Did Han know what a parsec was?

If you've seen the original Star Wars you may recall the (in)famous line where Han Solo boasts about the speed of the Millenium Falcon:

Han Solo: Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're lookin' for passage to the Alderaan system? 
Obi-Wan: Yes indeed, if it's a fast ship. 
Han Solo: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? 
Obi-Wan: Should I have? 
Han Solo: It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. I've outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers mind you, I'm talking about the big Corellian ships now. She's fast enough for you old man.

Now, it doesn't take much of a physicist to tell you that a parsec is a measurement not of time, but of distance. A light year is a distance measured as the distance light can travel in one year. A parsec is approximately 3.26 light years (that's around 19 trillion miles). So is Han being dense?

Well, the Star Wars Expanded Universe writers concluded not, and developed an explanation where the Kessel Run is a smuggler's route from the mining planet of Kessel that skirts a cluster of black holes called the Maw. The faster the ship, the closer you can skirt to the Maw, and therefore the shorter the distance, hence parsecs. This explanation quickly became canonical and until recently I assumed it was correct.

Until I read Darths & Droids a few days ago. If you haven't seen it, it's an excellent webcomic that imagines a world where Star Wars exists as nothing more than a D&D-style game master's imagination, and the events of the movies are reinterpreted as the actions of a group of role-playing friends. According to the annotation on this one, in the original script, Obi-Wan was supposed to treat Han's claim with derision, as it showed he didn't know what he was talking about.

It really was just a heap of junk after all. Who knew? Source.

Apparently a minor change, but when you think about it, it makes a big difference to the character. He's always portrayed as a slightly reckless but fundamentally competent character, whilst the Falcon was not much to look at but was genuinely fast. Yet in the original script, Han started out as a bit of an idiot (although he's clearly supposed to have matured by the Empire Strikes Back), and perhaps the Falcon was really no more than a heap of junk without even speed as a redeeming feature.

Crazy stuff. I'm not going to lie, my world was temporarily rocked. It rather changes the interpretation put on it by just about every content creator since, simply because Alec Guinness didn't portray quite enough derision.

Avengers Awesomble

So Denise and I went to see the Avengers last night, and I have to say it was everything I expected it to be. If I had any criticisms it would be that they could have taken more advantage of 3D and they could have made it 3 hours long; I wanted more. Which I guess means they got it right.

The first thing they did right was getting Joss Whedon on board. He is perhaps best known for his creation of Buffy and Firefly, and is clearly someone who understands what is important in a superhero movie. His screenplay was spot on, full of clever lines, and making room for enough vs battles to satisfy a Marvel version of Tekken.

The heroes themselves are perfectly cast, and are, thankfully, continuations of the characters from their respective solo movies, and haven't been reduced to generic heroes. Mark Ruffalo is no second fiddle to Eric Norton as Dr Banner, and it's nice to see that no hero outshines the others. They have been given their roles and each gets their fair share of good lines and impressive moments. Special mention also goes to Tom Hiddlestone for turning in a more nuanced performance as antagonist Loki - his lingering jealousy adds a bit of depth to the classic 'bent on world domination' thing.

The special effects are also excellent, but whilst big, somehow never overwhelm the characters themselves. It's also nice to see responsible Captain America worrying about potential civilian casualties - usually ordinary people get forgotten in massive city-trashing action scenes.



This movie goes to show that people aren't tired of big loud special effects action films - but you need more than that to make a good film. By rigorously enforcing continuity through multi-film contracts, Marvel have constructed a believable universe with characters that we actually care about, and that makes all the difference. Michael Bay take note.

It'll be a tough act for the various sequels to follow, but Marvel have shown a sure hand so far. I just hope they can tie up some loose ends by getting Spiderman on board too, although I fear not.

Perhaps DC will get the message as well, and we'll one day see a Justice League of America movie. We can but hope.

What did you think? Have you seen it, what was your favourite part (try to avoid spoilers). Can The Dark Knight Rises top it?

Thor: Be careful what you say, Loki is my brother.
Black Widow: He killed 80 people in two days.
Thor: He's adopted.
(Seriously, I've never heard a cinema laugh that much in an action movie).

The Scale of the Universe

Wow...just, wow.

I recommend starting at the bottom and working up.

Old Spice to end your day

Good old Old Spice, they understand men.

Stressful day? Now you can let it all out in a big explosion with one click of a big red button:

Go on, press it. Press it lots of times...

April Googled

Well, today is 1st April and, as you'd expect, Google has got in on the act. You may remember previous efforts such as motion-controlled Gmail last year or the time a few years ago when YouTube Rickrolled the whole internet. Come to think of it, that was before Google owned YouTube, but never mind. It was my first exposure to internet memes (if you don't know the video it's here).

So this year we have a few treats:

Gmail Tap:

Gmail has received a new smartphone upgrade; Morse code text entry. With multi-tasking capability, I must admit, I'm almost sold.

Google Maps: Quest Mode:
Just go to Google maps and switch to the Quest view to get it in classic 8-bit colour.

Youtube: the DVD collection:
Again, one that could have some mileage...

What good April Fool's jokes have you seen today? I know the English newspapers usually manage a few.

Edit:
It appears I missed one. Google Chrome's multi-task mode:

Edit 2:
It appears I missed another one! Google's Really Advanced Search. It's really advanced.

3D without screens through coloured lasers

Maybe one day we will manage to achieve the Star Wars-style holographic displays.

Of course, there are still issues I'd have thought around capturing images that give you 3D that can be viewed from all sides - even 3D cameras only get a 3D perspective of one side. That said, it's still quite exciting:



And as the article says, you can get R and B as well as G - so full colour is possible :)

Credit: CNet

Google are so cool

Not only do they make loads of cool stuff for free, but they also have a secret research lab. Not only that, but it's called Google X and the robotics section is at a secret location. Nice.

Frankly, Apple have got nothing on them.

'via Blog this'

Unbelievable half-court shots taken blind

Students at a school in Kansas decided to play a prank on their basketball coach, where they told him if he scored a shot from halfway while blindfolded he'd win tickets to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 'Final Four' - whatever that is....
Incredibly, he actually does it:

(apparently he then had to settle for a restaurant voucher, it would seem they weren't expecting him to succeed...)

Perhaps even more incredibly, a reporter was doing a news article on the incident, and replicated the feat completely by accident:
(n.b. best watched with sound)

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