hazylium

Back in da Singapura

2007-07-09T01:05:00.000+08:00

Our journey back to Singapore was- surpisingly- more agreeable than the journey to Wellington, though we actually had to wait longer at Sydney airport (where we had to transit on both trips as there isn't a direct flight from Singapore to Wellington or vice versa) this time around. Watched Disney's "Meet the Robinsons" on the flight to Singapore, and I was pleasantly surprised by its quality. 2007's turning out to be a pretty good year for animation, what with this, Surf's Up (a surprisingly great animated film from Sony Imageworks) and of course Pixar's Ratatouille- which was recently released in the USA to near-universal praise but is sadly only coming out in Singapore on the 30th of August (movie distributors of Singapore, why do you torture us so?). Anyway, its back to work for me tomorrow (or rather today!) and I'm still a bit jet-lagged, so I'll have to skip my explanation of why our journey back here was better than the journey to Wellington, and why I generally despise air travel in general, and save it for another post.

Short Update from NZ

2007-07-08T02:33:00.000+08:00

Flying back to Singapore in just a couple of hours. The past two weeks have been amazingly fun- couldn't have asked for a better first vacation, really. We've been staying in Wellington with a few close family friends who are such great company that it would've been fun hanging out with them anywhere. Hanging out with them here in New Zealand, which is basically every bit as beautiful as what you've seen in the Lord of the Rings movies, has been fantastic, to say the least. We've taken tons and tons of photos and I'll post the best of them here once I've had some time to sort through them back in Singapore. I have to say- 2 weeks isn't nearly long enough to see this country (though to be fair, the same can be said of any country). Heck, we haven't even visited Auckland, or South Island (the colder, more mountainous part of NZ)! I'll definitely have to come back here sometime in the future.

On the way to New Zealand

2007-06-23T06:00:00.000+08:00

Posting this from a free Internet station at the Sydney airport- stopping over here on the way to Wellington, New Zealand, where I'll be for the next 2 weeks along with my sister. It's my first vacation from work and I'm really looking forward to it; the last few months were beyond hectic, to say the least. More once I make the jump.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: 110 years later, it still has bite

2007-05-08T08:00:00.000+08:00

I just finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time, and I'm slapping myself on the forehead for having waited so long to read it. I had assumed, like many others, that since the story, and its titular character, was so deeply ingrained in our cultural consciousness, it was therefore unnecessary for me to actually read it. I felt I knew it through cultural osmosis, as it were. Evidently, I was wrong. Dracula is a true literary classic. Not just because of its influence on later works, or because of its merit as a novel (which is considerable, though it is an uneven tale, with its eerie and evocative first section overshadowing the plodding second), but because of its depth as a text that can be read and analysed in a multitude of ways, a text that reveals so very much about the era and culture that it was written in as to practically be a historical document in its own right.

Indeed, what first struck me about the novel is that it is actually presented as a historical document, consisting entirely of a series of diary and journal entries, memos, telegrams, newspaper articles and other documents. Not one of the events that take place in the book are described from the standard novelistic 3rd-person perspective; a fact which is brought to the reader's attention by the story's protagonists, who repeatedly doubt their own written testimony throughout the story and in doing so undermine the verisimilitude of their entire narrative (as one of them directly points out in the story's coda). I cannot help but wonder if Stoker, by doing this, was openly inviting his readers to examine his text critically, because that was its effect on me. Whether by purpose or by chance, this is one of the more thought-provoking and sophisticated uses of the "unreliable narrator" device that I have encountered in a novel, and one that I was surprised to see in a 110 year-old book.

I see why Dracula remains a popular text in literature classes. If I were still a student, I'd be more than happy to study it. It's themes and subtexts- sexual and gender politics, racial conflict, the uneasy tension between (then-)modern technology and the supernatural, and the dualities and inversions that lie at the core of the story- remain as fascinating and relevant today as the day it was written. As does the book itself. To repeat the awful pun I've used in this post's title- this book still has "bite".

Happy May Day!

2007-05-01T11:21:00.000+08:00

Up til now, I haven't paid any attention to May Day/Labour Day- it doesn't stand out among the numerous holidays we celebrate in Singapore, and it always seemed like an oddly ironic holiday to celebrate in a country that doesn't have a labour movement. However, as I am now a member of the workforce, I thought to educate myself as to what this holiday is all about. Turns out that this isn't just a holiday celebrating the efforts of the working class- its roots lie in an international movement to institute an eight-hour working day for all workers. So take a moment to read about the of the 19th and 20th century labour unionists who fought the good fight so that we can enjoy what is now considered a basic right in modern democratic societies worldwide.

Cinema Watch

2007-04-19T08:55:00.000+08:00

Now Playing in Singapore Movie Theatres:

MID-LIFE CRISIS: THE MOVIE

Not Playing in Singapore Movie Theatres:

Children of Men

Singapore cinemas do a good job of catering to real movie-lovers for the most part, but a decision like releasing Children of Men, the best science-fiction movie to come out of Hollywood this decade, direct-to-video is totally ridiculous. Besides being a truly excellent movie, it also has the most bold and innovative cinematography in years (300 ain't got nothing on this) and demands to be seen on the Big Screen.

Wild Hogs, on the other hand, doesn't deserve to be released at all. The trailer alone is cringe-inducing. If you listen carefully to the sound track, you can hear the flush of William H. Macy's career going down the toilet, the poor man.

Singapore Film Festival: What I'm Watching

2007-04-09T00:45:00.000+08:00

The Singapore International Film Festival is one of the highlights of the year for the Singaporean cineaste, and I've been faithfully attending it for the past five. I'm especially looking forward to it this year's one because this is the first time that I won't be having exams close to or during the festival, meaning that I can actually watch every single film I'm interested in! Of course, I can't watch *everything*, so I've judiciously selected those that I think are most worth my time:

German Animation: A screening of 15 German animated short films. I know little about German animation; which, along with the intriguing screenshots of the shorts on the Film Fest website, is precisely why I'm very excited about seeing them.

Life in Loops: A Megacities RMX: This experimental documentary, a "remix" of the 1997 film Megacities- 30% re-edited footage from that film and 70% new footage- came to my attention a month ago when I was pointed to the trailer by a blog that I unfortunately no longer recall. It had the aura of something genuinely new and ground-breaking, and I resigned myself to never being able to see it in cinemas here. I'm very pleased that my instincts were wrong in this case.

Fay Grim: This one's a bit of an odd choice for me as it's the sequel to a comedy (by a director named Hal Hartley, who is apparently big in the American indie film scene) that I've never seen, but it stars the wonderful Parker Posey and is billed as part comedy, part film noir and part spy thriller. Sounds good to me.

Aachi N Ssipak: This Korean animated film has a plotline that can't be beat for sheer craziness: In a future where natural energy resources have run out, mankind has resorted to using human faeces as fuel. Gang wars over shit ensue.

What raises this to a must-watch is the film's exuberant animation, sharp character designs and totally rockin' soundtrack. Just check out the 5-minute intro sequence, which seems to take its inspiration from Full Throttle (aka the most bad-ass adventure game ever made).

KAFA Animation: I'm hoping to see some gems amongst these nine short animated films by students of the Korean Academy of Fine Arts. Korean animation has been going from strength to strength of late, with critically-acclaimed works like My Beautiful Girl Mari winning international awards; it'll be exciting to see the first works of young new talents from the country. It's worth noting that this is a free screening!

Freestyle: The Art Of Rhyme: I've heard really good things about this documentary, which traces the growth of freestyling, or improvisational rapping, in the 1990's. The film looks to be a rare glimpse (well, rare around here, anyway) at the artistic side of rap music and culture, and thus a must-see for a hip-hop fan like me. Plus, this is also a free screening!

I'm also interested in watching German New Wave director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films, being screened as a retrospective marking the 25th anniversary of his death. While his magnum opus, the 15-1/2 hour long TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz, won't be screened (for obvious reasons!), 10 of his other films are being shown (many for free!) and should serve as a good introduction to the famously prolific director's body of work.

Finally, I'd like to watch the Danish animation Princess, an ultra-violent revenge fantasy where a priest, filled with rage and guilt over the death of his porn-star sister, goes on a mission to erase all evidence of her work in porn, along with the men who lured her into the industry. The movie looks both shocking and thought-provoking; the kind of challenging, adult work rarely found in animation. Perhaps too challenging and adult to be screened in Singapore, though- the fact that the Film Festival hasn't started selling tickets yet implies that they're having trouble with the local censors (who are notoriously tetchy about adult animation). I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.

Tokyo Godfathers Review

2007-04-03T01:07:00.000+08:00

Tokyo Godfathers is director Satoshi Kon's third animated film, after the highly-acclaimed films Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress. Coming after the heels of those two films, mature, psychologically-complex works that pushed the boundaries of animated storytelling, Tokyo Godfathers, a Christmas movie loosely inspired by John Ford's 3 Godfathers, could arguably be considered the director's slightest work; but that would hardly be doing it justice. Wiser men than me have pointed out that creating great comedy is as a hard as creating great drama. Tokyo Godfathers has both in spades, and is deft enough to go from one to the other, sometimes in the same scene, without once missing a beat.

The film revolves around the titular godfathers: Gin, a middle-aged homeless drunkard who lives for his next bottle of alcohol, Miyuki, a cynical teenage runaway, and Hana, a sharp-tongued transvestite fallen on hard times who is both the source of the best lines in the film as well as its heart and soul. The characters are unusual (how often do we see grimy homeless men as heroes in a film?), but the story is standard: this motley trio comes across an abandoned baby in a trash heap and sets out on a journey across Tokyo to find its parents, surmounting various dangers and bonding with each other in the process.

The same premise you see in a dozen syrupy, sentimental Hollywood Christmas films, each more disposable than the one before it- but what elevates Tokyo Godfathers above and beyond that dross is the way it grounds its string-of-coincidences plot in its characters, who are more more vivid and real, more three-dimensional (hehehe), than most characters in live-action films, and its setting- the city of Tokyo, so meticulously captured as to be a character in and of itself. The film shows us a Tokyo that we rarely see, not the glowing neon-lit city of the future popularized in films like Lost in Translation, but Tokyo as it is experienced by the outcasts of society, a city of back-alleys, public parks turned slums, and rotting tenements. It gives the film a sense of weight and verisimilitude that is rare to see today.

The question that remains is this- why is the film an animation? There's nothing in the film that couldn't technically be achieved in live-action (though some scenes would play out as markedly more absurd in such a setting). Indeed, some critics have taken this up as an issue, while failing to appreciate that the film's achievements- its wonderfully expressive characters and its carefully-controlled mis-en-scè ne- are precisely the result of it being an animation. Satoshi Kon gathered some of the best animators in Japan to make this film, and it shows. One of the film's most memorable scenes (I won't spoil it, but you'll know when you see it) is a monologue, delivered with passion and animated with equal intensity. In this one scene, an animator's ink, together with superb voice-acting, produces a performance on-par with an Oscar-winning actor. It's a validation of animation as a theatrical artform, and to me puts to rest the question that began this paragraph. Indeed, a better question would be this: why aren't there more animated films like this (or even live-action films, for that matter)?

I originally wrote this review in 2005, after seeing Tokyo Godfathers at the Singapore International Film Festival (it's quite sad that local distributors didn't see fit to give it a wider release, despite the film being very well-received at its two sold-out festival screenings), but since lost it in a dark and dusty folder of my iBook. Upon re-discovering it today, I felt compelled to re-write the entire thing before posting it. The film deserved better than the short three paragraph (and a line) treatment that I gave it. It's a superb example of the best of Japanese animation, and a wonderful Christmas movie (a phrase I never thought I'd say/write) as well.

Shell's amazing Ferrari ad

2007-03-29T00:22:00.000+08:00

Shell's new commercial for the 60th anniversary of their partnership with Ferrari is, without a doubt, one of the sexiest car commercials ever made. Directed by the very talented Antoine Bardou-Jacquet (the man behind the brilliant Honda 'Cog' ad) of Partizan, the ad shows off a number of classic Ferrari F1 cars tearing through the streets of Rome, Sydney, New York and Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Monaco. An awesome sight in and of itself, but what makes the ad truly extraordinary is its soundtrack. No music, just the powerful roars of the cars' engines. A joy for the eyes AND the ears.

(thanks to Autoblog for the production information)

The Animaniacs Bible

2007-03-27T18:15:00.000+08:00

Animaniacs (and its spin-off, Pinky & The Brain) was one of my favourite cartoons of the 90's, so I was quite excited when I found this Animaniacs Bible, which details the ideas behind the show and its characters. Surprisingly enough for such a seemingly anarchic show, its plot structures are laid quite quite rigidly, as you can see in the "Show Format" and "The Formula for Warner Bros Cartoons" pages. Now that I come to think of it, most of the show's episodes did roughly follow the structure as laid out in this document! I guess that says a lot about the formulaic nature of modern TV writing, even in cartoons, and why even the best Animaniacs cartoon, while a good deal better than the Warner Brothers cartoons that preceded it as well as those that have come since (except for the 90's Batman and Superman animated series, and possibly Justice League), just can't hold a candle to their classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

Dexter & Monty: the first robot comedy duo

2007-03-27T17:53:00.000+08:00

Anybots's announcement video for their new robots, Dexter, the world's first (well, not really) dynamically balancing walking humanoid robot, and Monty, a wheeled robot with one fully articulated arm, is a very cool demonstration of their technology, but it's also really funny. To be specific, the bit where Monty pokes Dexter repeatedly to try and get him to fall over is *comedy gold*. Cracks me up every time I see it.

The Return

2007-03-27T17:51:00.000+08:00

First post of 2007! It's been a long time in the coming, but here it
is. This is going to be an exciting year in many ways and it's high
time I started keeping a record of it (as soon as I clear my backlog
of posts). I also need to start reading all the RSS feeds I subscribe to again- I haven't checked my Rojo since December, which means I'm in danger of losing my sense of the web Zeitgeist!

What's been keeping me so busy all this while? Work, work and more work, with my remaining free time being devoted to consuming as much media (movies, TV, anime, comics and of course games) as possible. Yeah, I need to start writing about all of those. As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've stealth-posted the entire archive of my now-defunct entertainment blog Robot|Eel here. In addition, I've also stopped updating my gaming-centric blog, Zest Games- not because I intend to stop writing about games and gaming culture (if anything I have more to say now), but because I'd rather focus on this blog exclusively. So from now on, I'm going to post about pop culture and games right here. Hopefully I can add some breadth to this blog without sacrificing depth (insofar as it is possible for a blog to have depth).

Last post of 2006

2006-12-31T23:57:00.000+08:00

2006's almost over. Looking back, I can honestly say that this has been a good year. I finally graduated from university and at the end of last month, I joined the ranks of the gainfully employed. That's right, I have a job. Not just any job, either- I'm a professional (as opposed to an aspiring) game designer. Well, technically my job description is "Research Assistant- Game Designer." I don't work at a commercial games studio, you see- I work at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education. Check out my work bio! It's a bit sparse and somehow a typo's snuck in there, but that'll soon be fixed. I'm going to cut off here because it's almost midnight and I want to post this while it's still 2006, but you can expect to hear more about this (but not too much!) very soon.

A Message of Hope from the Banker to the Poor

2006-11-01T20:56:00.000+08:00

"The one message that we are trying to promote all the time, that poverty in the world is an artificial creation. It doesn't belong to human civilization, and we can change that, we can make people come out of poverty and have the real state of affairs. So the only thing we have to do is to redesign our institutions and policies, and there will be no people who will be suffering from poverty. So I would hope that this award will make this message heard many times, and in a kind of forceful way, so that people start believing that we can create a poverty-free world. That's what I would like to do."
Muhammad Yunus in a telephone interview with the Nobel Foundation.

The next step in our cyborg future: thought-controlled bionic arms

2006-10-14T11:09:00.000+08:00

Claudia Mitchell, a former US Marine, lost her left arm in a motorcycle accident in 2004. Today, she is a cyborg, fitted with a Bionic Arm developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The Bionic Arm is a bleeding-edge technology- a mind controlled prosthesis, the first of its kind. It will allow amputees to lead richer, fuller lives than they could with previously available prostheses.

As with many state-of-the-art research efforts, the bionic arm is strongly linked to the military- part of a multi-lab effort funded by $50 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to the Washington Post, as of July, 411 members of the (US) military serving in Iraq, and 37 in Afghanistan, have suffered wounds requiring amputation of at least one limb (no word on how many lost arms specifically). These men and women will be next in line to be fitted with Bionic Arms.

It is surely heartening to see military-developed technology alleviate, instead of cause, suffering, but a horrible possibility comes to mind of where this all might lead. Future advances in prosthetic technology might conceivably yield bionic limbs that are as good as, if not better, than natural human limbs. Imagine a war where soldiers lose limbs, only to go back into battle with new ones. The human body become expendable war expenditure.

Of course, this is worst-case scenario that is unlikely to come about anytime soon- it will take years for prosthetic technology to reach that point, and when it does, such artificial limbs will be very expensive indeed. The Bionic Arm itself costs between $60,000 to $75,000. This leads us to the grimmer reality- while US citizens can enjoy the fruits of such technology, who will provide Bionic Arms for the thousands of poor civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (amongst other countries) who have lost their limbs to conflict? Where is their cyborg future? Perhaps it is overly-idealistic for me to say so, but I believe that they have an equal right to such technology as much as any soldier from a first-world nation.

Mars Rover Opportunity at Victoria Crater

2006-10-08T10:58:00.000+08:00

HiRISE image of Victoria Crater

The Mars Rover Opportunity (whose exploits, along with that of it's twin, Spirit, I highlighted in this post back in March) is now exploring the 800-meter wide Victoria Crater- the largest crater that either of the Rovers has yet encountered. Opportunity has now been operating for over 960 days; 10 times it's expected lifetime! The Rover is now exploring the rim of the crater and will then descend into the crater itself, guided by the high-resolution images of Victoria Crater taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (or HiRISE) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite. The combination of images from the Rover and the Orbiter are providing NASA with a wealth of scientific data on Victoria, which should reveal much about Mars' environmental history.

Haze woes

2006-10-07T18:09:00.000+08:00

Singapore appears to be blanketed in haze today. It hangs low over the air like a malignant mist and it's smell permeates everything, even worming its way into my house (til I closed all the windows and turned on the aircon, anyway). The National Environment Agency website confirm my suspicions- the air quality here is at 'unhealthy levels' and the PSI reading actually went up to 130 at 10 am this morning. It's 1997 all over again.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, spoke out on the need for ASEAN to set up a haze fund, citing the fact that Indonesia lacks needed resources, and the costliness of the kind of tools that would be needed to put out large-scale forest fires. Beyond dealing with the fires as they occur, something really needs to be done about their (human) root causes as well (granted, some of the fires probably start by themselves, but I'm guessing not all- or even most).

I really hope that the governments of this region won't just forget all about the haze situation, and the out of control forest fires in Indonesia that cause it, as soon as the air quality clears up; else we can look forward to reliving this year after year for the forseeable future. Though given their track record to date, perhaps I should just invest in a filter mask.

V.S. Ramachandran on the evolution of consciousness

2006-10-05T21:12:00.000+08:00

"What is consciousness? This really breaks down into two questions: The first is the nature of qualia--how does the awareness of sensations like bitter, or painful, or red arise from the activity of neurons? The second: How does the sense of self—the person who experiences qualia—arise?"

Esteemed neurologist V.S. Ramachandran suggests what the answers to these questions might be in this brief article for the excellent Seed Magazine.

Jon Stewart on Habeas Corpus

2006-10-05T21:06:00.000+08:00

The United States Senate has passed a bill that will deny suspected terrorists the right of habeas corpus (aka the right to seek release from unlawful imprisonment). Here's what comedian Jon Stewart has to say about all this, along with an educational (:p) look at the English justice system 900 years ago:

George Orwell on writing

2006-10-02T14:35:00.001+08:00

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

"Politics and the English Language", George Orwell.

Guardian Style Guide

2006-09-18T11:17:00.000+08:00

I was at the library last week, looking for books about writing, when I came across one published by my favourite newspaper, The Guardian. It was The Guardian stylebook, the sixth edition of the newspaper’s internal English style guide (but the first to be published for public consumption). Reading through the introduction, I found out that the book's contents were also available online as The Guardian Style Guide. Oh joy! The Style Guide is a supremely useful English writing resource, covering a range of topics from proper grammar to stylistic considerations to the spelling of foreign names and words, and I foresee myself referring to it often in the course of my writing.

Project Censored's Top 25 Censored News Stories

2006-09-11T19:08:00.000+08:00

Every year, Project Censored compiles a list of "25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."

This year's list:

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger
#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US
#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo
#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy
# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq
#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines
#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup
#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US
#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner
#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court
#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda
#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story
#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever
#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem
#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers
#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed
#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe
#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year
#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

For details on each item, go here.

(again, via BoingBoing)

Vanity Fair punks neocon magazine The Weekly Standard

2006-09-11T18:43:00.000+08:00

The October 2006 issue of Vanity Fair magazine comes with a fake cover flap for the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard (courtesy of writer/designer Andrew Hearst). As you can see, it's the sort of thing that would boil the blood of your average right-wing hawk. I hope someone actually pulls off the prank at a newstand and then videos people's reactions! That would be classic.

(via BoingBoing)

Creating beauty in the midst of destruction

2006-09-11T18:30:00.000+08:00

British artist/activist Arofish paints stencil graffiti art in combat zones- Baghdad, Palestine and most recently, Lebanon. While he was in Dahyeh, a badly-damaged area of Beirut, he was asked by locals to paint something happy to reflect the spirit of the community. He came up with these stencil graffiti works of children flying kites.

The arabic text reads:
"When Ramallah, in Palestine, is put under curfew by the Israeli Army, nobody goes outside for days. The streets look completely deserted. But from a tall building, if you look out over the city, you can sometimes see hundreds of many-coloured kites, flown from the roof-terraces by the children of Ramallah. The children you can see here are flying kites to celebrate the spirit of the people of Dahyeh. Some kites you can see are flying away. These are for the children who are no longer here; they are no longer held down to the Earth".

Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars

2006-09-11T00:06:00.000+08:00

One of the more interesting effects of Wikipedia's 'editable-by-anyone' nature is the occurrence of edit wars- where two or more authors keep editing and counter-editing a page over and over. This page lists the most egregious examples of said battles. It makes for quite a hilarious read.

A few of my favourites:

Devil's Lake (North Dakota)
Shockingly, there are multiple locations in the United States with the name "Devil's Lake." A very heated war broke out here regarding which one should be featured, whether a disambig page was needed, even over the usage of the apostrophe- eventually literally degenerating into "my lake is better than yours!"

Wii
Is this article about the Wii or the Nintendo Wii? Should it be Nintendo's Wii? Does it rhyme with "We" or "Wee"? Should "Wee" link to urine? Is "Wee" slang or a euphemism for urine? Is it a British or International word for urine? Should urine be mentioned in the article at all? Just some of the hard hitting issues that provoked in excess of 1500 edits in the space of two weeks. In addition to all of that, a massive war breaks out over "non-official external links" that leads to a huge strawpoll to end the issue.

Death Star
Is it 120km or 160km in diameter? Who cares?

Read Cory Doctorow's new story- I, Row-Boat

2006-09-10T22:31:00.000+08:00

Cory Doctorow's new story I, Row-Boat (a "riff" on his earlier, Hugo-nominated short story I, Robot), about "the theological wars between an Asimov-cultist AI boat and an uplifted coral-reef," can be read online at Flurb Magazine (as part of the fledgling science-fiction magazine's first issue). It's a stellar short story- Cory is one of the few science-fiction writers who has the ability to take an unimaginably futuristic science-fiction concept (such as the post-Singularity future of I, Row-Boat) and craft a story with real, human emotion out of it. Very, very impressive stuff indeed.

Banksy Punks Paris Hilton!

2006-09-10T21:54:00.000+08:00

Guerrilla artist extraordinaire Banksy has made the news again for his latest prank- replacing 500 copies of Paris Hilton's latest album with his own doctored versions, complete with all-new artwork (warning: slightly NSFW) and music- in the form of a 40-minute long track titled "That's Hot", mixed by DJ Danger Mouse (the same man who produced the infamous and brilliant Grey Album- get yourself a copy here if you haven't already- and, more recently, Gnarls Barkley). You can find the track here as well as here (though honestly you can hear all the good bits in the following video, where Banksy shows us exactly how he pulled off the stunt).

Bill Plympton's Don't Download This Song music video

2006-09-10T19:38:00.000+08:00

The video for "Weird Al" Yankovich's new song, Don't Download This Song, is directed by none other than the phenomenal Bill Plympton!

The song, a parody of your typical inspirational ballad (with lyrics that lampoon the RIAA's attempts to deal with music piracy by suing the heck out of music downloaders), is pretty funny. The video, a cautionary tale of a boy who illegally downloads music and is subsequently chased down by the police as a hardcore felon, is truly hilarious. If you'd like to see more cartoons by Bill Plympton, check out this blog entry by Shawn, which lists all the Bill Plympton videos that he found on Youtube (including the Oscar-nominated short Guard Dog). Thanks, Shawn!

Well, it looks like "Weird Al" has recruited some truly awesome animators to work on the videos for his new album (for which Don't Download This Song is the lead single). John Kricfalusi, creator of the famed Ren & Stimpy cartoons, is working on one of them (along with the talented illustrator Katie Rice)! I can't wait to see it.

Two brilliant CG shorts by Polish animator Tomek Baginski

2006-09-06T13:40:00.000+08:00

EDIT: Replaced another broken Youtube video with one that works.

I discovered Tomek Baginski through the excellent animation blog The Progressive Animation Review, which highlighted his short film Fallen Art. I was highly impressed by the piece (which is winning awards everywhere), a stylish black comedy that builds up to the most hilarious yet disturbing climax I've seen in any film this year. It's definitely a must-watch for animation aficionados.

Naturally, I google'd Tomek Baginski to see what I could find. Turns out that Fallen Art was just his second released animation! His first film, Cathedral, tells a highly abstract science fiction tale about a pilgrim who visits a cathedral (what else?). One thing is clear from watching the two shorts- Baginski is not a man who likes to repeat himself. The two shorts are very different in both style and content. You can see how his directing and animation skills have improved from the first to the second. This really bodes well for his future, methinks. I look forward to seeing his future works.

Both shorts were animated and rendered in 3D Studio Max and were produced by Polish animation studio Platige Image. To learn more about Tomek Baginski and his works, check out these interviews:

Max Underground Interview with Tomek Baginski about Cathedral

Max Underground Interview with Tomek Baginski about Fallen Art

CGSociety Interview with Tomek Baginski about Fallen Art

Cathedral (2002)

Fallen Art (2004)

Rest in Peace, Steve Irwin

2006-09-06T00:42:00.000+08:00

Steve Irwin was perhaps the best-known conservationist and wildlife expert in the world. His death is tragic and oddly unexpected- even though he put his life on the line time and time again for the sake of educating and entertaining people, his larger-than-life nature made him seem invulnerable. That he was killed by a stingray, an animal that is apparently mostly harmless, just goes to show the unpredictable nature of his line of work and of wild animals in general.

Still, one would think that Steve would be satisfied with his legacy- the Australian Zoo run by him and his wife, his television shows that have been (and will be for many more years) watched by countless people who hopefully were as educated by the shows as they were entertained and his passionate conservation efforts. Plus, he died doing what he loved best; filming a new nature documentary.

So goodbye, Steve Irwin- Wildlife Warrior. You'll be sorely missed.

Masters of animation- Derek Lamb

2006-09-02T13:51:00.000+08:00

EDIT: Removed two embedded Youtube videos that have been removed from Youtube... a disturbing trend.

Animator, director, producer, writer, musician and teacher- the late, great Derek Lamb was all of these. He created works for the National Film Board of Canada, Sesame Street and UNICEF, amongst others, leaving a legacy of great animations. Here's a few that've made their way onto Youtube:

Every Child (1979)- produced by Derek Lamb, directed by Eugene Fedorenko.

(This video is no longer available on Youtube, but can be viewed at the National Film Board of Canada's Focus on Animation website)

This Academy Award-winning short film was created in celebration of UNICEF's Declaration of Children's Rights and the International Year of the Child. It illustrates one of the ten principles of the Declaration- that every child is entitled to a name and a nationality. It's a brilliant piece- the animation is visually dynamic, the A capella sound effects are wonderful and the story is both touching and wryly comic.

Special Delivery (1978)- produced by Derek Lamb, directed by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay.

(This video is no longer available on Youtube, and unfortunately does not appear to be available anywhere else either, though you can view part of the animation in Realplayer format at the National Film Board of Canada website.)

Another Oscar-winning short, this one is a hilariously twisted tale of a man whose life changes completely after he makes the simple mistake of forgetting to to clear the snow off his porch.

Mystery! title sequence(1980)- directed by Derek Smart.

Oh what joy! Derek Smart brings the darkly humourous drawings of Edward Gorey to life in this fantastic opening sequence for the classic PBS TV series "Mystery!".

Finally, here's two animations Derek Lamb made for Sesame Street in the 1970s.

I Get Mad- designed and directed by Derek Lamb, animated by John Canemaker.

"It aint baaad to get maaaad!"
This cracks me up every time I see it. An adorably gruff goat sings a song about how it's ok to let off steam when people act like asses toward you.

Simple Simon and the re-arranged animals- directed by Derek Lamb.

A short yet really funny absurdist piece about a group of animals whose limbs have been re-arranged. Good stuff, especially the character of the snake- the way he says "Something is wrong... but this is great!" with a huge grin on his face is just classic!

Sefer Festival 2006: Children's Illustrations Exhibition

2006-09-01T00:40:00.000+08:00

I took photos of the cooler illustrations at the Israeli children's book illustraton exhibition down at the National Library. Unfortunately my phone's camera couldn't quite capture the illustrator's names at the bottom of each poster, so they'll have to remain anonymous for now.

Cover songs don't have to suck

2006-09-01T00:32:00.000+08:00

I submit the following songs as proof of the above statement:

Ted Leo's acoustic cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone." The perfect trash-pop song, covered by my favourite rocker. He even one-ups the original by smoothly segueing into the chorus of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Maps about halfway through.

Speaking of which, here's the Arcade Fire's cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Maps". It's a pretty good take on what I consider one of the best rock songs in recent years.

I've saved the best for last. An absolutely gorgeous acoustic cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy by American folk singer Ray Lamontague. Not knowing who the man was, I didn't expect anything from the cover so I was floored when I heard this gorgeous, husky voice singing with raw, emotive passion. I'm actually going to buy his debut album on the strength of this song!

Used Books A Go Go Baby!

2006-08-31T22:15:00.000+08:00

If you walk into a large chain bookstore like Borders or Kinokuniya or even Popular, you probably know exactly what book you want to buy. Or at the very least, you'll know what kind of book. Best-sellers, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction- everything's neatly arranged in rows to make your book purchasing decision as painless as possible. All very efficient, but not very exciting.

Used book stores offer a totally opposite experience. You never know what you'll find on their shelves, where everything's tossed together in a wonderfully dizzy disarray. Familiar authors and titles jump out at you, while unknown ones preen for your attention. At a used book store, book-browsing gains an aura of adventure.

Even in Singapore, where I have yet to find a real dedicated second hand book store, it's possible to find some real gems at stores that stock used books. I passed by such a shop today at Bras Basah. I hadn't any intention of buying a book since I was headed to the National Library, but I couldn't help glancing at the used book shelf (cunningly positioned outside the store) anyway.

To my surprise and delight, a pristine copy of China Miéville(my current favourite author)'s first novel (and the only one of his I haven't read), King Rat, was sitting on top of a stack of management books on the second highest shelf! To my even greater delight, the book was only selling for two dollars. My buying instinct having been aroused, I examined the other books on the shelves more closely on the off-chance that I might find another steal.

A nineteen year old copy of V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas soon revealed itself- I'd always wanted to read the acclaimed author's works and this was the perfect opportunity. Finally, I found David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars buried behind a pile of self-help books (the second highest population on the shelf- behind business books!). I'd heard the movie adaptation was excellent, which no doubt reflected on the qualities of the novel itself.

So for the low price of five dollars, I found myself richer by three fine novels. You just can't find a better deal than that in Singapore!

Holy cow, free music from Universal?!?

2006-08-30T15:10:00.000+08:00

Colour me shocked. Stunned, even. A fledgling online music company by the name of SpiralFrog has announced that they're going to make Universal Music's entire North American music catalogue available for free downloading on their website. A test of the service is supposed to start in North America (USA + Canada) by the end of the year, with Britain and other European countries following next year.

Of course, all this free music isn't really free. Instead of spending money, you'll have to spend time to download these songs, and I don't just mean the download time. See, you'll have to watch or listen to ads on their website in order to download the songs and if you want to keep the songs, you'll just have to keep watching ads on the site regularly. As long as the service offers fast download speeds and little to no server downtime, I think people won't mind that too much.

A bigger problem is that SpiralFrog's music offerings will be encoded in Microsoft's WMA format, which isn't compatible with the iPod. Oho. That's a large segment of the digital-music market they're shutting out right there. Is SpiralFrog insane? With a name like that, you'd be tempted to think so, but it looks like they didn't have much of a choice. I'm sure they'd like to support iPod compatibility, but the iPod isn't compatible with any DRM systems but Apple's own FairPlay technology- which isn't and probably can't be used by anyone but Apple.

This leads to an interesting possibility: services like this (I'm sure more- including a yet-to-be-announced service from Kazaa- will be along the way soon) might just erode Apple's dominant position in the digital music market- but only if other hardware manufacturers can get their acts together and start offering compelling alternatives to the iPod. Microsoft's upcoming Zune doesn't count because apparently its only going to support it's own proprietary DRM encoding instead of Microsoft's existing technologies (unless they do an about-face following this news, or try to one-up SpiralFrog with their own free music service). Maybe it's time for Creative to shine?

Still, the big question for me now is simply this: When will we get services like this down here in Asia?

Sefer Festival 2006 @ Central Library

2006-08-30T11:21:00.000+08:00

When I went to the Central Library at Victoria Street yesterday, I was surprised to find an unusually heightened level of security there. Policemen were conducting bag checks at the door leading into the Central Lending Library on the basement floor; there was even a metal detector installed there!

The reason for all these precationary measures was the Sefer Festival 2006, an Israeli book festival being held at the Central Library from the 24th to 31st of August. A librarian handed me a pamphlet as I walked in so I was able to see what it was all about and what I'd missed. It's actually quite an interesting festival, with a diverse range of books on display at the Central Lending Library! I was excited to see books by the Nobel-prize winning author S.Y. Agnon as well as a book titled 'Betzavta (Together) : Guide to teaching democracy through games', which raises the curiousity of the game designer in me.

I was told that a few of the books on display would make their way into the Library's collection, which is very cool indeed. It has often been said that literature is one of the cornerstones of Jewish culture- perhaps no other culture in the world has documented their experiences, problems and triumphs as thoroughly as they have. Through contemporary Israeli literature, I hope to find out more about the culture and lives of the citizens of this nation-state, which is sadly only known to most of us through news reports about the conflicts in which the country has long been embroiled.

The Sefer Festival also focuses on children's literature. If I'd known about the festival sooner, I would very much have wanted to go see one of the festival's events: 'Storytelling Secrets with Noga Algom,' which was held on the 26th and 27th of August. The event was a children's storytelling session; Noga Algom is said to be an accomplished writer and storyteller who conducts sessions for teachers, parents and children in Israel. I've come to be interested in traditional oral storytelling of late so I'd like to see such sessions to observe the methods and techniques of professional storytellers.

There's also an exhibition of children's books illustrations by Israeli artists, which sounds quite promising. I'll go back to the library tomorrow to take a look and snap a few photos. I hope the illustrations on exhibit are as lovely as this one by Ora Eitan (which was thoughtfully given out as a card at the library), created for an illustrated book version of Ella Fitzgerald's song "Tisket-a-Tasket."

State of Shounen Anime: 2006

2006-08-30T02:02:00.000+08:00

Shounen anime used to constitute the bread-and-butter portion of my anime diet. While my tastes have shifted to anime with experimental animation and/or unusual and mature storytelling (FLAG, Kemonozume, Mushishi and Ayakashi are good examples from this year) I STILL enjoy a solid shounen-style anime every now and then. Here's what I've been watching lately:

Naruto was for a long time my favourite shounen anime. More than just a faithful translation of it's source manga, the show proved it's worth with excellent production values and beautiful animation. The highlight of the series was surely the climatic episode 133, where master animator Norio Matsumoto showed off his skills in a virtuoso fight sequence that is already considered by animation connoisseurs to be one of the greatest fight scenes in a shounen anime, ever. Sadly, the series dove from that high point into filler hell, where it's remained for the past year! I'll start watching Naruto again as soon as it resumes the manga storyline, but not an episode before.

Bleach started out pretty strong when it debuted in 2004, with an interesting premise, engaging characters and a nice mix of action and humour. However, the series suddenly switched gears in it's 2nd major storyline, which introduced a massive cast of superfluous supporting characters (beloved by fans because of their admittedly gorgeous character designs) and a plodding, overly-complex plotline designed to impress those who mistake complexity for depth. I stopped watching it after the 60th or so episode as it'd just become another example of everything I hate about mainstream anime.

Yakitate!! Japan, on the other hand, is an example of a great show that, despite hewing very closely to the standard shounen anime formula, managed to consistently be wonderfully entertaining. I took a break from watching it early this year as my sister, who I watched every episode with, went off on an overseas trip. She's back, but we haven't gotten around to catching up with the show just yet I was pretty surprised to find out recently that the series ended with it's 69th episode! I'm kind of disappointed- wacky, unique and fluffy-fun series like Yakitate!! Japan don't come around very often (or rather, they do but they're frequently not that good).

Eureka 7, which launched in 2005, was a surprisingly heartfelt show about growing up, young love, freedom, responsibility and giant surfboard-riding mecha. A weird combination, to say the least, but somehow the series (directed by Tomoki Kyoda of RahXephon fame) managed to make it work. I'd fallen way behind on my viewing and sure enough, the show seems to have ended! By all accounts, it was pretty good til the end. I can't wait to see what I've missed.

Noein is probably the most interesting new shounen anime I've seen this year. The first episode is all I've seen so far, but what I saw was really gorgeous! The animation was delicious, with loose, sketchy drawings (that probably made loads of regular anime fans recoil in horror) and beautiful movements. The fight scenes are truly a marvel. Disappointly, the second episode seemed to revert to a "normal" anime look, with detailed characters that lacked the free-flowing sense of movement that they had in the first, but Ben Ettinger (who has a keen eye for good animation and runs the very cool Anipages Daily blog) mentioned really great work done by the animators on later episodes so I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of this series (which ended earlier this year).

I was really looking forward to Blood+ as I thought the movie it's based on was an excellent mood piece and relished the idea of it being fleshed out. However, the best part of the series turned out to be it's first ten minutes- a stylish extended introduction animated in a similar style to the original Blood movie. The rest of the show, which took the safe route with typical-looking character designs and animation, just alienated me. The storyline of the show turned out to be just as prosaic as it's look and by the 5th or 6th episode, I'd lost all interest.

If you're an anime fan, you'll have noticed that none of the above are anime from 2006! Disappointingly, none of the shounen anime released this year have been very good.

A friend of mine recommended Air Gear, citing it's similarity to SEGA's thoroughly hip Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio (aka Jet Grind Radio). Unfortunately, the show tries it's darndest to ape JSR but fails completely. The music sucks, the animation is totally boring and the storyline and characters just grate (to my horror, there's even a loli character). BORING. 'Nuff sed.

I do have a couple shows on my to-watch list that might be cool:

XXXHOLic & Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle- I really liked the first volume of CLAMP's XXXHOLic manga and it's sister manga, Tsubasa Chronicle sounds pretty interesting too, so I figure I'll check both anime adaptations out.

Tokyo Tribe 2- Santa Inoue's manga Tokyo Tribe 2 (released in English as Tokyo Tribes by Tokyopop) has fast become one of my favourite manga with it's epic story about warring street tribes on the streets of an alternate Tokyo- one that's rife with crime and corruption. Santa takes his cue from the great Hollywood gangster movies by centering the story around two characters- Kai and Mera, ex-best friends, now members of rival gangs and embroiled in what's about to become the biggest gang war to ever go down in Tokyo. The anime is being produced by the always reliable Madhouse Studios and will be directed by Tatsuo Sato, who made the surreal and experimental Cat Soup, amongst other things. Pretty exciting!

Korgoth of Barbaria

2006-08-29T13:50:00.000+08:00

On the strength of it's pilot episode alone, I'm declaring Korgoth of Barbaria the best new American animated series of 2006. Yep, even better than The Amazing Screw-On Head, which was cool, but nowhere near THIS cool. Korgoth of Barbaria is an action-comedy that parodies Conan the Barbarian, Heavy Metal comics and well, the swords-and-sorcery genre of fantasy in general.

It's created by Aaron Springer, who storyboarded Spongebob Squarepants (and even wrote and directed some episodes), and the pilot episode's animation was directed by none other than Genndy Tartakovsky (the genius behind Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack). With animation bigshots like that, you expect quality and Korgoth delivers in spades.

The show looks great, with unique character designs, excellent animation and surprisingly lovely painted backgrounds (done by Bill Wray, according to Cartoon Brew). It's also gust-bustingly funny, thanks to some killer dialogue (people will be quoting this stuff everywhere on the web by year-end), deft comic timing and the totally over-the-top heavy metal music used in the show. I can't wait for the show to debut in September (sadly, Cartoon Network Asia sucks SO MUCH that we don't even get Adult Swim in Singapore, but there's always Bittorrent!).

So check out the pilot episode on Youtube (part one, part two and part three) or download the torrent and know the awesomeness that is... KORGOTH!
*cue wailing guitars*

Note: I forgot to point out that Korgoth is, true to it's sword-and-sorcery roots, a really violent show- blood and limbs fly everywhere during fight scenes. Suffice to say, it ain't for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

Byebye, Mr Banana?

2006-07-27T15:38:00.000+08:00

The succulent, yellow fruits pictured above will be familiar to you as bananas, AKA the world's most popular fruit. To be very specific, they are 'Cavendish' bananas- the variety of banana most commonly sold in the West (it's not too uncommon here in the East, either :P). Unfortunately, that may not be the case in a few years time- the 'Cavendish' is being ravaged by disease and production may drop to the point where it's impossible to satisfy global demand.

The varieties of banana commonly eaten by man are, sadly, quite susceptible to disease. The reason for this is a fact that I myself wasn't aware of til a few days ago: the domestic banana plant is a clone! Genetic engineering is hardly a new science- farmers, through their selective breeding, have been doing it since time immemorial. Our domestic plants and animals have all been changed significantly from their wild counterparts through human efforts. Likewise, the domestic banana has been selected for a trait that makes it's fruit edible to us- namely, a distinct lack of seeds.

I've always wondered why bananas have no seeds and how the heck the tree reproduces. Well, I've found my answer. New banana plants are commonly grown by planting young offshoots of an existing banana plant. The new plant, then, will be a genetic clone of the plant it was propogated from. It is this practice that has allowed the spread of identical-tasting banana plants from Southeast Asia to Africa and the Americas- ensuring that everyone gets to eat the same great-tasting and nutritious fruit.

On the flipside, this also means that there's precious little genetic variation amongst the domestic varieties of banana- hence their remarkable lack of resistance to disease. What affects one banana plant can and will affect all other banana plants of the same variety. History has proved this fact- a 'banana apocalypse' has already happened once. The 'Gros Michel' variety of banana was once the favoured variety sold in the Western world until it was hit by a fungus called Panama disease in the early part of the 20th century. By mid-century, the production had been crippled. After it was clear that there was no way to save the 'Gros Michel', the 'Cavendish'- resistant to Panama Disease- entered the picture as it's replacement.

Unfortunately for us, the wild fungi weren't as genetically-static as the bananas they attacked. In 1992, a new strain of Panama Disease (called Race 4) that could affect 'Cavendish' varieties was discovered. It has since wiped out many plantations in Southeast Asia. It seems certain now that 'Cavendish' will suffer the same fate as 'Gros Michel' before it. All isn't lost, however. This fascinating Popular Science article details efforts by two groups of people to create a new, resistant form of banana: farmers who are trying to create a replacement plant similar enough to 'Cavendish' that consumers won't notice (or rather, mind) the difference and bioengineers who are manipulating the plant's genes to create a hardier, disease-resistant form of 'Cavendish.' Both groups have their work cut out for them; particularly the farmers, as new banana hybrids are hard to grow.

While the loss of the 'Cavendish' will certainly be a loss for banana-growing economies and fruit-lovers everywhere in the developed world, there is an even more pressing issue at hand. Bananas are a staple food in many parts of Africa and even though it is not the 'Cavendish' but other varieties that are commonly grown in many African countries, they too are under threat from the same diseases. The loss of the fruit would be no laughing matter for the millions of people who rely on it as a primary source of nutrition. Finding a solution to the banana's woes is thus a matter of utmost importance.

It's the 80's all over again- TMNT trailer!

2006-07-21T10:31:00.000+08:00

Wow- movie studios are really milking 80s nostalgia for all it's worth. First Transformers (with it's very underwhelming teaser trailer) and now everyone's favourite pizza-eating amphibian ninjas get their own trailer for their upcoming big-screen comeback. Surprisingly, it looks really good!

Love their new look!

The upcoming CGI feature film (directed by Kevin Munroe, a veteran animator) is set after the first two live-action films, much like the recent Superman Returns. Another similarity with that movie is that both look to set new standards in depicting the way their title characters move by utilizing the wonders of computer animation. The flying scenes in Superman Returns were nigh-incredible and the acrobatic way the turtles run and jump across the rooftops of New York city is far above and beyond anything the first two movies, with actors clad in clunky full-body turtle suits, could offer.

With director Kevin Munroe saying that the tone of the film will hearken back to Eastman and Laird's original comics (by far the coolest version of the turtles), this movie looks to have quite a bit of potential. Colour me excited.

Bill Gates pledges $287 million to HIV/Aids research.

2006-07-21T01:09:00.000+08:00

It was just last month that Warren Buffet announced he was giving away most of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Now, Mr. Gates and his philantrophic endeavours make headlines again- this time for pledging a quarter of a billion dollars to HIV/Aids research, to be given over a period of five years to 16 scientific teams around the world. I think this qualifies as a ray of hope in what's become an increasingly dire health crisis, particularly in Africa. It's good to see Bill Gates applying his formidable intellect and business acumen to the business of helping people- and not with token measures either.

As this illuminating Guardian Society article about a recent trip he took to Africa shows, he really does want to save the world. The man looks at the big picture and puts his money where he thinks it'll make the most difference to the greatest number of people- and with more money than several countries put together, he's got a good shot at making the world a better place. It might not be too early to say that Bill Gates stands to be remembered as a philanthropist on the level of Carnegie.

Presenting the world's cutest cephalopod (and friends)!

2006-07-21T00:10:00.000+08:00

That incongruously cute animal is a 'piglet squid,' a member of the genus Helicocranchia. The photo was submitted by Alan Kinnear for the BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition 2006, hosted by SERPENT- the Scientific & Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing Industrial Technology.

Now check out these guys!

This photo, of two Chimaera monstrosa and a Cidaris urchin, was submitted by a Kerry Howell of the University of Plymouth. Pretty neat. Check out the other contest entries to see some very unusual specimens of marine life. The microscopic/specimen images category features some breath-takingly gorgeous imagery.

Youtube serves a million videos a day!

2006-07-18T17:06:00.000+08:00

According to this Reuters report, online video site Youtube's viewers are now watching 100 million videos daily. Wow. That's a whole lot of videos. They've definitely captured the market in online videos. Blog TechCrunch raises an interesting question- given their high bandwidth costs (over $1,000,000 a month in April this year- bound to be higher now), how is the service going to make money? Increased advertising would be the obvious solution- question is where will Youtube put the extra ads? Before or after videos? More banners? Well, I'm sure the company's savvy enough to figure something out. Today, they'll be toasting themselves on their fine achievement- beating out large industry players like Google (with their competing Google Video) service to create the household name in online video.

On a sidenote, it's very amusing to read some of the comments on TechCrunch where people try and pinpoint single magic factors that led to Youtube's popularity. Of course, there isn't one. Their success, like any sucess, is due to many factors, but the most important is one that TechCrunch nails with this statement:

"It just might be that YouTube is simple, easy, works well enough and people like it - there may be no more mystery than that."

Well said indeed. Others who want to succeed in the world of "Web 2.0" should make note of that.

Trailer for Chris Nolan's 'The Prestige' is a Must-See!

2006-07-14T17:29:00.000+08:00

I hadn't even heard of Chris Nolan's (who directed a small indie flick called 'Batman Begins' last year) 'The Prestige' until I saw the trailer down at the Apple Trailers site, but it's just shot up to the top of my Must-Watch list. One of the best trailers I've seen all year (right up there with Spider-Man 3's scintillating teaser), the movie promises to be one hell of an exciting ride.

Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Christopher Priest, the film is about the rivalry between two magicians in Victorian England. Said magicians are played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine and Batman together in the same movie- will you fancy that?). It also stars Michael Caine and my favourite young actress Scarlett Johanson. Everyone looks to be at the top of their games in this. Superbly compelling stuff, really. October 27th (the film's release date, in case you're wondering) can't come any sooner for me!

Spider-Man 3 gets a sexy 3D poster!

2006-07-14T17:10:00.000+08:00

Superherohype.com, that fine purveyor of all superhero-related filmic goodness, has brought us this first image of the new lenticular (that snazzy 3D effect where a picture changes as you walk past it) poster for Spider-Man 3. Check out the twisted emblem for Spidey's black costume! It looks totally evil- but in a good way. ;-)

Symbiote suit!!!

The funniest, coolest ad of the year comes from Thailand!

2006-07-14T01:15:00.000+08:00

A 4-part series of ads for Smooth-E Babyface Foam is by far and away the most hilarious advertisement I've seen all year. Heck, it's funnier than most films released this year. It's just totally entertaining. There's a Youtube version here but I'd recommend you watch the high-res versions of the ads at the Cannes Lions website (here's the links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the ad), where the ad won Gold in the Film category. Personally, I think it should've gotten the Grand Prix 'cos it's way cooler than the actual winner- a big budget CGI-fest made for Guiness. But that's neither here nor there. What's important is that you watch these ads, laugh merrily and then go out and buy some face wash so you can find true love. :P

Genius animator Makoto Shinkai is making a new film!

2006-07-14T00:36:00.000+08:00

In 2001, an artist began work on an animated short film. He worked alone, using his Macintosh G4 PC to produce the animation. The film premiered in 2002 and went on to win no less than six awards as well as the adulation of the Japanese animation community.

The artist was Makoto Shinkai. The short film: 'Voices of a Distant Star." Unerringly beautiful, poetic and heartfelt, the film was unlike anything that had ever come out of the Japanese animation scene. 'Voices' used what could have been a standard science-fiction scenario- a soldier leaves Earth to fight a war in distant space while leaving his (in this case, her) lover behind- to tell a deeply personal, emotionally-charged story about love and seperation. It really is a brilliant work- one of the few anime that could possibly be considered a work of art.

Having established himself as one of the finest animators of his generation, Shinkai then proceeded to make his first feature-length animation- 'The Place Promised in Our Early Days.' This time, he worked with a full production staff and the results show in the increased technical quality of the work. Once again, the film melded science-fiction with a personal story of friendship, love and loss. Once again, the film earned much praise, winning four awards. However, a criticism often made of the work is that the pacing suffered with the longer length- perhaps unsurprising given Shinkai's inexperience at making feature-length films.

It is interesting, then, that his next animated film, '5 Centimeters per Second,' will consist of 3 short stories, centered around a boy, that take place in Japan from the 1990s til today. Dividing the film in this way should allow Shinkai to play to his strength in creating short stories, while also allowing him to create a rich, deep work. He's also decided to eschew the science-fiction trappings of his previous works, instead focusing on making the story and setting as realistic as possible.

However the story turns out, one thing's for sure- the film will be utterly gorgeous, if the trailer on the film's site is anything to go by. Both streaming or HD-downloadable versions of the trailer are offered and I highly recommend the latter if your PC can support it. Fansubbing group The Triad has also kindly released a translation of the trailer on their BitTorrent tracker.

'5 Centimeters per Second' is set to debut in Spring 2007- it'll surely be one of the animation highlights of the year! I await it's arrival eagerly.

Pirates 2 smashes box-office records!

2006-07-12T01:06:00.000+08:00

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest raked in an incredible $135.6 million dollars in it's opening weekend, setting a new box office record for the highest three-day opening, ever(Spider-Man was the previous record holder, with it's $114.8 million opening weekend)! Wow. I knew the film would do well (you'd have to be a right curmudgeon not to love Captain Jack Sparrow) but this is astonishing. I don't think even the guys who made the film predicted it would do this well. I can't wait to see it for myself this weekend (oddly enough, it's not out just yet here in Singapore)!

New Readings

2006-07-11T00:04:00.000+08:00

The web (in particular, the *ahem* blogosphere) is an important source of information for me but I still hold the humble book, that ancient technology of pulped-wood and ink, in highest regard. From the day I started reading books as a young lad til now, I doubt there's been a week in which I haven't read a book. Indeed, there would be few such days.

Unsurprisingly, I'm a big fan of bookstores and India has, in my opinion, some of the finest such establishments in all of Asia- with diverse selections of books across all genres, often at prices cheaper than can be found anywhere else (and that's not even counting India's famous second-hand book scene, which I have yet to delve into).

I was in Bangalore recently and had the pleasure of visiting a few of it's bookstores. Every time I go to Bangalore I come back with as much books as my luggage can carry- this trip was no exception. However, while my previous previous book-buying sprees in Bangalore yielded mostly fiction and the odd science book, this time I decided to purchase a few choice non-fiction works (though I yielded to temptation and bought a gorgeous new leather-bound collected edition of Robert E Howard's Conan stories).

This change in buying habits was actually inspired by another book that I'd been rading recently-Jeffrey Sachs' inspiring 'The End of Poverty.' Now, despite it's eye-catching title, it's not a book I would normally consider reading simply because of it's subject matter: Economics, a subject I abhorred in junior college (I wasn't particularly bad at it, but I found it tedious and devoid of real-world value as it was taught). How I ended up with a copy of the book was that I was bringing it to a cousin in the Maldives as a gift- she'd been very keen to get her hands on it. Being the curious reader I am, I couldn't resist taking a peek inside en-route.

To my great surprise, I found myself hooked. This was more riveting than 10 airport thrillers put together. Jeffrey Sachs is a more entertaining writer than any economist has a right to be and he argues his case persuasively- that it is within our collective global ability to eradicate extreme poverty (the most extreme form of poverty, where people have no access to basic survival needs such as food, water and shelter) within our lifetimes. A bold claim, certainly, but the man backs it up with weighty (but not ponderous) intellectualism and weathered experience. I won't go into more details (the book is absolutely worth your time- I can't recommend it more) but suffice to say that Mr Sachs has made me deeply interested in economics, a field that prior to this I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot stick- an achievement in and of itself.

My first purchase was another copy of 'The End of Poverty'- this time for my own personal reading. Next, I chose a work that can arguably be called the foundation of modern economic study- Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations.' A cursory reading revealed it to be remarkably accessible, despite it's 1776 publication date. I was also on the lookout for books by John Maynard Keynes, but sadly none turned up.

I did, however, see an interesting contemporary book that invited comparison to Smith's classic text with it's title: 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.' This book, by David S. Landes, seeks to explain the great inequalities in wealth that exist between the rich and poor countries of the world today. I haven't touched the book just yet, but it looks to be a thought-provoking read. The last economics-related book I picked up was Thomas L. Friedman's 'The World Is Flat,' a book on that hot-topic of Globalisation that looks to be similarly stimulating.

Finally, I rounded off my purchases with three science books. Charles Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' and Richard Dawkins' 'The Selfish Gene' to start me on the path of filling the woeful gap in biology knowledge left by my formal education and 'Genius'- James Gleick's biography of Richard Feynman- one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. I've always enjoyed Gleick's writings- his biography of Isaac Newton was a superlative work- so I have high hopes for this book too.

Further impressions on all these books as I read them!

Amazing Screw-On Head Debuts Online on July 13!

2006-07-10T02:02:00.000+08:00

The Sci Fi Channel's animated adaptation of Hellboy-creator Mike Mignola's weird, wonderful and hilarious one-shot comic 'The Amazing Screw-On Head' will be premiering on the networks's Pulse broadband channel in just 3 days! According to Newsarama, viewers will be given a survey to fill out to help the network's executives decide whether to green-light the series or not. Given the show's unique premise and well-known cast (see above picture!), I think this fantasy-adventure-comedy series has a good chance at capturing viewers.

Don gets an uninspired first poster- plus SRK's costume from KPBW remake!

2006-07-10T01:16:00.000+08:00

The upcoming Bollywood film Don is one of my most highly-anticipated movies of the year (over and above even Superman Returns and Pirates 2!) for 2 reasons:

1: It's a remake of the 1978 movie of the same name- one of the most superbly entertaining Bollywood masala-films ever made, starring Amitabh Bachchan at the height of his coolness. The song Khaike Paan Banaras Wala (abbreviated in the post title for length), an ode to India's favourite snack (and mild intoxicant!), alone is worth buying the movie for.

2: It's directed by Farhan Akhtar, whose 2001 movie Dil Chahta Hai is still, for my money, the best mainstream Bollywood film of this decade. Judging by this interview, he's as much of a fan of the original Don as I am- which hopefully means his remake will be far from a soulless retread of the original.

Oh and it also happens to star Shah Rukh Khan- by far and away India's most famous leading man. If anyone can fill the mighty Amitabh's shoes, it's this guy.

So suffice to say, I have very high hopes for this film!

However, the film's first poster is completely underwhelming.

Ripping-off 'The Matrix' in 2006? Way to bore your potential audience! Where's the fun in this?

On the bright side, Farhan Akhtar has stated in an interview that his Don will deliver a new version of the 1978 Don's highlight sequence- the delightful Khaike Paan Banaras Wala song and dance sequence.

Heck, SRK even wears a similar outfit to Amitabh's, as seen in this photo of SRK on the set of Don (posing with a fan):

(Photo from IndiaFM)

Well, he's got the look. But can he beat Amitabh's funky performance? We'll find out when Don comes out on October 21, 2006.

Meanwhile, check out the original Khaike Paan Banaras Wala song, courtesy of Youtube:

Update: Newer Snakes on a Plane trailer and a new poster!

2006-07-10T00:34:00.000+08:00

Samuel L. Jackson on a plane full of snakes- what beautiful insanity! Check out the new trailer here.

Update: There's another trailer up here (in the crappy Flash video format that's all the rage these days).

I just love this new French poster for the movie. That crazed look in Samuel L. Jackson's eyes is priceless!

Electric cars- not quite dead

2006-06-27T14:35:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, my sister showed me a cool trailer for a documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car?"- an examination of the life and death of General Motor's pioneering electric car, the EV1. Released in 1996, the car was fast, efficient and a big hit with the select group of people who drove the car. Sadly, the EV1 line of cars was discontinued in 2002 and commercial development of electric cars in America seems to have died with it.

However, electric vehicle enthusiasts are a passionate lot and it looks like the fate of the electric car isn't quite sealed yet.

Behold the Eliica:

Developed in Japan by Professor Hiroshi Shimizu and his team at Keio university, this 8-wheeled beast of a machine can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in under 4 seconds- faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo- and has a top speed of 370km/h. UK motoring magazine Auto Express reports that the car is both speedy and fun to drive- it's lack of a transmission means that it can accelerate smoothly with no jerks between gears. The prototype car has been in development for quite a few years and was recently officially unveiled at Togu Palace with the Crown Prince and Princess in attendance. The team intends to produce at least 200 units of the car once they receive corporate sponsorship.

As cool as the Eliica is, it's mostly intended as a demonstration of power- proof that electric cars aren't the slow, cumbersome vehicles that they're popularly perceived to be. Back in the USA, however, some enterprising companies are planning to bring electric cars to the commercial market- in a big way.

One of those companies is Wrightspeed, with their Wrightspeed X1- the fastest electric car in the world and one of the world's fastest cars, period.

This speed demon beat both a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in a quarter-mile drag race (which you can watch here!), going from 0-60mph (or 96.6 km/h) in approximately 3 seconds. Entrepreneur Ian Wright is the man behind the X1 and he's got a plan to turn the current prototype into a production car for the high-end speedster market.

Interestingly enough, Ian Wright's background is in information technology (he's engineered routers and switches for companies like Cisco in the past)- according to this Business 2.0 article, he's part of a new wave of Silicon Valley upstarts (see also: Tesla Motors, who have bold plans and the venture capital to back them up) who intend to do what existing automobile makers have been failing at for years- bring an electric car to the mass market. They believe their technological expertise will enable them to design the highly-complex electronics and battery systems that will drive the electric cars of the future.

Speaking of batteries, they are commonly cited as the biggest problem with electric cars (as well as the main reason for them never taking off) as they're still too expensive and don't deliver the desired level of performance. However, a few start-ups down in Silicon Valley are working on just this problem and claim that big advances are on their way that will drive prices down significantly while improving performance to acceptable levels. With oil prices soaring sky-high and unlikely to ever come back down significantly, the time may finally be right for the electric car!

New Windows Live Messenger unimpressive, VP in charge of Windows Live disappears! UPDATED- 2

2006-06-27T00:22:00.000+08:00

UPDATE2: MICROSOFT- DON'T RELEASE BUGGY SOFTWARE AS AN OFFICIAL RELEASE! This stupid program crashes on me with near-clockwork regularity. Now I'm just plain irritated. This isn't a Beta version and I didn't expect it to perform like one. Even better, the damn thing installed itself over my old MSN Messenger installation (which I really wasn't expecting given it's Brand-New name) and I can't go back to using that... Whoopee. Oh and the offline chat feature that I was so in love with is totally broken! Half the messages I send my friends while I'm in offline mode don't get to them- and vice versa.

I can't un-recommend this program enough. Argh!!!

UPDATE: OOH FINALLY MESSENGER LET'S ME CHAT WITH PEOPLE WHILE I'M IN OFFLINE MODE!!! Yeah, ICQ had this feature like a decade or so ago so Microsoft is busy playing catchup, but I still really appreciate the feature. OK I'm a convert- if for that feature alone.

So I've been using the recently-released Windows Live Messenger client for the past few days and well, it's basically MSN Messenger with a new coat of paint. OK, it's got VoIP but... oh wait, MSN Messenger did voice chat too. OK OK, so Windows Messenger Live also lets you call normal telephones from your PC! Whoa! But oh wait, Skype already provides an excellent VoIP solution- and it runs on Mac OS X and Linux too! So there's that. Well, colour me totally unimpressed.

Also, what's the deal with this "Windows Live" branding thing? Who is Microsoft trying to fool? Windows is an operating system. Sticking it's brand-name on everything from the new version of Hotmail (speaking of which, dropping Hotmail- one of the Web's most recognizable brand names- for 'Windows Live Mail' is just plain stupid) to the new version of MSN Messenger is just going to dilute the Windows brand.

Stupefyingly enough, the VP in charge of marketing Windows Live mysteriously left Microsoft just after the release of the new Messenger client. Very bizarre, considering he was scheduled to give interviews about the program's release on the day he left! Just what is going on at Redmond these days? I hope these guys have a plan. I'm quite ambivalent towards MS these days, but the company has done so much to push computing into the mainstream over the past decade and a half that it's just downright sad to see them floundering like this now.

Meanwhile, India gets it's own superhero

2006-06-20T19:19:00.000+08:00

On June 23rd, Bollywood's first superhero movie (correction: Wikipedia claims he's the sixth- but nobody remembers the first five anyway), Krrish, will hit cinemas in India. Krrish is the sequel (a rarity in Indian cinema!) to "Koi... Mil Gaya," an 'ET-meets-Forrest Gump' science-fiction movie that made oodles of money in it's homeland and swept quite a few awards, too. I thought it was kinda crap but I couldn't get past the pseudo-ET stuff, frankly (though I have to admit, star Hrithik Roshan- who's daddy directed both movies- wasn't too bad in it).

I wasn't very interested in the sequel given it's pedigree but I must admit to being piqued after reading this New York Times article about the movie. Since the Times tends to block access to their content after a while, I'll just cut and paste the relevant bits (emphasis is my own).

Rakesh's biggest concern was making Krrish look sufficiently world class. After all, audiences that have lapped up Western heroes — "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" are the No. 3 and No. 2 Hollywood releases in India, after "Titanic" — would have little patience with cheesy special effects. So Mr. Roshan turned to the Hong Kong-based action choreographer Tony Ching, acclaimed for his work on "House of Flying Daggers" and "Hero."

This Bollywood-Chinese martial arts combination presented some distinctive challenges. Because Mr. Ching speaks no English, Mr. Roshan narrated his script via an interpreter. In an e-mail interview (also translated by interpreter), Mr. Ching said that what attracted him was the story, which "was very romantic and touching."

"Their ideas of the action were beautiful and exactly fit my style," he said. "Everything just matched well."

To fit Bollywood's comparatively smaller budgets, Mr. Ching slashed his fee — though even that bargain rate, Mr. Roshan said, was more than the paychecks of India's biggest stars. Last January, Hrithik went to Hong Kong and trained for 30 days, learning how to wield sticks and swords and adopt the correct postures for the harnesses. At the end of the daily six-hour sessions, Hrithik said in an interview in Mumbai, he "barely had enough strength to crawl into bed."

The action sequences, which Rakesh described as poetry, were filmed over 90 days, mostly in Singapore. To perfect the visual effects, Rakesh imported two experts from Hollywood, Marc Kolbe and Craig A. Mumma, who worked on "Godzilla" and "Independence Day" (and also on "Koi ... Mil Gaya"). The orchestration for the film's background score was done in Prague.

That's quite a team they got there- though it must be said that good action choreography and visual effects does not equate to a brilliant movie.

Will this be India's Spider-Man or it's 3 Dev Adam (i.e. so baaaaad that it's good!)? More importantly, will it rake in the big bucks? 3 more days 'til we find out! One thing's for sure- this movie is going to usher in Superhero Season into Indian cinemas (Superman Returns on June 30th!).

The advance buzz on Superman Returns is hot, hot, hot!

2006-06-19T22:03:00.000+08:00

Superman Returns is by far and away my most anticipated movie of the year, simply because of the trust I place in director Bryan Singer. His first X-Men movie was amazingly non-sucky- the second one was just flat-out brilliant. Still, the question remained: Was this man up to the Herculean task of creating a Superman movie that could possibly live up to the collective expectations of audiences around the world?

Judging by the first few reviews that are trickling out, he's succeeded magnificently. Time Magazine loved it. As did Newsweek. Variety.com's fairly-glowing review of the movie predicts that it will "pull down stratospheric B.O. around the globe."

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of all is the reception the movie is getting from the geek crowd. Harry Knowles', head geek of Aint It Cool News, ecstatic review of the movie. Now, the man does occasionally display questionable taste in movies, but where comic book movies are concerned he's been right on the money every single time (at least for my money :P). Aint It Cool's Massawyrm has a similarly positive review. Comic Book Resources' Jonah Weiland claims "with total confidence that it was everything a comics fan - and movie fan - could hope for."

So far, the movie's garnering praise from both the mainstream press and the geek set! A backlash is inevitable, but I dare say that this movie might turn out to be the Lord of the Rings of comic book movies. What I love most about is the sentiment echoed in every review I've seen: that Bryan Singer has, in Superman, made a summer blockbuster that's filled with heart (the one element that is notably missing from his otherwise excellent X-Men 2). My froth-meter for this movie is redlining. ANTICIPATION OVERLOAD!

An MS developer speaks up about Vista (plus, mad system requirements!)

2006-06-18T21:19:00.000+08:00

"Vista. The term stirs the imagination to conceive of beautiful possibilities just around the corner. And “just around the corner” is what Windows Vista has been, and has remained, for the past two years. In this time, Vista has suffered a series of high-profile delays, including most recently the announcement that it would be delayed until 2007. The largest software project in mankind’s history now threatens to also be the longest."

Quoted from this blog entry by a Microsoft manager who formerly worked on Windows. The operating system has (in)famously been delayed multiple times, losing features in the process. It's finally nearing release but the system requirements, which are formidable indeed, indicate that the system is very bloated. Everything I hear about Vista just makes me more and more apprehensive.

I wouldn't care if I could just stick to XP for the forseeable future, but I'm a gamer and some 'killer app' game will no doubt force me to make the switch to Vista. Ugh... the insanity. This, along with the recent news of Bill Gates leaving Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic activities (good on you, Bill!), makes me wonder about the future of the company. Well, as the saying goes, time will tell. Meanwhile, I'm thinking seriously about switching to Linux for day-to-day use.

Online Resume-writing tips and resources

2006-06-18T18:56:00.000+08:00

Writing a compelling resume is no easy task. It's not something they teach at school (at least, not at the schools I went to!). Thankfully, there are some really good tips and guides to resume-writing available online.

Rockport Institute, who specialize in helping people choose their career paths, has a really good multi-page article titled 'How to write a masterpiece of a resume.' The article teaches readers how to wriet a resume that markets themselves well and is compelling for employers. Good stuff.

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab has an extensive resume-writing section, including a sample resume and an online workshop.

Montana University's 'Tips on Resume Writing, Interview Skills, and Job Hunting Techniques' page has lots of links to relevant resources online.

Mona Lisa made out of PC parts

2006-06-17T18:11:00.000+08:00

I am oddly bemused by this reproduction of the Mona Lisa, made out of motherboards and other PC parts. Entitled 'Technology Smiling,' this art work is on exhibition in Beijing. The use of the garishly-coloured innards of our dull, everyday PCs to create a tangible reproduction of an artwork and the choice of artwork itself- the Mona Lisa, with her ever-mysterious smile- add up to a very clever commentary on our relationship with technology indeed.

Brainfuel's Top 10 Photoshop Tips

2006-06-17T17:55:00.000+08:00

Brainfuel's list of 10 Photoshop tips & techniques is very useful indeed. It's especially good for beginners (and casual Photoshop users like me!).

Nature Magazine on the Future of Computing

2006-06-17T17:49:00.001+08:00

In this web feature, Nature Magazine examines how computer science techniques and concepts may transform mainstream science by 2020. Amongst other things, they look at quantum computers, ubiquitious computing and most interestingly, the Internet as a 'creativity machine.'

Steve Jobs' presentation secrets

2006-06-17T17:39:00.000+08:00

Steve Jobs is well-known for being one of the most charismatic and exciting speakers in the corporate world. Business Week has a great article that details his five keys to delivering a superior presentation. Some great advice in there.

Superheroes meet Fine Art

2006-06-17T17:30:00.000+08:00

Worth1000.com recently ran a Photoshop contest challenging people to incorporate superheroes into pieces of fine art. The results are amazingly creative and well-done.

This is one of my favourites:

New Beginnings

2006-06-17T17:14:00.000+08:00

I'm back and I'm armed with a degree now! That's right, I have officially graduated from NUS. Soon I'll be venturing out into the "working world." It's the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. In that spirit, I'm making some changes in my blogging activities too.

Firstly, I've started a new blog- Robot Eel- which is exclusively focused on entertainment (movies, music, animation, comics- you get the picture). A lot of the kind of content I'd previously post here will now go to Robot Eel.

So what happens to this blog? Well, I'm going to turn this into my primary web research tool. Here, I will pick out stories and links of interest from the vast amount of information that I read on the Web every day (via RSS feeds, news sites, etc). A record of my surfing activity and what I consider to be interesting/important. My own personal BoingBoing, of sorts (though hardly as prolific). At the same time, I hope it'll be appealing to others as well.

Twitchfilm reviews 3 Dev Adam & Seven Swordsmen!

2006-06-13T13:23:00.000+08:00

Twitch, that font of news about indie, cult and world movies, has posted 2 reviews that rather pique my interest. Both of the reviews are by Todd, Twitch's founder and editor, who's a true movie buff and has great taste too (or so I gather from his reviews and posts).

The first is for the Turkish cult film 3 Dev Adam- which I wrote about 3 posts down. Sounds like Todd liked it:

3 Dev Adam is essentially the equivalent of the Dozier produced Batman TV show on acid. Played resolutely straight faced it is nonetheless a monumentally ridiculous film loaded with goofy action sequences, bizarre set pieces and absolutely littered with plot holes. The script is the flimsiest of things, existing only to get these three unlikely co-stars from fight to fight. It's as camp as camp gets, a film that aspires to B status, and appreciated on that level it's great fun.

Mmmm... sounds tasty! I'll be placing my order for a copy of the 3 Dev Adam DVD.

The second review is for the Tsui Hark-produced TV series Seven Swordsmen- based on the same story as his movie Seven Swords, which I reviewed quite positively for Aint It Cool News here. Mind you, that review should be taken with a grain of salt- I really did enjoy the movie but I glossed over it's many, many faults in my review. Now, it's main problem was that Tsui Hark was trying to cram too much story into too little screen time. Todd describes the problem well:

The edit was rushed and cramped and far too many supposedly key figures – including most of the titular heroes – slipped by the wayside doing little more than poking their heads on screen to remind people that they were still around.

Now, the Seven Swords TV series is 39 episodes long- ample time to tell the long, convulated story of the Seven Swordsmen of Mt Tian (who give both the and the movie and TV series their titles). Todd gives Seven Swordsmen a pretty positive review overall, though he didn't like it's soap operatic tendancies (unavoidable for a Chinese wuxia series, really). Here's his final word:

While it stops short of being a classic or essential viewing and is not without some serious shortcomings Seven Swordsmen represents a significant step forward over the theatrical Seven Swords in the area where fans felt it needed it most: in the story. Very similar in tone to the theatrical release this version gives fans far, far more in terms of characters. While Swords often felt cramped and rushed Swordsmen has ample space for everyone to stretch out and get their moment.

As a fan of the movie who really wanted to see more of the intriguing story it told, I can't want to see this series!

Ratatouille trailer is online... again!

2006-06-09T11:24:00.000+08:00

UPDATE: You can watch the trailer, in English this time, at Apple's trailer website here.

The French trailer for Pixar's next big animated feature film, Ratatouille, leaked onto the net a couple weeks ago but was quickly taken offline. Well, a quick search for Ratatouille on Youtube uncovers 5 videos of the trailer- I guess they can't stop every single uploader. Also, blogger and animator Bartek Kujbida has kindly mirrored the Quicktime version of the trailer on his site. It's a lovely trailer- the visuals are gorgeous, as always with a Pixar movie, and the animation is great! I really like the main character's design. This movie's being (co-)directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant), so I've got high hopes for it.

The trailer's in French, but here's a rough English translation, courtesy of Ain't It Cool News:

[Beginning]

And tonight before dessert, for your enjoyment, we introduce the cheese plate. We have this delicious goat cheese bell, real lite, real sweet. Then, an ewe that will satisfy you with its generous perfume. But, last but not least, a real old and real special...

It's a rat!

[freeze]

- And there I am. I think I have to reconsider my life. There's nothing I can do, it's over my strength, I love good food, ok? And good food is very hard to find for a rat.

- You would find I you weren't so requiring.

- I don't want to eat in dustbins, dad... What's that?

- I have no idea.

- You have no idea, but you eat it anyway, don't you?

- You know, if you can close the exit after you throw up, you have a whole lot of possibilities for food.

- Voilà! That's exactly what I meant.

(Over the movie title) Nothing of this would have happened I we did not live in Paris! And it's sooo easy to find good food in Paris! But... it's dangerous. [un-freeze].

- You have to reconsider you life!

- You know, he is right!

- Dad, it's enough!

[End]

Batwoman is gay!

2006-06-09T11:17:00.000+08:00

Sweet costume!

There's a new Batwoman in town and it seems she goes for girls! This juicy piece of news has been stirring up the comics world- heck, even the mainstream media's gotten ahold of the story! Pretty interesting- now a cynical observer would say that DC Comics is just doing this to get publicity and for the opportunity to put loads of cheesecake girl-on-girl smooching scenes in the comic. However, she isn't the first major gay character in Batman's world (no bad Robin jokes, please :P)- the very best story in the excellent and sadly-cancelled series Gotham Central had Detective Renee Montoya outed as a lesbian. The mature and nuanced handling of that story makes me think that DC could actually make this new Batwoman's sexuality more than just a cheap novelty. I'll be interested to see where they go with this.

In Turkey, Spider-Man has face-eating gerbils!

2006-06-09T11:02:00.000+08:00

EDIT: Replaced another missing Youtube video!

The insanity!

I've seen some crazy movies in my time, but nothing as amazingly weird as 3 DEV ADAM (3 Mighty Men)- a movie in which Captain America and mexican masked wrestler (and national icon) El Santo team up to battle the evil... SPIDER-MAN!!! I kid you not. Apparently in the 70's and 80's, mere trifles like lack of a budget or copious copyright violations didn't stop Turkish filmmakers from making movies with, well, whatever they felt like.

Case in point: The Man Who Saves The World, AKA Turkish Star Wars- a movie that used footage from the original Star Wars along with music from Battlestar Galactica and Raiders of the Lost Ark to tell a completely different, and completely ridiculous, story! Check out the video clips at ifilm and see for yourself (the one simply labelled 'Fight Scene' is really great- the hero beats up a dozen muppet-looking monsters, killing one by ripping off it's arms and impaling it with them!!!).

OK back to 3 DEV ADAM! Spider-Man is really, really evil in this movie (I'm guessing he's bitter at losing all his powers and having grown a beer belly and bushy eyebrows). How evil? Well, in the opening scene he orders his hench-men to bury a woman up to her neck in sand and then gets them to back up a boat towards her. Propeller meets head = DEATH (don't worry folks- the nasty death occurs off-screen. The audience just gets to see a splash of blood)! If that wasn't enough, he later uses gerbils (yes, GERBILS) to eat a guy's face (it's in the trailer, folks!). This Spider-Man also enjoys strangling girls in showers and stabbing Mafiasos with switch-blades. For a full breakdown of the crazy plot, check out I-Mockery.com's multi-page review.

Oh boy, the Turkish translators for Marvel comics must've been terrible if they gave people the impression that Spider-Man was a super-villain, and an INSANE one at that! Anyway, this marvel-lous (hyuck, hyuck) movie just got re-released by Onar Films- I figure it's worth checking out for sheer humour value alone. What I really want to see, though, is a 1966 black-and-white Turkish Spider-Man movie, the existence of which I found out from this FFWD Weekly article about the world of Turkish cinema. Look at his costume!!!

Psychedelic, baby!

TRANSFORMERS movie is coming!

2006-06-09T10:10:00.000+08:00

More than meets the eye, indeed.

Ain't It Cool News got this new teaser poster for the upcoming Michael Bay-directed Transformers live-action movie. Hoo-boy. Bay's always been a very on-off director for me, but The Island was almost a good movie so maybe he'll get it right with his second science-fiction effort. One thing's for certain though- it's gonna be awesome seeing everyone's favourite Autobots and Decepticons on-screen in all their CGI'ed glory.

Also, the official Transformers movie site is up and it's counting down to some event 26 days from now. I'm guessing we'll see the first teaser trailer then.

Movie Review: Cars

2006-06-08T15:30:00.000+08:00

When I first heard about Cars, I was doubtful. The movie's premise (a remake of Doc Hollywood set in a world full of cars!?!) just didn't excite me. Neither did the fact that NASCAR- a sport that I have little to no knowledge about and no interest in- seemed to figure heavily in it. The various trailers didn't do much to change my mind- the movie looked good enough, but I expected nothing short of brilliance from Pixar (by far and away my favourite movie studio) and Cars didn't look brilliant. Heck, a month ago when I watched 'Over The Hedge', I was convinced that this would be the first year in which Dreamworks would make a better movie than Pixar- and I declared so to my friends!

Well, Pixar, you've made me eat my words. I will never doubt this studio again. Not only is Cars a truly GREAT movie, a movie made with obvious love and passion, it's also one of Pixar's most emotionally mature works- one that, while appealing to kids, will only be fully appreciated by adults. On the surface, the story really is 'Doc Hollywood with cars' but Pixar's genius is that they always manage to make an old story feel fresh. The secret's in the characters. The studio's movies are always, first and foremost, character journeys- no Pixar hero is quite the same at the end of the movie as at the start. This is especially true of Cars.

The protagonist of Cars, rookie racecar Lightning McQueen (played by Owen Wilson) starts out brash and cocky, so obsessed about winning that he has no time for other people. He's a bit unlikeable, frankly, though he earns our sympathy when it's shown that his lifestyle and behaviour has left him bereft of any real friends. The movie introduces McQueen and his world of NASCAR racing perfectly, beginning in a loud and almost-obnoxious manner with a visually-kinetic race scene.

The sudden change in pace that occurs when McQueen, through a series of mishaps, gets stuck in the small town of Radiator Springs is jarring enough to be noticeable (indeed, I got a bit restless for the first ten minutes of the movie's 2nd act) but the movie quickly regains it's footing as we are introduced to the cast of characters who inhabit the town. The three main players here are the world-weary but wise Doc Hudson (Paul Newman in a great performance), the beautiful lawyer Sally (Bonnie Hunt) and Mater (comedian Larry the Cable Guy)- the dim-witted, rusty but loveable tow truck who takes a liking to McQueen.

No doubt you'll hear this from others, but I'll say it here too- Mater is the heart and soul of this movie. He's not just the comic relief sidekick that he's shown to be in the trailers (make no mistake, though- he's hilarious in the movie), he also teaches McQueen about the value of friendship by being the first person (car?) to ever befriend him and completely place his trust in him. The friendship that develops between him and McQueen is truly touching.

Cars also manages to give each of it's large cast of supporting characters their own little moment to shine in the movie, in a manner similar to the Toy Story movies. In fact, my very favourite scene in the movie features a character named Guido, a little Italian forklift and racing fan who only speaks one phrase in English. I won't say anymore- you'll know the scene when you see it- it made the audience at my screening fairly howl with laughter.

I said Cars holds greater appeal to adults than to children- that's because the movie is also a celebration of one of the icons of 20th Century America: the famous Route 66 (which ran all the way from Chicago to LA). Immortalized in song, fiction and even a TV series, Route 66 was a symbol of freedom, exploration and romance. Through Cars, director John Lasseter (the man who we're all counting on to save Disney) communicates his love for this now-defunct road.

The movie laments the loss of the communities that sprung up around Route 66 with the advent of modern Inter-State Highways that just take people from Point A to Point B, too fast to appreciate what lies in between (the fictional town of Radiator Springs in the movie is said to be strongly inspired by the real-life town of Amboys, California). Now, it's possible to get overly-preachy with this kind of thing- and in one speech given by a main character, the movie nearly does. Ultimately, though, the movie's nostalgia is endearing and fits in well with Lightning McQueen's character arc.

What's left to say about this movie? It's just great, heart-warming stuff. The movie commemorates Pixar's 20th year and serves as a tribute to the late, great Joe Ranft (who worked on the stories of all of Pixar's films, including Cars, and famously acted as Wheezy the penguin in Toy Story 2 as well as Heimlich the catterpillar in A Bug's Life). It's sad the man didn't live to see the movie, but I think he'd be real pleased with it.

Incidentally, in case you're wondering, the movie is also visually gorgeous. You won't even notice that this is a computer-animated movie- it just feels like a really well-shot, well-animated movie (which really is the highest compliment you can give Pixar on their animation). The music's great, too, with a surprising number of songs and a decidedly Southern flavour.

Alright then, I've said enough. Now just go watch the movie already. You'll love it. Oh and don't go to the theatre late- you don't wanna miss 'One Man Band,' the animated short film that airs before the movie. It's great stuff. The screening of short films at the beginning of each of their animated feature films is just another thing to love about Pixar.

In Japan, Spider-Man has a Giant Robot!

2006-06-07T16:38:00.000+08:00

EDIT: Updated the embedded Youtube video of the show's opening sequence as someone had taken down the first video!

Supaida-Man!

Strangely enough, it seems that the style of Japanese superhero show that was popularized in the English-speaking world by the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers may actually have it's origins in a true-blue American superhero- Spider-Man. It's true! In 1978, Toei (the same studio that produced Kamer Rider and the shows that the footage for Power Rangers was taken from) made a Spider-Man TV series. Instead of following the comic book storyline, this series gave Spider-Man a uniquely Japanese spin. Here's a synopsis, taken from Wikipedia (emphasis added by moi):

Young motorcycle racer Takuya Yamashiro sees a UFO falling to earth, in fact a combat spacecraft named the "Marveller". Takuya's father Dr. Hiroshi Yamashiro, a space archaeologist, investigates the case. The incident also brings the attention of Professor Monster and his evil Iron Cross Army (Tetsu-Jyuuji-Gun), an alien group that plans to rule the universe.

The Iron Cross Army murders Dr. Yamashiro, and also attempts to kill Takuya. Takuya's life is saved by Gallia, prince of the Spider Planet, who came to Earth in the spacecraft. Gallia gives Takuya a bracelet that injects him a liquid which not only heals his wounds but also gives him super strength, the ability to climb walls and a special sense of danger (i.e. Spider-sense). The bracelet give him his web-shooting ability, is also a communication device used to summon Marveller, and finally can be used to store the costume.

Takuya battles Professor Monster's "Iron Cross Army". After Spider-Man beats up on the human sized monsters they turn into giants. Spider-Man then calls on the Marveller to fire missiles at the monster, then transform into a giant robot, Leopardon.

What'd I tell ya? The Japanese Spider-Man totally has a giant robot! According to this review on Japanhero.com, this series was responsible for popularizing the Japanese superhero standards of giant transforming robots and monsters that enlarge in size when defeated (and hence need to be defeated again, by said giant transforming robots)! That's incredibly cheesy, and yet totally awesome. Mmm... Giant Robots and Spider-Man, two of my favourite things. Who'd have thought they had such a deep connection?

You can watch the entire first episode here, as well as a comedy fansubbed version. It's actually pretty entertaining. Even though the show strays far, far, faaaaaaaar away from the original Spider-Man in terms of plot, they did a great job in depicting the way he moves and fights- heck, he strikes all the right poses, too! Oh and I love this clip where Spidey gets saved by an el mariachi singer with a machine-gun guitar. Brilliance!

Movie Review: X-Men 3

2006-06-07T10:22:00.000+08:00

Funny thing- I was actually pretty entertained the first time I saw X-Men 3, mostly because the movie is so loud (so VERY loud in the theatre I watched it in!), fast and stupid that I scarcely had time to think about the ridiculousness of the proceedings while I was watching it. Even so, I left the theatre with a bad taste in my mouth because of something the X-Men did near the end of the movie- a morally questionable act toward one of their enemies that none of them had the slightest qualm about. Something so completely out-of-character for all of them that I couldn't believe a fan of the comic books had written the script.

The movie is full of moments like that. The more I thought about them after the movie, the more I didn't like it. By the second time I watched it, I outright hated it.

It's not director Brett Ratner's fault. The opening scene with younger versions of Magneto and Professor X (complete with the much-vaunted de-aged versions of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart) meeting an adolescent Jean Grey is very well done indeed. So is the rather harrowing follow-up scene with a young Angel. Clearly, Mr. Ratner can do a good job if he sets his mind to it. No, what really lets the movie down is its script. The premise was awkward from the start- both the Cure and the Phoenix storylines could each be a movie by themselves. Stuffing them both into the same movie was just a terrible idea as it's impossible to do them both justice at the same time. One of them had to get short shrift- sadly, it was the Phoenix story that suffered here.

That's not the end of it, either. For such a short movie (it's barely over one and a half hours long), it has way too many extraneous characters. What's Beast doing here (looking terrible, despite what Halle Barry as Storm might say)? Or Angel, for that matter? A character important enough to be introduced in a pre-title sequence should not get all of 5 lines in the movie! Oddly enough, with the sheer amount of useless mutants in the film (like, every single mutant in Magneto's army- none of whom he needs because they all get massacred by US Army troops and the X-Men, after which he ends up fighting the good fight with just Pyro at his side anyway), they forgot to bring back the coolest mutant of all (at least in these movie versions)- Nightcrawler. They don't even refer to him in the movie.

Now that's lazy script-writing. Bah. One of many examples you can find in this mess of a movie. Eventhough I followed the debacle of this movie's production online, via sites like Aint It Cool News, so I knew it'd probably turn out as bad as it did, but somehow I went in hoping it wouldn't be a pile of crap. So much for that.

That being said, people who aren't big fans of the series are likely to enjoy themselves- this is very much a summer movie- big, loud and stupid, like I said at the start. The Armageddon of comic book movies, if you will. But as someone who really loved the first two X-Men movies (especially the second one), I was just incredibly disappointed- especially as it looks like this is the last real X-Men film we're going to get. Way to end a series, people.

Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-25T16:25:00.000+08:00

One would expect a movie based on the most controversial and best-selling book in years, a movie that's been banned, protested against and boycotted to be deucedly exciting.

Sadly, this isn't the case with The Da Vinci Code. Speaking as one of the very few people left in the world who hasn't read the bestseller which the movie is based on, I must say I was terribly disappointed. I expected a fast-paced, intelligent-seeming-while-not-actually-being-intelligent movie but what I got was mostly an exercise in tedium.

I was bored throughout the movie, with the notable exception of the scenes featuring Sir Ian McKellen's character- the delightfully named British Aristocrat, Sir Leigh Teabing. Sir McKellen chews up the scenery with gusto and turns in a wonderfully over-the-top performance that miraculously makes the movie watchable for as long as he's on the screen. As far as I'm concerned, this movie could've been called "The Madcap Adventures of Sir Teabing- bookended by some boring scenes with other people."

The worst offender amongst said "other people" is Tom Hanks, who, with his incredibly silly hairstyle, looks for all the world like he walked onto the set by mistake.The poor man really seems like he has no idea what he's supposed to be doing (which is perhaps understandable- his character seems to be completely unneeded in the movie). Co-star Audrey Tautou does a serviceable job, given that her role mostly consists of running a lot, having flashbacks and looking surprised the rest of the time.

The bad guys are a little bit more interesting- Paul Bettany's murderous, self-flagellating albino monk Silas could have walked out of a '70s action movie and Jean Reno is his usual cool self as a tenacious yet misguided cop. Alas, neither of them gets enough screentime to save the movie.

Most of the blame for what the movie's mediocrity has to go to scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman (a truly overrated hack- sure he wrote A Beautiful Mind but he also wrote the wretched Batman & Robin screenplay and turned I, Robot into a dull action movie) and director Ron Howard, who like Hanks, is out of his element here. In the hands of a different director, The Da Vinci Code could probably have been a rip-roaring adventure. As it is, it's unlikely to excite anyone but overly-sensitive religious folk.

2 new trailers for Ghost Rider!

2006-05-24T12:24:00.000+08:00

I'm not a fan of Marvel Comic's Ghost Rider character- never read any of his books- but this new movie starring Nicholas Cage as the fiery skull-faced biker looks like it could be really fun. Take a look at the trailers here (or if your PC can handle the superior-quality HD trailers, here).

Read a Scott Pilgrim story online for free! PLUS: Fearless Griggs rocks.

2006-05-23T14:01:00.000+08:00

Bryan Lee O'Malley (who is both the best English-language mangaka around and a kick-ass musician) recently made a free, stand-alone installment of his excellent Scott Pilgrim comic for the annual Free Comic Book Day (May 6th- it really should be a holiday worldwide. Free comics, people!) event. For those of us not lucky enough to get a copy of the comic, NEWSARAMA.com has kindly put it up online here. Check it out!

The printed edition of Free Scott Pilgrim also came with a backup story called Fearless Griggs: Victory at Sea. It's drawn/written by Andy Helms and it's totally awesome. Don't take my word for it. Go here and download the entire story.

The artwork is part-manga, part-Mike Mignola (ya know, the brilliant artist who created Hellboy) and the writing is deft and funny. It reminds me of Howard Shum's wildly-entertaining Gun Fu comic- both books feature lead characters who anachronistically speak in modern slang in period settings, to great comedic effect. If the upcoming Fearless Griggs graphic novel can live up to the promise of this preview, it'll be something special. Can't wait to get my hands on it!

An Important Announcement

2006-04-22T08:15:00.000+08:00

I've been taking a break from blogging to focus on my studies, but this news is just soooo cool that I just had to post about it:

The Smashing Pumpkins are recording a new album.

*explodes with sheer joy and excitement*

Madhouse is ON FIRE!

2006-03-31T04:06:00.000+08:00

Japanese animation studio Madhouse has got a of shows in production this year that showcases an unbelievable amount of talent. First up, a movie by Mamoru Hosoda, a super-talented animator who was originally supposed to direct Howl's Moving Castle for Ghibli but dropped out of the project after some problems with the production. Ghibli's loss (and after seeing the mess that was Miyazaki's version, I think it truly was a loss!) was Toei Animation's gain, though, as he ended up directing the fantastic movie One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island for them. How good could a One Piece movie be? Well, you'd be surprised! The movie brings out the title's theme of comradeship in a more thoughtful, mature way than the series' does while featuring it's fair share of spectacular action scenes- most notably, it's got the greatest punch EVER animated. So I wouldn't be exaggerating when I say I'm really excited about Mamoru Hosoda's new work, despite knowing nothing about it!

Madhouse has also announced Masaaki Yuasa's new TV series! WHOOHOO!!! The man is a complete genius and directed my favourite movie of 2005 and still the best animated movie made in the past 10 years- MIND GAME. His new TV series is called Kemonozume, which translates to Claw of the Beast. The website's got a picture of a Yakuza-looking fella with a katana about to kiss a blond woman who's right arm ends in a horrifically huge claw, drawn in Yuasa's characteristic sketchy style. Running the site's text through Google Translate reveals that the show is a "fear x action x love story"- seems the woman is "the most fearfully monster" and the man is "the strongest monster hunter." Of course, they're in love. The show promises "stylish action" like nothing seen before. Now that would be total hyberbole from any other quarter, but I trust Yuasa to live up to that promise.

Next up, Madhouse is producing a TV series directed by Mitsuo Iso- an animator who's impressive body of work includes Gundam 0080 stellar opening sequence, the spider tank sequence in Ghost in the Shell and the 1st and 19th episodes of Evangelion. He's got a very accomplished style and a keen eye for movement so it'll be interesting to see how he holds up directing an entire series- something he's never done before.

The fun doesn't stop there! They've also got a new movie by Satoshi Kon (who directed by 9th favourite movie of 2005- Tokyo Godfathers) in development and a a new movie scripted by Taste of Tea (a brilliant live-action movie starring one of the coolest Japanese actors working today- Asano Tadanobu) director Katsuhito Ishii and directed by Takeshi Koike, who directed the surreal, hyper-kinetic animation Dead Leaves. Whew. That's a lot of good stuff coming from Madhouse this year. I can't wait to see 'em!

Rocketboom interviews Bruce Sterling about spimes!

2006-03-31T03:10:00.000+08:00

The latest Rocketboom's got a short but very informative interview with Bruce Sterling about spimes. He starts by explaining how it might be useful to take a shoe and embed an RFID tag with a record of what it's made of- instead of throwing it away when you're done with it, you could sell it as raw materials. Then he handles the privacy issues inherent in such an idea- basically, he agrees that spimes do have a great deal of "abuse potential" but he also argues that spimes' potential for good outweighs the bad. Good stuff. Check it out.

Steve Yegge on Math for Programmers- again!

2006-03-31T02:35:00.000+08:00

More than a year after he wrote a blog post titled Math Every Day- the same one I found 2 weeks ago- Steve Yegge's written a follow-up post on a new blog he's started (check it out- it's interesting!). He's got a few cool ideas, based on his experiences. For one thing, he thinks maths is taught all wrong in schools. He thinks schools spend too much time teaching students the details of a few branches of maths- because of that, we never figure out how it all fits together. The Bigger Picture, so to speak. His says that acquiring a broader knowledge about math is far more useful (and why? In Yegge's words: Because the first step to applying mathematics is problem identification.) and suggests Wikipedia as a tool to this end. I think he's onto something here!

Train your Gmail-fu!

2006-03-30T14:08:00.000+08:00

Lifehacker's put up a post on how to become a Gmail master. If you're a Gmail user (and who isn't, these days?), check it out. There's lots of great tips and tricks there.

Check out Bruce Sterling's 2 latest speeches online!

2006-03-30T13:37:00.000+08:00

Bruce Sterling, I can attest, is an amazing speaker. Probably even better than he is a writer, and he's an extremely good writer. He gave two speeches recently that are well worth checking out.

The first, at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference, was all about spimes- objects that can be tracked through time and space, online. An Internet of Things, he calls it. That's an eyebrow-raiser, isn't it? Here's what the man has to say about it:

Why would we want to do such a weird thing? Mostly so that we can engage with objects better during their lifecycle, from the moment of invention to their decay. That's the technical reason, the design reason: but the real reason would be because of how that would feel.

"The primary advantage of an Internet of Things is that I no longer inventory my possessions inside my own head. They're inventoried through an automagical inventory voodoo, work done far beneath my notice by a host of machines. So I no longer to bother to remember where I put things. Or where I found them. Or how much they cost. And so forth. I just ask. Then I am told with instant real-time accuracy.

"I have an Internet-of-Things with a search engine of things. So I no longer hunt anxiously for my missing shoes in the morning. I just Google them. As long as machines can crunch the complexities, their interfaces make my relationship to objects feel much simpler and more immediate. I am at ease in materiality in a way that people never were before."

The rest of the speech is chockful of visionary design concepts and ideas so go ahead and read a transcript or, if you've got the time, listen to an edited MP3 of his speech.

The second speech, a keynote address at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, was on the more general topic of The Future- where we're heading and how to create a better world. WorldChanging sums it up nicely thus:

The challenge, Bruce says, is that the worst people in the world -- genocidal ethnic mafiosos, fundamentalist fanatics, Washington lobbyists -- are running the show, American government has become the new Soviet Union (ossified, corrupt and widely perceived as illigitimate by the rest of the planet) and things are not good in much of the world. That said, if you look honestly at the world, you see a new story emerging, with millions of smart, dedicated people locked in a struggle to steer us towards a better future using every tool in their power, and that "that's a big story!" Finally, he reminds those of us who are part of that story of the motto of the old Soviet-era Eastern European dissidents: "Make no decision out of fear."

I listened to the MP3 last week and damn if it wasn't the best speech the man's ever given- alternately heady, intellectual, passionate, moving and powerful. ! I've been waiting for someone to put up a transcript and a blogger by the name of Sean Harton has kindly obliged- though you really, really should listen to his entire speech. It's just that good.

Snakes on a Plane- now with extra snake goodness

2006-03-25T02:35:00.000+08:00

Hollywood Reporter reports that Snakes on a Plane is currently undergoing a 5-day reshoot. Usually reshoots indicate that something's wrong with a film but in this case, the reshoots were literally to make the film more entertaining! The new scenes are meant to bump the film's rating up from a PG-13 to a R. To please the films fans, they're even adding a scene where Samuel L. Jackson will, in true form, yell out "I want these motherf***ing snakes off the motherf***ing plane!" It isn't a Samuel L. Jackson movie if he doesn't drop an F-bomb somewhere. He enunciates that word like nobody else in the world can.

Oddly enough, it seems the studio wasn't originally too thrilled with the name of the film- they actually tried to change it to the totally boring "Pacific Air Flight 121" before they realised that the Internet was going crazy over the title "Snakes on a Plane". I love how studios pay such close attention to how Internet fanboys (and girls) react to their films nowadays. Let's hear it for the fanboys!

Red Nose Studio's fantastic puppet photography

2006-03-22T06:02:00.000+08:00

Isn't that just sublime?

Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studio takes gorgeous photographs of hand-made puppets in beautifully realised sets. The degree of craft and skill that has gone into the creation of the physical puppets and sets is awe-inspiring, the photography makes them even more impressive. The galleries on the site are well-worth browsing. Why, there's even a couple of stop-motion animation videos on the site! They're a bit crude compared to, say, an Aardman production, but I ain't complaining. It's always good to see the fine yet dwindling art of stop-motion animation being practised.

Drawball

2006-03-21T17:30:00.000+08:00

Drawball is a large online virtual canvas for anyone and everyone to draw on as they please. Once you enter the space (by disagreeing with the tongue-in-cheek license agreement at the start), zoom in on on an area that looks suitable and start drawing away. Just don't be surprised if someone else draws over your stuff in a day, or even sooner! The Hall of Fame's got some really cool drawings- including this two-part Dragon. Best part is, by clicking on any of the drawings, you get to see the process of their creation, stroke-by-stroke. Wikipedia has an informative about Drawball. It's rather interesting to note that there have been several community efforts to create large-scale drawings- like the Korean Flag at the center of this Drawball:

Oh and the area available for any individual user to draw on is roughly the size of the 0 on the "zoom 0%" you see at the left of the Drawball. So you can imagine how many people it took to draw a huge flag like that!

At the time of this writing, there's a really cool drawing of Mario wearing a cape and riding Yoshi at the bottom of the Drawball. I say at this time because drawings tend to get vandalized pretty often on Drawball- which is pretty much inevitable since it allows any and all users to draw anywhere on the Drawball at all times. Which does lead to the sad destruction of many a fine drawing (which is why the Hall of Fame exists- to immortalize such work) but it also makes the Drawball a very dynamic space.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit as Holocaust Metaphor?

2006-03-21T04:57:00.000+08:00

metaphilm has an interesting article up that looks at the Holocaust metaphor embedded within Stephen Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis' 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" I watched the movie when I was a kid so I didn't appreciate any of it's deeper aspects, but it's quite fascinating to read about the subtexts that underly popular movies like this one. I guess this shows that the Holocaust really does weigh heavily on Stephen Spielberg's film-making (it's quite obvious in the Indiana Jones movies!).

His latest movie, Munich, is possibly his most mature take on the subject- being somewhat of a serious examination of the political realities of the state of Israel. I still haven't reviewed it because it's a difficult film for me to do justice to, but check out Roger Ebert's review - it's rather excellent.

Movie Review- Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

2006-03-21T01:33:00.000+08:00

Take 1 parts political intrigue, 2 parts romance and 3 parts fantasy Ninja action with mystical powers and what do you get? Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, that's what. This 2005 movie, the latest in many adaptations of the novel Koga Ninpocho by the author Futaro Yamada, avoids the common pitfall of many epic fantasy novel-to-movie adaptations- that of being overly densely plotted and impossible to follow without prior knowledge of the original work- by stripping down the story to it's bare essentials.

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade is set in the early days of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's rule and tells the story of 2 Ninja clans, the Iga and Kouga. These 2 clans have been at war for 400 years, for reasons that nobody's quite sure of anymore. Certainly not the movies heroes, Gennosuke (Joe Odagiri) and Oboro (Yukie Nakama)- the lovers of this piece. Oddly enough, for a movie that's billed as a romance, surprisingly little screen time is given to developing the lovers' relationship. Perhaps the director thought that a few shots of the beautiful couple (and indeed, the 2 lead actors are extremely beautiful) would be enough to convince audience's of the gorgeousness of their love. It didn't work for me, though. I couldn't empathise with their Romeo and Juliet romance without even knowing how or why the 2, ostensibly enemies, fell in love (we get to see their first meeting at the beginning of the movie, but it stops just as the 2 see each other for the first time).

It's a good thing, then, that the 2 other parts of this movie work better. Said political intrigue revolves around a plot by the Shogun to get rid of the 2 clans, who he (perhaps rightfully, it is implied) sees as dangerous remnants of the age of conflict that he just ended by unifying the country. Basically, both clans are told to choose 5 warriors to enter into combat with each other. The outcome of this battle is meant to determine the succession of the Shogun. It's quite an obviously transparent plot to have the clans kill off their most powerful members, but the Ninja are either too bloodthirsty or duty-bound to care (except for Gennosuke, who argues against more bloodshed).

Of course, Gennosuke and Oboro are part of the chosen 5 from each of their clans. In fact, both of them ascend to the post of clan leader after, in a brief aside scene, their predecessors- who also appear to have been starc-crossed lovers- kill each other. A good part of the rest of the movie is taken up by a series of spectacular Ninja battles between the superpowered combatants. This is one of the highlights of the film as each character has an unique and inventive power. The character Yashamaru (played by the awesome Tak Sakaguchi of Versus fame), whose slying sleeves enable him to grab onto people and places and fight Spider-Man style, was particularly cool. Even the pacifist Gennosuke displays his incredible powers in one brief scene. To the movie's credit, the action doesn't overpower the main theme of the movie- embodied by Gennosuke's struggle to overcome the clans' bloody past and find a solution to enable them to survive into the future.

Despite enjoying the movie quite a bit, I still felt a bit disappointed at the end. The movie's good, but not great. What holds it back is a curious lack of ambition- it does everything solidly, but attempts nothing beyond that. A more wordy script, more powerful love scenes, more characterisations for the supporting characters- any one of these things could have pushed the movie to a higher level. As it is, it's still a worthwhile movie- just don't expect too much and you will be entertained.

"I've had it with these snakes!"

2006-03-19T03:24:00.000+08:00

Here are 3 reasons why Snakes on a Plane will be the coolest movie of 2006 (not the best, mind you, just the coolest):

1. It stars Samuel L. Jackson.
2. It's got Kenan from Kenan and Kel in it!
3. It's got snakes. ON A PLANE! How awesome is that?

Don't believe me? Check out the trailer here and watch Sam the Man whip a guy with a snake (don't worry, he's probably a Bad Guy).

New Ted Leo tracks!

2006-03-15T10:07:00.000+08:00

My favourite English-language rock band, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, have released 2 new demo tracks: "Army Bound" and "Some Beginner's Mind," on their official site. Fansite Timorous Me has an MP3 of another new song he's been playing at his live shows- La Costa Brava. Despite the crappy quality of the audio, it's my favourite song out of the three- though the other two rock too. New Ted Leo is always a good thing.

The IT Crowd makes me ROTFL

2006-03-15T09:51:00.000+08:00

The 6-episode BBC Comedy The IT Crowd- currently making the rounds on Bittorrent- is the funniest TV comedy I've seen since Spaced (the most excellent slacker comedy by the fine people who made Shaun of the Dead). I avidly watched the show til it's all-too-soon conclusion after reading Cory Doctorow's rave about it on BoingBoing. The show is about 2 hapless, socially dysfunctional computer geeks who work in the IT department of an unnamed corporation (and of course, they're housed in the building's basement) and their new female supervisor, who knows absolutely nothing about PCs. The genius of the show is in its razor-sharp writing, over-the-top characters and increasingly surreal plotlines. The 2nd episode, where this motley group has to hide an out-of-control fire from their very, very weird boss, is a highlight. The season ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, so it's gratifying to know that there's a second season on it's way.

On another note, it's interesting how the Internet is increasingly making TV networks irrelevant. I haven't watched anything but the news on TV for the longest time now. If I need to watch a TV show, I just get off the Internet- more often than not, months before the show comes to Singapore.

From von Neumann to Ada- the origins of Computer Science

2006-03-15T09:16:00.000+08:00

Last week I stumbled upon a blog entry written by Steve Yegge, a former software developer at Amazon.com who now works for Google, titled Math Every Day. In it, he discusses how reading a book called John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing made him realise how important Maths is, especially to programmers, and how a lack of practical Maths knowledge hindered his expertise as one. So he embarked on a program to learn (or rather, re-learn) a bit of Maths everyday for one year.

In his lengthy post, he also details some of John von Neumann's spectacular achievements. Originally a mathematician, von Neumann co-created Game Theory, was a key member of the Manhattan Project that created the first atom bomb, contributed to the field of quantum mechanics, created the field of cellular automata and oh yes, invented the modern computer (in fact, most computers in use today are designed according to an architecture that bears his name). With a resume like that, it's no wonder that John von Neumann is considered one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century.

Fascinated by the story of this man, I did a bit of googling and found the online text of Tools for Thought, a history of modern computing that focuses on some of the key figures in the field. The book's written by Howard Reingold- who also wrote the critically-acclaimed book Smart Mobs, about the impact that pervasive computing will have on society. The blog associated with the book is one of the best on the Internet.

I read the first chapter of Tools for Thought, which tells the story of Charles Babbage, who invented the world's first working digital computer- the steam-driven Difference Engine, and Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the infamous Romantic poet Lord Byron (author of, amongst other works, Don Juan) and one of the world's first programmers.

Having read that much, I wanted to read more about all these visionaries who stood at the brink of the Age of Information in which we now live. So the next day at the NUS Library, I searched for books on the history of computing and found two rather interesting ones. The first, The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, was a biography of Ada Lovelace, which I'm currently reading.

Far from a dry text, the book starts off by detailing the tumultuous romance between Ada's mother- the supremely logical, rational and scientifically-minded Annabella Milbanke- and George Byron- poet, lover, celebrity, a man who would come to symbolize the Romantic movement evermore and become the model for the now-stereotypical Romantic hero.

The book presents Ada as thus being borne of a union between the increasingly-incompatible philosophies of Scientific Rationalism and Romanticism. She would inherit both the wild passions and cold logic of her father and mother, respectively. Set in the backdrop of the emerging industrial Victorian age, her story is one that would quite possibly be considered too outlandish for a work of fiction, and so is yet more remarkable for being true.

The other book I borrowed is Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone. The book is partly a biography of John von Neumann and partly a history of game theory, that branch of mathematics that he helped create. I haven't read it yet, but it comes highly recommended and looks pretty cool.

I personally find that learning about the history of a field- Computing, in this case- and the personalities who helped shape it is far more interesting than simply learning theory without being able to ground it in any kind of context. Pretty much the same goes for Physics, which can seem awfully abstruse to the casual observer but has always been one of the most exciting branches of science, populated as it is by a set of individuals as eccentric as they are brilliant.

Exploring Mars!

2006-03-15T07:52:00.000+08:00

The past few years have been really exciting for Mars exploration. NASA launched the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers in June and July of 2003 and both landed successfully on the planet in January 2004. Both Rovers have far exceeded their original 90-day life spans (by about 7 times, actually!) and have been transmitting valuable scientific data back to their controllers here on Earth- most notably evidence from Opportunity that it's landing site may have once been a lake or a sea.

On August 21st 2005, Spirit ended a year-long climb up the 82-meter high Husband Hill, part of the Columbia Hills range- a truly Herculean feat for the golf-cart sized Rover.

The view from the top, baby!

The "little rover that could" then descended from the hill and in February 2006, arrived at a site called Home Plate (so named because it resembles the home plate of a baseball diamond when seen from orbit) and is now heading towards McCool Hill, now estimated to be the highest hill in the Columbia range.

Meanwhile, Opportunity's been keeping busy too. In January 2005, it discovered Heat Shield Rock- the first meteorite found on another planet! It's since passed by several craters, dug several trenches, gotten stuck in a sand trap, successfully escaped from said trap and is currently studying Erebus Crater. The Rovers have been, and continue to, a remarkable success for NASA- heck, there's even an IMAX movie about them now- but they haven't been resting on their laurels.

I was just watching a video of a talk given by Pete Theisinger, manager of the Mars Exploration Rover project, at the Computer History Musuem. During the talk, he described the challenges he and his team faced in developing the two Rovers in just three years (it's quite fascinating to watch!) and along the way, he related that in 2000, NASA had initiated two competing pre-projects- the Rover and and an Orbiter pre-project. Of course, the Rover project went ahead first- the Orbiter project was pushed back.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as it is now known, launched in August 2005 and on 10 March, 2006, successfully put itself in orbit around Mars! It's equipped with the most powerful telescopic camera ever flown on a planetary mission and should provide us with the most detailed views of the planet's surface we've ever seen.

While we wait for the craft to send it's first images of Mars, we can take a look at a new map of the red planet online, courtesy of Google! They launched their new Google Mars site on 13 March 2006 to commemorate the birthday of 19th century astronomer Percival Lowell, who created a map of the planet and was also instrumental in the search for a planet beyond Neptune (Pluto, discovered in 1930, 14 years after his death).

Year of Superman

2006-03-10T17:27:00.000+08:00

Warner Brothers just launched a new site to celebrate what they call the Year of Superman. The page features an ace montage of different Supermen over the years, both live-action (I spotted George Reeves, Christopher Reeves, Dean Cain, the Smallville guy) and animated. The site's more or less a giant ad for all the Superman DVDs that'll be coming out later this year- including the never-before-seen Richard Donner cut of Superman II (Donner started work on the movie but left the production due to disagreements with the movie's producers- he was replaced by Richard Lester who created the version that was eventually released)- and of course the Superman Returns movie.

In other Superman news, John Holbo (famed lecture of PH1101E in NUS) just posted on the Crooked Timber blog about Chris Appelhans' (one of the artists on the great Flight comics anthology) wonderful Superman animated musical short that has a beaten Superman being revived by the magic of a little girl's song. Aaaw isn't that sweet?

Guide to using chopsticks

2006-03-08T15:17:00.000+08:00

A Singaporean blogger called Stupid Genius has put a nifty guide on how to use chopsticks- complete with photo illustrations. I've been using what he calls the cross method, seems like the traditional (and harder) method is the way to go. I'll give it a shot next time I go out for some udon.

X3: The Last Stand

2006-03-08T08:40:00.000+08:00

The new X-Men movie gets a subtitle and a new trailer. I had my reservations about the movie after watching the previously-released teaser trailer, but I have to admit this trailer looks pretty good. The movie looks to combine elements of the classic Chris Claremont Dark Phoenix storyline, the mutant cure story from Joss Whedon's recent Astonishing X-Men (actually the idea of a mutant cure dates back to before Astonishing, but I don't know where it actually originated) and a bit of Grant Morrison's New X-Men (Magneto destroying the Brooklyn Bridge with his powers). I'm going to give Brett Ratner the benefit of doubt and hope he turns out a worthy sequel to finish up the X-Men trilogy (I'm betting they don't make any more for quite some time, especially given that the plan seems to be to spinoff Wolverine into his own movie). We'll find out in May.

10 Strangest Lego Creations

2006-03-08T05:42:00.000+08:00

TechEBlog says they've found the 10 strangest Lego creations ever. The list includes a Lego Volvo XC90 SUV (sadly not driveable), a fully-functional pinball machine and my personal favourite, a Lego Difference Engine (based on Charles Babbage's famous mechanical computer of the same name) which can compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.

Live-Action Simpsons Intro Sequence

2006-03-07T14:42:00.000+08:00

Update: The Youtube video I originally embedded is "no longer available" so I replaced it with one that still is.

Oh this is fun! A live-action version of the Simpsons' famous opening sequence has been filmed in the UK- according to British tabloid The Sun, it'll air in the UK as a commercial for the show's 17th season (wow I didn't know the show'd hit 17 already!!!) on the channel Sky One. But hey, why wait when you can see it here now? Hehehe it's got a bit of a British flavour but it's very amusing. Now that the idea's out there, how long before people start making homebrew versions?

So the Oscars are over

2006-03-07T14:28:00.000+08:00

And Crash won Best Picture? Eh. Well, it was the most popular movie nominated in the category and it's certainly a fine movie in it's own right... but somehow this feels like the year Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan again. I wonder how many people will talk about Crash in a decade, as compared to Munich, or Brokeback Mountain, or Good Night and Good Luck (a movie which sadly has yet to come out here!). As the saying goes, only time'll tell.

Natalie Portman- Gangsta Style

2006-03-07T14:20:00.000+08:00

Update: NBC's at it again! They've forced Youtube to take down the video, but they have put it up on their own site. The video player STILL doesn't work in Firefox. Note to NBC: HIRE A BETTER WEB CODER!

The Lonely Island boys are at it again. After their phenomenal Lazy Sunday video (which, curiously enough, is no longer available on Youtube. Oh, apparently NBC forced the site to take it down. It's still availabe on NBC's website... except that the video player doesn't work in Firefox. Works on IE- for a change- but the video's really choppy. Oh heck. Just find the video on P2P. It's well worth it.) and their funny though not amazing Chuck Norris video (which I embedded in this earlier post), they've now recruited the gorgeous Natalie Portman to do a hilarious gangsta rap parody. First V for Vendetta, now this. That girl is busy cementing her status as the most awesome actress of her generation. Respect. Heh.

Update: Oh poo, they've taken down the video.

Disney's playing the ripoff game

2006-03-07T02:39:00.000+08:00

Just saw the trailer for Disney's The Wild on TV. Wow. This movie rips off both DreamWorks'Madagascar and Pixar's finding Nemo. Good job, Disney! You've just lowered your brand value in the eyes of filmgoers everywhere. John Lasseter's got an uphill job ahead of him in restoring Disney to it's former glory.

Wallace & Gromit wins an Oscar!

2006-03-07T01:34:00.000+08:00

Best Animated Feature! Oh yeah! One of the best movies of 2005 gets some recognition on!