United 93

I remember September 11, 2001 as a normal day like any, when I was inside my room and my mother started calling me to turn on CNN. Knowing her preference for drama, I took my time, even as I had a growing sense of foreboding. I remember regretting this, because as soon as I switched on, I caught the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center, throwing a heap of debris across the opposite side.

Approaching this movie, I understood fully America’s hesitation to show such a sensitive period in their recent history. It is not only considered as a turning point in shaping world foreign policy, but as a story of how quickly the lives of many of their countrymen were so easily snuffed out by the wayward opinions and goals of a misinformed few.

So easily was this achieved, as this movie will so dramatically display.

The ‘protagonists’ as it were, are the US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), NORAD (North American Air Defense), any of several air traffic control centers involved and finally, the flightcrew and passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.

Much of the 1.5 hour movie deals with the first three, as the FAA struggled mightily to get a handle of what was going on, constantly barraged by information (and misinformation) about hijacked planes, its flights, direction and the occasional plane reported to be hijacked, but was not. Information re these were coursed via traffic control centers across the US, many of which were utterly confused again from planes not responsive to their requests for information, and deciding whether to consider them hijacked or otherwise.

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Welcome Yahoo Tech!

I recently got a visit from Y! tech, which was very nice and highly appreciated, since golly I’ve been reading Y! tech since, I think, inception.

At any rate, I went through Y! tech again today, and here are a few thoughts. These would’ve come out sooner or later anyway, but my head is all big and swollen from self-importance right now, so I’m inspired to write it. Kidding.

  1. It’s not really clear what Saved Tech Products is for, but im trying to use it for saving products ive reviewed for a newspaper. People usually adopt stuff like this for their own purposes, so I hope Yahoo doesn’t limit it to ‘stuff i wanna buy’ or ‘stuff i already own’, although those two categories would be nice to start with.
  2. 2nd, I was reading a very interesting article re Nicholas Negroponte on Y!tech when I had to leave (it was long). I wanted to go back to it but I couldnt find any archives and a search for it resulted in 0. Pity because I thought it was a good read.
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I heart my w550i / w600i

I mentioned how much I liked my new phone in a previous post, and I’m happy to see Yahoo tech users think so too.

I’m the only one who made a review of it on the Yahoo tech page, and I thought the lack of comments meant people hated it, but apparently it was better known as the w600i. I wanna edit my review again to say that, but it seems I can’t.

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Roger Ebert hospitalized

From the Chicago Tribune:

Roger Ebert hospitalized after cancer-related surgery

Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert was in serious but stable condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital following emergency surgery related to an earlier cancer-related procedure. Ebert had surgery June 16 after a tumor from salivary cancer recurred, said his employer, WLS-Ch. 7 in information approved by Ebert’s family.

On Sunday, doctors repaired a burst blood vessel, a complication from the earlier surgery, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Ebert, a nationally syndicated writer and television host of the weekly movie review show “Ebert and Roeper,” is also employed by the Sun-Times.

The rest is here

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