Benny’s Blog

As a huge movie lover, I’m amazed by the number of promising movies lately. The number of good new movies is always better in the months before the Oscars, but this year it seems the quality is exceptionally high. Or is it just me?

Of course, as I live in Belgium, I still need to wait a while for most of these movie, but they look promising.

Anyways, this is the top 6 of my must-see list at the moment (in order of my excitement level):

1. I Am Legend: Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and maybe the world.
2. Cloverfield: Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.
3. No Country for Old Men: Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.
4. Rambo: In Thailand, John Rambo (Stallone) assembles a group of mercenaries and leads them up the Salween River to a Burmese village where a group of Christian aid workers allegedly went missing.
5. The Mist: Everyman David Drayton (Jane) is caught up in a freak storm that unleashes a species of blood-thirsty monsters in his small town.
6. Into the Wild: After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.

I wonder if any of these will beat my current number one of 2007: Sunshine. Early 2008, I will post my top 5 of 2007.

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An article in the NY Times caught my eye today. Two companies, 23andme and DeCode Genetic, launched a new service that allows you to build your personal DNA profile. 23andme is owned by the wife of Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder. Not surprisingly, Google invested $3,9 million into the company.

For as little as $1000, you can mail them a sample of your saliva. After a few weeks, they will give you access to your personal online DNA profile. It will contain a wide array of information, such as information on your ancesters and your chance of getting certain diseases. The latter of course relies on statistical data and gives no guarantees. Already 3 companies have announced that they will be marketing these services.

The idea behind this new service leaves me both scared and thrilled. What if you get a lot of bad news? What if your genes are so bad that (statistically) you should have died already? What if you want children, but your DNA profile tells you have a very high chance of giving birth to a handicapped child? What if this information falls in the wrong hands? I wonder if we are meant to know these things. Anyways, I will be following their developments closely.

Those that are interested in the NY Times article can read it here. It’s written by journalist Amy Harmon, who got a chance to “beta test” 23andme’s service.

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Here I am, making my very first post on my very post blog. Over the last years, I often felt the urge to start my own blog, but never went through with it. Today, I finally did it. There are several little reasons why I decided to do so:

• Interest. I’m a big fan of the new Web and interested in Internet technologies. Although I read dozens of blog on a daily basis, active blogging is something that I haven’t participated in yet. I want to try it.
• Practice. Writing down your ideas and thoughts is good for your brain. I haven’t done this much lately (except for chatting online), so this is my way of catching up. As a native Dutch speaker, it’s also a nice opportunity to practice my English.
• Blogging contests. One of the blogs that I read regularly, John Cow, often holds contests. To participate in these contents, one has to post in a blog.
• Boredom.
• Making Money Online??? At the moment, I don’t plan on making this a “Money Making” blog, but who knows?

Let’s see whether I have anything interesting to talk about…

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