Cuil: The ISHTAR of search engines!

You might have heard about Cuil: a new search engine, the founders of which have stated is going to be a "Google killer". It went online a couple days ago and I've tried it a number of times since then, growing more frustrated with each attempt to determine how exactly Cuil is supposed to be useful. It claims to have indexed more pages than Google. And maybe it has, and all those pages really are sitting in a database somewhere in Cuil's corporate headquarters. But if so, the algorithms needed to access 'em are shot to Hell. Doing a search for myself in regard to the Viacom mess last year turned up photographs of a robot and an NBA basketball player. And the results don't even seem consistent from one search to the next, either...

This thing cost upwards of $33 million to start up. Kinda makes Cuil the Ishtar of search engines, when you think about it.

Cade Metz at The Register has written an enlightening - and hilarious - essay about what seems to have gone wrong with Cuil. It reads frighteningly close to what happened at ION Storm (John Romero's now-defunct game company that promised to "make you his bitch"), given the ratio of wild promises to burn rate of venture capital.

Whatever is going on over there, Cuil's owners need to fix things fast, or else their little project will be a vague memory by Christmas.

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Bush spitting in faces of Chinese Christians... again

When he goes to Beijing for the opening of the Olympics over a week from now, George W. Bush will "worship" at a church there, it's being reported.

Now for the part of the story that the Bush Administration doesn't like to talk about...

The "church" that Bush will attend is no doubt going to be one of the state-approved churches that the communist government of mainland China keeps under its control. It will not be a congregation of believers who are free to worship as they best understand the leading of the Holy Spirit. They cannot even appoint their own leaders for their churches: the Chinese government determines who are the pastors and other officials, even installing its own priests for the supposedly "Catholic" churches there.

(By the way, Bush did the same thing almost three years ago and I wrote about it then, too.)

The church that Bush will be going to will be one that puts loyalty to the Chinese government far ahead of loyalty to God.

Meanwhile, some estimate that 40 million Christians in China are worshiping at underground "house churches", beyond the sanction of the government there. They do so at the risk of being arrested, imprisoned, and perhaps far worse.

Those are the believers that our supposedly "Christian" President should be standing in solidarity with. And it would be ridiculous to suggest that Bush attend a service at an "unofficial" church and risk the lives of its congregants. But by announcing that he will attend one of the state-sponsored churches, Bush is gesturing his approval of goverment-controlled religious worship. It would have been better if he had the guts to say "Nope, I'm not going to go in for this farce. You officials in Beijing need to let these people worship God according to their conscience, not your policy."

But then, since when did Bush ever have the guts to do something like that, anyway?

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For those asking for my thoughts on THE DARK KNIGHT...

A review is coming. Probably later this evening. I had to go see it again yesterday afternoon (at that swanky new theater in Burlington) before proceeding any further with writing a review... which I've been working on for over a week now.

Suffice it to say, I'm going to have a lot to say about this movie.

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First trailer for HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE just apparated online!

Harry: "Did you know, sir ... then?"

Dumbledore: "Did I know I'd just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No."

Our first look at the child Tom Riddle. And Dumbledore fights the Inferi.

This one is gonna hurt when it comes to theaters this fall. Can't wait!

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Which KWerky Productions star is now appearing with Richard Gere in a Nicholas Sparks movie?!

Why, it's none other than Dawn Swartz (playing the nurse on the right), who starred in our short film Schrodinger's Bedroom last year!

Dawn has a role in - and even appears in the trailer for - the new Warner Brothers movie Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, James Franco and Viola Davis. It's based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. I was going to go see this anyway 'cuz of the setting (Rodanthe is a small community on North Carolina's Outer Banks) and the cinematography looks beautiful, and Lisa is a big fan of Sparks's books and movies too. Now we've another great reason to check it out!

Here's a page with some links to various formats of the Nights in Rodanthe trailer. And if you're just plain lazy, here it is on YouTube, too (Dawn appears about 12 seconds in)...

Congrats to Dawn! Who is not only a wonderful actress and KWerky Productions family member, but also a very sweet person and a dear friend :-)

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Iraq War veteran's wounds lead to discovery of cooking

Lenny Watson was a Marine who was among the first to enter Iraq when the war started over five years ago. In 2004 he lost most of his lower jaw during a grenade attack. His drive to have something palatable to eat during his recovery ended up propelling him into the culinary arts...

The Dallas Morning News has the story of Lenny Watson's new career.

No, not gonna add any commentary here about the war, and that's not why I'm posting this here either. I do think this guy has the right attitude though: that being happy is ultimately your own choice to make, regardless of whatever nonsense life throws into your path. It's a great story, and one worth sharing with others.

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TR2N (AKA the TRON 2) teaser is everywhere illegally!

Rather than post a link or embed the video (which would make no sense since Disney is sending out DMCA claims all over the place tonight) I'll just say that if you really have to see the teaser for TR2N - the sequel to 1982's Tron - that ran at Comic Con a few days ago, just search for "tr2n" on whatever video hosting service that you happen to like, and you should come up lucky.

The screenshot above is the official logo of the movie, taken from one of the better versions that I've seen floating around.

From what I've heard, Jeff Bridges shot his stuff for the teaser in a single afternoon, under the tightest secrecy so that it could be a complete surprise at Comic Con this weekend.

I'd love to see this thing in full, beautiful Quicktime. How about it Disney? I mean, people are watching it already anyway. This thing is too gosh-darned beautiful to have it secretly traded around among the dark corners of the Intertubes. If y'all wait 'til next week after Comic Con, we'll understand. But please, get an official release of this teaser out there soon! :-)

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