Opens on Friday in NYC, LA, SF, Boston, and Seattle. Opens in more cities on 14 July and even more on 28 July.

Variety didn't care too much for it during the Cannes screening. Various others seem to be relatively ambivalent, saying it's destined to be a cult classic despite its talkiness, its density, and a general failure to satisfy the expectations attendant upon any Dick adaptation. And yet, according to the 300-plus votes on IMDB to date, it gets a rating equal to that of Minority Report.

Hollywood Reporter said:

Audiences compelled by professional obligation will be this film's most likely outreach, with those sitting in the middle of the aisles most likely to last through the duration. Commercially, "A Scanner Darkly" should be quickly remaindered to video.

They also noted that:

This film involved a painstaking animation process that required up to 500 hours to create one minute of screen time.

This is egregious, not unlike the recent comments about the rendering of "Cars." If this were being done serially, that works out to nearly six years of continuous processing. If IMDB's data on filming dates is correct, and the scenes were filmed in May-June 2004, then clearly there was some parallel processing going on.

They might as well have gotten 150,000 286's and spent two years generating every frame in parallel.

More likely, the figure does reflect serial processing, except that "up to 500 hours" reflects an extreme outer bound, when in fact the average processing time was closer to 150 hours per screen minute.

A Scanner Darkly, from Warner Independent Pictures

The new Malthusian security advocates use fearmongering tactics every bit as shamelessly as those overseeing the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, in the very process of depicting environmental and health issues as a major threat to human survival, they actually take the politics of fear far beyond the alarmist scenarios dreamt up by the architects of the ‘war on terror’. The Malthusian security agenda accepts the ideology of anti-terrorism in order to draw attention to its claim that there are even graver problems threatening the future and security of humanity.

In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many instances the enemy was clearly identified -- the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives. Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our behaviour -- leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation -- is the real threat. For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat. Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts of a broader, generic security problem.

In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience. It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda -- that we do not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ -- will be made more explicit.

Meet the Malthusians

The suicide bombings carried out in London in 2005 by British Muslims revealed an enormous fifth column of Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers. Under the noses of British intelligence, London has become the European hub for the promotion, recruitment and financing of Islamic terror and extremism -- so much so that it has been mockingly dubbed Londonistan.

In this ground-breaking book Melanie Phillips pieces together the story of how Londonistan developed as a result of the collapse of traditional British identity and accommodation of a particularly virulent form of multiculturalism. Londonistan has become a country within the country and not only threatens Britain but its special relationship with the U.S. as well.

Londonistan

The United States could easily fall from its privileged perch in the global economy unless it does something about the horrendous state of science education at both the public school and university levels. That means finding ways to enliven a dry and dispiriting style of science instruction that leads as many as half of the country's aspiring scientists to quit the field before they leave college.

The emerging consensus among educators is that students need early, engaging experiences in the lab -- and much more mentoring than most of them receive now -- to maintain their interest and inspire them to take up careers in the sciences.

How to Educate Young Scientists

In science we have built-in self-correcting machinery. Strict double-blind controls are required in experiments, in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters know the experimental conditions during the data-collection phase. Results are vetted at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed journals. Research must be replicated in other laboratories unaffiliated with the original researcher. Disconfirmatory evidence, as well as contradictory interpretations of the data, must be included in the paper. Colleagues are rewarded for being skeptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We need similar controls for the confirmation bias in the arenas of law, business and politics. Judges and lawyers should call one another on the practice of mining data selectively to bolster an argument and warn juries about the confirmation bias. CEOs should assess critically the enthusiastic recommendations of their VPs and demand to see contradictory evidence and alternative evaluations of the same plan. Politicians need a stronger peer-review system that goes beyond the churlish opprobrium of the campaign trail, and I would love to see a political debate in which the candidates were required to make the opposite case.

Skepticism is the antidote for the confirmation bias.

The Political Brain

American children are not born understanding the principles of their country, and most American college students -- if reports can be believed -- are still largely unfamiliar with them when they graduate. So it is a useful tradition, as the Fourth of July comes around each year, to reflect again -- and again -- on the American political principles famously proclaimed on the original Independence Day, which, as many college graduates know, happened sometime in the past, possibly during summertime.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought it prudent recently, in the Wall Street Journal, to offer his fellow Americans the following:

"Our first effort at a governing charter -- the Articles of Confederation -- failed miserably, and it took eight years of contentious debate before we finally adopted our Constitution."

'That Honorable Determination'

America's history not only can but must be rewritten by each generation because the nation keeps changing. Who we are today permits us to devalue some facts, elevate others, and even shift the plot line.

Update: Now available here, or behind the paywall.

Remembering Richard Hofstadter

This book provides a unique review of technical developments related to the unification that is rapidly taking place today among nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC). It assesses potential for revolutionary applications of these developments and their likely impact in improving the human condition and offers a wide variety of scholarly views on the likely societal impacts and policy implications of these developments and applications, including assessments of educational, economic, commercial, legal, ethical, political, and social implications.

Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations : Converging Technologies in Society

An insightful guide to understanding and navigating the ethical issues faced by anyone affected by the ethical dilemmas associated with current and emerging technologies

Ethics of Emerging Technologies provides the background, insight, and tools for approaching and solving ethical dilemmas across a broad range of topics. The text discusses ethical problems, using examples and reasoning tools that will aid engineers, scientists, managers, administrators, and the public who wish to understand risks, benefits, and possible approaches to resolving conflicts associated with new technologies in the context of the global community.

Solutions we choose to ethical dilemmas accompanying new technologies will profoundly affect future generations. Scientific facts and guides to decision-making for all associated with emerging technologies are presented. Some of the topics are:
* Human health and environmental effects of alternative energy production methods
* Communications and privacy
* Plagiarism and authorship
* Genetic modification of organisms
* Human and animal experimentation
* Synthetic biology and bioterrorism
* Confidentiality in science, engineering, and business communications
* Risks and consequences of enhancing human beings through new technologies
* Cloning of human beings and stem cell research
* Brain modifications
* Space exploration

Ethics of Emerging Technologies : Scientific Facts and Moral Challenges

When Algerian nationalists launched a rebellion against French rule in November 1954, France, mired in similar wars for independence in its colonial territories, was in a poor position to cope with further upheaval. The Algerian strategy encompassed varying approaches and was more adaptable than that of the French, necessitating a rethinking of traditional counterinsurgency methods. In this volume, originally published in 1963, David Galula reconstructs the story of his highly successful command in the district of Greater Kabylia, east of Algiers, at the height of the rebellion, and presents his theories on counterinsurgency and pacification. In the process, he confronts the larger political, psychological, and military aspects of the Algerian war, and provides a context for present-day counterinsurgency operations. This groundbreaking work retains its relevancy as a challenge to traditional counterinsurgency tactics and presents approaches to predicting, managing, and resolving insurgent and guerilla conflict. The parallels between the Algerian war and modern warfare are striking, and lessons can be extracted from French successes and failures in its drive to contain and manage the Algerian uprising.

A new foreword by counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman elucidates the relevance of this historic study in the context of modern times.

Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958