Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
eurodisco
if its not worth pretendingthen i don't want to know
i'm just so sick of listening, what should i want to know
I lost my 15 minutes, on eurodisco
Friday, January 29, 2010
Looking at GLAM @ Stanford
Hari Manoharan - has an STM lab, nanoscale manipulation ***
Kathryn Moler - some papers on milli-kelvin scanning SQUID microscope
John Kirtley - scanning SQUID again, IBM
hmmm.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
My Neighbour Totoro
Possibly the nicest movie i have seen. I think this gets my vote as Miyazaki's best Studio Ghibli film. Made in 1988 and only the music really dates it.
It is entirely self contained. The two little girls who are the main characters are really nicely observed, especially during the exposition.
Totoro is a nature spirit but the comical madness of it's appearance avoids any self-conscious seriousness. In fact this madness is what keeps a fairly depressing background story from dominating.
It felt a lot like Disney, and now i see that Disney did the western distribution and English dub. Also, the two girls were played by actual sisters.
The film has a lot of the themes that Miyazaki explores more seriously in Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, and i think that the father is revisited in Howl's Moving Castle.
Totally worth it... the catbus was just about the icing on the cake, and then i saw the brake lights were rats with glowing red eyes...
Four stars.
Addicts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The Bible: A History
Next episode is about the story of Abraham, should be good.
Also, ordered new computer:
- Amd Phenom II x4 955 @ €119
- Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P @ €71.90
- Coolmaster Elite 360 pc tower case @ €29.78
- Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X @ €134
- OCZ Gold Low voltage 2 x 2gb ddr3 1333mhz @ €89.53
- Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm 500gb hard drive @ €41
- Samsung SH-S223C 22x Internal DVD+-RW rewriter drive @ €17.83
- Corsair vx550w psu @ €72.70
should be fun building it
Friday, January 22, 2010
Manga time yet?
Serial Experiment Lain
FLCL
Revolutionary Girl Utena
My Neighbor Totoro
Summer Wars
Patlabor 2
Aachi & Ssipak
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
The Cat Returns
The Place Promised In Our Early Days
Millennium Actress <- maybe i saw this one already (Note: Oh no, it was perfect blue)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence <- also did i see this?
Tokyo Godfathers
Night on the Galactic Railroad
Oedo_808
.hack//SIGN
Tekkon Kinkreet
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Stoned Idea
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Book of Life
Pretty boring. spent most of the time perving on P.J. Harvey. I thought the guy who played the devil sounded and acted like a wrestler. The dialog was clunky and the actual topic for the movie was kind of boring. It took a long time to evolve towards a fairly simplistic ending. The music vignettes seemed forced and overly long.
Apparently one of the first films filmed entirely digitally. I thought it suffered for that. they kept trying to include digital effects as a stylistic element, but the colours just seemed bled out. It was like putting a lens flare on everything.
There was one long voice over by William S. Burroughs. nice. i wonder if he did it for the film?
i also wonder why P.J. harvey was in such an underwhelming film. must be friends with someone in the project.
overall i was unimpressed, painfully hipster; two stars
another review
Friday, January 15, 2010
PRESS + from benjamin ducroz on Vimeo.
DIRECTOR / ANIMATOR - BENJAMIN DUCROZ
SOUND DESIGN - SAMUEL ACRES
A movie about an archaeologist finding a tomb with the body of Christ. Antonio Banderras plays a Catholic priest sent by the Vatican to investigate. Then other religions and political interests get involved. Antonio Banderras ends up almost turning into Indiana Jones in the action spectacular finale. All in all it was probably a bit character led. too many swelling string solos and gratuitous looks of deep religious pain. Could have been a bit more historically politically placed.
Two and a half stars.
Some more movies to track down
THE BOOK OF LIFE (1998)
Devil's Playground (2002)
Dogville (2003)
Mindwalk (1991)
Religulous (2008)
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
The Trial (1963)
suggested by
Philosophical Films
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
More games to try for lappy
Heroes of Might & Magic 5
Master of Orion III
Colonization
Dominions 3
UFO: Aftermath
Deus Ex
Anno 1602
use this site to check for sys requirements
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Just watched "The Man From Earth"
It did have the same feel about the direction that "What the BLEEP" had. Enough that i almost would believe it was done by the same people. But, unlike "What the BLEEP" it was not some poor misinterpretation of a significant cross section of the sciences.
At the beginning it seemed a little heavy handed. But the discussion about Jesus and subsequent investigation of faith and proof formed a core theme. This theme proved solid. The main focus was the topic of the group's conversation, not the characters themselves, so they seemed a little one dimensional. But the historical time line of man kept my sympathy. I think one of the guys was Col. Winchester from M*A*S*H. If he wasn't, he had very similar mannerisms.
So i guess after watching i would recommend. However Waking Life was along similar lines and was light years better. Three and a half stars.
Note:
HA! i knew i had seen the biologist before. He is Dr. Phlox from Star Trek: Enterprise.
Movies to track down
Primer
Game to try (low spec)
Europa Universalis
Boardgames
Supremacy
Diplomacy
Axis and Allies
Monday, January 11, 2010
Maxis presents: 'Sim Insanity'
Muzorama from Muzorama Team on Vimeo.
Muzorama is a short 3D animation film based on the universe of french illustrator Jean-Philippe Masson aka Muzo.
Produce in 2008 with a six weeks production time.
Directed by Elsa Brehin, Raphaël Calamote, Mauro Carraro, Maxime Cazaux, Emilien Davaud, Laurent Monneron and Axel Tillement.
Softwares used are Autodesk 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects.
Official selections in Festivals :
Siggraph 2009.
E.Magicians 2009
International Short Film Festival of Clermont Ferrand 2010.
Awards :
"Media favourites" - E.Magicians 2009
weird
Peripetics by ZEITGUISED from NotForPaper on Vimeo.
As quoted from Zeitguised website, “Zeitguised made a piece in six acts for the opening exhibition at the Zirkel Gallery. It entails six imaginations of disoriented systems that take a catastrophic turn, including the evolution of educational plant-body-machine models and liquid building materials.”
and more
Skhizein (Jérémy Clapin,2008) from Bertie on Vimeo.
Skhizein
Réalisé par Jérémy Clapin
Budget: 100,000€
2008 Oscar-Eligible
http://www.muiye.com/skhizein/SKHIZEIN.html
more animation
Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.
[ Full Screen recommended ]
Written and Directed by: Rodrigo Blaas
Produced by: Cecile Hokes
Music: Mastretta
Art Director: Alfonso Blaas
Lighting Supervisor: Jonatan Catalán
Character Technical Supervisor: Jaime Maestro
Character Design: Bolhem Bouchiba, Carlos Grangel,
Sergio Pablos, Santi Agustí
Animation: Daniel Peixe, ManueBover, Remi Hueso
Sound Design: Tom Myers and David Hughes
Post Production Coordinator: David Heras
Special Thanks: Keytoon, Next Limit, UserT38
Full credits: almashortfilm.com
Nick Cross, excellent bits of animation.
Yellow Cake from Nick Cross on Vimeo.
The Waif of Persephone from Nick Cross on Vimeo.
Persephone, the goddess of spring, is abducted to the underworld, causing an eternal winter to descend over the earth. It is up to the goddess' servants to rescue her. However, they soon learn that to get help they need to compromise; and compromise does not always lead to an equitable solution for one and all.
Six years in the making, The Waif of Persephone was completed in 2006 and has screened in festivals around the world.
