[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

It occurred to me this weekend, while I was contemplating buying a dozen Powers graphic novels, that we're probably not more than five years away from solving the comics life span conundrum. (Namely, the vast mass of the history of comics is not available for reading; you can't go back and check out Grant Morrison's early Marvel Universe work, for example.)

But let's say we live in a world in which all comic book pages exist in digital form, which is a world we may well live in already if that's a useful step in the printing process. So DC puts up a web page, which allows you to select a comic book title and a range of issues within that title. Click "Buy" and the pages of those issues are assembled into a single file and sent off to the print on demand printer.

Currently I'm pretty sure that the cost of color POD is too high. But give it five years.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

The extended edition Return of the King DVDs will include:

• 2 disc 250 minute movie cut
  • Commentary by the director and writers
  • Commentary by the design team
  • Commentary by the production team
  • Commentary by the cast (with split personality dialogue between Gollum and Smeagol)
• Tolkien documentary
• From Book to Script documentary
• Designing Middle-Earth documentary
• Big-atures documentary (?)
• 2 WETA documentaries
• Costume design documentary
• Horse Lords documentary
• Cameras in Middle-Earth documentary
• Documentary on completing the trilogy
• Music documentary
• Soundscapes documentary
• 2 documentaries about the end of it all
• Cameron Duncan documentary
• Two Cameron Duncan short films, "DFK6498" and "Strike Zone"
• Mumakil battle multi-angle feature
• Abandoned concept: Aragorn battles Sauron feature
• Photo galleries (2,123+ images)
• Tracing the Journeys of the Fellowship map feature
• New Zealand as Middle-Earth map feature

That's a hunka hunka burning DVD. Via Twitch.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

One reason I'm fairly confident Kerry will win: he has the best ground game. I've been assuming that get out the vote efforts were a major component of the DNC's strategy this election for a few reasons; most obviously, I've just seen a lot of activity oriented towards getting people to the polls this year. More importantly, though, I watched John Kerry win in Iowa because of an absolutely perfect get out the vote operation run by Michael Whouley. Any campaign with Whouley at the center is going to be one that has a good ground game, regardless of anything else.

The really significant thing about the "chaos" in the Kerry campaign last month was not Joe Lockhart's arrival. The media gets very excited about every Clinton signing, so it was nice for them to be able to run stories about the Clintonistas taking over the campaign -- Lockhart was Clinton's press secretary. The real news, however, was that John Sasso, another experienced Massachusetts political operative, joined the campaign. That made it possible for Michael Whouley to go over to the DNC to be their General Election Manager.

And who's outsourcing a lot of their get out the vote effort to 527s? The DNC, which now has the best ground game in the business. If Kerry loses this election, it will not be because of poor voter turnout.