Saturday, July 28, 02001
Swordfish sucked. Sucked bad, really bad, and the Register explains why, with all their usual over-the-top pizzaz. Warning, some spoilage, but really, the entire film is rotten so it won't hurt much.
I also saw the Final Fantasy movie recently, on the recommendation of a friend, who said the animation was excellent, but the plot was really bad. That was pretty much true. As in Shrek, I had a hard time believing that some of the scenes were not using real actors - some of the facial expressions were excellent.. However, the plot was so lame that halfway through the movie I starting thinking about where animated films are going to be in five to ten years.
It's going to be to easy to tweak product placement within movies so that the ads always stay up-to-date, and relevent to the market the films being shown in. Even more than that, it's going to become possibile to change the appearance of the characters match them up with dominent ethnic/racial backgrounds of the viewing audience. Showing the movie in a politically or religiously conservative part of the world ? Change a setting and increase the hemlines on all the skirts a few inches and convert all the swear words into something else. What the hell, you might as well be able to change the character's sex as well on a whim.
Bring it on ! I look forward to getting DVD's where I'll be able to swap the sexes of all the characters in a film, turn them all into trash-talking Amish and put all the product placement settings into Repo Man mode !
Posted at 09:01 PM EST [Link]
I've been reading Breath By Breath by Larry Rosenberg about the Anapanasati Sutra.
I've found it to be a wonderful book that's really helped me deal with some recent events.
It focuses on practice instead of theory, isn't preachy at all, has no new age overtones, and it doesn't assume you grew up chatting amongst your pals in ancient Sanskrit. There's also a couple mentions of practicing in urban areas that I liked.
So far I've been sitting from about 11:00PM until I start to doze off.
You wouldn't know it from all the piss and vinegar in the last couple weeks worth of postings, but I'm finding it really helpful.
Thanks Larry !
Posted at 12:02 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Friday, July 27, 02001
Given there's so much libertarian garbage floating around the techie landscape, I always find it really sad how strongly a story about anarchism is attacked when it gets posted to one of the popular geek sites.
The anarchists bring it on themselves really, spewing out their ideas in Marxist terms that fall flat on geeks ears. They've really got to start aligning anarchist ideas with the political problems geeks are interested in such as privacy rights, fair use rights, software monopolies, and open source software, to name some ideas off the top of my head. Think small, focused practical essays that present solutions instead of just describing useless theory.
Posted at 08:53 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Thursday, July 26, 02001
Todays rollback concerns Bush's attempt to keep guns on the streets. Wow, why not just transfer this program to the FBI, and use the guns submitted to replace the ones they lost ? My guess for tomorrow's rollback is mandatory polo infections for all the kids in school come September.
Posted at 02:38 PM EST [Link][Comment]
The Local Government Commission has tons of content that Greens should appreciate, especially the Ahwahnee Principles.
The Smart Growth page also has me doing somersaults.
Which reminds me: Hurray for Loudan County !!
Posted at 12:43 PM EST [Link][Comment]
I'm sick of gloom and doom. Bring on the social policy bonds !
And check out rc3.org today ! Rafe mentions the book I sent him. Sweet.
Posted at 09:55 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Wednesday, July 25, 02001
Great, just great ! Now the US backing out of germ warfare agreements. Hmmm what could be next ? Maybe we'll invade Canada.
Eventually there will be good news again. I suppose this stuff happens in cycles.
Posted at 06:44 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Still want to transport nuclear waste through Baltimore. I think not !
Posted at 03:38 PM EST [Link][Comment]
From a story about the GSF raid:
"He told me some arms and weapons were found, and that 60 members of the Black Block were there who were apparently hiding, and being helped by the GSF," Berlusconi said....
Police spokesman Sgalla told state RAI television that iron bars, knives, blunt objects and black T-shirts had been seized.
Damn, I'm wearing a black t-shirt right now. Actually for the record, I have a pair of scissors and a couple blunt objects sitting around my cube as well. No iron bars though, although I can trump with access to low powered lasers available in the lab. Apparently nobody has noticed, since corporate security hasn't stopped by and beat my head into a bloody pulp just yet.
Oh yeh, let's not forget this bit of cluelessness from the article:
The Black Block is an international militant leftist group.
via Monkeyfist
Posted at 03:02 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Letterboxing looks a lot more interesting than geocaching, especially for those of us without a GPS.
Of course, if only want a map and compass, there's always orienteering.
via megan via chaotic mind
Posted at 08:22 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Monday, July 23, 02001
I'm worried about Brandon Harris. First, his journal hadn't been updated in a very long time. Now it looks like the www.gaijin.com domain is dead altogether.
Posted at 11:01 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Elvis the Fish is a local site that looks like it's got potential. I stumbled across this while looking for info on Fray Day DC. This should be interesting.
I just moved to Washington, DC. I'm 21. I'm a Democrat. My favorite ice cream is cookies & cream.
Posted at 08:25 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Sunday, July 22, 02001
Someone found this site looking for "waterproof shampoo bottle labels". Amazing.
They probably stumbled across some of the pages in my unbranding project.
Alas, I doubt it was what they were looking for !
Posted at 09:27 AM EST [Link][Comment]
The Taliban has outlawed games in Afghanistan this week. I'm guessing in about two months they'll start passing out the Kool-Aid.
Posted at 09:21 AM EST [Link][Comment]
