News that I missed

Had some problems with my Internet the past few days, hence no posts. First thing I did was catch up on blogs, news feeds, etc, that I missed in that time. Here are some of the more interesting bits:

Gaiman's Sandman possibly heading to the small screen.
There have been rumors off an on for over a decade that a feature film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's DC/Vertigo Sandman comic book series. It'd be difficult to do, and would probably need to be several films to get the whole story in. I realized in terror the other day that if they were to make one, Johnny Depp would probably be cast in the role of Dream (no offense to Depp, I just don't think he'd be right for the part). However, it appears that Warner Bros are in talks to make it a television series, which could work. The "book" format of NBC's Heroes and Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender could be adapted, perhaps with each season being one volume from the 10 volume collection of the series. There's also a rich backstory and supplemental books for spinoffs (I would love to see Joss Whedon handle Death: The High Cost Of Living). At first, I was skeptical, but now I would love for this to happen.


Updates on the release of Diaspora.
I heard about Diaspora a while ago, but I missed this update. Not too much new, but it increases my excitement about the project. Diaspora is an open-source alternative to Facebook. Started in response to the increasing criticism of Facebook's privacy policies among other policies, Diaspora was created by two college students and I guess is more customizable than Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, contribute money to the policy, but that might be a PR move rather than interest in the project.


You need a Masters degree to be a librarian?
LISNews posted this article about the differences between library paraprofessionals and librarians. I intend to share this article every time someone asks me what you learn at library school, since my own explanations seem to leave them confused.

Apple: Ping and new version of iTunes.
The new version of iTunes came out this week. I just downloaded it and I think it looks pretty neat. I like the new design (overall it's the same, but with some changes to small details). Besides the new look, I haven't really explored yet to see if there are any new features other than Ping. Ping is a new social aspect of iTunes that is opt-in through the iTunes store. You can share what you listen to and follow friends to see what they're listening to or artists to see what they're up to. I haven't really explored Ping's possibilities yet, but I'm excited.


The Pogues throwing in the towel.
World-renowned folk punk band The Pogues are going on a last tour then quitting. But as the article points out, they've quit before, and the band say the last show of the tour won't be the band's last show, so it might not really be that big of a news story. The Pogues were the third Celtcore band I ever heard, second that I actually recognized as Celtcore, and also wrote one of my favorite sad Christmas songs ever ("A Fairy Tale Of New York"), so I hope it's not really the end.


Tom DeLonge on the new Blink 182 album.
Tom Delonge recently spoke about the direction of the long-anticipated followup to Blink 182's experimental self-titled album, released shortly before the band went on hiatus. I really liked the direction the last album was taking. It shed a bit of the pop-punk appeal of earlier work, which I did like, but removed some of the adolescent humor that I always felt kinda hindered them (always seemed to me that they were too talented to be relying on fart jokes). With time off spent on side projects, I look forward to this new album.