Tag: Long

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The Heroes season finale was excellent. They did a good job of resolving the main story arc established at the beginning of the season (the bomb threatening New York City), balanced action and characterization, answered some questions while still leaving things open—and set up a really interesting situation for season 2.

It’s also nice to see that they’re keeping the weekly online comics going between seasons—and that they mentioned it during the broadcast. I think that’s a good move for keeping fan interest going until fall. I’m still hoping they’ll collect them in print, though. They could probably put everything concurrent with season 1 into a ~200-page trade paperback and sell it in bookstores. It would be a great companion item to go with the DVD set.

Now for more detailed thoughts on the episode. Spoilers follow: Continue reading →

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The suggestion box on my Flash site has picked up a couple of requests for the Flash’s “weakness.” The concept doesn’t really apply to the Flash’s powers, though. Thinking about it, if your hero has to have an off-switch, that’s kind of a sign that they’ve been over-powered, isn’t it?

It reminds me of a line that bothered me in Unbreakable. (Minor spoiler.) Samuel Jackson’s character explains to Bruce Willis that water is his Kryptonite. That’s hardly the case, though: a glass of water isn’t going to take him out of commission. He’ll still be invulnerable and super-strong while swimming. All it means is that he still has to breathe (and, presumably, eat and drink). A plastic bag over his head would be as effective as drowning.

Compare that to, say, Superman and Kryptonite, or Wonder Woman and being tied up, or past Green Lantern books and yellow objects or wood. It’s not in the same league (pun not intended).

Which brings us back to the Flash. What “weakness” does he have? Well, he’s a specialist, so he doesn’t have the advantage of super-strength or invulnerability. He can get tired. Like David Dunn, he has to breathe. He can get distracted. He can make mistakes. He can act without thinking. Are any of these really “weaknesses” in the Kryptonite sense, though?

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[Logo: Wizard World Los Angeles]I went to Wizard World Los Angeles today. I almost went last year, and decided not to—and regretted it when I learned that Sunday (the day I almost went) was sparsely attended. So not only would I have had no problem getting in, but it should be a low-stress experience overall, rather than the insane crowds of San Diego.

The convention itself did turn out to be a nice, low-key experience, and I found some interesting stuff, but getting to the convention was a bit of an adventure. Continue reading →

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Someone I know encountered a really sneaky eBay phish this weekend. It arrived through eBay’s official “Ask seller a question” system, and consisted of a simple request: Was his auction the same as the auction at the following About Me page?

The URL was a normal eBay URL of the form http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/_____. Pasting the link into another browser brought up the user’s About Me page… which consisted of a spoofed eBay login form that would submit the username and password to a page hosted at Yahoo.

So it not only came through eBay’s official messaging system, but the form appeared on eBay’s own website, meaning it bypasses many of the usual cues. It’s not a secured page, but use of SSL for login pages is still spotty enough that a user could easily miss that. And how many people have noticed that eBay only puts login forms on signin.ebay.com? You have a slightly better chance if you have a browser like Opera, which shows you the target* of a form when you hover over a button. If you think to look at it. Continue reading →