MARK EDMUNDSON: Dwelling in Possibilities (chronicle.com:80)
... our students are nomads, on the move all day. Wherever they sit, they set up Internet Command Central. Now students in almost any classroom can get directly onto the Internet and, given the shieldlike screens on their laptops, they can call up what they like. Especially in the big lecture classes now, everyone's flitting from Web site to Web site, checking e-mail, and instant messaging. Do they pay any attention to the class? My students tell me that they're experts in paying attention to many things at once: It's no problem at all.
Harry Potter: the last battle (books.guardian.co.uk)
On one side: global-celebrity author JK Rowling. On the other: an amateur fan site devoted to Harry Potter. John Crace on the court case that has the publishing world holding its breath.
'I've said my piece' (music.guardian.co.uk)
It will be a long, long time before Billy Bragg stops singing about politics. But his new album reveals a softer, more human side. He talks to Laura Barton about love, faith, tears ... and the importance of rhubarb.
In the book and film of the same name 'The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy,' ____?____ are said to be the most intelligent beings on earth and that they commissioned the building of earth and now own it.
vic in Alaska was first, and correct with:
De answer is D: De Mice own de Earth
Iditarod Update , looks like Lance Mackey is going to repeat as winner of the Last Great Race....I'm just too knackered to stay up to watch the end.
Here's a quite stirring imagery from the trail
"Traveling in and out of the fog banks between Nulato and Kaltag, the Northern lights illuminated the sky so brightly that even Gebhardt's dogs took notice. Running with their ears pinned back from a slight headwind, all but one dog looked to the heavens and watched the aurora borealis show.
"I'd never seen them do that," Gebhardt said"....Awesome
DanD responded:
If this book were updated in order to include consideration of the BFEE
phenominon, then turd bacteria would be the unqualified answer. As it
is, the movie showed two little white mice (D) as our overall and
ultimate owners, even though -- in their human form -- one of those
super-intelligent beings appeared to be somewhat of the negroid (i.e.,
less pastey-colored) persuasion (whew, talk about navigating around
politically looked-down-upon verbiage).
THERE, I've done released all my N.E. Louisiana, cracker inhibitions!
Anyway, movie-wise, it should have been one white and at least one mouse
of light-brown color. Somehow though, the younger spirit of Walt Disney
seemed to have seized control of the casting cage while they were
interviewing the animal-stars of this somewhat British film.
So there we have it, when it comes to Anglicized intelligence in
Hollywood beyond Bond, white yet continues (at least on the four-legged
animal scale) to be right.
Next week, we should be reviewing the Klan conspiracy theories of the
inter-dimensional Masonic Order.
mj wrote:
That's going to take a Deep Thought
And the answer is not 42 (which is 6 * 9 - rather a cockup, that)
D, we only think we're experimenting on them. It's the onther way 'round.
Trillian kept two as a momento of Earth when she took off with Zaphod. One was Benji, can't recal the other's name off the top of my head.
And if you're lost, just follow someone who looks like they know where they're going, but that's another book entirely.
Steve B said:
D: Mice
Alan J replied:
Mice
Tony In Philly answered:
I am going to guess B: Cockroaches
Randy responded:
Mice are nice, at twice the price.
Joe S ("A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
~ Douglas Adams) replied:
That would be D: Mice. I'm pretty sure it's mice. It's probably mice.
Charlie answered:
D: Mice
I'm pretty sure about this one: my source is page 163 of the book (paperback edition)
ducks responded:
No idea if it is correct but it was the first thing that popped into my mind. My dad used to say the last living thing on earth will be a female cockroach. Maybe that's where I got it.
Marian the Teacher replied:
mice
Sally said:
In the book and film of the same name, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy," Mice (D) are said to be the most intelligent beings on earth, and that they commissioned the building of earth, and now own it. The second most intelligent were, of course, the dolphins...
My son, the former, "Star Trek" geek, went through a period in his adolescence where we had, "HHGTTU/G" books, comics, and even an early computer game all over the freaking house. I still have the Guide and another book from the series, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" over which we fight "ownership rights" all of the time.
And, Mike in Des Moines answered:
D: Mice is the answer to this question. "42" was the answer to the question, but everyone had forgotten the question, so Earth was the supercomputer that was commissioned to come up with the question.
I do so miss Douglas Adams.
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'Survivor: Micronesia', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The Original One', then a RERUN'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Kate Beckinsale and Graham Colton.
On a RERUNCraig (from 2/4/08) are Kristen Bell and Wicked Tinkers.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'My Name Is Earl', followed by another RERUN'My Name Is Earl', then a FRESH'Celebrity Apprentice', followed by a FRESH'Lipstick Jungle'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Howie Mandel and Minnie Driver.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Meredith Vieira and Harland Williams.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson 'The Scab' Daly are Wayne Brady and Kate Voegele.
ABC starts the night with an 'enhanced' RERUN'Lost', followed by a FRESH'Lost', then a FRESH'Eli Stone'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Tori Spelling, Steven Strait, and Rick Ross.
The CW offers a FRESH'Smallville', followed by a FRESH'Reaper'.
Faux has a FRESH'Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?', followed by a FRESH'Don't Forget The Lyrics!'.
MY fills the night with the movie 'The Crow'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'The First 48', followed by a FRESH'The First 48', and a FRESH'Crime 360'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Matrix', followed by the movie 'In The Line Of Fire', then 'Breaking Bad'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 D-Place;
[1:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 8 Clarke;
[2:00 PM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 11 Derby 34;
[2:30 PM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 12 Wespoint 14;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 11;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[4:00 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 4;
[4:30 PM] You Are What You Eat - Episode 5;
[5:00 PM] My Family - Ep. 4 Of Mice and Ben;
[5:30 PM] Coupling - Ep 7 Dressed;
[6:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 The Priory;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News America;
[8:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 The Fenwick Arms;
[9:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 1 La Parra de Burriana;
[10:00 PM] BBC World News America;
[11:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 The Fenwick Arms;
[12:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 1 La Parra de Burriana;
[1:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 2 The Fenwick Arms;
[2:00 AM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 1 La Parra de Burriana;
[3:00 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 15 Stourbridge;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 16 Camberwell;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 11 Derby 34;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 12 Wespoint 14;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 22 Crawley;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 23 Morris;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Make Me A Supermodel', another 'Make Me A Supermodel', 'Top Chef', and a FRESH'Make Me A Supermodel'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', last night's 'Jon Stewart', last night's 'Colbert Report', 'Futurama', 'South Park', followed by a FRESH'South Park', and a FRESH'Lil' Bush'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Dana Perino.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Sudhir Venkatesh.
FX has the movie 'Ice Age', followed by the movie 'Ice Age', again, then the movie 'Man Of The House'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Ax Men', 'Gangland', and 'Cities Of The Underworld'.
IFC -
[07:35 AM] Tadpole;
[09:05 AM] Reel Paradise;
[11:00 AM] Mondays in the Sun;
[01:00 PM] Tadpole;
[02:20 PM] Reel Paradise;
[04:15 PM] Mondays in the Sun;
[06:15 PM] Mystery Train;
[08:30 PM] Basilisk #10;
[09:00 PM] Miller's Crossing;
[11:00 PM] The Human Stain;
[01:05 AM] XX/XY;
[02:45 AM] Miller's Crossing;
[04:45 AM] The Human Stain. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'Jeepers Creepers', followed by the movie 'Jeepers Creepers 2'.
Sundance -
[05:00 AM] Radiant City;
[06:30 AM] Mary, Queen of Scots;
[09:00 AM] Episode 6: Playing the Swan;
[10:00 AM] Chapter 7. The blowpoke returns;
[11:00 AM] Chapter 8. The verdict;
[12:00 PM] Swimmers;
[01:30 PM] Father and Son;
[03:00 PM] Blind Flight;
[05:00 PM] Mary, Queen of Scots;
[07:15 PM] Kill The Man;
[09:00 PM] Episode 2;
[10:00 PM] Mario Batali on Michael Stipe;
[11:00 PM] Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snow Patrol & Madeleine Peyroux;
[12:00 AM] Episode 2;
[01:00 AM] Episode 6: Playing the Swan;
[02:00 AM] Episode 2;
[03:00 AM] Robert Redford on Paul Newman;
[04:00 AM] Episode 4;
[05:00 AM] Haiti: The End of the Chimera?. (ALL TIMES EST)
Singer Deborah Harry attends the premiere for 'Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise,' at the IFC Center, Wednesday, March 12, 2008, in New York.
Photo by Evan Agostini
Movie critic Roger Ebert, who has been laid low for the past few years by thyroid cancer that has robbed him of his voice, will make a rare public appearance next month at the Illinois film festival that bears his name.
The 10th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival, a.k.a. Ebertfest, will take place April 23-27 in Champaign-Urbana, home of Ebert's alma mater, the University of Illinois.
Ebertfest continues its tradition of screening films that the famed Chicago critic believes have been overlooked by other critics, distributors and, alas, festivals. The mission is to praise films, genres and even formats, like 70mm, that have been overlooked. It's a one-venue event, at the historic Virginia Theater, with a focus on quality over quantity.
This year's festival will kick off with Kenneth Branagh's 70mm "Hamlet" from 1996, the only uncut, full-length film of Shakespeare's masterpiece. As with past editions, Ebert will select 12-14 films representing a cross section of genres and styles. There is no submission process, but they are films Ebert has screened in the course of his reviewing.
Actress and comedienne Carol Burnett, right, teaches her famous Tarzan yell to Martha Stewart on the NBC 'Today' television program, during her appearance on the show in New York, Wednesday March 12, 2008. Burnett is the voice of Kangaroo in the new animated movie 'Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!'
Photo by Richard Drew
Actor Eugene Levy is thrilled to be getting a Governor General's lifetime achievement award but don't try packing him off to a home for old comedians any time soon.
"I think once the awards start rolling out your way, people are trying to tell you something possibly, but I'm not ready for retirement right now."
Levy, 62, was one of six lifetime-achievement recipients announced Wednesday for what's described as Canada's most prestigious artistic honour.
Other honorees are Quebec rocker Michel Pagliaro, filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, director and choreographer Brian Macdonald, pianist Anton Kuerti and playwright John Murrell.
The talent scout who turned down the Beatles has long been credited with committing the music industry's biggest gaffe.
But Dick Rowe's billion-dollar boo-boo has been beaten to the top spot on Blender magazine's list of the "20 biggest record company screw-ups of all time" by the failure of record companies to capitalize on the Internet.
The major labels took top dishonors for driving file-sharing service Napster out of business in 2001, instead of figuring out a way to make money from its tens of millions of users. The downloaders merely scattered to hundreds of other sites, and the industry has been in a tailspin ever since.
Rowe came in at No. 2 for politely passing on the Beatles after the unpolished combo performed a disastrous audition in 1962. Beatles manager Brian Epstein later claimed the Decca Records executive had told him that "groups with guitars are on their way out," a comment that Rowe denied making. He went on to sign the Rolling Stones.
Harry Potter was the center of seven novels, but he'll star in eight films.
The final book in the wildly successful series will be made into two films, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
Producers are expected to announce Thursday that J.K. Rowling's last "Potter" installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will be split into two parts on the big screen. The first film is slated for release in November, 2010, with part two following in May 2011.
Argentine-born Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, gestures, during a press conference in which he talked about his upcoming concert with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Berlin, Aug. 23, 2008, in Berlin, Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
Photo by Franka Bruns
"The Lineman," one of Norman Rockwell's iconic slice-of-life paintings, will permanently join many of his other works in the museum that bears his name.
Verizon Communications Inc. is donating the $2 million painting to the Norman Rockwell Museum, where it has been displayed on loan for two years. Rockwell painted it for a 1948 American Telephone & Telegraph ad campaign. He was inspired by a telephone lineman he spotted working in Cheshire, Massachusetts.
New England Telephone Co. once owned it but Verizon inherited it after a series of mergers. It hung in Verizon's Franklin Street building in Boston for years.
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Robert De Niro by an insurance company that claimed he misrepresented his health for a movie role.
Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. insured the film "Hide and Seek." The company claimed the actor misrepresented his health when he wrote that he had never been diagnosed with or treated for prostate cancer.
According to court documents, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Oct. 15, 2003, two days after he signed the medical certificate. De Niro underwent a prostate-gland biopsy on Oct. 10, 2003.
"This ruling vindicates what we've said all along," De Niro's attorney Robyn Crowther said. "We are pleased that the court has found that Fireman's Fund can't sue Mr. De Niro for getting cancer."
In this photograph provided by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Kermit the Frog poses on Capitol Hill to call attention to the plight of amphibians, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 in Washington. Because of pollution and a disease specific to amphibians, one-third of amphibians worldwide may become extinct within the next ten years.
Photo by John Harrington
A man who sent Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster threatening letters for several years was arrested on Tuesday on charges of mailing a bomb threat to a Los Angeles airport.
Michael Smegal, 42, of Holliston, Massachusetts, was charged in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts with mailing a threatening letter to Van Nuys Airport in early December.
The letter was one of more than 100 nearly identical letters with references to Foster mailed to celebrities, business executives, airports and other locations around Los Angeles from September 2007 to January 2008, an affidavit said.
If convicted, Smegal faces up to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
"Girls Gone Wild" video empire founder Joe Francis pleaded no contest to child abuse and prostitution charges Wednesday under an agreement allowing him to go free after nearly a year in jail.
Francis, 34, returned to Florida after posting a $1.5 million bond this week in Nevada, where he is awaiting trial for tax fraud. The hearing in Bay County state court resolved his 2003 criminal case involving the filming of underaged girls during spring break on Panama City Beach.
"I have never committed any crime. I pleaded guilty just to get out of jail," a defiant Francis said after the Bay County state court hearing. "A few corrupt individuals were able to keep an innocent man in jail for 11 months."
Francis makes an estimated $29 million a year on videos of young women in sexually provocative situations.
Visitors photograph cherry blossoms and field mustards at a park in Matsuda village, on the outskirts of Tokyo on Saturday, March 8, 2008. Hundreds of people came to the park to admire the beauty of the tiny pink petals of the cherry trees.
Photo by Shuji Kajiyama
Thousands of Chinese security personnel fired tear gas to try to disperse more than 600 monks taking part in a second day of rare street protests in Tibet, a source and Radio Free Asia said on Wednesday.
The Tibet demonstrations follow a string of marches around the world to commemorate the 49th anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule in the remote, mountainous region that has become a flashpoint for protesters ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
"The monks chanted: 'Release our people'," the source said, quoting a witness. The group, from the Sera Monastery, also shouted "We want human rights and freedom," the source said.
Radio Free Asia said the monks from the Sera Monastery were demanding the release of fellow monks detained for protesting a day earlier.
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East , U.S. officials told McClatchy . However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
Resident Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks.
Members of the United States rock group Kiss pose for photos during a press conference in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, March 12, 2008. Kiss will perform after the Australian Formula One Grand Prix here on Sunday evening March 16. Fom left, Tommy Thayer, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Gene Simmons.
Photo by Rob Griffith
Authorities are considering charges in the bizarre case of a woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years - so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time the boyfriend finally called police.
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.
"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."
The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.
Most days, Moko the bottlenosed dolphin swims playfully with humans at a New Zealand beach. But this week, it seems, Moko found his mojo. Witnesses described Wednesday how they saw the dolphin swim up to two stranded whales and guide them to safety.
Before Moko arrived, rescue workers had been working for more than an hour to get two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, back out to sea after they were stranded Monday off Mahia Beach, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith.
But Smith said the whales restranded themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea from the beach, about 300 miles northeast of the capital, Wellington. It looked likely they would have to be euthanized to prevent a prolonged death, he said.
Then along came Moko, who approached the whales and appeared to lead them as they swam 200 yards along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea.
Anton van Helden, a marine mammals expert at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, said the reports of Moko's rescue were "fantastic" but believable because the dolphins have "a great capacity for altruistic activities."
A baby Grevy's zebra named Tuli, born Feb. 6, 2008, walks with her mother Evita, Wednesday, March 12, 2008 on exhibit at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.
Photo by Lisa Poole
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