Scott had a chance to talk with George Gilder about the future of the movies: “The cineplex becomes the home domestiplex.” The whole interview is available for download… [Technorati tags: ScottKirsner GeorgeGilder]

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The Man Who Loved Only Numbers was worth reading, but I felt used. Paul Erdos was a completely fascinating eccentric who proved that not all mathematical geniuses do their important work by the time they’re 30. I won’t go through his bundle of oddities because the author, Paul Hoffman, does a good job enumerating them through anecdotes. But don’t expect a biography: Hoffman doesn’t get much past anecdotes.

That’s not, however, why I felt used. First, the title is a lie. Hoffman makes it clear that Erdos loved his mother, loved little kids, and loved — in his own weird way — his friends, many of whom he kept for his lifetime. Second, this started out as a magazine article and it reads that way. It jumps around in the history of mathematics in order to pad out the book. Some of those jumps are interesting, but as a reader, I felt disrespected, as if Hoffman thought I wouldn’t notice that he’d changed the topic without even the courtesy of a transition sentence.

When in London I picked up a paperback of Blowfly, the not-quite-the-latest in the Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. I’d pretty much given up on the series, but the book was on sale so I figured I’d give it one more shot. I’m about half way through it and that’s probably as far as I’m going to get.

The series started out well — a smart, feisty, female forensic pathologist who solved crimes the CSI way except without the techno beat. (The series undoubtedly was an inspiration, if that’s the word, for the CSI sausage factory.) But as it’s progressed, Scarpetta has gone from interesting to perfect. The people around her tell us that she is gorgeous, flawless, a genius, perfectly moral, the most caring person they’ve ever met. This would just be bad writing except I get the creepy feeling that Cornwall identifies completely with Scarpetta.

That’s in addition to a standard problem writers of crime stories now face: The Temptation of the Lambs. In the first half of Blowfly, Cornwall spends more time with her pair of serial killers than with Scarpetta. She apparently believes she is a fine observer of character. But, her serial killers are impossibly monstrous and monstrously over-written. It’s embarrassingly melodramatic and creepy in all the wrong ways.

O, Thomas Harris, what hast thou wrought?

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Those of you who spent most of last summer playing Zuma will be distressed to learn that Reflexive has a knock-off called Luxor that’s almost as good. It’s $20. (Several elements of my family have also been enjoying playing around with the level designer of Reflexive’s Ricochet Lost Worlds, the game that breakout wanted to be.)

For that you could pre-order two copies of the Professional Edition of Bradsuck’s CD. You can also download his music for free, but, jeez, what more do you want from a one-person singer/songer band? He should come to your house personally and butter both sides of your whole wheat toast? Jeez! [Technorati tag: bradsucks]

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He’s on it tomorrow night, Tuesday, talking about why Everything Bad is Good for You. He promises to blog about it afterwards…

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Rocketboom’s report today includes a substantial clip from the theatrical smash “Ring Tone,” starring my daughter. (Well, it’s theatrical in the “theater of your mind” sense.) And don’t miss the tap dancing at the end of the RocketBoom report.

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The Financial Times reports that India is going to start pixellating cigarettes in movies to avoid glamorizing them. Alternatively, they may run health warnings on screen whenever a cigarette appears.

Doesn’t the Indian government know that in American movies smoking is a sure sign that you’re a bad guy/gal whose comeuppance will come long before lung cancer can take hold?

The regrettable exception are action heroes who substitute not shaving and smoking for acting talent.

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I’ve never been much of a fan of Charles Dickens, what with his two-dimensional characters jostled about by his steam-driven plots. But I started Little Dorrit yesterday. Here’s how it opens:

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.

A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.

There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike—taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire.

The universal stare made the eyes ache…

Best of all, the action in that first chapter takes place in a cave-like jail cell, hidden from the stare. Brilliant, so to speak. [Technorati tag: CharlesDickens]

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Haiwatha Bray reviews four Star War games in The Boston Globe. And at last a reviewer represents my reaction to Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel: “…the games were giving me a strange new power — the ability to sleep with my eyes open.” [Technorati tags: starwars games]

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Here’s a puzzle I read in A Beautiful Mind — wow, is the movie a lie! — as expressed at The Ultimate Puzzle Site:

Consider a road with two cars, at a distance of 100 kilometers, driving towards each other. The left car drives at a speed of forty kilometers per hour and the right car at a speed of sixty kilometers per hour. A bird starts at the same location as the right car and flies at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour. When it reaches the left car it turns its direction, and when it reaches the right car it turns its direction again to the opposite, etcetera.

The question is: How far does the bird fly?

I’m going to give you two hints:

FIRST HINT: If you’re filling up a page with complex formulae, you’re going wrong.

Scroll down for the next spoiler. (This is for those of you readi1ng this as an RSS feed.)     

SECOND HINT: Select between the X’s to see the hint:
X     The two cars are an hour apart     X

Scroll down for solution.    

SOLUTION: Select between the X’s to see the answer:
X The cars take an hour to reach each other. That’s supposed to be the easy part. That means the bird is flying for an hour at 80km/hour. Hence, the bird flies 80km. X

No, I didn’t get the answer. [Technorati tag: puzzle]

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