Last fall Peter Jackson was on a panel at comic-con with James Cameroon and was asked about the lord of the rings trilogy coming out in 3D. He responded that he had pitched the idea to the movie studio, but they didn’t feel that there was enough of a 3D market (yet), and it was not hapenning. Apparently a small film called Avatar has changed that. It is now being reported that the success of Avatar is prompting studios to go back and resissue movies in 3d, and apparently lord of the rings (as well as some little indy flick called “star wars”), is on the list. That event alone may cause me to go and buy a new TV. LoTR was awesome, and being able to see it in 3D would be incredible. Imagine the balrog in 3d. How about Shelob the giant spider? How about even just the fireworks in the shire at the beginning? The best part of course will be the battle scenes that made LoTR great int he first place. Think about the battle of Minas Tirith – it’s essentially a circular fortress built on a mountain, so a 3D rendering will give it the depth it deserves. When the ring-wraiths fly overhead, they will actually fly overhead! There is also a lot of artillery and rock launched from catapults which will look for more realistic, and the charging Mûmakil (elephants for the rest of you) would look incredible. The battle of helms deep may always get the top billing in the LoTR trilogy, but the battle of Minas Tirith will be the scene that makes it worthwhile to get a new TV.

Now of course is time for the other shoe to drop – they’re not expecting it to be out till 2012. Arrrggghhh.

China has made it clear that if you want to do business in China, you play by Chinese rules – and that means things like no access to western media sources, information on falung gong, or anything else the Chinese government finds “objectionable”. In an effort to reach as broad an audience as possible, Google has voluntarily censored search results in China. Today Google announced that Chinese hackers had been targeting Google in an effort to spy on Chinese dissidents and human rights activists. In response, Google has basically decided to stop being a patsy and will no longer censor Google China. If this means they lose the Chinese market, so be it. Awesome.

Miep Geis, the last survivor from the group of people who sheltered Anne Frank during WWII died last night at the age of 100.

1945 American Army Service in Germany

Originally uploaded by bachrach44

I was digging through some old family photos when I came across this. It’s the program for an American Army run Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sevice in Passau German in 1945, which was attended by my grandfather.