Review of the Year: Books
The News Review:
- Review of the Year: Books
- Docks give power to iPods
- Matters of the Mind: Snape’s Memory-Altering Tactics
- Sound Advice: Two easy ways to add Ethernet port to your home
Review of the Year: Books
Telegraph.co.uk – Dec 15, 2007
The literary world said goodbye to three great characters (Harry Potter, Nathan Zuckerman and Rebus), two great writers (Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer), and one deity (God). The figures were titanic, the mania all-consuming, and – like Led Zeppelin’s victory lap – the event itself was widely agreed to live up to the hype. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was not so much a bedtime story as a high-school massacre, with – one reviewer calculated – 24 named characters and 50 anonymous passers-by meeting violent deaths…
The literary world said goodbye to three great characters (Harry Potter, Nathan Zuckerman and Rebus), two great writers (Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer), and one deity (God). The figures were titanic, the mania all-consuming, and – like Led Zeppelin’s victory lap – the event itself was widely agreed to live up to the hype. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was not so much a bedtime story as a high-school massacre, with – one reviewer calculated – 24 named characters and 50 anonymous passers-by meeting violent deaths. But J K Rowling succeeded triumphantly in knotting the myriad loose ends of her epic. Of all this year’s novels, this is the one you’d be safest betting will have an audience in 50 years’ time.
Docks give power to iPods
Louisville Courier-Journal – Dec 15, 2007
The universal dock in the center of the ring holds most iPods, and the Radial’s remote lets you call up playlists, change tracks and adjust the volume from across the room. It also has inputs for other audio sources, such as a non-iPod digital music player or audio from a computer. SPINS | Welcome to HogwartsHow’s your Harry Potter IQ? You can test your wizard skills with Hogwarts Challenge, an interactive Harry Potter game that doesn’t require a computer. The game comes on a DVD that responds to signals from a remote control. It puts up to four players in the role of students at Hogwarts Academy and tests them with images and situations from the first three Harry Potter movies. Players are given a task to complete to earn points for their house and, if they’re successful, tickets to the Quidditch World Cup. The game can seem slower to respond than a typical video game.
Matters of the Mind: Snape’s Memory-Altering Tactics
Leaky Cauldron.org – The Leaky Cauldron.org – Dec 15, 2007
His expertise in both Occlumency and Legilimency give him an advantage that many wizards do not have. Other useful knowledge that will help us understand this scenario are the restrictions that exist in the use of Occlumency and Legilimency, as well as the respective skill levels of those involved. We learn along with Harry in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that the greater the distance between the wizard performing Legilimency and his intended victim, the less likely it is that he will be able to penetrate the victimâs mind. 2 Eye contact is also an important part of the penetration of a mind. With regard to Occlumency, it is most interesting to watch the attempts of two aspiring Occlumens to repel Snape from their minds in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Both Harry and Draco Malfoy have their minds encroached on by Snape with different results. Harry, ever openly true in his nature, has almost no success in resisting Snape…
Malfoy is much better about keeping his emotions in check, until he gets angry or upset. Even if he is still able to hold on to his control enough to keep someone out of his thoughts, it is apparent that he is hiding something. A classic example can be found in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: âWho suspects me?â said Malfoy angrily. ââdonât look at me like that! I know what youâre doing, Iâm not stupid, but it wonât workâI can stop you!â There was a pause and then Snape said quietly, âAhâ Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you [Malfoy] Occlumency, I see. â 3 Snape was able to easily detect Malfoyâs use of Occlumency against him because Malfoy was becoming agitated; his emotions were beginning to take over. I would like to think that in many cases, a skilled Legilimens is aware when someone is employing Occlumency against him for this exact reason. Applying this to Snape, we know from previous experience that he has his emotional weak spots.
Sound Advice: Two easy ways to add Ethernet port to your home
Pittsburgh Post Gazette – Dec 15, 2007
is a co-creator of both the DVD and HD DVD formats and fittingly has incorporated Web interactivity in some very innovative ways. For example, on the new “Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix” HD DVD you can set up a multi-home screening with friends who have Web-connected HD DVD players and a copy of the movie. The person organizing the screening uses her remote to control the action on all the screens, and participants can text each other. With Warner’s “Blood Diamond” HD DVD (awesome film, by the way) you can view maps of Africa with details on the diamond-producing nations, take polls about social issues raised in the film, and even vote on what movies you would like to see released on HD DVD. With “300″ as well as Harry Potter, you can preview and order cell phone ringtones and wallpapers themed from the movie. Paramount’s “Transformers” allows you to view short clips featuring transforming robotic dinosaurs and VW Beetles (the old ones), download a profiler to learn more about the production as the movie plays, and change the menu bar to feature your favorite transformer…
The person organizing the screening uses her remote to control the action on all the screens, and participants can text each other. With Warner’s “Blood Diamond” HD DVD (awesome film, by the way) you can view maps of Africa with details on the diamond-producing nations, take polls about social issues raised in the film, and even vote on what movies you would like to see released on HD DVD. With “300″ as well as Harry Potter, you can preview and order cell phone ringtones and wallpapers themed from the movie. Paramount’s “Transformers” allows you to view short clips featuring transforming robotic dinosaurs and VW Beetles (the old ones), download a profiler to learn more about the production as the movie plays, and change the menu bar to feature your favorite transformer. Universal’s “The Bourne Ultimatum” has “”Be Bourne Spy Training” featuring a spy aptitude test using 20 movie clips. If you’d like to get a closer look. I recently created some screenshots of Web interactive screens and posted them on my Web site,.