This is a fantastic DVD set. Babylon 5 was a cutting edge series when it came out nearly 10 years ago, and to me is still one of the best sci-fi series ever. But this isn’t about the series. Everyone knows the series was great and what it was all about.
The 5 season collection is pretty huge. With 6 DVDs and 22 episodes in each season, it’s a lot of TV watching. Nothing any die-hard B5 fan wouldn’t object to or find overly strenuous, especially since the entire series can be watched commercial free (with pauses for bathroom breaks and food of course)!
The slip cases for each season are nice and colourful and provide a very nice presentation for the series. Each season comes in a book-style cover with disk on each side of a plastic DVD disk holder. My only complaint with the boxed set is that the disk holders are simply glued in and not very solidly at that. Already I’ve had a two of the disk holders pop out of the covers when they got dropped (onto carpet). The cover is creased between each plastic holder to make for easy opening, but doesn’t seem like it will withstand a lot of opening and closing. It’s not likely to fall apart soon, but it seems to me the binding could have been done a little better and more solidly.
There are special features on disks 1, 4 and 6 of each season, which I haven’t had a chance to go through yet. 2 or 3 episodes in each season have commentary from JMS and others. The special features consist mostly of character, equipment and technology background in the form of ‘data files’. Gag reels are included in the last couple of seasons. A few short documentaries are also sprinkled here and there.
The series itself of course I give 5/5 to. The DVD collection I’ll have to give 4/5 to, mostly because of the relatively poor binding quality and ho-hum special features.
Review: NCRP 147 – Structural Shielding Design for Medical X-ray Imaging Facilities
Amazon’s review system apparently wasn’t working when I tried to submit this there, so I’ll put it here instead (it probably would have put it here anyway).
A few months ago, I unexpectedly received a fat FedEx envelope containing a draft copy of the much anticipated rewrite of NCRP 49: Structural Shielding Design and Evaluation for Medical Use of X-Rays and Gamma Rays of Energies Up to 10 MeV. Turned out it came to me because I’m on the AAPM Diagnostic Imaging Committee, and committee members were asked to review the draft to make sure there weren’t any glaring errors or anything. Sweet, so I dug in. Been hearing about this thing for years, and was eagerly awaiting it’s completion, like many other medical physicists out there.
A few weeks ago, I was rewarded for my efforts as a committee member reviewer by a surprise complimentary copy of the newly published NCRP 147. Even sweeter. And a hardcopy version to boot.
NCRP Report 147: Structural Shielding Design for Medical X-Ray Imaging Facilities
This is an invaluable upgrade to NCRP 49, and probably needs to be added to the collection of every medical imaging physicist that does shielding calculations. The focus is on shielding for imaging rooms, so there is much more relevant content for imaging physicists than there was in NCRP 49 which covered imaging and therapy shielding. New methods and techniques have been introduced which results in somewhat less conservative shielding requirements than what would have been required under the ultraconservative NCRP 49. Chapter 5 provides sample shielding calculations for just about every type of imaging room there is. This is a well written and much needed update to the original NCRP 49.
Even though I’ve already been through the draft, I’m going through it again, because this is the kind of thing medical physicists need to know like the back of their hand. Much of the content and calculations are similar to what was in NCRP 49, but there are enough new things in the rewrite that makes it worth studying thoroughly.
Counting bits
The Christmas tree and Snowman have been put away on the shelf to wait for the next holiday season. But thanks to my brother, I now have this sweet binary clock sitting on my computer.
Although I’d seen the action shots posted at ThinkGeek, I was still surprised at how small the clock was. For some reason I was thinking it was a little bit bigger. But it’s a decently readable size at about 9.5×9 cm. Some rubber feet would have been nice to keep it from sliding around, but those are easy enough to find and put on yourself.
Setting the time is easy enough with the two buttons on the back for setting the hour and minute. Just press the buttons to increment the counter by one until you get the correct time. And if you’re a real geek, you’ve already got at least one clock that syncs with a stratum 1 or 2 NTP server somewhere. Pressing both buttons at the same time will reset the seconds counter so you can get the clock synced to NIST time.
The LEDs are surprisingly bright and easy to read even in a brightly lit office. Instructions on the box and in the manual show you how to read the digits. Easily visible from almost any angle too (except from behind). Doesn’t take too long before you’re able to decipher the lights into numbers. All it takes is a little bit of practice. Keep the box around for a quick reference while you’re learning.
It will be fun watching my colleagues stare at it trying to figure it out.
All the Far Side you’ll ever need
I’m having a delightful time reading The Complete Far Side, an absolutely monstrous collection of all the Far Side cartoons. This thing is massive. 2 volumes each weighing in at 4.5 kg each. A lot of the cartoons are in full colour and all of them are hilarious. Comes in a solid hardcover binding with an equally solid slipcase. Even if you’ve got all the Far Side books, this one is well worth adding to the collection. The occasional editor’s notes and reader letters sprinkled in add some additional insight and humour to the collection. It’s so nicely put together you feel like you should be wearing gloves while reading it so you don’t leave any smudges on it from your grubby paws.
Now all I need is The Complete Calvin and Hobbes and life will be good.
The new Battlestar: Galactica
Like many other sci-fi geeks around the country I was tuned into SciFi’s Battlestar: Galactica. The series started off with two episodes back to back. It’s part drama, part sci-fi series. Watching the LowDown show that came just before the gave me the distinct impression that it was going to be more soap opera/drama than pure sci-fi. More like B5 than separate standalone episodes like the original BG series. The tone and style was set by the mini-series, and continues in the series. Cylon infiltration, sabotage, spies and traitors. And that was just the first two episodes.
I’m going to enjoy watching this new series. With it sandwiched between Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis, Friday nights are going to be a veritable orgy of sci-fi.
One thing I do find odd is how religious the new Cylons seem to be. Somewhat unexpected for a machine intelligence. Maybe we’ll discover the reason behind it in later episodes.
You can even read Ron Moore’s Movable Type powered blog to find out his take on the episodes.