Madhouse is ON FIRE!

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!

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Rocketboom interviews Bruce Sterling about spimes!

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.

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Steve Yegge on Math for Programmers- again!

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!

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Train your Gmail-fu!

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.

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Check out Bruce Sterling's 2 latest speeches online!

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.

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Snakes on a Plane- now with extra snake goodness

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!

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Red Nose Studio's fantastic puppet photography

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.

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Drawball

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.

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Who Framed Roger Rabbit as Holocaust Metaphor?

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.

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Movie Review- Shinobi: Heart Under Blade

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.

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"I've had it with these snakes!"

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).

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New Ted Leo tracks!

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.

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The IT Crowd makes me ROTFL

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.

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From von Neumann to Ada- the origins of Computer Science

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.

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Exploring Mars!

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).

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Year of Superman

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?

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Guide to using chopsticks

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.

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X3: The Last Stand

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.

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10 Strangest Lego Creations

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.

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Live-Action Simpsons Intro Sequence

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?

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So the Oscars are over

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.

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Natalie Portman- Gangsta Style

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.

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Disney's playing the ripoff game

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.

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Wallace & Gromit wins an Oscar!

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

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The Oscars are on!

Whoooo John Stuart's the presenter! ROCK! I'm gonna miss the end of it, though. Well, there's always the repeat telecast tonight. Personally, I'm rooting for Munich (review forthcoming) because well a) I haven't seen the favourite Brokeback Mountain yet so I can't comment on it's quality and b) I think Munich's one of the best films of the year and one of the best films Steven Spielberg has made in the course of an illustrious career.

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Serious posts! Wah?

So as you may have noticed, todays posts were a bit more serious than my usual fare. Welcome to Serious Sunday. You see, I'm interested in a whole range of things- mostly about entertainment, culture and technology, but also environmental, social and political issues. I just don't (or haven't) blogged about them very much. Well, I'm still not going to blog about political issues very much- I don't really have much to add to discourse on President Bush's trip to the Indian subcontinent, say- but every Sunday (starting today, though it's technically Monday morning now) I'll put up slightly-more serious posts linking to interesting information about environmental or social issues I find online. Stuff that's hopefully informative and interesting to read too. So yeah, I'm gonna try for 6 days of entertainment, 1 day of seriousness (though that isn't a hard n fast rule by any means). Let's see how this works out!

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Poverty- let's get rid of it

I put up a white band linking to makepovertyhistory.org a few weeks ago. It's about time I explained why.

The site that's linked to is the website of Make Poverty History, a 2005 campaign started by a coalition of UK charities, non-governmental organisations and campaign groups with the aims of increasing awareness and pressuring governments into taking action towards ending global poverty. The campaign made 3 major demands: "trade justice", "drop the debt" and "more and better aid." The campaign centered around the G8 Summit held in Scotland on July 6, 2005- a rally to voice out the campaign's demands was held on July 2, 2005.

Perhaps the most coolest event that took place during this campaign was a speech given by none other than the great Nelson Mandela at Trafalgar Square on February 3, 2005 (full text of speech available here). The man was eloquent and inspiring as usual. Here's an excerpt I like:

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.

And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

Damn straight.

According to a Guardian Unlimited report, the British Make Poverty History campaign was disbanded in January 2006, but I'm keeping the white band on this blog because I believe strongly in their aim- if not entirely with their proposals. I don't believe alleviating poverty can be achieved by trade justice, dept dropping and more & better aid alone. I believe that local action is just as important as action taken by first world nations. Technology has an important role to play too, as the United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Science, Technology and Innovation has noted.

So what can the common man do? Well, helping out the poor in one's own country is a good start! Poverty isn't limited to 3rd world countries, after all. A 2005 ChannelNewsAsia report tells us that many elderly people in Singapore are too poor to afford good food and thus suffer from malnutrition. There are a number of charities in Singapore that provide care for the elderly- the Community Chest raises funds for a lot of them, so sending some money their way is not a bad idea at all. Small actions, when repeated by many, can count for a great deal.

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Blog template edits

A friend of mine just told me today that my blog looked completely screwed-up in Internet Explorer. Whoops. I used Firefox and sometimes I forget the pages render differently in IE. Why can't all browsers load pages the same way? Well, after a lot of fiddling- and getting rid of my last.fm chart- I think it's finally fixed. Apologies to any IE users who were inconvenienced by that.

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Better batteries for a better world

Worldchanging is one of the coolest blogs on the Internet. In the words of their about page, the site is built around the premise that "the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us." Since October 2003, the good folk who run the blog have been posting links and analyses of such tools, models and ideas. The blog is thought-provoking, insightful and very informative. In a world where we're bombarded by news of death and disaster practically every day, it's good to take a step back and think about how we could try and improve the future.

A recent post on Worldchanging talks about batteries. They might not seem like the most exciting, world-changing sort of technology, but advances in battery technology will help to make electric cars (and other forms of electric transportation) a more viable alternative to gasoline-fueled cars and drastically improve the amount of lifetime of mobile devices (Worldchanging has highlighted the roles of handphones in particular as important environmental, developmental and political tools).

The post focuses on 5 new battery technologies, which range from improvements in lithium-based battery technology that will make them more stable, cheaper and more spacious than existing lithium-based batteries, to a new ultracapacitor that promises drastically improved storage capacity- something that will greatly benefit manufacturers of hybrid and fuel-cell cars which rely on ultracapacitor technology.

If you want to see more of how bleeding-edge technologies can be used to improve the world, head on down to Worldchanging. You won't be disappointed.

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Singapore makes land mines!

Land mines. Horrible little weapons. Hide in the ground. Blow people up a lot.

What's especially horrible about them is that they often remain hidden in the ground long after the conflicts they were meant for have ended. According to the United Nations Mine Action Service, landmines affect at least 60 countries and injure or kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people every year. What's even worse is that children are particularly at risk from mines- they're less likely to survive a blast as compared to an adult and more likely to pick up a mine, not knowing what it is.

One of Singapore's ASEAN partners, Cambodia, saw one of the bloodiest civil wars and genocides of the 20th century. Over the course of 30 years of conflict, an estimated 4-6 million land mines were strewn across the country. Many of them remain unexploded. In 2004, there were 898 landmine casualties in the country. the United Nations and UNICEF have condemned the use of land mines as being un-humanitarian and continue to push for a worldwide ban on their production and use. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty (AKA the Ottawa Treaty), an international agreement that bans antipersonnel land mines, has been ratified by 149 states.

Singapore is not one of them.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Land Mine's 2004 Land Mine Monitor report, as of that year, Singapore was one of 15 mine producers globally (though it did declare an indefinite moratorium on land mine exports in 1998- it is unknown where Singapore exported land mines to prior to that). Singapore Technologies Kinetics (a branch of the government-linked company Singapore Technologies Engineering) is the country's sole manufacture of antipersonnel mines, according to the ICBLM's 2005 Land Mine Monitor report (perhaps unsurprisingly, the company's website makes no mention of the weapons).

A Singapore government representative, in a letter to Land Mine Monitor, cited "legitimate security concerns and right to self-defense of states" as the reasons behind the country not acceding to the Mine Ban Treaty. I can see how antivehicle mines (unless they have anti-handling devices, in which case they're effectively the same as antipersonnel mines in terms of danger to innocents) could be useful to the military- but in any case, those aren't banned by the treaty. Only antipersonnel mines are.

I fail to see how those are essential to the national security of this nation. In addition, countries who sign the treaty are allowed to keep a limited amount of mines for mine-clearance and detection training purposes, so it can't be argued that the need for training is a legitimate reason for not signing the treaty. I'm honestly stumped as to why the government refuses to sign the treaty, despite having voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution (59/84) that promotes universalization and implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty in December of 2004. Bit of a double-standard there, ey?

For a country that wants to make itself the center of hip and cool, this just ain't cool at all.

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Watch Yeah Yeah Yeah's new video: Gold Lion

Oh yeah. This song rocks. I hope the rest of their upcoming album is this good. Nice video too. +5 points for the bonfire!

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Remote-Controlled Shark Spies

According to a New Scientist article, a DARPA-funded research team has developed an implant that allows for a shark's brain signals to be "manipulated remotely." In other words, they're mind-controlling sharks. The Pentagon wants to use them as stealth spies. OK... we're moving squarely into James Bond/Austin Powers territory now. Weird.

The same New Scientist article goes on to give an example of another research team that used a similar technique to guide rats through piles of rubble. The New York Police Department is considering recruiting those rats to their Disaster Response Team to detect bombs or trapped people. That's really cool. Cooler than shark spies, at any rate.

Oh and it looks like all this research that's going into manipulating animal brain signals may actually help create prostheses to restore movement to nerve-damaged, paralyzed limbs. Nice. The New Scientist article's got tons more details, so check it out if this is your kinda thing.

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Wikipedia hits 1 million articles!

On March 1st, 2006, the 1,000,000th article on Wikipedia was created. It's a short article about Jordanhill railway station in Scotland. Brilliant. The article provides some really specific information that's not be important to everyone but will be of benefit to a certain set of people (I'm guessing locals, travellers and people who are moving into the area)- the sort of thing that Wikipedia is really good at.

I've been using Wikipedia regularly since I first came across it a few years ago and it's grown into an absolutely fantastic resource for looking up just about anything. I think the growth of the website has far surpassed the expectations of it's original creators by now. How many years til the 2,000,000th article, I wonder?

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Singapore through the eyes of migrant workers

The Photo Essay is a new Asian photography project that has launched with two very novel projects:

InsideOut is a series of photos taken by foreign workers in Singapore, giving us a glimpse into their Singapore.


I like this photo by Gema T. Villacruzes, simply titled "Towel On Chair"

Dayoff is a series of photos by 6 Singaporean photographers and documents how foreign workers here spend their days off.


A group of Sri Lankan maids walk around a Bodhi tree in a Sunday prayer session in this photo by Sim Chi Yin.

What a wonderful idea! It's so cool to see a glimpse into the lives of the foreign workers here, people who are ubiquitous but fade into the background for most of us. Some of the photographs in InsideOut are surprisingly gorgeous, too!

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A Belated Tribute to S Rajaratnam

Singapore's a great country. Yeah, everyone (including me) bitches and moans about stuff we don't like here all the time, but these are the facts: this is one of the safest countries in the world, it's got a really good education system and a strong, stable economy with nowhere near the levels of wealth disparity you see in other Asian countries. For that we have to thank Singapore's founding fathers- who did the impossible and built the country up into the powerhouse it is today.

S Rajaratnam was one of these men. I'm sad to say I'm one of those who knew nearly nothing about the man til his death, but now that I know about him (thanks in part to a very informative documentary on Channel NewsAsia- the obituary on their website has a good write-up about his life), I have nothing but respect for him. So here's to a great man! Long may you live in this nation's memory as one of it's most important historical figures.

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Steam Robots!

Crabfu's R/C steam-powered robots are wicked cool. His Loco-Centipede is probably the single coolest R/C toy I've ever seen.


Now this is steampunk!

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Google Page Creator

I just found out that Google's expanded their ever-growing set of webservices with a beta version of Google Page Creator, which combines a web-based website creation program and a website hosting service. Neat. According to Google Blogoscoped, Google Page Creator uses a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor much like Frontpage, so it's clearly not aimed at professional site designers. But I think it can find its niche as a Geocities-style service for hosting simple webpages. Wow, looks like the service was really popular- this PC World report states that Google stopped accepting new accounts for the service only a day after it launched on February 23rd. Looks like Google's plans for taking over the web are shaping up nicely. ;-)

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Metal Gear Lego!

There's a bunch more photos of LEGO'd videogames on this Flickr photoset.

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Google says the moon is made of Cheese!

Wallace was right all along! Go to http://moon.google.com/ and zoom in all the way. You'll see something like this:


Mmmm... cheese!

And no, that's not edited. :-p

(via Rocketboom)

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A Triptych of Vengeance

Chan-wook Park is a difficult filmmaker. That is to say, his creations are troubling beasts. I've just watched Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the last film in his Revenge trilogy- 3 films that do not share a common story but instead a theme.

The first, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, was many things. Stylistic, brutal, harrowing. The film tells the tale of a deaf-mute man who kidnaps a small boy in order to raise money for an operation to save the life of his terminally-ill sister. The boy dies, quite by accident, and his father embarks on a quest to hunt down his kidnappers. That isn't quite the sum total of events in the film, but I can't very well give it all away. In a way, the film is a black comedy, a comedy of errors. Everything that could possibly go wrong for the main characters does. The deaf-mute man, in particular, just can't get a break. It would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. What made Sympathy for Mr Vengeance truly masterful was the way it managed to make both protagonists eminently sympathetic throughout it's course. Which makes the inevitable confrontation and shocking denouement all the more effective. Out of the three, it is perhaps the most powerful in depicting the vicious cycle that revenge creates.

If revenge is one common element of all 3 films, style is the other. Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was awash in style. The film had enough tricky camera angles, beautifully crafted mise-en-scène, moody lighting and unique use of colour to fill a film textbook. Oldboy upped the ante. It was nothing if not utterly, utterly gorgeous. It also had one of the most compelling premises I've ever heard of: A man, ordinary in every way, is abducted and imprisoned, without rhyme or reason. 15 years pass. He is released with a new set of clothes and a handphone. He meets a girl, who takes pity on him and allows him to live with her. The handphone he was released with finally rings. It's his captor, who gives him an ultimatum- find him in 5 days, or his new girlfriend dies.

This it the the film that shot Chan-wook Park into the global consciousness. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. It's been alternately called a masterpiece and a soulless exercise in style. For my part, I found it brilliant- it's technical virtuosity is dazzling and it's story was genuinely gut-wrenching. The twist ending was, to me, the single most terrible thing I've seen in a film. The question of whether the film is anything more than a slicked-up, glorified exploitation flick is one that's been much-debated, online and off. I'm on the side that considers it more, much more. Famed critic Rogert Ebert says it better than I can.

Which leaves the 3rd and last film- Sympathy for Lady Vengeance- which has yet to be released in the USA outside of various film festivals. Incredibly, it's even more stylish than Oldboy. Chan-wook Park uses this film to show off just how amazing his grasp of the craft of film really is. The editing, in particular, is exceptional. And yet... the story somehow failed to engage me fully. Perhaps it was the fact that, despite presenting the viewer with a lot of information, the first half of the film feels languid and deliberate. The story takes it's time to wind it's way down. This is an unhurried vengeance.

The film tells the story of Lee Geum-Ja, a woman who at age 19 was taken to prison for the kidnapping and murder of a 5-year old boy, an act to which she confessed. While in prison, she carefully plans the murder of the man who drove her to that act. This film deals, almost obsessively, with the idea of redemption. It is, you could say, the central concern of the film. But somehow, this theme feels muddled in execution. The film meanders across half a dozen storylines. (This is not to say those storylines are not well-told. Most of them involve the inmates of the prison where our heroine, Geum-Ja, spent 13 years of her life.)

Geum-Ja is ironically a less-talkative character than the deaf-mute from Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, who narrates a good part of that film. She is colder, less accessible than the "heroes" of the first 2 films. I cannot penetrate the dark heart of this film. Like it's main character, it is cold, inaccessible. Still, it was entertaining (it's far funnier than you would think a film of it's subject matter could be) and I will no doubt watch it again. Perhaps time and repeated viewings will melt it's frozen heart.

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