2 June 2006, lunch time
Meetings are Toxic was one of the chapters in 37signals Getting Real book. It’s a sensible enough idea, which generated a lot of discussion over at Signal vs. Noise. I’m sure all of us in the working world have endured meetings we thought would never end. I find that once you get more then 3 or 4 people in a room your productivity is going to quickly turn to shit. Eathan, the lead character in JPod by Douglas Coupland seems to agree. Midway through the book, we the readers are told meetings are toxic:
Here’s my theory about meetings and life; the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic—they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes. One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, “Mmmmmmm. Interesting.” If pressed, they’ll add, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” Then they don’t say anything else.
Update: I emailed 37signals about this quote, and they posted it to their website, where it is being discussed.
Comics and Books | Nerd Alert
Megatron: [surprised] Prime.
Optimus Prime: One shall stand, one shall fall.
Megatron: Why throw away your life so recklessly?
Optimus Prime: That’s a question you should ask YOURSELF, Megatron.
—From the greatest scene in cinematic history. I can’t wait for the 20th Aniversary DVD.
1 June 2006, lunch time
When Arrested Development was canceled, I didn’t care all too much. I never watched the show, despite being told by my brothers that it was amazing. Two weekend back, while at Heathers, I watched the first 5 or 6 episodes of the show. It’s funny. So funny that I went out at bought the first season the next day, while wandering around the city with Shima. The show is about a very dysfunctional rich family, whose patriarch is in jail for cheating the government. The show is very quirky, and very witty. The acting is great. The characters are all so bizarre. Watch this show.
[4] Television
1 June 2006, terribly early in the morning
And just like that it’s all over. It took me 16 months, give or take, to give the government all the money they lent me while I was in University. Thank you OSAP! You paid for my school, my booze, my food, and my iPod. You will not be missed.
[2] Life
30 May 2006, the wee hours
I watched X-Men 3 on Friday. I wanted it to be much better than it was.
[8] Movies
29 May 2006, mid-morning
The last time there was a big TTC strike, I was in high school, and it was the most wonderful time of the year. Even though my brother was driven to school by my aunt, I had already decided that there was no way for me to get to school. I enjoyed my time off. However, now that I work, it’s really just annoying that the TTC isn’t running today. (Am I the only one who had no idea a strike was in the works?) I have things I need to get done. A TTC strike isn’t quite the same as a Toronto wide holiday, though it is pretty close I suppose.
Update: So it’s about an hours wait for a taxi. There are two of us that don’t drive at the company I work at, and since we live fairly close together, we are splitting a cab into work. I can’t see this strike lasting very long.
Update: I got a lift back home from a fellow that works with me; and so ends a very short day at work. The strike is over now, and the TTC should be back up and running shortly.
[4] Life | Toronto
You used my toothbrush, you owe me a new one. Your an idiot.
—Email from my brother
26 May 2006, lunch time
I started scanning the two books on my desk into Delicious Library using my iSight. It was a strangely satisfying experience, if only because it was very quick to get both books into the system. I then went to my book shelf, grabbed another stack of books, and started scanning them in as well. I hit the 25 item limit in the demo of delicious library fairly quickly. I’m tempted to buy the program now; It is certainly well liked. I’ve wanted to get something like it for quite a while. It’s nicer than a big Excel sheet or Omni Outliner list.
[2] Software
25 May 2006, lunch time
I installed Windows XP on my iMac two nights ago. I didn’t have a particularly good reason for doing so, beyond just wanting to see what it would be like. Using Bootcamp, the process is actually very straightforward. There is no real geeky challenge in installing Windows on a Mac—at all. Even on a Mac, Windows XP just isn’t that nice. There is just something about Windows that irks me I suppose. I installed World of Warcraft, and I think it runs a bit better on Windows then on my Mac, but not enough to warrant booting in to XP to play. There are however countless games that never make it to MacOS X that I now can play. What would you recommend? (And, for that matter, what are some applications I should get for Windows XP that will make the experience less craptacular.)
[3] Intel iMac
24 May 2006, lunch time
Apparently I am the only person I know from Waterloo who hadn’t heard of Douglas Coupland. He has written several books, one of which is called Microserfs. Microserfs is about Waterloo graduates getting snatched up by Microsoft to toil on their various computer projects. The novel began as a short story published in Wired. It sounds like it would be a whole book about people I know. My cousin brought him up over the weekend; I don’t remember how the conversation turned to Microserf, but it did. Yesterday, Heather emailed me to say she has a spare ticket to see Douglas Coupland read from his latest book, JPod. That was a strange coincidence.
Angela, Heather and I went to the show together. I met them at Townshoes, where Heather was buying shoes for a wedding. The sales lady was trying to up-sell her some sort of satin scotch guard like spray. She was very strange. The show was held in a theatre at U of T, and it was packed. The show has sold out some time ago. The audience was a real mix-bag of people. Coupland came on shortly after 7:00, and told a story about how his agent wanted him to go on this show, MTV Live. It was a funny story. He then read briefly from his book, a passage in which one of the main characters in the novel meets Douglas Coupland. How post-modern. He read three passages in total, and passed the remaining time cracking jokes and telling stories. It was a very entertaining book reading.
Angela stuck around to get her book signed. Neither Heather or I were in the mood to line up. Heather walked South to her home, and I headed North to bloor. I bought a double-cheeseburger at McDonalds; it was awesome.
Comics and Books | Life
19 May 2006, lunch time
My adventures in the World of Warcraft continue. I’m in Silverpine Forest, which is the second area of the map you visit (most likely) if you are playing an undead Character. I actually stumbled into this area by accident when my character, a Warlock), was around level 8 or so. That wasn’t pretty. I was back there yesterday night; my character is level 12 now, and I wasn’t getting killed by the random monsters walking around, which was nice. Until I accidentally unsummoned my Imp. And then I started to get my ass kicked by these this Moonrage Whitescalp. So, I ran.
The Warlock has a spell called Fear, which is the only spell you can cast while moving (*update:* that’s not true). It makes monsters run away from you, which makes your escape a little easier. I ran for a good while along the road towards the Sepulcher, a town in the Silverpine Forest. I knew the monster I scared away would be coming back; fear only lasts a short time. Worse still, when other monsters see a monster you have scared with Fear, they come chasing after you as well.
I was running towards another player. I could see him off in the distance, sitting down, eating something. He looked very relaxed. My character continued his sprint down the road, towards this other player. As I got closer, he stood up. He must have seen I was being chased. I ran just past him and turned around to see what was up. It turns out there were 2 monsters chasing me. The two of us took care of them, and my character lived to see another day. I thanked the player, and was on my way. That’s the nice thing about these sorts of online games. There are other players there, ready to help you out.
This was funny to watch while I was playing the game. I’m not sure if it’s as funny to read.
[6] World of Warcraft | Nerd Alert
18 May 2006, lunch time
I sometimes hear well meaning people refer to things they don’t like as gay. This was much more common when I was much younger. I can excuse the sort of behaviour amongst 12 year olds who don’t know any better, but if you’re an adult and you think Macs are Gay, or McDonalds is Gay, or George Bush is gay—and not in a sexual way—well, you’re being a lame-ass. I’m sorry, but someone had to tell you.
[4] Life
18 May 2006, the wee hours
What a way to end the season. My friends were hyping Prison Break up for quite some time, but it wasn’t till I went to Sydney and watched an episode with my cousin that I got totally hooked on the show. There were so many big twists at the end, I’m dying to see how the second season goes. I wonder how different the show will be. Clearly they can’t do the same sort of stuff again. If you haven’t see Prison Break before, it is well worth watching.
Television
17 May 2006, lunch time
The MacBook was announced yesterday. The MacBook replaces the iBook as Apple’s consumer-level laptop computer; it is quite the replacement. The processors, memory, and bus are identical to those used by the iMac and the MacBook Pro. The two higher end models come with superdrives as well—though at this point in time that is hardly a big deal. Macworld has their first impressions of the MacBook online now. They are quite happy with the machine. Slashdot also wrote about the story yesterday; as always, some comments are better than others. Tyler noticed that the keyboards in the MacBooks look quite strange. Macintouch has started getting reports from its readers on the new MacBook. One thing that caught my eye was the fact the machines ship with those stupid glossy screens you see on PC laptops. Who thought a highly reflective monitor was a good idea? Probably someone in marketing.
Apple is only shipping 13” models of the MacBook at the moment; this may be one way in which they differentiate between the MacBooks and the MacBook pros. Many years ago, the iBooks were G3 laptops, and the Powerbooks were G4 laptops. However, by the time the iBooks and the Powerbooks were phased out, the things that differeniate the two models were superfluous at best. Shima’s G4 iBook is very similar to the 12” Powerbook, once you get past the build of the two machines. If Apple starts shipping 15” versions of the MacBook, I can see a lot of people opting for those rather than the MacBook Pros. My feeling is that Apple will use screen size as what separates the “Pro” models from the “Consumer” models.
Apple is shipping a computer that looks to pack a lot of punch; at $1099 the machines are also very cost effective. (And as with the other Intel Macs, you can run windows on this machines as well.) You (and by you I mean Tyler) should buy the machine and take it home right now.
Update: A cousin in Sydney pointed out that the new MacBooks don’t have dedicated video cards; they use Intel’s integrated video card, much like the Mac Minis.
[5] Apple Computers
16 May 2006, lunch time
I finished reading A Farewell to Arms on the bus this morning. The rest of the bus ride was depressing. It was raining. I suppose if there is one thing wrong with Hemmingway’s books, it is that you know how they all will end. A Farewell to Arms is no exception to this rule. While the book isn’t as depressing as For Whom the Bell Tolls, which I think is the saddest book ever written, it’s still pretty damn sad. I think as human beings we have a natural revulsion to the sorts of endings Hemmingway writes. Deep down I knew how a A Farewell to Arms would end, once the story got going, but the ending your mind conjures up is so depressing you just can’t accept it as the probable outcome. So you read hoping for something else, a more typical conclusion to the story, and when you come to the end its like being punched in the stomach.
[1] Comics and Books
15 May 2006, lunch time
Mission Impossible: 3 was pretty good. Tom Cruise has to stop Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an evil arms dealer, from dealing arms. The action sequences are quite good; there is a scene where they actually show you how they put on one of those Mission Impossible masks, which was one of the cooler scenes in the film. The Persian girl from Crash has a small role in the movie. The movie may be worth watching just to see Maggie Q, this hot Eurasian chick, wear this red dress that is smoking hot. The movie is entertaining, but really can’t compete with the first Mission Impossible film.
The official Mission Impossible web site.
Movies
12 May 2006, lunch time
The sleep() function in C will delay your program for some number of seconds you specify. If you want to delay your program for some number of milliseconds, then clearly sleep() will not work. A good alternative to sleep() is the poll() function. Normally, this is used to check if there is data to be read from a group of file descriptors; it can also double as simple sleep command. poll() takes three parameters, an array of structures (struct *pollfd), the number of elements in the array (unsigned int), and the number of milliseconds to wait for data (int). By ignoring the first two parameters, you can use poll() as a higher resolution sleep(). Simply set the first two parameters to 0 when calling the function, and set the timeout to be however many milliseconds you wish to delay your program. I use this when writing simple simulators at work, and it works well enough.
[6] Code
10 May 2006, lunch time
I met two American kids playing in Bahrain while playing World of Warcraft yesterday. I bought the game a few days back. I never really understood the appeal of these massive multi-player RPG games till yesterday. My first two days in the game consisted of playing for a couple hours, playing through little quests and killing monsters—typical RPG fare, I suppose. Yesterday, I was doing much the same thing when some other player asked if I wanted to kill monsters with him. I thought, “Why the hell not?” Once you start playing with someone else the dynamic of the game changes. I actually put off having dinner for an hour because I was in the middle of a quest with this kid and his sister; I’d feel bad leaving them high and dry. We did our quest together, which was actually quite hard so it’s a good thing we grouped up, and then I decided to call it a night.
Shima was very disapproving when I told her my story. She thinks I am going to one of those boyfriends who neglects their girlfriend in order to play video games. Apparently the term for wives who disapprove of their husbands Warcraft habits is Wife Aggro.
Anyone else play World of Warcraft? Gary and I are on the same server, Eitrigg, but seeing as how he is level 60 we haven’t done much together.
[15] World of Warcraft
9 May 2006, lunch time
Apple’s iMac ships with the Mighty Mouse. Many people felt that Apple releasing a two button mouse was one of the harbingers of the Apocalypse — I certainly joked about it. I really wanted to like the mouse, if only because it matches the rest of my computer. Unfortunately, it has to be one of the most uncomfortable mouses I’ve used in recent memory. As a two button mouse, it sucks. Many times while playing Warcraft my right-clicks register as left-clicks because I didn’t click “right” enough for the mouse. Perhaps if Apple had indicated where the “right” mouse button was I wouldn’t have this problem. Perhaps I’m just an idiot, but I’d like to think otherwise. Getting clicks to register as right-clicks consistently invovles clicking the mouse at its right-most edge, which is uncomfortable to say the least. The squeeze button is stiff, and I don’t like using it at all. The scroll-nipple that everyone was so excited about it also horrible to use. Scrolling through a long document using this tiny little ball isn’t fun. I’m not sure who Apple designed this mouse for. As I have stated before my RSI is pretty bad, and as such you may find this mouse to be a pleasure to use; that is till you use it too much and get terrible RSI.
Update: This mouse pisses me the fuck off. I’d avoid it.
Intel iMac
8 May 2006, lunch time
The contempt the Sri Lankan government shows for the people it is there to serve is oh-so-palatable in the documentary From Dust. The film is about the after-effects of the Tsunami that leveled much of Sri Lanka’s coasts. I can take heart in the knowledge the Sri Lankan government has no qualms about screwing over the Sinhalese as well as the Tamils when it comes to misappropriating coastal land. In the eyes of the Sri Lankan government there is only One People in Sri Lanka; Sri Lankans of all walks of life, from all ethnic backgrounds, are ripe to be taken advantage of. It’s touching really. (Well, no; that’s a lie.)
Much of From Dust is spent talking to a few families that are trying to rebuild their lives after they lost their homes and their loved ones. The rest of the time is spent showing how the Sri Lankan government has done little to nothing to help those effected by the Tsunami, despite sitting on something like a billion dollars in foreign aid. The film, like many at Hotdocs, makes you angry. I liked it a lot. Haran and his sister both enjoyed the film as well, though he felt it was a bit meandering at times, and I suppose I would agree with him. The films focus is on one fishing village in the South West, though it is clear that what is going on their is going on all over the Island. Unfortunately, the director couldn’t travel to the North and East parts of the island, those areas under LTTE control, or under the control of the Army (like Jaffna).
Haran has the interesting — is that the right word? — perspective of actually being in Sri Lanka when the waves hit. (There are two other posts that follow-up on his initial reaction to the disaster: Melodrama Much? and Mullaithivu.) Haran got to see the LTTE’s response to the waves first hand. He said it was like night-and-day comparing the slow paced, “what the fuck are we supposed to do?”, response from the government with the fast and efficient response from the Tigers. I suppose when you have a military organization which is trained to deal with refugees of war, the mass displacement of people due to natural disasters isn’t unknown territory. It’s a shame the LTTE are terrorists. I am glad to live in a world where everything complicated has been turned black and white. (I should add it was nice to see a movie about Sri Lanka that didn’t mention ethnic groups and conflict. Not like this blurb about the movie — man I’m such a jerk.)
[1] Movies | Hot Docs 2006
6 May 2006, early afternoon
Voices of Bam was far too art-house, even for someone who loves movies as much as myself. It was a very well done film, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s very hard for documentaries to be as uninformative as Voices of Bam was, and still work. This was the first film I’ve seen at Hotdocs, and I have seen around 15 now between the 2 years I have been going, that I have seen people walk out of — a fair number of people. The movie was very similar to Elephant, Battle in Heaven and “The Forsaken Land“/blog/the-forsaken-land in its style: long drawn out scenes; very few cuts; very little dialog. What dialog there is in the film is mostly survivors speaking to their dead relatives. It struck me as very unnatural. The film has a few touching moments, but for the most part just doesn’t work — at least in my humble moving-going opinion. I understand what the director was going for, but it really felt far too forced to me. Shima and her mom also disliked the film. The movie is interesting if only because it is so different than the other documentaries i’ve seen this year. Still, it’s not really enough to make the film worth watching in my opinion; it’s far too slow.
Movies | Hot Docs 2006
5 May 2006, mid-afternoon
The Organic Sumatra I bought at Coffee Tree may very well be the best coffee I have ever had in my entire life. It’s so damn good. Everyone who I have made some of this coffee for has enjoyed it a lot as well. My AeroPress is still working prefectly. I spent a week drinking coffee from the office machine, as I had lent the press to Mezan while I was in Sydney, and there is a world of difference between what the machine spits out versus what the press creates. I enjoyed the coffee I got from Coffee Tree last time, but this Organic Sumtra tastes absolutely amazing. It’s very smooth, and has a very nice taste to it. I think it’s the first coffee I’ve bought that I could drink as an espresso shot. My dilemma now is that I am not sure if I should keep trying different coffees from Coffee Tree, or stick with what I suspect is the perfect coffee. Yes, my life is truly hard.
[1] Life
5 May 2006, the wee hours
In the Footsteps of a Soldier was crazy. This documentary had so many twists you would think there was no possible way it could be non-fiction. Steven Ndugga is the “star” of the film, a Ugandan who was forced to join a rebel militia at the age of 13. The movie was originally going to be about his story, when he discovers his son, who he believed to be dead, is alive and fighting as a child-soldier in the Congo. The film then shifts focus, and is about his quest to get his son back. You might think that there could be no more twists after one such as that, but the movie’s twists don’t end there. Normally I wouldn’t feel bad about talking about a documentary in some detail, but this is the sort of film its actually worth knowing very little about going in. The way the film ends is really surprising. This film is playing again, and is definitely worth checking out.
Aside: Once Hotdocs is done with, I plan to write a post about the festival as a whole, to link all these “reviews” together, and to add links for more information to the posts themselves.
[1] Movies | Hot Docs 2006
4 May 2006, late afternoon
An advert is played for Cadillac’s new Escalade before every movie at Hotdocs begins. At the end of the commercial someone in the crowd will boo, jeer, or hiss at the screen, which results in lots of claps and laughter from the rest of the audience. I am sure the SUV hating hippies love that they are sticking it to the man. Still, who do they think is subsidizing the festival? God knows I hate SUVs, but booing Cadillac because they are funding a really good film festival is, well, stupid. Though, to be fair, Cadillac was stupid for expecting the adverts to go over well.
[3] Movies | Hot Docs 2006
4 May 2006, terribly early in the morning
Sometimes you watch a movie and it makes you angry; The Dark Side of the White Lady was such a film. The Esmeralda, this Chilean flagship, was used during the 1973 coup in Chile as a convenient spot to torture, rape, and murder those people the newly formed ‘government’ felt were a threat. The Esmeralda is this movie’s White Lady. Father Michael Woodward was tortured and killed on the boat. The audience watches as 30 years later his family still tries to get some justice. Two other victims of torture on the Esmeralda also figure prominently in the film. All three stories taken together comprise the bulk of the film. There are a few interviews with former navy admirals will probably leave you frustrated you can’t yell at them in person. It was a good movie. One of those films everyone should see, and be aware of.
The official The Dark Side of the White Lady web site.
Movies
