xt1.org

Archive for December, 2004

Too Big To Savvy

One hundred thousand dead.
The number is too big to really understand. The mind just gives up and goes “lots and lots and lots”…
It’s too much to take in - and it just gets worse and worse.

The tsunami doesn’t live up to its Day After Tomorrow press release after having looked at the tourist footage of the wave coming in at Phuket and other places. Waves are fractal - they look the same at all scales. Seen from the hotel balcony it doesn’t appear large at all. Seen from the point-of-view of a swedish tourist standing inside a restaurant, it is terrifying how quickly the water rises to chest height, how effortlessly it pushes tables and chairs around, washing people away.

Add comment December 31st, 2004

Credit Card Signatures

are never checked. You know it. I know it. Nobody cares. So how weird can you get when signing the little dotted line before someone notices?

Add comment December 31st, 2004

Sin City Movie!

Sin City is coming to the movies, and it looks gorgeous. (This is about the comic strip by Frank Miller, not the porn studio.)

And what an interesting cast: Elijah Wood as Kevin the cannibal. Mickey Rourke as Marv!!! Awesome!!!

It looks like the movie will contain several stories: Yellow Bastard (Hartigan (Bruce Willis) defends Nancy (Jessica Alba) agains politically connected sicko Junior (Nick Stahl)), Sin City (Marv (Rourke) tries to track down Goldie’s (Jaime King) killers), Dame to Kill For and Big Fat Kill where Dwight (Clive Owen) is done in by femme-trés fatale Ava Lord (Maria Bello) and Manute (Michael Clarke Duncan), resurrected by Gail (Rosario Dawson) and a whole lot of bullets.

Drool - this looks as stylish as the original comics. Yum.

Add comment December 28th, 2004

Movie-rama

Caught three good movies today: Oceans Twelve, Finding Neverland, and Garden State.

Oceans Twelve is light and enjoyable. A popcorn movie that doesn’t do too much unexpected. It’s not as good as the original, but the premise (master thieves compete to perform impossible thefts) is enjoyable enough. The problem is that there’s too much happening in one movie - the first had a more deliberate buildup, showing you all the cards, while misdirecting your attention until the end. This one flashes by a lot faster, and has three heists instead of the one, leading to less tension and less savoring over the preparations. Still, it never drags, and Clooney and Pitt work really well together, making sure no-one is uncharmed.

Finding Neverland is heartwrenchingly good. I cried. Depp plays with restraint and love, while the young Peter (Freddie Highmore) is very intense - amazing for a twelve year old. The rediscovery of play and the growing up all of the characters go through just flows so beautifully through the story. Well worth a couple of Oscars I think.

Garden State features a young man growing up, coming off his meds, confronting and reconciling with his father, burying his mother, learning to feel and love again, and Natalie Portman looking adorable. It’s filled with characters and situations you recognize from Dazed and Confused and Clerks. Friends who stayed behind, who haven’t changed much since high-school, who aren’t going anywhere, and who are stuck in a rut. A little disjointed, but not so much as to be annoying. Each little sequence is usually really well done, and the ending (while a bit hackneyed) is heartfelt. It also asks a good question, which is worth bonus points in my book.

Add comment December 28th, 2004

Christmas Present On-line!

Online archives of Stanford HCI Research Seminars - joy! Better than re-runs of the holiday specials!
(Note you’ll need to add http://codecs.microsoft.com to your trusted sites in internet security settings in IE if you have XP SP2 installed - since they use the unsigned and untrusted VOXACM.CAB codec)

Add comment December 24th, 2004

Copper Comic

Copper - a beautiful comic about a boy and his dog and their philosophical adventures. A new page every month. Absolutely gorgeous art, and really cool composition, without being so creative you can’t read it. A bit like Jason’s Mjau Mjau occasionally - with almost no words, just moody images.

Add comment December 20th, 2004

Ras has a Climate blog

Real Climate - a collaborative blog on climate change and climate modelling. Ah - it is good to have friends with geeky interests!

Add comment December 13th, 2004

Thanksgiving

Add comment December 2nd, 2004

Manchurian Candiate

hrm - noisy projection ruined the first 15 minutes of the movie. I was this close to walking out and demanding my money back, but I had dragged Ras along to see this, so we toughed it out and the projectionist got the sound track fixed.

So - apart from migraine inducing projection in the beginning, The Manchurian Candidate is a pretty harsh comment on the current state of democracy, especially given the recent lap-dog tendencies of Hollywood. The idea of a political elite that lives apart from the plebs is one that we are supposed to have left behind. The movie loses itself in sinister conspiracy and mad science experiments, instead of really taking aim at the larger systemic issue of corporate control of democratic institutions.