On a typical morning I scroll down my RSS intake for the past ten hours and spawn tabs for each story I want any more of. I decided to enum those links today. Why? I don't know why.

Which search-engine, browser, OS do the employees of Google, MS, Yahoo, and Apple use
Link (via Digg)

The Windows XP boot process step by step
Link (via Digg)

Dr. Who Gets a New Companion
Link (SciFi Wire)

Java developers sure do like making things from scratch
Link (java.net Weblogs)

My favorite registry hacks to boost performance of Windows XP
Link (java.net Weblogs)

What Strategic Ambiguity?
Link (Cato Daily Commentary)

The Rise and Fall of CORBA
Link(via Slashdot)

Freaky Playground Sculptures of the World
Link (via Boing Boing)

Microsoft's Forgotten Monopoly
Link (via Techmeme)

Tapping Your Superconscious: 1-Second Nap Your Way to Powerful Solutions
Link (via Digg)

China Olympic stadium design entry resembles giant snatch?
Link (Boing Boing)

Wikipedia List of fictional expletives
Link (via Boing Boing)

Yahoo! Opens up Their Instant Messenger
Link (Slashdot)

Ars System Guide: June 2006 edition
Link (ars technica)

In Case You Weren't Clear On How The Telcos Screwed Everyone
Link (Techdirt)

Modern Heap View
Link (java.net Weblogs)

Google to compete with Nielsen for TV-ratings info?
Link (ars technica)

Vern sees into A SCANNER DARKLY... what did he see?
Link (Ain't It Cool News)

The human rights abuses at the heart of Europe
Link (Samizdata)

Yup, that's my post for June.

So far Superman actors have all done terribly. George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, that pansy from "Loisand Clark", that kid from the "Smallville" series: none of them ever seemed like they came from anywhere but Sol-3, that they were pretending to be something they didn't begin to understand -- and how could they? Superman as a concept is easy to grasp by his parts (not funny!): he is invulnerable to conventional weapons, can fly, has heat vision, etc; but to play the role of Superman, to *be* Superman: what life experience could possibly prepare an actor for such a challenge? So they typically fall back on the more human elements of Superman, his internal conflicts and various neuroses: will Lois love him for what he is? Does he endanger her just by being with her? Does he have some moral obligation to save people's lives all day long simply because he can?

Which is all fine grist for the screenwriter's mill but ignores the simple and most fundamental fact about Superman: that he is from another planet. He is not human, and his clear superiority to humans in every way must constantly remind him of it. He must be aware of it when shaking hands with his frail human newspaper boss; he must avoid pulling doors from their hinges when opening them; he must feign weakness when moving furniture or throwing a baseball; he must deliberately miss his flight if a normal human could not run fast enough to get to the terminal in time. All of which must serve to remind him that this place, this world of fragile humans, was not designed for him, these people not his own: he may have adopted their ways out of necessity, but they will never suit him particularly; humans and their creations must without pause fill the alien with alienation.

Superman should have something alien, even terrifying about him, something in his eyes -- crazy alien eyes that see more than any human's can see, and which betray his confidence that he could crush you like an insect if he chose to. He should prefer solitude to company (thus his aptly named arctic fortress) but for his neurotic desire to be human and mix with humans: his essential loneliness from alienation. Thus his main internal conflict: the more he interacts with humans the more alien he is made to feel, yet the more alien he feels the more he desires contact with humans. Any actor should be able to identify this emotion within themselves. We'll see what the new guy does.

I feel compelled to note the passing of the great SF publisher Jim Baen. He may be solely responsible for the very existence of several subgenres (especially Military SF), and his influence has been immeasurable. Read David Drake's obit here. I'm almost sad like it's 1988 again.

I've switched from SUSE 10 to Ubuntu 6 -- restless me -- and so far (maybe 30 minutes) I'm quite happy and surprised and dancing around singing happy songs about it. Ubuntu really does make a lot of the laborious Linux stuff much easier to take care of, even compared to SUSE. Within 30 minutes I've got MP3s blaring from all speakers, AVIs and MPEGs rolling, Rar unpacking my many serial archives, Flash popping up ads in Firefox, "java -version" returning a copyright notice, and -- yes -- dual monitor support. It's like a gift from the OS fairy.

Most of this happiness comes courtesy of EasyUbuntu which streamlines setting up codecs, fonts, archivers, java, flash, voip, and even installs video drivers. This would have accounted for at least an hour under SUSE.

I was really surprised and filled with dancing happy songs by the ease with which I obtained dual monitor support -- something that's always been a nightmare before. And not just two separate desktops, but full-ass spanning without Xinerama. I guess it's mostly due to the new Nvidia card I recently plugged in though; TwinView kicks ass.

So now I'm adjusting to Gnome instead of KDE (as well as Debian instead of SUSE), and it seems perfectly as good, just as customizable and just as usable. In fact, most of the default apps are maybe a bit better. Rhythmbox is able to stream music off my network storage drive without a hitch, as is Totem w/ GStreamer for video. I've used gedit quite a bit at work, and it's more or less perfect for what it does (I've not a Vim guy -- screw you arrogant Vim guys).

The only annoyance is the same for practically any full featured Linux desktop: OpenOffice.org's insistence on mimicking MS Office with irritating autocorrect settings. I hate that! I hate "smart quotes" and superscipt and dash replacements and and and....