Although I really, really liked Battlestar Galactica. I didn’t like new BSG movie: The Plan. I wish I’d never seen it, that it had never been made.
Some of the dialogue was good. Dean Stockwell’s performance was great. The basic concept, telling the story of the cylon attack and its aftermath from the cylon’s point of view, is an interesting one.
However, instead of telling a new story (as they did in Razor) they weave this one in with the story we have already seen.The new material doesn’t enrich that story, it dilutes and lessens it. I’m pretty good at suspending disbelief but I just couldn’t do it while watching this. I couldn’t convince myself that in the story I had already seen, Cavil and the other cylons were lurking, undiscovered, just outside of camera range. I don’t believe that the things we see happen here actually happened.
I hope that rumours of plans to make more BSG movies turn out to false. If not, I hope their stories only intersect the one we already know and avoid trying to run in parallel with it.
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 No comments
I signed up for the infinite summer but soon stopped following what people were saying while they read the book. It seemed pointless. After a couple of hundred pages it’s pretty clear that this is a book that can’t really be talked about until it has been read. Now I wonder if there’s any point saying anything about it until it has been read twice.
The first time through was often fun but sometimes a little like work. The second time around is a joy.
I started reading the paperback. About 200 pages in I stopped for a while. It just seemed to big to carry around. Whenever I had time to read it I didn’t have it. A couple of weeks later I bought an ebook copy for Stanza on the iPhone. That’s when I really started to get into it. They released an update (to Stanza) recently that makes jumping back and forth between the footnotes and the main text much faster. Not zippy though. It takes about five seconds to go to a footnote and about one to head back. For the last 300 pages I was switching back and forth between the paperback and the iPhone a few times a day.
Reading the paperback I sometimes caught myself skimming. I found it easier to focus on the text on the phone. This time I’m doing most of my reading on the iPhone. I really want to savour the words.
Friday, August 21st, 2009 No comments
Watched Wall-E again with the kids this evening. This time around it really seemed like a kids movie. This is a good thing. Too many movies that are ostensibly for kids try to appeal to adults or teenagers by including elements of pop culture or pop psychology. An example of this is the horrible Chicken Little. Wall-E has a simple story. The characters have simple motives. I far prefer this to the kind of fake depth and “darkness” that have made the Harry Potter films so unpleasant.
I remember that when it was released some people questioned whether a film with so little dialog would appeal to children. On second viewing this seems even more ludicrous than it did last year. I can’t imagine any dialog in the first half of the movie that wouldn’t be totally redundant and distracting.
Here, I am … Lonely Wall-E …
Only a cockroach for a friend …
Wow! What’s that light? …
Hey! That’s hot!
Hmmm, she’s hot.”
So much is communicated in their gestures and expressions that I actually think Eve and Wall-E talk a little too much.
Sunday, April 26th, 2009 2 Comments
Etymotics Research has some new eartips. They are called Gliders and are shaped like small mushrooms. Having read some glowing reports about their sound quality I wanted to try them out.
I couldn’t find them in any shops here in Japan so I emailed Etymotics asking if they knew of a Japanese source. Their response suprised me: they sent me a pair for free.
A week later they sent me two more pairs. A mistake perhaps but a very nice one.
They have the best sound of any of the eartips I have tried so far. Detailed, rich and warm. They fit nicely in my cavernous ears. They don’t block out quite as much noise as the flange eartips but I only notice it when I am in my school.
Friday, April 17th, 2009 No comments
I have used the Dvorak keyboard layout for about eight years. I can comfortably touch type at a decent speed. About the speed that my brain moves. Not that fast.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
There are benefits: it was easy to learn and feels nice to use. There are drawbacks:
Arranging my keyboard: I didn’t have to do this but looking down and seeing a completely different layout became too jarring. Popping keycaps off an old PowerBook was fairly stress-free but doing the same to a shiny new MacBook was not a lot of fun.
Hacking drivers: I once spent more time working out how to hack the driver for a Sony Clie keyboard than I ever did typing on it. If I added up all the time I have spent just getting a working keyboard in the Classic Mac OS, various flavors of Windows, and Linux it would probably come to about a full week.
Wierdness: Some applications, like Photoshop, don’t recognise the Dvorak layout. Some AppleScripts don’t type text properly. Single User mode is a nightmare.
Monkey: When I sit down at someone else’s computer all my typing skills become meaningless. I’m just another monkey hunting and pecking.
All in all, if I had known how much of a hassle it would be I wouldn’t have bothered. Maybe you’ll have better luck. Maybe you won’t muck about with Windows or Linux or Clie’s. Maybe you’ll never have to use someone else’s computer. Maybe Dvorak keyboards will become a build to order option on new computers.
Maybe, but you’ve been warned.
Thursday, March 5th, 2009 No comments