Goodbye Zune

On August 31 Microsoft will begin removing apps for the Zune HD from its Zune Marketplace. Some Zune services will also be shut down. There are details here.

It is a shame. The Zune HD was a nice alternative to the IPod Touch. It had some advanced features like being able to sync with a PC over WiFi. The interface was fast and fairly intuitive. And, it was very friendly to music ripped from (legally owned) CDs.

As originally shipped the Zune had some drawbacks. It could not connect to a wireless network that required an agreement. This is how most commercial hotspots work so it was limited to home wireless routers. Email, Facebook, and Twitter were a long time coming. All of these were eventually fixed and several games created for it but by then the IPod and IPhone had hundreds of thousands of apps.

Probably the biggest thing that hurt the Zune were timing. The window for marketing a non-phone, touch-screen music player came and went pretty fast and they launched at the tail end of it. Even then, the device was not totally ready for the market. It was fine when playing music or movies but, as I said before, the social aspects of the device were not ready when it launched. It also lacked the ability to do any multiprocessing except to play music while using one of the limited number of apps.

Regardless, I got one of the early ones and found it to be a good music player. It has good battery life and the touchscreen is much handier for large music collections than the touch wheel on the Sansa player I used before it.

It is not perfect. When restarting the device after pausing it, it often wants to start playing the first music track on the device instead of restarting the playlist I was on. The interface is menu-based and some choices are buried further than on Android.

My biggest complaint is the lack of external storage.

Recently I upgraded my smart phone. This left me with a perfectly good Android device that can still connect to WiFi and has external storage. I put a 32 gig memory card in it and have been using it as my music player instead. One advantage to this is that I can play music without having to use earphones or an external speaker.

I can understand why Microsoft would not keep supporting a device that they no longer produce but I am not sure why they would start killing existing services. This is just the latest in a line of music players that they introduced and later abandoned. It is actions like this that make me dubious about trusting Microsoft again.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

ABC has announced a new TV series based on Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. with episodes written by Avengers-director Joss Wheden,

Before I can talk about SHIELD (I'm going to drop the periods from now on) I need to backtrack to Goldfinger. This was possibly the most influential movie of the 1960s. It was actually the third James Bond movie but this is the one that really made an impact. For years afterwards spies, often laden with high-tech gadgets, were popular on TV and in movies. There was even a popular sub-genre of parodies of spy movies (for example, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine). TV series included the Man from UNCLE, the Woman from UNCLE, Get Smart (another parody), and British imports Secret Agent, The Avengers (Steed and Mrs. Peel), and even The Prisoner.

1965 was a big year for Marvel. Stan shook up a lot of titles. Some changes were minor - Reed and Sue got married, Daredevil switched his yellow and black costume for the red one. Other changes were larger - the Avengers replaced most of its members, the Hulk became intelligent (for a while). At the time, Marvel had two comics that featured two stories. Tales to Astonish was split between Giant-Man and the Hulk while Strange Tales was split between the Human Torch and the Thing as the lead feature and Doctor Strange as the backup. The first feature in these comics was replaced with a new one. The Sub-Mariner took over Tales to Astonish and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD took over Strange Tales.

Fury had been around for years as a World War Two sergeant leading the Howling Commandos. Stan billed this as a "war comic for people who don't like war comics." Fury was known for losing both his temper and his shirt.

Early on Stan decided that the Howling Commandos occupied the same word as his superheroes. Reed Richards made an appearance in an early issue of Sgt. Fury (and Captain America appeared in another issue). Fury appeared in an issue of the Fantastic Four as a major.

Rather than create a new character, Stan and Jack Kirby reused Fury. He lost an eye but gained a promotion to Colonel. In the first issue, Fury was recruited as the director of the new organization. It also introduced LMDs (Life Model Decoys), flying cars, and the helicarrier.

Secret governmental organizations exist to fight shadowy groups that are trying to take over the world. In Fury's case the original organization was called Hydra. After this was disrupted, Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) became the new threat. Others followed and Hydra reappeared a few times.

Even though it was part of the Marvel Universe, Fury and SHIELD were kept separate from it. Tony Stark appeared a few times but without armor. Captain America was the only costumed hero to appear.

Jack Kirby was the original artist but he was soon replaced by comics legend Jim Steranko who made his reputation from his run on the comic. Steranko eventually took over as writer, also, becoming the first fan-favorite writer/artist. He combined a clean, photo-realistic style with psychedelic touches and unusual layouts. He left after the 5th issue although he still did some covers. The new team could not maintain the quality of the Steranko issues.

After three years Strange Tales was split into solo comics. It only lasted 15 issues before it was cancelled (it actually went to #18 but the last three were reprints from Strange Tales).

That was not the end of SHIELD. Fury and company became regular guest starts. After Captain America began dating a SHIELD agent he spent some time as sort of a SHIELD consultant. When Godzilla was given a comic book, a branch of SHIELD was assigned to destroy him.

Over the years Fury has become a mainstay of the Marvel Universe. He is the eternal warrior, always there to do the right thing no matter what the cost.

Read Comics in Public Day

It turns out that today (August 28) is Read Comics in Public Day where people are encouraged to read a comic book where others can see you doing it. The date was chosen because it is Jack Kirby's birthday.

Wired is asking for pictures.
http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/08/comics-in-public/

Paranorman and Hocus Pokus

The current release Paranorman is about a boy who can see the dead. As if this wasn't enough of a burden, he finds out that only he can stop a witch from returning and taking vengeance on the town that executed her three hundred years earlier.

While there are some major differences (one is stop-motion and the other is live-action) there are a lot of similarities between this movie and 1993's Hocus Pocus. Here are some of the similarities and differences. I'll warn before I get to the major spoilers.

Both movies feature a boy who feels like an outcast.

Paranorman - Norman talks to people who are invisible to everyone else.
Hocus Pocus - Max just moved to Salem from California

Both heroes have a sister he does not get along with but who joins him in the adventure.

Paranorman - an older sister
Hocus Pocus - a younger sister

Both towns have a witch (or witches) who were executed three hundred years ago and who have returned. The towns celebrate the witches and even teach about them in school.

In both movies the hero is bullied in school. Later the bully/bullies encounter the witch(s).

Paranorman has a school play about the witch trial.
Hocus Pocus includes the witches in history class.

In both movies the witch(s) return along with zombie(s).

Paramorman - one witch, multiple zombies.
Hocus Pucus - three witches, one zombie.

In both movies, the action takes place on the anniversary of the witch's execution but this is actually a bit of a red herring. In both movies, the witch(s) return happens because of external events.

Paranorman - incomplete instructions on how to keep the witch from rising
Hocus Pocus - a virgin lights the magic black candle.

In both movies it is up to a small group of kids to stop the witch.

In both movies, the zombies lose one or more limbs which is mainly an inconvenience.

In both movies the witch hates to be called ugly.

Paranorman - the manifestation of the witch destroys several ugly witch statues and other representations.
Hocus Pocus - Winifred goes out of her way to try to kill anyone who calls her ugly.



------------ spoilers -------------



In both movies the zombies are not as bad as you first expect.

Paranorman - the dead are brought back to punish them for convicting an innocent of witchcraft.
Hocus Pocus - Billy the Zombie always hated Winifred and turns against her as soon as he can talk.

The 50s Craze

Every now and then there is a craze for a previous decade. There was a mild 1970s craze in the 1990s which lead to the TV show That 70s Show. There was a 1940s craze in the 1980s that mainly manifested itself as shoulder pads on women's clothing and accentuated cheekbones inspired by the Joan Crawford look from Mommie Dearest. When done poorly this looked like warpaint.

None of these can hold a candle to the 1950s craze in the 1970s. A lot of this centered on Rock and Roll.

Rock came into its own in the 50s but it changed at lightening speed. A song might be a major hit one year and hopelessly dated the next. Listen to the Beatles' recordings for an example of this.

By the early 1970s some DJs (Disk Jockeys - back then the guys who announced the records actually got to choose what they would play) had rediscovered early Rock and named it "Golden Oldies".

What started as a music revival became a cultural phenomenon with the release of two movies - American Graffiti and The Lords of Flatbush. American Graffiti was made by a pre-Star Wars George Lucas about his late-teens in the "strip". The soundtrack was a "best of 1962" which was close enough to the 1950s. The movie cost less than $1 million to make and took in over $100 million.

The Lords of Flatbush was nowhere as big of a hit but it did feature two soon-to-be-important start, Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone.

Jumping on in the craze, ABC created a tv show set in the 1950's, Happy Days. It stared Ron Howard from Graffiti but Winkler as Fonzie quickly stole the show. It rocketed to number 1. At first the show stared with the 50s classic Rock Around the Clock which quickly sold more records than it had the first time around. Later the show used a 50s-style theme song which was also a hit.

Happy Days was followed with another 1950s show, Lavern and Shirley. Shirley was played by another actor from Graffiti. This show was even more popular.

While American Graffiti was a big hit, the 50s-inspired Grease was a blockbuster. It grossed nearly $400 million world-wide which would make it a huge hit today, even without allowing for inflation.

Eventually the 50s craze wound down. The bands like Sha-na-na who had reformed went back into retirement. Happy Days got so desperate for new plots that they had Fonzie water ski while wearing his trademark leather jacket. When a shark threatened him, he jumped it. It was all down-hill from there.

A Surface Tablet for $200?

Engadget claims that the low-end Microsoft Surface Tablet will cost $199. That would make it comparable with the Google Nexus, Amazon Fire, and Nook tablet. The Surface will have superior hardware than these. It will have a larger screen, more memory, and come with a cover that doubles as a keyboard.

The other tablets are sold at cost or just above. The purpose is to lock the user into the vendor's ecosystem where the real profits are.

Microsoft is probably playing this game, also but in their case they are almost certainly subsidizing their tablet. If true, it is a risky move but it might be their last chance to stay relevant.

Windows 8 looks like it will be a disaster similar to the original Vista roll-out. Businesses are still rolling out Windows 7 and many are planning on holding off on Windows 8 or waiting until Windows 9. The main attraction of Windows 8 is that it has a unified interface with Microsoft's phones and tablets. But this only matters to people who actually have a Microsoft phone or tablet.

When Microsoft announced the Surface and said it would be competitive, people assumed that they meant competitive with the iPad. That means $500. This is too much for an impulse purchase. $200 is low enough for people to try it without a strong commitment. Also, given the larger screen and keyboard, it could pull away a lot of the Nexus and Fire business.

Android is not firmly established on the tablet. The most successful Android tablets, the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, hide android completely. This gives Microsoft an opening that might not exist a year from now.

This would not be the first time Microsoft subsidized a device in order to gain market share. They originally lost money on their game platform. In that case, they were successful but subsidies do not guarantee success. Their attempt at creating an alternative to AOL back in the days of dial-up flopped.

At $200, I might be tempted to give the Surface a look. It depends on what software I can run. Right now I have a lot of books in Nook, Kindle, and EPub format. If the Surface can run all of those applications then I might consider it.

Power Levels

During the Silver Age of Comics, DC heroes strode the earth like demigods. Their powers were limitless and existed beyond mortal physics. Superman epitomized this. He was invulnerable to everything except kryptonite and magic. Nothing was beyond his strength (except the metal "inertron" which was not invented until the 30th century). He could melt anything (except lead) with a glance or freeze it with a puff of his super breath. He could see anything anywhere (unless lead was in the way). Using super hearing and super ventriloquism, he could hold conversations with people anywhere on the planet. He could fly faster than light and, if he spun at the same time, could go into the past or future. What's more, he was a genius inventor who built advanced robots that could pass for human.

The other DC heroes were not far behind. Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter had many of Superman's abilities. Green Lantern's ring could do anything as long as yellow was not involved. The Flash had to work a little harder but could do things like vibrate through solid objects.

Even non-powered heroes like Batman never met anyone they could not beat with their bare hands. The only trick was following some obvious clues to find the villain.

Contrast this with the Marvel heroes, especially the first few years. They were much weaker. The most powerful heroes, Thor and the Hulk, could not even fly. Thor needed his hammer and the Hulk jumped. There were things that even the Hulk could not break.

The Thing could only lift a few tons. The Human Torch's flame lasted around a half hour, less if he pushed it, then he had to rest. Cyclopes, the most powerful member of the X-Men, could move a few tons with his power beam but the effort left him weak or even unconscious. The same was true for Marvel Girl who collapsed after lifting a few hundred pounds. At 12 feet tall, Giant Man wasn't all that strong and was clumsy. He could grow larger but only for short times. His partner, the Wasp, was more of an irritant than a threat.

The most powerful heroes had built-in weaknesses. Thor lost his powers if he didn't hold his hammer. The Hulk changed back to a puny human. Iron Man constantly had to recharge his batteries. The Sub-Mariner grew weaker when he was out of water.

Even Daredevil had constant problems. He was a blind, costumed athlete with radar sense but power lines and other things confused his hypersenses. A guy dressed as a matador, or someone on stilts, or someone in a frog suit was enough to give him a challenge.

Then there is Spider-Man. He had superhuman strength but he usually fought people who were even stronger. Just a group of regular people was enough to give him a work-out. The trio, The Enforcers, fought him to a standstill more than once. They consisted of a cowboy with a lasso, a guy who knew martial arts, and a big strong guy.

While most of the Marvel heroes grew stronger during the late 1960s and 70s, Spider-Man grew weaker. Regular guys with a gimmick were enough to give Spider-Man a challenge.

The funny thing is that the Marvel heroes were a lot more interesting. There was never any question that Superman or Batman would win a fight. The plots were often structured so that they had to out think their foe. While admirable, it did not induce page-turning excitement like hand-to-hand combat with someone who is stronger.

Over the years the Marvel characters have gotten stronger and the DC characters a lot weaker. When they finally fought, the Marvel heroes came out on top.

At the same time the Marvel villains have gotten stronger so that the fights are still a challenge. Still, they do not seem as grounded as they used to.

Important Superhero Movies

There have been a lot of superhero and comic book-inspired movies over the last few decades. Some have been good, many have been forgettable. This is my list of ones that were important. When I say important, I mean that they had an noticeable effect on other movies.

Superman (1978)

Billed as Superman the Motion Picture with the tag line, "You will believe that a man can fly", this was the first big-budget super hero movie. Stories about production problems had been going on for years before the movie made it to the screen. For a long time it was considered a "troubled production". When it actually came out it was a huge hit.

Part of the success was the contrast between the earnest, too-good-to-be-true Clark Kent/Superman and the post-feminist, post-Watergate Lois Lane.

The movie started on the doomed planet of Krypton, showing us Jor-el sending his son to the Earth and educating him at the same time. It followed as the child was adopted and brought up with solid mid-western values, eventually discovering his heritage and assuming the identity of Superman. We saw Clark meet Lois then rescue her as Superman. He then went on to save multiple people (and rescue a cat from a tree).

Unfortunately the movie peaked half-way through. Once Luther and his goofy assistants were introduced it was all downhill into camp.

Superman 2 never duplicated the lyrical parts of the first movie and never got quite as campy. Superman fought a trio of villains with the same powers that he had. He was also pulling powers out of a hat. After that, the movies went downhill fast.

Superman was notable for its visual effects, particularly the digital wire removal. It proved that comic book heroes could appeal to adults if taken seriously.

Batman (1989)

The comic book character was notable for going through two reboots in the 1960s. The first one trimmed the cast eliminating Batwoman, Batgirl, Batdog and Bat Mite. Also eliminated were fights involving giant props, the Batplane and whirlybats (flying chairs). The over-sized Batmobile was traded in for a convertible sports car. Plots involving aliens or wacky villains were dropped in favor of a more realistic approach. Then came the campy TV show and a lot of the camp crept back into the comic. By the late 1960s, the character was being redefined again. Robin was sent to collage and everyone started referring to him as the Batman.

This change was reflected in the approach to the character. Camp was banished. The Batman took himself seriously.

The look of the movie had a major effect on late superhero movies. The Superman movies were set in the present-day. Care was taken to reproduce the offices and street-front of the New York Times as the Daily Planet. While this added to the realism, it also meant that the Superman movies did not age well. By the mid-1980s, the first couple of movies already looked dated.

For Batman, Tim Burton designed a Gotham City that never existed. Few cars were shown and none were contemporary. As a result, this movie still looks fresh more than two decades later. The only jarring point is when we see Bruce Wayne looking at various TV screens. The TVs use picture tubes rather than flat screens.

The movie showed that a superhero movie did not need any camp or tongue-in-cheek to succeed. But, since it was a Tim Burton movie, it did have some bizarre touches. The sequel had more. The third and fourth movies were over the top and killed the franchise.

X-Men (2000)

Several marvel properties had been made into movies but there were C-list characters (Blade) or flops (Howard the Duck, Punisher). This was the first A-list Marvel title to make it to the big screen and it was a hit. This was followed by an onslaught of other Marvel heroes which continues to this day. Most of them are true to the original character which was a problem in the earlier adaptations.

The X-Men also added sub-texts to superhero movies. The mutants could be seen as stand-ins for issues such as terrorism and gay-acceptance.

Spider-Man (2002)

Superman showed that there was still a place for superheros in the cynical, post-Watergate era. Spider-Man showed that the same was true in the post-9/11 era. It was a huge hit.

Both X-Men and Spider-Man showed that superhero franchises did not have to sink into camp as they progressed. Both series stumbled on their third movie by stuffing too much into the plot but neither committed a sin equal to "bat nipples".

Batman Begins (2005)

This movie introduced the concept of rebooting a character. I still prefer the Tim Burton version but without this movie no serious Batman movies would be possible.

Iron Man (2008)

This was the first marvel Studios movie and it introduced the Marvel movie formula. This includes a long middle act where we get to know the character. The casting and scripting on Iron Man were brilliant because this middle act is the best part. The movie actually becomes less interesting when Tony Stark starts fighting.

Where the X-Men kicked off movies featuring Marvel characters, this one began a series of movies produced by Marvel in which the characters share a common universe and interact. Without the previous four movies, the Avengers would have flopped. It would have taken too long to introduce the characters.

Iron Man was also notable because the head of the Academy of Motion Pictures admitted that it (and The Dark Knight which came out later the same Summer) should have gotten best picture nominations. This was a break-through in acceptance of superhero movies.

The Dark Knight (2008)

 Another huge hit, this is the first superhero movie to win a major Oscar (best actor for Heath Ledger. No camp here.

The TRS-80

35 years ago Radio Shack announced the TRS-80 Microcomputer. I ordered one two weeks later and finally got delivery just before Christmas.

1977 was an important year in computer history. Microcomputers are the parent of today's desktop computer. They had been around for a few years but mainly as kits. For $1,000-2,000 you got a case, one or more printed circuit boards, and a lot of parts. It was up to you to solder the right parts into the circuit board. Once you were finished you could expect to spend hours looking for places where some extra solder shorted out a circuit or you accidentally fried a transistor with your soldering iron (I'm repeating this from published how-to guides from the period). 1977 saw a new generation of microcomputers that were cheaper and were pre-assembled. This included the Commodore PET computer and the Apple II.

None of these had a fraction of the power of a smart phone. They were slow and had limited resources. Storage was limited to a cassette tape drive. Still, they were the first computers aimed at people who wanted a computer instead of an electronics project.

Radio Shack was trying to reinvent itself. A craze for CB radios had just ended and they were trying to improve their image. The TRS-80 was one of a line of new prestige products that were not expected to sell very well. Projections were that each store might sell one or two per year. Instead they sold their entire planned annual production the first day.

By the time that the TRS-80 was released I had a job and enough money (barely) to buy one. I went with the TRS-80 because it had a local dealer and because I could get an RF converter and hook it to a regular TV instead of paying $200 to them for a modified black and white set. I never regretted the choice. The Commodore had a non-standard keyboard and heat problems. The Apple was a nice computer for the time but the TRS-80 cost me $400 and an Apple was over $1,000.

The TRS-80 was cheaply produced. The expensive kits had multiple slots for memory and device drivers. The TRS-80 had a single motherboard. It looked like a thick keyboard. It came with 4k of ran and 4k of ROM which held its BASIC interpreter. The display was 16 lines of 64 characters. It also had a graphics mode made up of little white rectangles. Tandy saved money by only using 7 memory chips instead of 8 so it could only display upper case. It used the Z80 chip which could run at 4 megahertz but Tandy saved money by using an internal signal instead of adding a clock chip. This reduced its speed to around 1.77 megahertz. By any measure it was thousands of times slower than anything made today.

Within months Radio Shack announced upgrades. You could upgrade the 4k of ROM in your base unit to 16k, you could upgrade the 4k Integer BASIC to a 12k floating-point version from Microsoft and you could buy an expansion module. This plugged into the back of the original unit and allowed you to add another 32k of memory, a printer, and up to four disk drives. Suddenly the TRS-80 was a real computer able to compete with ones that cost thousands of dollars.

Radio Shack later renamed the original computer the Model I and introduced a Model II. This was a one-piece computer, monitor, and dual disk drives. Other models followed including one that eventually ran a version of Unix. By the early 1980s, microcomputers were competing with game consoles and were expected to have color and accept game cartridges. Radio Shack came out with three models of Color Computer for this market. The third one of these used the 6809 chip and could run an operating system known as OS-9 that was years ahead of anything that IBM or Apple offered.

By the mid-1980s Radio Shack had converted most of their lineup to IBM PC compatibles. By the late 1980s they decide that they could not keep up with the development costs and dropped their line of computers. Instead they began carrying ones from Compaq (now HP).

Commodore followed up their PET computer with the VIC-20 and the Commodore 64. Both were huge sellers.

Apple lucked out when the first "killer application", Visicalc was written for it. This was the first spread-sheet program and made the Apple II a must-have for business.

Life imitates art - the Batman shootings

A major sub-plot in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is the idea that costumed heroes inspire costumed villains. In the backstory to the series, the government put pressure on the superheroes to retire. The exception was Superman who took direction from the President and kept a low profile.

Then a violent gang took over Gotham City and Batman returned to straighten things out.

The prediction was accurate. Two-Face and the Joker returned and began killing people. The Joker in particular returned because Batman did.

At the end of the series Batman faked his own death and went underground, leading former members of the gang in the fight against crime. The war would go on but the day of the costumes was over.

At the premier of The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman dressed in black with body armor and a gas mask entered a theater through the emergency exit, threw a canister of tear gas, then began firing into the audience. A dozen were killed and dozens more were injured including small children.

It is possible, maybe even likely, that the gunman was inspired by the Joker's random acts of violence in The Dark Knight.

The Heath Ledger Joker was unique among superhero villains. Usually they are bigger than life. Lex Luthor keeps trying to conquer the world, or at least destroy several states. Tim Burton's Joker was already part of organized crime. Catwoman didn't kill anyone except a villain who was trying to kill her. Even Liam Neeson's character in Batman Begins was part of a secret organization and the Scarecrow was a psychiatrist with some unusual pharmaceuticals.

In contrast to most other comic book inspired movies, Heath Ledger's character worked alone and was mainly interested in death and destruction for its own sake, especially if it revealed the worst side of humanity.

Last night's shooter was not directly inspired by the Joker. He hid his identity and wore armor that was more reminiscent to Batman than the Joker. Still, the idea of shooting a bunch of people at random as they waited to see a Batman movie would appeal to the character.

So, did The Dark Knight go so deep into human nature that it inspired a mass shooting? Or was the shooter just someone who was mad at the world and chose a movie audience as a convenient target? Hopefully more information will be forthcoming.

Time Keeping

We got a new clock alarm a few days ago. You don't even have to set the time. Just plug it in and it finds the time.

That got me remembering how clocks used to be. Electric clocks that plug into wall sockets have always been acurate (within my lifetime). The power company carefully maintains 60 cycle per second alternating current. An electric clock based on that will always keep good time.

I remember a news report after a blizzard in the late 1970s that warned that, due to increased power demands, the power company had allowed the cycles per second to slip by a few seconds but they would make up the extra seconds later that week.

Of course you had to set your electric clock to the right time in the first place. Radio and TV stations would give the exact time regularly or you could call the phone company. Most phone companies had a time and temperature number using some early automatic equipment and prerecorded messages.

Once you were out of the house you were on your own as far as time went.

Watches were common. There were no battery-powered watches. They all ran off of a mainspring that had to be wound.

I still have my father's watch. My mother gave it to him before I was born. It was an expensive, high-end timepiece. It was self-winding which meant that it used an internal weight and the wearer's arm movements to wind the watch. If you didn't move your arm enough the watch would wind down (although you could wind it manually). There has been a revival of self-winding watches in the last few years. They are not made as well as my father's. Undoubtedly they cost a lot less, also.

As watches from the 1950s go, this one is quite accurate. It does have to be adjusted every few days.

Timex used to have a line of kids watches. These were cheaply made and not very accurate. Typically one of these had to be adjusted daily. I remember having one that was off by around 10 minutes a day. These watches didn't last long, either. The mainspring or some other vital part would break within a year.

Larger clocks were more accurate. A lot of alarm clocks had to be wound daily but kept decent time.

The worst clocks were in cars. When a car's engine is running it is charging the battery and produces around 13.5 volts. When the engine is off the battery is discharging at around 12 volts. Electric clocks were just electric motors and the higher the voltage the faster they run. car makers tried to estimate how much time a car would be running and designed clocks based on that average. For most people this resulted in clocks that were off by several minutes per day. Even high-end cars had this problem.

In the 1970s watches based on cheap, accurate working became available. Suddenly everyone could afford an accurate watch and timekeeping was never the same.

Mulan and the Princesses

My daughter pointed out that, unlike other Disney princesses, Mulan has both parents. Since the plot centers around her trying to bring honor to her father, I forgot about the mother.

The funny thing here is that Mulan may be marketed as an official Disney princess, she is not a princess. She is the daughter of a noble. She doesn't even become a princess by marriage. So she doesn't break the mold by having both parents.

An irony here is that Mulan is the closest of the Disney princesses to Brave's Merida. Both are tom-boys and at the beginning of both movies the girl is tidied up and stuffed into an uncomfortable dress in order to impress potential suitors. Both of them have trouble with a stray hair, also. Both of them are also accomplished warriors with their own warhorses.

Brave - is Merida a Disney Princess?

Pixar's first dozen movies featured male characters. Most of them were non-human males but even WALL-E had a male personality compared with EVE. Their 13th, Brave has a female lead, the Princess Merida. Her mother is also a major character.

This movie has gotten a lot of criticism. Some people have dismissed it as just another Disney princess.

Originally Disney had six "official" princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine with Pocahontas, and Mulan as unofficial princesses. Later the last two were added to the official role along with the latest creations,Tiana, and Rapunzel.

Right off the bat, Merida is disqualified from being a typical Disney princess. She has too many parents. Of all of the official princesses, only Aurora has both parents and neither parent plays a role in her story. The others are missing one or both parents*.

Merida has both parents and has a normal relationship with both of them. He father is kind and indulgent. He is the one who gave her her bow and arrows and taught her to shoot. Presumably he also gave her the war horse. Her relationship with her mother is strained but familiar to anyone who has raised a daughter.

Merida is also lacking a handsome suitor. She does have the sons of the three clans competing for her hand but the first is skinny with a big nose, the second is incomprehensible, and the third is, well... the third choice of this trio.

Finally, Merida is lacking anyone who actually wishes her harm. Belle and Jasmine have unattractive suitors forcing themselves on the respective princess. Most of the others have someone who is actively trying to kill her (there is a giant bear but he seems to hate everyone).

All of that said, there are some similarities: She is a princess and, like most Disney princesses, she is fairly young (at 14 she is the youngest). There is an element of the supernatural including a woodworker/witch. Finally, she does have some intelligent animal companions.

The biggest difference between Merida and the Disney princesses is that she is a totally original creation. All of the others were pilfered from myth or literature.


* Rapunzel's parents are both still alive but she didn't know this. She was raised by a woman claiming to be er mother.

Secret Identities

I recently wrote about Spider-Man's wisecracks. This got me to thinking about the differences between a costumed hero and his secret identity.

Back in the Silver Age, you got the feeling that a DC character really was his costumed version and that his secret identity was a disguise. This was certainly true for Superman. His real personality was the guy in the cape. When he put on Clark Kent's glasses he assumed a different personality. He was timid and clumsy. I was never sure why he would want to be Clark. It was a lot of work with little return.

Batman was rich but he never spent any time in his mansion or enjoying his wealth. He was always out patrolling with Robin. The Flash pretended to be slow (and always arrived late for dates).

Contrast that with Peter Parker. That was who he was. When he wore a costume he acted a little differently, mainly by being more assertive and making wisecracks. That was perfectly normal. Most people act like this when they know that they are anonymous. That is why Internet trolls and flame wars happen.

Daredevil was similar. He really was a blind lawyer. He just downplayed his additional senses. When he was in costume he was acting by pretending that he could see.

The Fantastic Four didn't even bother with secret identities. Neither did the Sub-Mariner or Doctor Strange. The X-Men kept their identities secret from the outside world but they spent most of their time at the school. They were unique in the lengths they had to go to to hide their identities. Cyclops had to wear special glasses. The Beast had special shoes. Angle strapped his wings to his body, something that he compared to wearing a strait-jacket.

Thor and the Hulk really were different people. When they changed identities they gained several inches height and spoke differently.

Captain America went out without his costume but never established a life outside of the Avengers (until the 1970s). Even then, he never changed personalities. Giant Man and the Wasp wore masks but didn't seem to have a life outside of crime-fighting and research. At some point their identities became known but no one commented on it when it happened.

Back at DC, Green Lantern had the most fully-developed secret identity as a test pilot with a (small) supporting cast.

Then there were the Metal Men - robots who didn't need secret identities (they tried establishing them in a last-ditch effort to escape cancellation but failed). Metamorpho, the Element Man was a freak whose identity prior to his transformation was publicly known.

Martian Manhunter was a shape-changer and took on different identities. The Specter was separate person from his host body although he still needed to merge with it to rest.

Anyway, my original point was that Silver Age Marvel heroes "real" identity was the person behind the mask. In many cases they didn't even bother to wear a mask. DC heroes, especially hold-overs from the Golden Age, put on an act when they took off their mask.

This was part of the appeal of Marvel heroes. You didn't have to become a different person.

Getting Spider-Man Right

There were problems with the first three Spider-Man movies but they got a lot right. Tobey Maguire was perfect as Peter Parker. He embodied the everyman quality that made the character so popular.

Watching trailers for the new version, I keep wondering what they were thinking?

The guy playing Peter Parker doesn't come across as an everyman. He seems more like a character from Twilight. He isn't picked on, he is angst-ridden over his parents. And he already has a girlfriend.

But what really seems wrong is Spider-Man himself and his mouth.

Stan Lee's comics were full of wisecracks but these came across as Groucho Marx style commentary. Sometimes the villain seemed puzzled by Spider-Man's quips. That was ok. The reader knew that he was talking to us. Here's an example:

Green Goblin: After I finish you there will be no one to stop me!
Spider-Man: There's always Irving Forbush!
Green Goblin: Who?
Spider-Man: It's an in joke.

Prior to this, Stan used the name Irving Forbush as a recurring joke in the credits.

So, in the trailers for the new movie we hear Spider-Man making a joke about "You found my secret weakness... a small knife!" before disarming a petty crook. In a different trailer he makes some comments about how people are dressed.

I couldn't put my finger on what seemed wrong about this until I saw an article about the reboot including a lot of sarcasm. There is the problem. Someone with super powers makes some sarcastic comments then beats you up. That isn't how Stan's hero acted. That's how a bully acts. Stan's version didn't use sarcasm, he made jokes. It's the difference between Groucho Marx and Don Rickles.

The trailers may be misleading but I suspect that the new team doesn't understand Spider-Man at all.

Smart Phones

Verizon announced changes to their plans that would have seriously increased by monthly phone charge. I was eligible for an upgrade anyway so I got a new phone and (hopefully) grandfathered my current rate for another two years.

I had been using a Droid Incredible which was top of the line when I got it. It still did everything I need from a phone although an operating system upgrade left it with a serious bug. It didn't recognize all available memory and would give me out-of-memory errors. When this happened some things like Gmail stopped updating. There is a fix for this but my phone complained that it did not have enough memory to install the patch.

Anyway I got an LG Lucid. By current standards this is considered an entry-level phone but I mainly use it for email, Facebook, driving directions, photographs, and occasional web searches so it does everything I need. I'm not thrilled about the battery. My Droid had an extended battery which was good for 2-3 days. I have had to charge the new one twice in a day. I have an extended battery on order. I will see how that helps.

One nice thing about this phone is that everything except the case from my old phone still works. I moved the memory card from the old phone to the new one and had all of my pictures and music. You can't do this with an iPhone or Windows Phone - they don't even support memory cards. Also, the rumor is that the next iPhone will have a new connector that will be incompatible with the old one. Worse, Microsoft announced that the current line of Windows 7 Phones will not be able to run Windows 8. My Lucid is supposed to be upgradable to the next release of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich) although nothing has been announced.

This is my second Android phone plus a couple of Android tablets so I know my way around the operating system. LG made a few changes, mainly cosmetic. One I like is that the wallpaper changes when it is charging. This is an easy way to be sure that your phone is solidly connected to the power supply.

I did have trouble connecting with my Roadrunner email. I could not get the native email client to do it. Eventually I downloaded one called K9 (after Doctor's Who's assistant) and this works just fine. I can get both to connect to my work email.

One complaint I have with the Lucid is the lack of an indicator LED. This is useful for seeing when a new email has arrived and for seeing when the battery is fully charged. Other than that and the battery, it is a nice phone. Considering that the current iPhones and Windows Phones are about to be made obsolete, I'm glad I stuck with Android.

Addams Family and the Munsters

A new Munsters movie is in the works. The Addams Family had its turn at the movies two decades ago. Originally, they competed with each other.

The 1960s was a time of high concept TV. Several shows included leading characters that can only be described as unusual. This included the Addams Family and the Munsters. There was also My Favorite Martian (also made into a movie), Bewitched (another movie), I Dream of Jeanie, The Living Doll (about a life-like female android), The Ghost and Mrs. Muire, and My Mother the Car. In addition, Gilligan's Island and the Monkeys had occasional supernatural episodes. On top of that, there were the straight, hour-long science fiction shows, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants.

Some of these did a better job than others at finding an audience and none were huge hits.

The Addams Family was based on the cartoons of Charles Addams. The Munsters were inspired by Universal's monsters.

The two shows had some similarity. Both featured unusual families that did not seem to realize that they were anything but normal. On the other hand, the Addams Family was higher class in every way. The family itself was rich. Morticia was the embodiment of the genteel matron and one of the sexiest mothers on TV. The family had some quarrels but in general they went out of their way to support each other. They also had a large extended family.

The Munsters were working-class. They were often quarrelsome and could be petty. Herman was childish and given to tantrums. Herman and Grandpa didn't seem to like each other but regularly conspired with each other because they didn't have any other friends. A standing joke was that their niece (who looked normal) thought that she was plain. The Addams never let a woman think that she was plain. If it came up, they whipped out some X-rays to show that her beauty was on the inside.

Previous attempts have been made to revive the Munsters as a TV show.  They never worked.

I suspect that the new remake will have more in common with the Bewitched movie than the Addams Family.

Gays in Comics

DC announced that a Allan Scott, the Green Lantern from an alternate Earth is gay.

So far DC has had a black Green Lantern, a Hispanic one, a few women, and various humanoid and non-humanoid aliens. Why not a gay Green Lantern?

At least they didn't decide to mess with Hal Jordan again.

Having a gay comic book character isn't really news. Captain America had a gay friend in the 1980s.

The first openly gay superhero was Northstar, a member of Alpha Flight although they danced around the issue for a long time. At first they dropped some fairly broad hints - he didn't like women. Later he came down with an acquired immune deficiency syndrome although no one used the acronym (AIDS). Northstar is going to be the first gay superhero to get married this month.

Cat woman was probably the first openly gay lesbian but Wonder Woman and her supporting cast dropped a lot of strong hints in the 1940s including swearing by Saphos, the Greek poet from the Isle of Lesbos (which is where we get the word Lesbian). But, Wonder Woman's sexuality in the 1940s was pretty racy, even by 21st century standards.

Archie made the news recently with the introduction of a new gay character. It would have been more interesting to have had an existing character come out - say Moose.

Considering how often DC reboots their continuity, this is really a meaningless gesture. Not long ago Allan Scott was older and had a gay son. Now it is Allan himself who is gay. Next year he could be older again and it is his granddaughter who is gay.

I cut way back on the Marvel characters I follow but I stopped caring about DC completely a long time ago. None of the characters I grew up with exist any longer. They have been written out of existence multiple times. Why get attached to a character if he will be rebooted later with a different personality?

Attack of the Fill-ins

The 1970s were a bad time for comic books. Demand was down and many traditional outlets like supermarkets stopped carrying comics. There were paper shortages which caused prices to outpace inflation. DC ended half their books because of paper shortages. A new generation of writers and artists had entered the field and they were enthusiastic but had not properly learned their craft.

Things were even worse at Marvel. Stan Lee had ended his long run as editor-in-chief and Marvel couldn't find a competent replacement. The office had a revolving door with each new editor only staying until it became obvious that he sucked. Regular assignments were similarly haphazard. New comics were created with a top-tier team who left within a couple of issues to go launch the next new comic. In some cases, a book might be cancelled by the time the first issue came out.

With all of this going on, production schedules slipped and people began missing deadlines. Since Marvel had a contractual obligation to get something out the door, they started resorting to fill-in issues. At first these were reprints or partial reprints framed with some new pages. Other times they would round up anyone available and have them do an issue. This may or may not work into the ongoing continuity.

I heard Tony Isabella tell about one Fantastic Four story he did under those circumstances, It had been plotted Marvel-style meaning that the artist was given a rough plot and the writer would add the dialogue to the finished art. Things were so tight that as soon as a page was drawn it was sent to Tony for word balloons then sent to be inked and lettered. Tony had the villain command "Release the Three Who Wait!". The next day he got the next page which had a fourth opponent. He solved this by having the Thing exclaim, "I thought you said there were only three!" and the villain replied "I lied!"  (note - in the 1970s, word balloons always ended in exclamation points).

Eventually Marvel started commissioning inventory stories just for missed deadlines. This was a good short-term solution but in the long-term it made things worse since it relieved some of the pressure. Nearly every comic was hit by a fill-in at some point. It got so bad that the staff began to joke about the DDD - Dreaded Deadline Doom.

A few fill-ins were actually good stories. Tony Isabella did one for the Avengers involving a professional assassin that I remember liking. That was an exception. Most fill-ins were, at best, annoying,

There were a lot of things going against the fill-ins, They interrupted the continuity, sometimes in the middle of an intense continued story. They were seldom done by the regular team for the comic, More often, the stories were written by assistants or new guys looking for work. There was little incentive for these people to do their best work since it might never be used, anyway.

Even with these excuses, it is hard to believe that Marvel once ran a comic pitting the Defenders against Tapping Tommy and his Killer Dancing Robots. Really. A frustrated chorus boy captured an Avengers-like team and tried to kill them with dancing robots.

This unfortunate period came to an end when Jim Shooter took over as editor-in-chief. He was controversial but he got production under control.

Men In Black 3

The big question about this movie is why? It's been 14 years since the original one and a decade since the disappointing sequel. Will Smith is getting a little old for the smart-mouth bit.

Fortunately this movie avoids the problems of Men in Black 2. The first sequel rehashed scenes from the original movie and expanded throw-away characters rather than come up with anything new. MiB3 manage a lot more originality. It also features James Brolin doing a dead-on imitation of Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K.

The villain, Boris the Beast, is menacing enough. His goal is to go back in time, kill Agent K, and destroy the Earth. J has to follow.

One goal of the movie is to give some depth to K's character by showing him when he was more open. In contrast, J's character barely grows.

The movie does not manage to recreate the wonder of the original but it is entertaining and throws in many new twists.