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In the film “Simone,” Al Pacino created a computer-generated actress he passed off as real. Now this is no longer fiction: for his two sequels to “The Matrix,” director Joel Silver mixes real actors in the same scenes with computer-generated images and you can’t tell the difference. The movies will be released a few months apart in the spring of 2003. Larry and Andy Wachowski, with their partner Gaeta, say they can now make movies in which it’s impossible to tell real characters and scenes from fake ones.
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Conservation and environmental groups think there will be an unprecedented assault on environmental laws in the congress, now that they have a Republican majority. Greg Wetstone, of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), says, “In the absence of any clear, aggressive Congressional oversight we will see a more vigorous, escalated attack that includes new efforts to promote more air pollution, more water pollution, more clear cutting in the forests and more drilling, mining and logging on public lands. These actions are broadly out of step with the overwhelming consensus of the American public, and it is quite evident that this administration is fully aware of that.”
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There’s evidence that burglars are buying huge lists of e-mail addresses, and sending mass-mailings in the hopes of receiving auto-replies from people saying they’re out of the office (and even giving the dates they?ll be away). Once they find out you’re on vacation, they burglarize your home or apartment.

“You wouldn’t go on holiday with a note pinned to your door saying who you were, how long you were away for and when you were coming back, so why would you put this in an e-mail?” says David Roberts of the U.K. technology company Tif.

Mark Rasche, of cyber-security firm Solutionary, says, “Some people leave a very detailed out of office message with notes like ‘I will be in the Philippines for two weeks.'”
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Everyone’s wishing you a Merry Christmas, but is Christmas the holiday you wish you could avoid? Do you always fight with your relatives and have to cope with whining, disappointed kids? You need help from a psychiatrist like Graham Lucas, who specializes in the study of holiday stress. He says, “Christmas magnifies interpersonal tension. A laid-back person can exasperate an anxiety-prone person because they leave everything till the last minute. Some people do their Christmas shopping in May. They’re the same people who’ll arrive three hours before the airport opens if they’re going on holiday.”
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