January, 8, 2002 archives

dave thomas, founder of wendy's, passed away. that's too bad. he was almost certainly one of the good guys.

besides being quite beautiful, the lighthouse at cape hattaras underwent a modern engineering miracle in 1999 when it was moved about 3,000 feet from where it was originally constructed in 1870. it lost out to a depiction of the wright brothers' first flight as north carolina's entry in the 50 state quarters program.

some big-shot hollywood types are apparently raking in fees for doing dvd commentaries, which could mean less of them. that would be a huge shame. next to the video and audio quality and the prevalence of widescreen, commentaries are the best thing about movies on dvd. (but really, i could live without most of the other extras. cast and crew bios? whatever. and most of the making-of documentaries i've seen have been deathly dull. i guess deleted scenes can be interesting, but often they were deleted for good reason.)

“do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. god, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for, he says, "wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of al-lah" (koran 2:109). everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance.”
— muid ad-din ibn al-arabi (1165-1240)

rohit khare writes about the visible history of lax on the fork mailing list. airports can be interesting places, particularly the older ones and the more out-of-the-way ones.