Sunday Linkdump #1

Sunday linkdump #1.

* Spike and Angel debate the BSG finale.

* Neil sends along your yearly article on flying cars.

* "My career in academia has bankrupted me."

* MIT's faculty has adopted an Open Access ordinance. That's a pretty big deal.

* And then there's the question of blood, which is the reason I've gathered you all here tonight. Moore & Gibbons's Watchmen has some brutal violence in it, especially considering the context of mid-'80s superhero comics it emerged in. (Many more violent comics would eventually emerge, but that hadn't happened so much yet.) And when people are hurt badly in the original Watchmen, they do bleed. But watching Zack Snyder's Watchmen, I got convinced that he thinks the human body is a highly pressurized balloon full of blood and bones. It's an alarmingly gory movie, and many of the bloodiest moments are actually places where Snyder and his screenwriters depart from the text they're otherwise following so faithfully.

* Twins commit perfect crime. This gives me an idea, but to make it work I'm going to need an identical twin.