Breathtaking, balletic action... but everything else is utter gibberish, seemingly treating you with contempt.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Transformers: Dark of the Moon <= 15 Words
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Sound of One Hand Clapping...
...would make significantly more noise than I have on this blog, as of late.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The main one is that I don't actually have the internet in my new flat yet, and won't for another 9 days. Bloody Virgin Media. Serves me right for not going with media which has a bit more experience, I suppose. I'm writing this at work, which is something I really don't like to do, but it's very much the end of the day and I'm in late because I started late. I figure: a quick post can't hurt.
Another reason is that my life has been incredibly complicated for the last couple of weeks. I have been bounced around all over the place. I also missed a flight, an expensive mistake I may devote a blog entry to at some point, now that my (partially self directed) rage has subsided, since it has some comedy value.
More importantly: my paternal grandmother died. There's really no way to sugar coat that fact. To head off inevitable questions:
Yes, we were close. In point of fact she basically raised me. I probably loved her more than anyone else in the entire world. I was also her only grandchild.
Yes, I am okay. I will be okay. I knew that day was coming. She had been ill in one form or another for basically my entire life and the years were being increasingly unkind.
No, that did not make it any easier. I cried for more or less the entire funeral, and I have no qualms (zero!) about broadcasting that fact over the internet. I was very glad to have my family and some close friends who knew my Nan there with me.
It is not my intention for this post to be macabre, though. For one thing my grandmother would not have wanted that. I mainly wanted to just check-in and indicate that this blog is still around, and more posts will be forthcoming. Especially now that: a) I have my computer back, and b) Shamus Young and Michael Goodfellow are making significantly more progress than I on their procedural generation projects. I am jealous of this.
I'll be back with more to say soon. Future topics of conversation will include: why I hate RyanAir, donuts, and dog food. Yes, dog food.
* Funny story about my Nan: no one is 100% sure of what her first name actually was.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The main one is that I don't actually have the internet in my new flat yet, and won't for another 9 days. Bloody Virgin Media. Serves me right for not going with media which has a bit more experience, I suppose. I'm writing this at work, which is something I really don't like to do, but it's very much the end of the day and I'm in late because I started late. I figure: a quick post can't hurt.
Another reason is that my life has been incredibly complicated for the last couple of weeks. I have been bounced around all over the place. I also missed a flight, an expensive mistake I may devote a blog entry to at some point, now that my (partially self directed) rage has subsided, since it has some comedy value.
More importantly: my paternal grandmother died. There's really no way to sugar coat that fact. To head off inevitable questions:
Yes, we were close. In point of fact she basically raised me. I probably loved her more than anyone else in the entire world. I was also her only grandchild.
Yes, I am okay. I will be okay. I knew that day was coming. She had been ill in one form or another for basically my entire life and the years were being increasingly unkind.
No, that did not make it any easier. I cried for more or less the entire funeral, and I have no qualms (zero!) about broadcasting that fact over the internet. I was very glad to have my family and some close friends who knew my Nan there with me.
It is not my intention for this post to be macabre, though. For one thing my grandmother would not have wanted that. I mainly wanted to just check-in and indicate that this blog is still around, and more posts will be forthcoming. Especially now that: a) I have my computer back, and b) Shamus Young and Michael Goodfellow are making significantly more progress than I on their procedural generation projects. I am jealous of this.
I'll be back with more to say soon. Future topics of conversation will include: why I hate RyanAir, donuts, and dog food. Yes, dog food.
RIP Cath / Kath Johnson*
* Funny story about my Nan: no one is 100% sure of what her first name actually was.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Green Hornet <= 15 Words
Some films are exactly the sum of their parts. This is one of those times.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
For Boobs, Mikael?
Warning: this post contains a picture which includes boobs. Be prepared for that. If your manager is looking over your shoulder, don't click; or at least have an excuse ready. If you're offended by the sight of boobs... well... I'm sorry. But I probably don't know how to talk to you in that case, anyway. Lastly: if you're American, you're not supposed to see this, for some reason.
Please, use your desecration. Oh yes, and think of the children. But not while looking at the boobs. That would be strange.
Anyway.
Ready?
It's the new teaser poster for David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's fantastic The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:
Note: I've nabbed this picture from WikiPedia. It's small so that it counts as fair use (apparently). If you click it, you'll be taken to the films official website, where you can see a bigger version, though you might have to pinky swear that you're old enough to see it. The site also has the teaser trailer, but I'll get to that.
Update: It seems they've taken it off the official site. You can find it at the Total Film website here.
I like this poster quite a bit, though I am slightly confused as to whether the tag line is supposed to be:
Which kind of feels as though it needs a comma to me (though I'm not 100% certain where), or:
Which perhaps scans slightly better, but is definitely not how you would normally reads words written in that arrangement. In some ways I think I prefer the slightly more archaic feel of the first one.
Update 2: The version of the trailer on the official site has been updated. It's definitely the first one.
I outright love the book this is based on (and was confused as all hell when Dougal didn't). I did really enjoyed the original Swedish adaptation, but I have high hopes for any David Fincher film and this is no exception. I'm not thinking of it as a remake, more a reinterpretation.
I think Daniel Craig is really good casting for Mikael Blomkvist, and I'm pretty impressed with the way Rooney Mara is looking as Lisbeth Salander. In the books, at least, the point is made that Lisbeth would be incredibly attractive if she wasn't far, far too thin. Mission accomplished. I can't wait to hear them speaking, though it is going to be strange without the Swedish accent. Craig is uniformly fantastic, and Mara definitely held her own, and even stood out, in The Social Network.
What was also released recently was the teaser trailer, which looks a little bit like this:
This is definitely a trailer for people who've read the book, I think. I saw it in the cinema with X-Men First Class, and the guy sat next to me had a fairly strong negative reaction of the "what the hell was that?" variety. To me, though, it looks great. Fincher's artistry is legendary and I think this film is going to have a lot of impact. It's going to be dark, and very difficult to watch in places. This is a story about incredibly complex and compelling characters. This does not mean that they are nice people, and their story is a difficult one. If I had to pick a word to describe what I think this film will be like, it would be: uncompromising.
I look forward to taking my double espresso with a teaspoon of milk this Christmas, even if I do feel as though I need to take a bath afterwards.
Please, use your desecration. Oh yes, and think of the children. But not while looking at the boobs. That would be strange.
Anyway.
Ready?
It's the new teaser poster for David Fincher's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's fantastic The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:
Note: I've nabbed this picture from WikiPedia. It's small so that it counts as fair use (apparently). If you click it, you'll be taken to the films official website, where you can see a bigger version, though you might have to pinky swear that you're old enough to see it. The site also has the teaser trailer, but I'll get to that.
Update: It seems they've taken it off the official site. You can find it at the Total Film website here.
I like this poster quite a bit, though I am slightly confused as to whether the tag line is supposed to be:
Evil shall with evil be expelled.
Which kind of feels as though it needs a comma to me (though I'm not 100% certain where), or:
Evil shall be expelled with evil.
Which perhaps scans slightly better, but is definitely not how you would normally reads words written in that arrangement. In some ways I think I prefer the slightly more archaic feel of the first one.
Update 2: The version of the trailer on the official site has been updated. It's definitely the first one.
I outright love the book this is based on (and was confused as all hell when Dougal didn't). I did really enjoyed the original Swedish adaptation, but I have high hopes for any David Fincher film and this is no exception. I'm not thinking of it as a remake, more a reinterpretation.
I think Daniel Craig is really good casting for Mikael Blomkvist, and I'm pretty impressed with the way Rooney Mara is looking as Lisbeth Salander. In the books, at least, the point is made that Lisbeth would be incredibly attractive if she wasn't far, far too thin. Mission accomplished. I can't wait to hear them speaking, though it is going to be strange without the Swedish accent. Craig is uniformly fantastic, and Mara definitely held her own, and even stood out, in The Social Network.
What was also released recently was the teaser trailer, which looks a little bit like this:
This is definitely a trailer for people who've read the book, I think. I saw it in the cinema with X-Men First Class, and the guy sat next to me had a fairly strong negative reaction of the "what the hell was that?" variety. To me, though, it looks great. Fincher's artistry is legendary and I think this film is going to have a lot of impact. It's going to be dark, and very difficult to watch in places. This is a story about incredibly complex and compelling characters. This does not mean that they are nice people, and their story is a difficult one. If I had to pick a word to describe what I think this film will be like, it would be: uncompromising.
I look forward to taking my double espresso with a teaspoon of milk this Christmas, even if I do feel as though I need to take a bath afterwards.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Full Nerd II: Nerd Harder
It seems that people really enjoyed my post about the computer history museum. At the time I wrote it, I was worried that it might constitute just a little bit too much nerd, so I held back on my initial impulse to put in more pictures and gush enthusiastically about how awesome it all was.
With hindsight, perhaps I can afford to ignore that particular mental stopcock, at least for a little while. I do not, I regret to tell you, have anymore pictures of the teapot. I do intend to buy myself a Melitta teapot at some point quite soon, however, so that it may sit in my flat and act as a most nerdy in-joke.
I do, however, have pictures of many other fun things. Let's start with a reference to my current employer:
This is one of the original Google server racks. At one point, if you typed a query into the Google homepage, this is where the magic happened. If you have any familiarity at all with how servers usually look, you might be scratching your heading and thinking that this one does not look entirely right. Let me help you with that:
Yes, you can see all of the components. No, that is not normal. Yes, each individual server would normally have its own case. No, under normal circumstances sheets of cardboard would not be used as the insulation between motherboard and shelf. Yes, that is an awful lot of servers to fit into a single rack. Yes again, that would require very good air circulation, but you'll have a bloody difficult time finding a case that gives better circulation than no case at all. No, you would not expect a server to bow in the middle like that...
Two things the early Google was known for: providing the best search results; and being very, very frugal when it came to equipment purchasing.
Let's talk about something a bit more fundamental, though. Hard disks, for example. The one in the computer I'm writing this on has a capacity of around 120 GB (depending on how you measure a giga byte, but that's a different story). Wikipedia tells me that is measures around 69.85 mm × 15 mm × 100 mm, so quite small. This is also a hard drive:
Assuming I haven't gotten mixed up here somewhere, this is the worlds first hard disk, and is made up of 50 24" disks, holding a grand total of 5 million characters. Now, if each of those characters is a one byte ASCII character (or similar) that's approximately 5 MB, or 0.005 GB. Quite the difference in storage density, no?
Here's a (slightly) more recent example of a hard disk, one which I'm told is actually still in use to some extent:
Now, if my understanding is correct, this next piece looks like a hard drive, but is much closer in function to RAM:
What's particularly neat is that it's based on an original design by the regrettably late, extremely great, and utterly brilliant Alan Turing.
The museum has an entire section devoted to the evolution of storage, and it's quite fascinating. Another of the forebears of modern RAM is magnetic core memory, which looks like this:
Now that's quite cool, but I'd say that it's also quite pleasing to the eye. I think I'd happily frame that, mount it, and have it hanging from the wall in my flat (somewhere close to the teapot). People walk through castles and talk in hushed tones of all the many things "these stones" have seen. All of the stories they might tell, if they could only speak. But this... unlike your average rock, this is unquestionably memory, and memory which lived through very exciting times in the development of our society. Here's something I look at and wonder what stories it might be able to tell, and what stories it has been forced to forget.
There are many things at the Computer History Museum which are very cool and certainly raise a smile (as well as an appreciative thought as to how far things have come). There are also things which just plain stop you in your tracks; the Difference Engine, for example. Well, at the risk of repeating myself, I'm going to post another picture of it, this time from the other side, so you can see a little bit more of the mechanism:
Now there's a thing I would really and truly love to have in my flat. Ideally in a more coffee table friendly size, of course.
With hindsight, perhaps I can afford to ignore that particular mental stopcock, at least for a little while. I do not, I regret to tell you, have anymore pictures of the teapot. I do intend to buy myself a Melitta teapot at some point quite soon, however, so that it may sit in my flat and act as a most nerdy in-joke.
"Tea, anyone?"
"Yes, please."
Pause.
"Why are you grinning like that?"
I do, however, have pictures of many other fun things. Let's start with a reference to my current employer:
This is one of the original Google server racks. At one point, if you typed a query into the Google homepage, this is where the magic happened. If you have any familiarity at all with how servers usually look, you might be scratching your heading and thinking that this one does not look entirely right. Let me help you with that:
Yes, you can see all of the components. No, that is not normal. Yes, each individual server would normally have its own case. No, under normal circumstances sheets of cardboard would not be used as the insulation between motherboard and shelf. Yes, that is an awful lot of servers to fit into a single rack. Yes again, that would require very good air circulation, but you'll have a bloody difficult time finding a case that gives better circulation than no case at all. No, you would not expect a server to bow in the middle like that...
Two things the early Google was known for: providing the best search results; and being very, very frugal when it came to equipment purchasing.
Let's talk about something a bit more fundamental, though. Hard disks, for example. The one in the computer I'm writing this on has a capacity of around 120 GB (depending on how you measure a giga byte, but that's a different story). Wikipedia tells me that is measures around 69.85 mm × 15 mm × 100 mm, so quite small. This is also a hard drive:
Assuming I haven't gotten mixed up here somewhere, this is the worlds first hard disk, and is made up of 50 24" disks, holding a grand total of 5 million characters. Now, if each of those characters is a one byte ASCII character (or similar) that's approximately 5 MB, or 0.005 GB. Quite the difference in storage density, no?
Here's a (slightly) more recent example of a hard disk, one which I'm told is actually still in use to some extent:
Now, if my understanding is correct, this next piece looks like a hard drive, but is much closer in function to RAM:
What's particularly neat is that it's based on an original design by the regrettably late, extremely great, and utterly brilliant Alan Turing.
The museum has an entire section devoted to the evolution of storage, and it's quite fascinating. Another of the forebears of modern RAM is magnetic core memory, which looks like this:
Now that's quite cool, but I'd say that it's also quite pleasing to the eye. I think I'd happily frame that, mount it, and have it hanging from the wall in my flat (somewhere close to the teapot). People walk through castles and talk in hushed tones of all the many things "these stones" have seen. All of the stories they might tell, if they could only speak. But this... unlike your average rock, this is unquestionably memory, and memory which lived through very exciting times in the development of our society. Here's something I look at and wonder what stories it might be able to tell, and what stories it has been forced to forget.
There are many things at the Computer History Museum which are very cool and certainly raise a smile (as well as an appreciative thought as to how far things have come). There are also things which just plain stop you in your tracks; the Difference Engine, for example. Well, at the risk of repeating myself, I'm going to post another picture of it, this time from the other side, so you can see a little bit more of the mechanism:
Now there's a thing I would really and truly love to have in my flat. Ideally in a more coffee table friendly size, of course.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
A Different Kind of Tourism
If a person were to walk from downtown Mountain View (in so far as Mountain View has a town to be down of) to the Computer History Museum, and then kept going, they might find themselves wandering into Shoreline Business Park. This is where you would find the silicon in this part of the valley.
Of course, there isn't actually a lot of touristing to do in your average industrial park. We're in Silicon Valley here, though, surely there must be something to see? Well... there are signs for reasonably exciting tech companies, with logos and everything... for example:
Here's a fun one. 23 and Me is either a very cool company, or an utterly terrifying one, depending on your point of view. The basic idea is that you send them some of your spit (and some money). They use this to do some basic DNA profiling and tell you about your genetic predisposition towards certain diseases, your genetic predisposition to certain drugs, and a limited amount regarding your actual genetic ancestry. This all comes wrapped up in a neat web interface which updates as new discoveries are made. I'm generally of the the view that this is pretty cool.
Further in we find even more companies, at least one of which you might have even heard of:
LinkedIn is basically a professional version Facebook. Sort of a fancy online business card holder, networking centre, recruitment system and industry conference all rolled into one. As such, it allows you to show your respectable side to your business contacts, whilst still being able to display that photo set proving that you can get your entire fist in your mouth to your friends. It can be quite useful, but more on that in a moment. I had no idea who the other companies on the sign are, and have not, as yet, felt too much of a need to enlighten myself.
There is, of course, another tech company with a fairly large presence in this business park, but I can't for the life of me remember their name. Oh, wait, yes. I remember:
When in doubt, follow the street signs. While I'm sure it is helpful to have signs pointing to stuff (other examples in this estate include "movies" and "amphitheatre") hanging above the road, making them indistinguishable from street signs is bloody confusing, in my opinion.
Google is, of course, the whole reason I'm in this town, and in fact in this country for these two weeks. For the record, I was recruited via LinkedIn, so it definitely does have it's uses. One of the reasons for this wander was to get a general idea of the lay of the land surrounding the Googleplex. My overall opinion: it's big. Luckily, the Google bikes were very much in evidence:
Often being found looking slightly forlorn in the strangest places. I'm fairly sure the local teens play a bit of cat and mouse with security guards and joyride around the park on them at weekends. This one was close to one of the volleyball courts:
There actually is a reasonable amount to see, wandering around the campus. Google really does live up to a lot of its hype. One of the more famous landmarks of the campus was actually bloody difficult to find, though. It took a serious amount of detective work, comparing photos from the web to views from Google Maps, but I finally tracked down the "Android Lawn":
As it turned out, if I'd just stood up and looked over my right shoulder from the place I was performing all of this furious Googling, I probably would have just spotted the damn thing. Such is life. Strangely enough, I was feeling a little hungry at this point, so I headed home.
Finally, it is important to note that while all of this touristing around is fun, and Google is a fuzzy and well meaning company, you should never forget that these are serious guys, doing a serious job. One most always strive to live up to the standard set by those who come before you, and always act in a professional and responsible manner when surrounded by such a high caliber of people.
Seriousness. Responsibility. Decorum.
That is all.
Of course, there isn't actually a lot of touristing to do in your average industrial park. We're in Silicon Valley here, though, surely there must be something to see? Well... there are signs for reasonably exciting tech companies, with logos and everything... for example:
Here's a fun one. 23 and Me is either a very cool company, or an utterly terrifying one, depending on your point of view. The basic idea is that you send them some of your spit (and some money). They use this to do some basic DNA profiling and tell you about your genetic predisposition towards certain diseases, your genetic predisposition to certain drugs, and a limited amount regarding your actual genetic ancestry. This all comes wrapped up in a neat web interface which updates as new discoveries are made. I'm generally of the the view that this is pretty cool.
Further in we find even more companies, at least one of which you might have even heard of:
LinkedIn is basically a professional version Facebook. Sort of a fancy online business card holder, networking centre, recruitment system and industry conference all rolled into one. As such, it allows you to show your respectable side to your business contacts, whilst still being able to display that photo set proving that you can get your entire fist in your mouth to your friends. It can be quite useful, but more on that in a moment. I had no idea who the other companies on the sign are, and have not, as yet, felt too much of a need to enlighten myself.
There is, of course, another tech company with a fairly large presence in this business park, but I can't for the life of me remember their name. Oh, wait, yes. I remember:
When in doubt, follow the street signs. While I'm sure it is helpful to have signs pointing to stuff (other examples in this estate include "movies" and "amphitheatre") hanging above the road, making them indistinguishable from street signs is bloody confusing, in my opinion.
Google is, of course, the whole reason I'm in this town, and in fact in this country for these two weeks. For the record, I was recruited via LinkedIn, so it definitely does have it's uses. One of the reasons for this wander was to get a general idea of the lay of the land surrounding the Googleplex. My overall opinion: it's big. Luckily, the Google bikes were very much in evidence:
Often being found looking slightly forlorn in the strangest places. I'm fairly sure the local teens play a bit of cat and mouse with security guards and joyride around the park on them at weekends. This one was close to one of the volleyball courts:
There actually is a reasonable amount to see, wandering around the campus. Google really does live up to a lot of its hype. One of the more famous landmarks of the campus was actually bloody difficult to find, though. It took a serious amount of detective work, comparing photos from the web to views from Google Maps, but I finally tracked down the "Android Lawn":
As it turned out, if I'd just stood up and looked over my right shoulder from the place I was performing all of this furious Googling, I probably would have just spotted the damn thing. Such is life. Strangely enough, I was feeling a little hungry at this point, so I headed home.
Finally, it is important to note that while all of this touristing around is fun, and Google is a fuzzy and well meaning company, you should never forget that these are serious guys, doing a serious job. One most always strive to live up to the standard set by those who come before you, and always act in a professional and responsible manner when surrounded by such a high caliber of people.
Seriousness. Responsibility. Decorum.
That is all.
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