessary sequel.

So I’m reading the MIB 3 review on Time.com and I come across this passage:

The average moviegoer is well educated in the particulars of time travel. Even if your high school curriculum didn’t include any H.G. Wells, thanks to Back to the Future, Terminator and dozens of other films, just about everyone knows how it works. Why don’t the fleet of screenwriters who cooked up this script? They have J wake up the morning after the bloodbath at the Chinese restaurant to a world already missing K. This makes no sense. Boris hasgone back in time, but given that he hasn’t found or killed young K yet, old K ought to be alive, well and doing that “sort of surly Elvis” thing he does in contemporary Manhattan. Instead he’s dead and gone, and at headquarters, only the boss and former paramour, O (Emma Thompson, 53 and playing 65 or so, every actress’s dream) even remembers old K.¹

It says something about our society’s perception of time that the reviewer apparently thinks Back to the Future makes perfect sense and this plot does not.  Let’s be honest, most time travel stories are completely illogical poppcycock,² but in general we do not care as long as we’re satisfied that the story follows certain rules we’ve come to expect, which I have given snazzy names because why the hell not:

1. Brown’s Law: A time traveler is capable of preventing events he has already witnessed, but it is extremely dangerous (in some nebulous, end-of-the-universe, don’t-cross-the-streams kind of way) and should be avoided.³
2. Connor’s Berth: The effects of a time traveler’s changes to the timestream are synchronized with the timeframe from which he departed.  That is, if I go back in time and a week after I arrive I prevent your conception, you have a week from my time of departure to send somebody to stop me before you cease to exist.
3. McFly’s Confidence: Time travelers are “immune” from the effects of changing history (even when the changes directly affect their own lives) and retain full knowledge of whatever nonexistent timelines they’ve witnessed.
4. Guinan’s Exception: “Stationary” observers are only “immune” to changes in history through extraordinary circumstances, like being a special kind of alien or standing next  to the Guardian of Forever.
5. Simpson’s Razor: The only changes a time traveler must concern himself with are the ones he can perceive; he needs only to make additional changes that restore history “close enough” to his personal satisfaction.
6. Beckett’s Mandate: The morality of altering the timeline is subjective and ultimately determined by the sympathies of the audience, represented within the story by the will of  “God, time, fate, or whatever.”⁴

So yes, the setup of Men In Black 3 apparently breaks several of these rules, but the rules are arbitrary to begin with–they have no logical basis and aren’t rigorously applied even in the stories that purportedly follow them.  As long as the good guy needs to fix time, the bad guys are trying to stop him, and the viewer isn’t completely lost, everything else is just gravy.  This is why so many Star Trek time travel episodes suck–not because they don’t play by the rules, but because the writers confuse themselves, give up, and end with an explosion that puts everything back to normal.⁵  In the end the only rule is to tell a good story, although I am dubious that the 10,000th variant of “Let’s go back in time to the late 1960s!” can do that.

1. If you’re wondering why I read Time’s movie reviews, it’s for the elitist attitude.  “Oh, your average mouth-breather at least saw an  Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but my school could afford actual books by H.G. Wells!”
2. The Bill & Ted duology being a notable exception that follows Novikov’s self-consistency principle.
3. Incidentally, Thunderbolts #174 recently broached the subject of what the danger actually is, which was quite satisfying.
4. You might say “But the audience wanted Sam to save his dad!” but we really didn’t because that would fundamentally alter Sam’s history, and thus Sam as a character.  Similarly, Sam can’t fix Al’s past until the series is over and we don’t need Al to be a lovable creep anymore.
5. Jim’s Law of Time Travel clearly states that if you think your time travel story is so confusing that you decide to have a character point out how confusing it is,  you probably  should not be writing a time travel story.

http://blogs.feministsf.net/le-guins-lathe-of-heaven-production-in-nyc-june-2012

http://blogs.feministsf.net/?p=1710

Damn, I wish I could be there. But for those of y’all who can, here’s the info:

Untitled Theater.com

adapted and directed by Edward Einhorn

from the book by Ursula K. Le Guin

original music by Henry Akona

at the 3LD Art + Technology Center

80 Greenwich St.

See interviews with Ursula K Le Guin and the creative team on kickstarter!

June 6 – 30

Wednesday – Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 5pm

Saturday June 23 and June 30 at 3pm

Tickets $25 June 6 – 9, $30 June 10 – 27, $40 June 28 – 30

BUY TICKETS HERE

Singer: John Gallop III

George Orr: Robert Honeywell

Dr. Haber: Eric Oleson

Heather Le Lache: Caroline Saaman

Piano: Mellisa Elledge

Cello: Michael Midlarsky

Video: Kate Freer and David Tennant

Sets: Jane Stein

Costumes: Carla Gant

Lighting: Jeff Nash

Sound: Chip Rogers

Stage Manager: Raffaela Vergata

AD/ASMs: Frank-Thomas Grogan, Abigail Strange

Interns: Mark Galinovsky, Barbara Ayala Rugg,

WORLD PREMIERE OF AUTHORIZED STAGE ADAPTATION OF SCI FI NOVEL BY LEGENDARY NOVELIST, URSULA K. LE GUIN

Untitled Theater Company #61 (UTC61) presents The Lathe of Heaven, an original, authorized stage adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi classic about a man whose dreams change reality, adapted and directed by Edward Einhorn with music by Henry Akona.

The play examines the human need for certainty and understanding in contrast with Taoist ideas of uncertainty and unknowing, and intersperses verses from the Tao Te Ching as operatic art songs for baritone, cello and piano. UTC61 has been once again granted a residency at 3LD Art + Technology Center. 3LD’s unmatched video technology will be used to make real the ever-changing landscape that emanates from the dreamer.

“The ideas of the book come through undeformed and not oversimplified,” states novelist Ursula K Le Guin. This is the third of Untitled Theater Company’s sci-fi adaptions, following acclaimed productions of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (also at 3LD). Each has been faithful to the original ideas in the novels, while bringing them to physical life with music and video in a rich theatrical experience.

Oh, gallant was the first love, and glittering and fine;
The second love was water, in a clear white cup;
The third love was his, and the fourth was mine;
And after that, I always get them all mixed up.

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1657230.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View comments.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/26/musical-synchronicity-of-a-certain-miserable-sort/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18704

It may just be me, but I think the lead characters of these respective and currently popular songs deserve each other. Listening to the lyrics will help to explain why.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/26/dont-go-into-the-basement/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18701

If you’re a vegetarian, that is, because the standing freezer down there is now full with roughly 250 pounds of beef. Krissy went in with a co-worker on half of a locally bred and butchered steer, and her quarter of a steer is now taking up several shelves in the freezer. Athena, who is our resident vegetarian, registers her (entirely posed) horror.

Actually, this is a fine moment to note that Athena recently passed her one year anniversary of being a vegetarian a few weeks ago. She started doing it to see what she thought of it and has kept at it ever since, with all of us doing a bit of research to make sure she’s getting all the nutrients she needs and so on. It does take some effort to keep a vegetarian lifestyle around here — Athena is one of the very few in her school who does — so I’m pretty proud of her for making the choice and sticking with it.

Massive purchase of beef notwithstanding, we’ve all cut down our consumption of meat here at the Scalzi Compound (the massive purchase will last us quite a long time), and Athena’s commitment to not eating the stuff is the major reason why. So good on my kid.

hano is a Hero of the Revolution who identified the netbook problem and suggested a fix which has, indeed, worked, so I do not have that frustration to deal with.

Having a good time, a bit laidback, a little tired - two of my panels down (the anti-hero discussion, perhaps a bit all over the place but quite lively, the changing reading tastes over time, rather good I thought, lots of thoughts to think about).

Having the usual rather frustrating thing of not wanting to book up every available free slot before I even get here, but then not being able to schedule get-togethers. However, I have some meetups fixed, and yesterday managed to have an enjoyable lunch with lcohen and dinner with oracne - for the record, yak sizzling platter at a Taste of Tibet, having had goat curry at the other Tibetan place on Thursday eve - along with various rencontres around the Concourse more generally, in the Dealers' Room, the bar, at the parties, etc -

Even if at the latter I, and many of my approx contemps were expressing a certain exhaustion by the late-ish hour.

Sleeping reasonably well if with a certain amount of waking earlier than I would prefer, though this morning I did get back to sleep, but not for as long as I might have liked, as I had to get up with a 10 am panel in mind.

Among other good stuff, I record here the whirlpool.

This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1656914.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View comments.

• Fri, 13:16: I'm at Tillicum Centre (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/VYX6C3o0
• Fri, 13:16: I'm at London Drugs (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/fWsGrajq
• Fri, 13:21: I just became the mayor of A And W on @foursquare! http://t.co/byUdX1qG
• Fri, 13:21: I'm at A And W (Saanich, British Columbia) http://t.co/Gdm3Wf2i
• Fri, 13:33: Purse shopping. (@ Zellers) http://t.co/73Bn76wA
• Fri, 15:47: Mountains behind Esquimalt Lagoon, taken at @RoyalRoads University. http://t.co/trP4BaO3
• Fri, 15:49: Photo I took of last night's sunset while waiting for a bus on Bay Street in #yyj http://t.co/bOUECrKi
• Fri, 19:38: I'm at Westside Village (Victoria, British Columbia) http://t.co/2z49Man2
• Fri, 19:39: I'm at Save On Foods (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/Qv76cQwY
• Fri, 20:09: Attractive firefighters fundraising outside Save-On Foods. Raising money for Muscular Dystrophy Canada.

I love Rex and June’s facial expressions SO MUCH that that I’ve decided to revive an ancient (yes, five years ago is “ancient,” on the Internet) Comics Curmudgeon tradition: a comics panel lookalike contest! You might recall the finger-quotin’ Margo and self-clubbing Tyler lookalike contests; now it’s time for a Hilariously Overwrought Rex and June Facial Expression Lookalike contest! Here, here’s a close-up of the panel:

Take a photo of you and a friend imitating Rex and June here (no need to include Iris and Mabel, but feel free if you think its important for your take on the tableau) and send éem to me at bio@jfruh.com. The top entry will be arbitrarily chosen by me and whatever friends or family members I rope into helping me pick, and wins … eternal glory? Sure, let’s say that. Eternal glory PLUS your choice of one item from the Comics Curmudgeon merch store, which yes, still exists, even though I haven’t updated it in a long time. Go forth and look like that panel, everybody! Points for style, execution, amusing variations, etc.! I am not legally responsible if you sprain your face trying to match Rex and June’s expressions.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

1901 	 91,279 	 
1911 	492,432

These are stories of the future; adventures in which you'll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds.

Simon's Cat in 'Tongue Tied':


This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1656546.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View comments.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/25/galaxy-tab-2-7-0-notes/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18694

You’ll recall that when I lost my Mac and bought the emergency netbook, I also picked up a Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 inch tablet, on the rationale that, damn it, I was grumpy and I wanted a toy. This is not an excellent reason to buy a piece of electronic equipment, I am the first to note. That said, I’d had my eye on this particular tablet for a bit, so it wasn’t entirely impulsive. I’ve lived with it now for a week and I’m ready to mention what I like and don’t like about it.

First, a general note: I like it. We have an iPad here in the Scalzi household (it’s primarily Krissy’s) and while it’s surely a nice piece of equipment, I’m not in love with its size. A ten-inch tablet is too large for my tastes; unless you’re Shaquille O’Neal, it’s not something you can carry around or use in a single hand, and in other respects it’s also unwieldy. I understand the boffins at Apple have decreed that the iPad is the perfect size for a tablet and that if we have a problem with that there’s something wrong with us, not them. But screw them, they’re just wrong. In my case, a 7-inch tablet is just about perfectly sized: Large enough to give you enough space to see a lot of things, but small enough to operate with one hand. It’s paperback book-sized, basically, and there’s a reason paperbacks are the size they are: Because they make ergonomic sense for humans.

I am using my tablet primarily as a reading appliance, and to that respect it’s been pretty great. Both the Kindle and Nook apps look good and perform well on it, and the screen is a high enough resolution (1024×600) that I can read books without eyestrain (and, because its an LCD screen, I can read it without a nightlight). I’m also trying the Next Issue app, which works like a Netflix for magazines, and it’s for me at least a nice way to cruise through various magazines without them cluttering up my house.

Web browsing is fine — text is small in portrait mode (one needs to pinch zoom) and perfectly readable in landscape. One thing I do like that is that things don’t automatically default to mobile versions of Web sites. I also like that I can access my own site’s backend via the browser, so I can go in and moderate comments more completely than I can do on my phone. The Android 4.0 system means all the Google toys work in a fairly optimized manner, which is especially useful with GMail, which I use. The keyboard in portrait mode is easy to operate with two thumbs.

Although I don’t use it much for video, it handles video just fine; I ran a bit of Serenity on it via Netflix and didn’t have any problems. Haven’t played any games on it so far, but that’s not why I got it, so even if it were to choke on that I wouldn’t care much. The camera is definitely meh, but it’s another function that I did not buy the tablet for, so that’s fine.

Things not to like: It only comes with 8GB of resident memory and half of that’s devoted to apps that I didn’t pick and probably won’t use but come with the thing anyway. This is mitigated by the MicroSD slot and the fact that I just got a 32GB card in that format for $20 (and that it comes with a deal with Dropbox for something like 50GB of space for a year, which does not suck). The power button and the volume rocker button are close enough to each other that I’m always pressing the wrong button. This is annoying. The screen is occasionally less than perfect with touch response (particularly with small type websites), and gets smeary real fast. It’s slightly weird to think the 4.5-inch screen on my phone has a higher resolution than this 7-inch screen.

However, to be blunt, these criticisms for me are blunted by the fact that a) I paid $240 bucks for the thing, which is not a lot, all things considered, b) the tablets closest to it in capability/design — the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire — have similar or lesser specs and are crimped by design in order to keep you in their respective ecosystems. With regards to a), I was not expecting genuinely top-flight specs for what I paid, and what I got for the price is more than satisfactory. With regards to b), why pay for crimped tools when you can get them uncrimped for essentially the same price?

So, for the price and for what I use the thing for, the Galaxy Tab 2 pretty much hits my needs dead on. If you’re looking for a solid, basic tablet in a smaller form factor and for not a whole lot of cash (relatively speaking), it’s worth giving a look.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/05/friday_squid_bl_327.html

Seems that squid ink hasn't changed much in 160 million years. From this, researchers argue that the security mechanism of spraying ink into the water and escaping is also that old.

Simon and his colleagues used a combination of direct, high-resolution chemical techniques to determine that the melanin had been preserved. The researchers also compared the chemical composition of the ancient squid ink remains to that of modern squid ink from Sepia officinalis, a squid common to the Mediterranean, North and Baltic seas.

"It's close enough that I would argue that the pigmentation in this class of animals has not evolved in 160 million years," Simon said. "The whole machinery apparently has been locked in time and passed down through succeeding generations of squid. It's a very optimized system for this animal and has been optimized for a long time."

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.

• Thu, 14:32: I'm at Wannawafel (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/90535Q22
• Thu, 14:33: I'm at Market Square (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/7nFv3rAn
• Thu, 15:09: I'm at Shoppers Drug Mart (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/0PCy8NlN
• Thu, 15:54: I'm at The Bay Centre (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/dsFgrvIq
• Thu, 19:02: I just ousted @maydyn as the mayor of ABC Country Restaurant on @foursquare! http://t.co/WZbjGMy7
• Thu, 19:02: I'm at ABC Country Restaurant (Victoria, BC) http://t.co/hU8eN0KE
• Thu, 19:56: I donate one tweet a day to help children recover from trauma. You can too! http://t.co/j5uIQxRM #DT @operationSAFE
• Thu, 21:49: @CooperatorNorm FYI, in your profile it says "there" insurance needs. Should be "their." Spelling mistakes make you look bad.
• Thu, 22:20: Hey #yyj I'm looking for a meeting space for my #asperger group. Can't pay money to rent space. Any suggestions?
• Fri, 06:07: Happy Towel Day! http://t.co/2XsvV7KH