January, 2008

  1. Review of Robert Gellately’s ‘Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler’

    Robert Gellately’s 700 page distillation of the convergence of three horrendous dictators on the world scene in the first half of the 20th century is what you would expect from a well-written book bringing together the different threads that ultimately converge in World War II. Gellately aptly subtitles his book “The Age of Social Catastrophe”…

  2. The Absurdities of Neil Postman

    I have never understood the appeal of Neil Postman — his articles and books were full of logical fallacies and factual errors. For a man who complained of the affect of mass media on public discourse, his books were close-minded gibberish that amounted to little more than special pleading that the world be ordered as…

  3. Steven Pinker on The Moral Instinct

    Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Steven Pinker did an excellent job outlining an evolutionary explanation and approach to our individual and collective moral intuitions. The most intriguing part of Pinker’s long essay is his summary of the view that there may be a small set of universal moral values, along the lines of…

  4. Vantec SATA Mobile Rack

    One of the things I’ve been doing over the last few weeks is putting the touches on a giant file server that I’ve tucked away in my basement.  I went with an 11-bay CoolerMaster case, and have been stuffing it full of 750gb hard drives. I really hate dealing with hard drive cages, etc., and…

  5. USA Network’s Swamp Thing on DVD

    The Swamp Thing series that ran on USA Networks from 1990-1993 has finally been released on DVD. Note that even though the title is “Swamp Thing: The Series”, this is actually only the first two seasons. I was always a fan of the show, but then again I regularly re-watch Lidsville, so YMMV.

  6. DC Universe Classics Info Archive

    Mattel’s DC-related action figures have been easily the best figure line available from retails stores over the past several years. DCUC.info is a weblog dedicate to the recently released DC Universe Classics, which have some very nice sculpts. I grabbed all of Wave 1 from the local department store a few weeks ago, but am…

  7. Spider-Man The Musical? Please, Don’t Go There

    The other day I ran across a blurb about rumored casting for a musical version of Spider-Man. At first I assumed it was an Entourage-style joke, but apparently it’s not. Playbill had an item back in April 2007 about the production, As previously reported, Julie Taymor will direct the forthcoming musical version of the Marvel…