June 3, 2003

Not Nelson Mandela As a goodwill gesture before the Middle East roadmap talks, Israel freed its longest held Palestinian prisoner, a terrorist imprisoned for his role in a 1975 Jerusalem bomb attack that killed 14 people and wounded 70 others. 9:33:54 PM

Wondering about the naming of the ice-ship Habbakuk in Harry Turtledove’s Second World War fantasy pastiche Darkness Series? Cabinet Magazine looks at Winston Churchill’s plans for looking ice-ships made out of pykrete, a mixture of ice and wood pulp. (Via Metafilter.) Meanwhile somebody in the US military has been reading Nelson Demille’s Up Country. Like a potential conspiracy in the novel, some people are suggesting that United States rent it’s former base at Can Rahm Bay back from the Vietnamese as part of a global movement of US forces. Update: June 5, 2003 - The United States will reposition its troops in South Korea to bases further from the border with North Korea. One advantage is that they will be out of range of North Korea guns. 1:40:13 AM

Futuremark now says that Nvidia did not cheat on its 3DMark 2003 benchmark, describing what Nvidia did as "an application specific optimization and not a cheat". 1:07:17 AM

Finding Profits Meanwhile Finding Nemo is doing swimmingly with the best opening weekend for an animated film at $70.6 million. In what may be related news the Australian government has announced it will place one third of the Great Barrier Reef, which is the main location of the movie under conservation plans. Finding Nemo’s creator Pixar has two film remaining in its distribution deal with Disney after which a the company is expected to negotiate a much more advantageous deal than the current one that gives Disney one half of the receipts. With Pixar’s streak of successes new extended to five films any new deal would likely be like the one George Lucas has with 20th Century Fox – Pixar paying the their partner a small amount to do the distribution and the partner benefiting from the publicity of having its name associated with the films. 12:47:07 AM

It looks like the box office returns for The Matrix Reloaded are falling faster than Trinity in the opening sequence. The film took in $15.7 million during its third weekend for a drop of 57.5% from the second week. A $300 million US box office now looks out of reach. 12:45:45 AM

Author Peter Maass confirms that Salam Pax is real and that Salam is his real name. Maass realized that Salam was his Iraqi interpreter in May by comparing specific incidents mentioned on line to what his employee did such as borrowed a copy of The New Yorker and help deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. Well that’s mystery’s solved. Next up – can Maass find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? 12:44:27 AM