Interesting Links for 18-01-2013

• Mobile operator 3 are censoring political satire as if it was porn.
  (tags: censorship uk phones )
• Some impressive tech came out of this year's CES. I'd like to try at least four of these.
  (tags: technology thefuture )
• How do you manage geeks? (It turns out, a lot like, well, everyone else.)
  (tags: geeks management )
• Dysaethesia Aethiopica - the leading cause of lazy slaves
  (tags: viaSquid314 slavery racism )
• How a quarter of the cow genome came from snakes – weird, and not at all what I was expecting.
  (tags: cows snakes viasquid314 genetics )
• An explanation for why I buy lottery tickets.
  (tags: shopping psychology )
• Photovoltaics beat biofuels at converting sun's energy to miles driven
  (tags: electricity solarpower )
• Want to increase your productivity? Study says: Look at this adorable kitten.
  (tags: cute work efficiency )
• Is the pound about to plunge?
  (tags: economics uk )
• Samsung demos curved phone concepts (I really like the look of the second one).
  (tags: phones design )

We have reached the pinnacle of technology

via theweaselking

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Some Thoughts

I'm not going to _review_ The Hobbit, because frankly if you wanted a review of The Hobbit then there are millions of places out there to cater to you.

Suffice it to say that I saw it four times*, and there's only one bit that started off dull and got duller with each time. The rest of it had me gripped from start to finish, with only the odd pause to say "New Zealand sure is pretty."

I'm not aiming for spoilers, but I'm going to talk about both this movie and LOTR, so if you want to remain entirely unspoiled then stop reading here.

( I'll put the discussion under a cut. )

So, overall, as a version of The Hobbit, it's probably only about a 6/10. As a continuation of my LOTR experience, 8/10.

Oh, and a quick note - I have only the vaguest memories of the rest of The Hobbit, so no spoilers in comments for anything beyond the end of the first movie please.

*I didn't mean to. But I booked in with tisme to see it on the biggest screen in Edinburgh (not a full-on proper-sized IMAX, but as close as Edinburgh gets), and Julie wasn't interested. And then she decided she was interested, and there were no seats left for the IMAX screening, so we went for a performance together. And then I phoned my parents a week before Christmas and they said "We thought it would be nice to see The Hobbit as a family, so we booked tickets.". And I really wanted to see it the 48 frames-per-second version, so I could make my own mind up if it was a Travesty™ or The Next Big Thing™
**I felt sure I wasn't the first person to think of this, and sure enough, I'm not the only one. Googling "the hobbit palestine" gave me a few unlikely things, too. And yes, I am aware of the dates of the publication of The Hobbit.
***I loathed the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie. It was a bunch of "We remember this bit of the book/radio play being funny, but we can't remember why so we'll cut it down and leave out the bits that made it work" scenes stitched badly together. A massive waste of its potential.
****I only recently discovered some people apparently don't see this.