It's one thing to find someone cute in Trader Joe's or the subway, and wish you'd had the guts to go beyond eye contact, but it's quite another to spend more than a third of your life following someone around the world. (Probably fake. God I hope so.)

What if traffic lights disappeared? What if bikes, pedestrians and cars had equal rights on the road? It turns out, at least in one case study in China, that there are less accidents[*].

What's the catch? The drivers have to think. Oh well.

* Sorry for the Salon Magazine link. They'll want you to watch an ad for a day of 'premium access' to read the article. Actually, I went ahead and bought the 1 year subscription last month and I really enjoy it. I can't think of another news site I pay to access, aside from the occasional Slashdot donation.

That said, it would be pretty revolutionary if I could, as part of my subscription, link to an article and get a quota of registration-free clickthroughs, so the first 500 people could read the article via my special URL without having to watch an ad.

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that one some more...

I bet a lot of you have heard about Gmail Swap by now, but if you haven't, Wired has a nice article about the service.

It's not right for me to barter away Gmail invitations, so sadly I can only watch the offers go by. It's all for the best, though, because as I tell Rachel how much I want to diet, an offer for four pounds of fudge scrolls by.

An MSNBC story today gives the author's thoughts on how Episode III should bridge the gap between I and II and the original trilogy. At the end of the article, the reporter asks how you would write the story, and save the series.

Here's my take:

Padme, realizing that the legislative battle against the Imperial senate is futile, turns toward more desperate measures to save her planet. Working with Darth Maul to position her world as a founding member of the new Empire, she turns Anakin toward his more powerful dark side, showing him that his true nature lies in fury, evidenced by the retributitive bloodbath he enacted after the killing of his mother.

Secretly gathering influences of her own throughout the Imperium, she masterminds the overthrow of the Imperial order.

Halfway through the movie it comes out that she has an extremely high, though inactive, latent midichlorean count herself, and deliberately sought out Annie more than a decade ago, in order to produce a child more powerful in the Force than any ever seen before him.

Kenobi, who discovers this duplicity as Amadala is birthing the twins are born, kills Amadala (in self defense, of course) and steals away the twins.

Anakin never knew Amadala was carrying twins, and so attempts to hunt down Kenobi on Corusant. To hide Leia's existence, Kenobi looks up his friends, the royal family of Alderaan, who are on the capitol planet for a State function, and convinces them to hide Leia and raise her as their own child.

Kenobi then flees and takes Luke with him to Tattoine, where he knows Vader's deep-rooted turmoil around the death of his mother will prevent him from sensing Luke's presence across the light years.

Despite the best efforts of the Jedi council, including a space battle where the Jedi Masters attempt to defeat a swarm of Clone-piloted Tie Fighters from their own hand-crafted ships (each reflecting that Master's character and physiology) they are eventually forced to sacrifice themselves to destroy a Jedi superweapon weilded by Duku, Vader, and Sidious. The resulting devastation leaves all dead except for Vader, Yoda, and Sidious.

Vader is so seriously wounded that Sidious has Vader's suit and helmet crafted to sustain him.

As Vader and Sidious continue their takeover of the Empire, Yoda retreats to Degobah, awaiting the eventual weakening of the new Empire, or the emergence of a new Jedi force.

Montage: Anakin/Vader at Padme/Amadala's grave, where he loses the last vestage of his humanity and his tears turn to a stone demeanor we are all familiar with.

Yoda, cleaning his old home and peering in (with Jedi sight) on Leia, now on her new home of Alderaan, presented to her people as an adoptive princess, and then on a newborn Luke, cared for by his aunt and uncle, who were presented with Luke by an intermediary, as Obi Wan looks on from afar.

R2 tweets at Obi Wan, who gazes into the Tatooine sunset and says "No, my little friend. It is just the beginning..."

Roll credits.

I'm really happy for a friend of mine, but I can't say why yet. I hope he checks his email soon.

I was going to post this, but Ray already did. Last week Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) accepted an honorary doctorate from William & Mary. This is his speech to the graduating class.

No new Randompixel camera today, but think of it as an investment in the future.

So now two of my friends chided me, grousing that each Tuesday the new Randompixel goes up later and later. Now it's 10:39pm, but it's still Tuesday! And in the spirit of Tuesday, I bring you Rick, this week's Randompixel camera!

So today Bush apologized for the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US soldiers, by saying he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered." This is the weakest kind of apology, devoid of responsibility, essentially saying "I'm sorry that this happened to you."

But that's not surprising. I expect that. What I found especially interesting was that Bush chose to ignore recent reports that indicate that, of the 25 reported Iraqi and Afghan prisoner deaths last year, at least two were killed by US personnel (an Army soldier and a CIA contractor) in similar incidents. Of those soldiers implicated in the recent abuses, Bush said that the "wrongdoers will be brought to justice." It leaves me to wonder: when prisoners are tortured and killed by a foreign power, Bush calls them 'evildoers' but when it's the home team, they're simply 'wrongdoers.' I wonder what one has to do to cross the line from 'wrong' to 'evil'?

San Jose Mercury News, that is.

Today Michael Bazeley did a great write-up (registration req'd) of the Randompixel project for his bi-weekly tech column in the business section. He was also gracious enough to mention the tremendous help that Rachel, Ammy, and Rick have been contributing.

The story is on page 3 of today's Business section if you get or have access to the paper version. Go, go Randompixel!