Whedon never said Buffy was shot in 4:3. It was shot in 16:9 but with the intention of cropping it and showing it in 4:3. The shots are framed for 4:3.

Again, I'm not objecting to LGBT characters. I'm objecting to homosexuality being used as pointless filler. Sure, there was some talk about homosexuality in the crew but at best it was an interesting philosophical discussion.

The Science Fiction Bookstore in Stockholm held a SF and Fantasy themed gingerbread recently. AFAIK it is an annual event. Check out the full gallery.

Agreed. I was sorely disappointed that we didn't get to meet Mrs. Claus!

That's a hard question to answer without knowing the audience. Like the series of TV movies that begat this show, you shouldn't expect it to be excellent in all respects. The effects are so-so at best. It is corny. It is more than a little predictable. It is more than a little cheesy.

Orville Wright flew in a Lockheed Constellation. Charles Lindbergh was alive to see the Moon landings. Ain't that some kind of awesome.

The big shift occurred during the Industrial Revolution. The burgeoning factories needed skilled labour, and thus mass education was born. All of a sudden a much higher proportion of the population had basic schooling. This meant that lots of people not only had the imagination, but also the formal training needed to…

As an only child, I can tell you that we are not all like that. My parents actually demanded a certain level of behaviour from me. ;)

I live 200 meters away from a popular tourist spot for mainland Chinese bus tours. I can assure that these guidelines are necessary.

The interesting effect in places like the Italian community in New Jersey is that the dialect of Italian spoken there seems to be an amalgam of dialects and accents from several places in Italy from whence immigrants originated. The resulting Italian dialect, while having strong roots in Southern Italy, does not…

The pitfalls of regional English variations. Biscuit in British English = Cookie in American English.

The "a panini" thing drives me up the wall too! Same with "a biscotti". :)

Love it. :)

With exception of some special rules for "c", Italian pronunciation is pretty much just reading off the page, in other words the opposite of English. ;)

Regarding force feedback, nothing stops a stick being designed with it. However the point of the sidestick in, say, an Airbus, is that it is a rate controller, not a surface deflection controller. Example: If the pilot inputs five degrees of right stick movement,that is converted into a certain right roll rate regardle…

Correct on the "a" in Lancia. However, the "e" at the end does not sound like "hey". It sounds a bit like the first "e" in "intended".

I'm with you. I love being pedantic. :)

Two words after "planning" we have the word "make".

Yokes being more user-friendly is highly debatable. I don't have a huge amount of experience with sticks but from an aircraft control perspective I didn't really notice a difference. Granted, the stick aircraft I flew was not FBW. FBW sticks are typically rate-control devices, not direct control devices and so a bit…

Thankfully I mostly hang out on io9, where a thankfully high proportion of commenters are not, to use the scientific terminology, "Total Fuckwads". ;)