Continuing on my review of the X-Men movie, there were a couple of things that bothered me. Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

1) The big fight scene at the end, where Magneto sends in the few hundred or so anonymous mutants. Remember, they have to be mutants because Magento rejected Mystique when she lost her powers.

So mutant after mutant rushes forward, and is either killed by Wolverine/Beast or shot by the dart. Question is, what happened to these mutants powers? Not one of them turned into a fireball, turned invisible (that we know of), raced at the speed of sound, and so on. They just jumped off the bridge, and ran right into the soldiers and their darts. Some just ran straight to their deaths with no apparent reason or hope. Perhaps Magneto had them pumped up with excitement. But if I was there, I'd be like “Hey, I'm here to help Magneto. You go first and I'll be right behind you...“

I was expecting at least one of them to have some special power they could use to avoid the darts. Or some type of Wolverine/mutant fight.

2) The bridge. Yes, the famous bridge scene. Magneto reconstructs the golden gate bridge so that it attaches the mainland to Alcatraz. The question everyone is asking is, why did he do it? Why not just float his mutant army over on some huge piece of metal - why the whole bridge?

3) Rogue. Why was she in this movie? What was her character's purpose?

Actually, to put it another way, I think the writers wanted to show that not all mutants like their powers or find them useful. Rogue's power was exploited in X-Men 1, as she was used in the device that tried to turn everyone into mutants. But she can't fight, and clearly has no “role” at this point. But she could have been removed from the movie completely, and the movie would not be any different. I think the “don't like my powers” thing could have been shown another way.

4) And lastly, the X-Men characters (Storm et al) were struggling with the concept - why would any mutant want to cure themselves. To me, that was never the issue. The issue was, when a parent discovers their child is a mutant, would they “cure” them? With the cure, not another mutant will be allowed to grow to an adult. The movie never mentioned this, although clearly the inventor of the cure did so to cure his own son. That's the issue. “Why cure yourself?” is largely irrelevant.

That's all for now. It's a good sign I guess that this movie is still on my mind a few days after I watched it.

Last fall I talked about getting my DNA analyzed, and upgrading from a 12-marker test to a 37-marker test.

That was completed quite a long time ago, and the results are back. I have no 37-marker matches in the Family Tree DNA database. I think this database contains 67,121 other DNA samples, which is tiny compared to the population of the industrialized world (say, 1 billion+).

Interestingly, I do have 62 12-marker matches, and 3 close 25-marker matches. But it is the 37 marker match that will find someone who is closely related to me, so I am anxiously waiting on the first long-lost relative.

Incidentally, with the 25-marker match, FTdna estimates there is a 62% chance I share a common ancestor with this person within the last 10 generations. 10 generations is a long time - 250 years more or less. My own ancestry is only mapped 4 generations! So who the heck knows if I am related to this person or not. Geez, 250 years ago my ancestors were still in Europe!

Claude E. Shannon is largely credited with developing the science of information theory in 1948. This theory has impacted our lives more than almost anything besides the transistor itself. As an example, Shannon called the smallest piece of data a “bit”. Now we all know what bits and bytes are today, but in 1948, there were none. Computers weren't even binary back then (hard to believe).

Thanks to Shannon, when I go to purchase something at Best Buy today, I get asked the question, “May I have your postal code?”. I always decline. Now perhaps Best Buy collects postal codes and does nothing with them. They get archived and just sit on some optical backup drive somewhere for all eternity. But most likely, there is a software application that collects postal codes like manna from heaven.  Every postal code added to its database increases the accuracy of its predictions. What types of products sell where? When it the best time of the month to run promotions? What is the best area of the city to advertise?

You see, computers are now able to recognize patterns in things that we mere humans cannot. What harm is giving over my postal code? It's certainly safer than giving them my phone number. Or having some type of Best Buy Rewards card that I have to carry around and swipe with each purchase. But you know what? To Best Buy, your postal code is just as good as your phone number. It's not like they're going to call you. It's all about analysis at the meta level - the big picture. What products are moving where. If you asked Best Buy who their ideal customer is, they would have an answer. “Married white male, 30-39, living in a detached house inside the city boundaries but outside the downtown core.” Or something like that. Best Buy knows who they like. Down to the street level. “Oh, you live on Polson Street WEST... Ah... Well, sorry Mr. Jones, we can't bend the rules and accept this return past the deadline. Now, if you said Polson Street EAST, we could talk...”

What got me thinking about this is the revelation that the NSA is collecting millions of people's phone records for analysis. Now this is not phone tapping, as they don't care about the phone conversations. They are interested in the “phone number from” and “phone number to”, and that's it.

John C. Dvorak has claimed that, for years, Interpol has had a system that could reconstruct the internal hierarchy of a criminal gang based solely on the phone record analysis. It could determine who the leader was, who his lieutenants were, and all of the junior members. So let's say you have one person you suspect is or was a member of a gang, you could analyze his phone records and those of all that call him, and those of all that call them, and put together a pretty good picture of his associations with people.

A called B at 9:02pm. B called C, D, and E at 9:10pm, 9:11pm, and 9:12pm respectively. C called G. H, and I... you get the idea. A pattern emerges.

Now the NSA is after terrorists. But Best Buy is after consumers with excess discretionary funds. Same techniques to catch similar targets. Not that consumers are terrorists - just that about the same amount of effort is required to find a good customer for Best Buy as finding a terrorist for the NSA. It's all about the amount of information you have, and finding patterns.

There is an interesting book on Claude Shannon that I am currently reading called Fortune's Formula (see link below). Thanks to Warren Buffet's pal Charlie Munger for turning me on to it.

The other movie I saw this weekend was X-Men 3: The Last Stand. This movie fit the X-Men formula to a T. Well, sort of.

I don't want to spoil it, but the basic premise is that Jean Grey has come back to life as The Phoenix. The Phoenix, as comic book readers know, is the most powerful mutant yet. The problem is that she has anger issues, and so she is not on the side of our heroes. She falls prey to the sweet-talking Magneto to help him fight against humans.

In X-Men 2, the death of Jean Grey was used in the same way the death of Data in Star Trek: Nemesis was. Script writers are by-and-large a lazy bunch, and killing off a major character gives them 10 minutes of easy-to-write dialog, if you include the touching funeral and all. Well, I guess if you read the comic you would have seen it coming, but still....

In X-Men 3, the writers go ballistic with this idea. Let's see... 3 major mutant characters are killed (I mean characters from pervious X-Men movies, not new characters for this film), and 3 lose their powers permanently. The movie actors have been doing interviews around the talk show circuit claiming this is the last X-Men movie. But this movie does leave the door wide open for a sequel. Or at least a bunch of spin-offs with perhaps a Wolverine movie, or a X-Men Students, Starring Noone Famous edition.

I left the theater feeling satisfied. I saw what I was expecting to see. Either you like comic-book movies like The X-Men (in which case you will like this too) or you don't. I do, generally speaking. So X-Men 3 gets a thumbs up from me. Be sure and stay in your seats during the credits to see the small scene at the end. If the last 1 minute of the movie left the door open a crack, the scene after the credits blasts the door off its hinges.

It looks like the summer blockbuster season has kicked off in earnest. X-Men 3 is here. Superman is coming. There looks to be some good comedies on the horizon (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and The Devil Wears Prada). Should be a good summer.

I went into this movie having briefly seen the reviews on other sites. To summarize the pre-release reviews, critics generally said “avoid it”.

But, my wife likes Jennifer Aniston, and I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy, so we go see this film on opening weekend.

All in all, I liked it. The movie gets credit from me for attempting to break the “mold” of romantic comedies. In fact, the movie tries to infuse some real drama and real emotion in between the laughs. At one point Vince Vaughn is screaming at the top of his lungs in frustration, and there is no punch line. Later Jennifer Aniston has her heart broken and is crying, and she can't be consoled.

But there are some genuinely funny moments as well. And the supporting cast really does a good job in supporting the primary actors.

But as much as I liked the movie, I can understand the criticisms that are made of it. Genre-breaking movies such as this are somewhat doomed to endure the wrath of movie audiences and critics. I don't think there is any way to avoid it. It's as if you created a James Bond thriller where, at the end of the movie, the bad guy succeeded. Bond was too late to stop it, and the bad guy detonated the nuclear device and killed millions of people. And then the movie ended. I think people would leave the theater a bit disappointed with that. So too are people disappointed when a romatic comedy doesn't end in the normal way.

All in all, I would say this was a pretty good movie. I am glad I saw it - it wasn't a waste of money. But don't go in there expecting to see Sleepless in Seattle or Notting Hill. The movie tries harder than most to make this break up resemble a real-life breakup - and sometimes it ain't pretty.

It only took me 6 months of procrastination to go from getting my MCAD.NET to getting my MCSD.NET.

Today I passed the SQL Server Design exam (70-229) as my elective.

Microsoft was having a promotion - if you fail an exam, you get to take it again for free. And a friend handed me a 50% off coupon. So no more excuses - I just went.

No studying, no Transcenders this time. If I failed, I would take the followup more seriously. No need, since I passed.

Anyways, one more goal reached.

I finally upgraded my home audio system to have 5 channel surround sound. Here I was living in a 2 channel world for so long, and missing the wonders of Dolby.

Besides having to purchase 3 more speakers (a center channel and the two rear channels), I also had to upgrade my receiver. I had an old receiver that the salesman figured supported ProLogic but not Dolby. Hey, don't have to convince me too much. I wanted a new receiver anyways.

Anyways, once I set the system up (man, was that an ordeal - 2 hours!), I had to find a DVD to test with. I picked the first DVD in my collection I could find that would have good audio to listen to. I happened to pick Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones.

You notice it right away. In a crowded bar scene, the rear channel speakers were handling the crowd-noise of the bar, while the front channels delivered the dialog. Nice effect.

The receiver came with a microphone so that the system could auto configure itself for ideal audio settings. It took a few turns to get just right, but now it's sounding good.

Now I just need to get an LCD. The prices are coming down - I should be able to get a decent one for Christmas this year.

A good friend of mine twisted my arm (persistently) and convinced me to read The DaVinci Code earlier this month. I read it while traveling in Italy. (Geez, was it only two weeks ago since then?) I kind of wish I read it before going to Paris. It looks like I missed a few interesting things.

Anyways, my wife and I saw the movie tonight. I must say, all the negative reviews had me worried. I was actually pleasantly surprised by what I saw on the screen. Overall, I liked it. Let's say 7 out of 10.

Some of the comments made by critics were:

It's too long at 2.5 hours. To me, it didn't feel too long. I didn't find myself wishing the movie would hurry up. I didn't check my watch until I left the theater.

Tom Hanks is miscast as Robert Langdon. He might be. It might have been better to see an unknown in the role, or Bill Paxton who producers originally wanted. Hanks does not match the image of Langdon given by the book, and is not convincing as a professor. But I thought he did a pretty good job in this film. Not as bad as The Terminal, that's for sure. In the end, it worked out pretty well.

The movie spends too much time explaining the backstory. Actually, I thought the book spent too much time explaining things. The movie glosses over some things and skips others entirely. Which is fine, because its not a bloody documentary. For instance, I don't think the words “Opus Dei” were uttered until 1.5 hours into the movie. And then only 2 or 3 times through the whole movie. After all of the fuss the book makes about Opus Dei, the movie hardly talks about them.

Deviations from the Book. The problem for filmmakers when adapting a popular book into a movie is that (a) to properly adapt a book that includes all the scenes would require a 5 hour movie; (b) authors are able to say things in words that do not translate well to movies; and (c) once you have to cut some scenes out for time, you have to modify others to make the story make sense. I found this movie was quite faithful to the book, and there were only a few subtle changes from what Dan Brown had written. For instance, Robert Langdon solves most of the clues, and Sophie Neveau is just along for the ride. She is just there basically to ask “what? why?“ and have Langdon or Teabig explain some other piece of history to her (and us). The book spends much time establishing her as an accomplished cryptologist.

Anyways, if you liked the book, go see The DaVinci Code. If you have not read the book, or are not interested in it, you might not like it. But so it is with all movies.