Saturday was Hayward’s hottest day this year, or so it seemed; so we went to a place where, for a fee, we could sit in coolth for a while. As a bonus, they showed us Hero (英雄), the most gorgeous piece of film we’ve seen in years.

Later: The following weekend was another scorcher, and we saw Vanity Fair, which stinks. Reese Witherspoon (who was so brilliant in Freeway) plays Becky Sharp on one note, and the plot is violently compressed for time. — Anachronism?: the regiment embarks for “Belgium” to meet Bonaparte. The kingdom of Belgium was created fifteen years after the battle of Waterloo; so what would the English have called that country at the time? Flanders, I guess, though Waterloo is not in Flanders proper.

In his blog Literal-Minded, Neal Whitman reports on his toddler’s acquisition of syntax.

Sir George Martin’s new coat of arms

Kevin of The Smallest Minority shows off a pair of t-shirts: pink Kalashnikitty, blue Kalashnikitty

I am moderator of two lists which received a spam entitled: Nid the chiipaast mads on wab? We gut it! — evidently from a dialect which has lost most of its mid vowels!

The Fly Bottle: Crest, Colgate, Autonomy, Alienation, Not Voting, Etc.

The traditional Marxish theory of consumer culture is that the dark arts of marketing and advertising germinate within us ‘false’ desires. A false desire is one whose satisfaction serves not one’s own ‘interests,’ but the interests of those in the business of servicing (for a pretty penny!) the psychic ‘needs’ that they themselves have planted. So we are supposed to be wary of Nike, Starbucks, etc. lest we surrender our autonomy to the cigar-chomping moneybags. No Logo!

This idea has never done much for me. . . . However, I am beginning to find the Marxist critique quite pertinent to America’s duopolistic political system. . . .

Since the policy bundles we’re offered represent only a tiny slice of the possible range, they will only very improbably reflect most ‘authentic’ combinations of political preferences. Most people would be unsatisfied with the choices, and ill-motivated to vote. So the parties must implant false desire. . . .

I’ve got to say that it’s just sort of embarrassing to see the AdBusting, culture jamming, No-Logoites wandering my neighborhood armed with clipboards marching door-to-door plumping for John Forbes Kerry, as if Civilization Depends Upon It. . . .

quoth Paul Graham:

But VCs are mistaken to look for the next Microsoft, because no startup can be the next Microsoft unless some other company is prepared to bend over at just the right moment and be the next IBM.

Tehee. In the same essay:

Because you can’t tell a great hacker except by working with him, hackers themselves can’t tell how good they are. This is true to a degree in most fields. I’ve found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent. The people I’ve met who do great work rarely think that they’re doing great work. They generally feel that they’re stupid and lazy, that their brain only works properly one day out of ten, and that it’s only a matter of time until they’re found out.

Why, that’s just how I feel! Do you suppose . . . ?

(Perry Metzger pointed me to Graham’s essays.)