The Economist has an article detailing a British betting firm’s odds on various scientific potenially-soon-to-be-discovered phenomena. The big mover right now is the superstar of the physics world: the Higgs Boson. Great stuff.

According to Wikipedia, one possible way the Higgs boson might be produced at the Large Hadron Collider.

Now if I can just figure out how to get in on this action. What odds will you give me on gravitational waves?

Thanks to Kenly Maddux for the link

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were predictably action vehicles, but they injected thematic intelligence to the maximum. Inception falls closer to Nolan’s other films, where the intricate plotlines are front and center. All the reviews you’ve heard are true: Inception demands you pay attention. It won’t take an IQ of 150 to understand the film, but it’s not simply fireworks in the sky. And that’s a good thing. The thinking man’s Hollywood movie is an increasing rarity.
Since the plotline is such an integral part of a viewer’s enjoyment of the film, I won’t delve into analysis or recap. The themes of dreams versus reality, memory, regret, catharsis, and reconciliation are abundant (a recurrence for Nolan) and excellent.

Fret not, action junkie, Inception is not all thought experiment. Nolan adds plenty of suspense and adrenaline to the film, including the first “zero gravity” fight scene. In some ways, the film is a traditional heist flick. Further, the cinematography is brilliant, as Nolan and team blend elaborate landscapes and special effects to splendid effect. On top of it all is a strong cast with strong performances, headlined, of course, by Mr. Leonardo DiCaprio.

Perhaps the greatest part of the whole thing, though, is the ending. Nolan unpins a grenade, tosses it toward a keg of explosives, and finalizes in a way that will leave you thinking. After the credits roll, the final aspect of the story causes the viewer to immediately reevaluate the finer points of the story they discerned in the process, a la Memento and The Prestige.

The only negativity I have encountered regarding the film are the need for a more resolute resolution and some noise from those who simply don’t like films to make you think. To me, the former criticism is understandable, but I like the ending just as presented. To the latter, I say, go see Toy Story 3.

Few big-budget films are worth the price of admission these days. Inception is definitely one of them.

mith rating: 9.5

A freak carom off a teammate’s face from 30+ yards into your own goal? Stupefying. This goal happened during an Irish league match between Waterford United and Mervue United. Waterford went up 1-0 thanks to Mike Elwood, who might have been the best player on their team that day. Problem for Mike was that he plays for Mervue. Luckily, Waterford added two more goals to win 3-0. Still: ouch.

A contest has emerged for the first person to crack the code. The prize? A whopping shirt…

A company that manufactures medical equipment has created a pin-up calendar featuring x-ray images of models…

This thing would probably actually look pretty cool hanging on a wall.

Movies Cited:

0’00 – Roxanne, Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Gleaming the Cube, The Princess Bride, A Fish Called Wanda, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Casino, Three Amigos, A Clockwork Orange

1’05 – Dolemite, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bad Santa, The Witches of Eastwick, The Big Lebowski, In Bruges, Full Metal Jacket, There Will Be Blood

2’05 – Toy Story, Casablanca, Encino Man, The Women, Predator, Army of Darkness, They Live, Uncle Buck, Big Trouble in Little China, New Jack City, Billy Madison

3’00 – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Departed, Carlito’s Way, In the Loop, Glengarry Glen Ross, Stand By Me, Grosse Pointe Blank, Duck Soup, Caddyshack, Planes Trains & Automobiles

4’00 – South Park, Napoleon Dynamite, Mean Girls, The Breakfast Club, As Good as It Gets, The 6th Day, Step Brothers, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Full Metal Jacket, City Slickers, Road House, True Grit, Shot Circuit

5’00 – Raging Bull, The Usual Suspects, Snatch, Caddyshack, The Last Boy Scout, Ghostbusters, The Sandlot, As Good as It Gets

6’00 – 48 Hrs, In Bruges, Silver Streak, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Fish Called Wanda, Goodfellas, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Mist, Trading Places

7’00 – The Warriors, Point Break, Gangs of New York, Reservoir Dogs, The Breakfast Club, The Cowboys, Full Metal Jacket, Dodgeball, Donnie Darko, Scarface, The Good the Bad and the Ugly

8’00 – Anchorman, Tropic Thunder, Sexy Beast, In the Loop, Get Shorty, Blazing Saddles, The Way of the Gun, Blade: Trinity, Clerks, The Boondock Saints, The Exorcist, What About Bob?, Weird Science

9’00 – Con Air, True Romance, In the Loop, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lake Placid, The Front, Gone with the Wind

Don’t do drugs, kids.

Before I continue, let me note that not everyone disliked the episode or the plot developments. In fact, I spoke to a good number of people who loved it for various reasons (some because answers were finally doled out, some because they enjoyed the reveals themselves). But those cries seem to be drowned by a vocal backlash created by those who vehemently disliked the episode. In my discussions about the episode with the dissenters, several plot points seem to cause the most issue. Synthesizing the larger picture, I think I hit upon a general reason for their dislike, which we can parse a bit.

Lost’s serial structure, in my mind, has always been about peeling away a level of an onion. Or drawing back a curtain to reveal a bit of landscape, which takes you to another curtain. Or opening one door at the end of the hallway to reveal another hallway in a new dimension, with another door at the end of it. What do I mean? Take the wide-angle view of how the show’s scope has evolved:

1. The first curtain opens the series. In Season 1 we are presented with the island and its strangeness. The group of survivors find it enchanting, dangerous, and mysterious, but all we really see is there effort to remain alive, to find rescue.

2. The second curtain reveals another population on the island. Suddenly the island is not just an enchanting world from which you cannot escape, but is instead a magical locale that some people already inhabit and do not want to leave. Also, the Dharma Initiative elements add another group who have seen the island as a place to go, not to leave.

3. The third portion of the telescoping structure begins in the Season 2 finale and propels into Season 3. We see researchers attempting to find the island and doing so thanks to the EMP. Instead of a completely secret island inhabited by some lucky folks, we are now dealing with a population in the world at large in search of the island, revealing the scope of the island as something even greater than previously imagined. This portion includes the Others/Ben vs. Widmore saga.

The browser that comes with the Android system is appropriately called “Browser” and that’s about all it will do. As a mini port to the web via smartphone, Browser is competent, but not exemplary. Navigation, especially stopping the loading of a page, is clunky. Link selection via trackball is difficult and non-intuitive. Using the touchscreen is a bit better, but still not perfect. Opera makes significant upgrades to these problems. Screen navigation is much easier, as Opera actually features a mouse-like pointer. The trackball can move fluidly across the screen, unlike the link-to-link navigation of the built-in browser. Further, an in-screen task bar along the bottom of Opera’s screen creates easy access to basic functions such as going back a screen, putting a stop to a loading screen, etc.

Further, some of the extra features of Opera are splendid. The multi-window feature is the best in a smartphone browser I have come across. You can open multiple windows and switch between the two with ease. The bookmarks and history sections to the browser are intuitive and user-friendly.

Settings in Opera contain a lot of the same you find in computer browsers. Opera can save your password, can change font sizes, can change image quality, and toggle between mobile view or regular view. For certain sites, mobile view is superior (gmail), while others function better in regular mode (facebook). The fact that one is not a clear choice is one of the only apparent drawbacks to the browser. Opera also contains various privacy settings.

Despite all those goodies, the main attraction to Opera when viewed against Browser is speed. Opera is noticably faster. The default browser is often tedious to work with due to its pace, but Opera loads pages with lightning-like swiftness (for smartphones, at least).

Opera is free and inherently superior to the built-in browser. There is absolutely no reason why an Android user should not have this application for web usage. Opera Mini 5 garners a massive recommendation from us.