21 January 2013, early morning
I watched Life of Pi over the holidays, in 3D no less. The bulk of the film, like the book it is based on, follows a boy as he travels shipwrecked across the ocean in a small boat with a Bengal tiger. I should start by saying I feel like an idiot because I had thought they had an actual tiger for many of the shots in the film, but the tiger in the film is completely computer animated. It’s insane how good it looks. It’s a nice uplifting film. Both the book and the film have one of my favourite lines of text ever, which I won’t ruin for you now. I had never seen anything in 3D before and I thought Life of Pi actually looked quite amazing in 3D: nothing felt cheesy about it. So yeah, go watch this film. I thought it does the book justice.
[2] Movies
11 January 2013, mid-morning
I finished reading Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. Shima has declared it one of her favourite books, if not her absolute favourite book. That’s a pretty strong endorsement. It’s been well reviewed as well. As I started reading I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about.
The book begins in a rural village in North India and ends on the high seas of the Indian Ocean. The road between those two points is a little bit slow. We meet character after seemingly unrelated character. Slowly you start to see where they will all end up. By the time you get to the third section of the book the story has really picked up. I am remiss to say much more than that. Suffice it to say its some solid historical fiction with a great cast of characters. Sea of Poppies reminds me of what a well edited Neal Stephenson story might look like. The language and sailor slang much of the book’s dialog is written in can be a bit impenetrable at times, though one can usually figure out the sentiment trying to be conveyed.
Sea of Poppies is the first book of the Ibis trilogy. The book is an exciting well written story. The second book River of Smoke is already available. I plan to start it shortly.
[1] Comics and Books
20 December 2012, late evening
I thought after having Mythilli the number of photographs I would take would increase, but that hasn’t been the case at all. I used to be an avid photographer. At some point I stopped being one. I had some sort of crisis of faith, I suppose.
One of the last lines in Six Feet Under is, “You can’t take a picture of this. It’s already gone.” Photography is an artistic pursuit, but it’s also a documentary one. Photography is all about capturing a moment in time. Well, sort of.
I used to take lots of photos at concerts I went to and then I more or less just stopped. When I watch people photographing a concert now I find they look ridiculous. You are a few feet from a band, watching them play through some shitty LCD screen or viewfinder. Sometimes you should just stop and enjoy the experience.
I think about this a lot when taking pictures of my baby.
All of that said, I should take photographs again. I quite like it. And every so often I take a photograph that is pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.
[4] Life | Photography
17 December 2012, mid-afternoon
Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you. If you are under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to this provision (and the use of your name, likeness, username, and/or photos (along with any associated metadata)) on your behalf. — The new Instagram terms of service, emphasis mine.
In the back of my mind I knew this day would come, but now that it’s here it isn’t any less disappointing. Instagram’s new rules are pretty draconian. A lot of times websites will have unfortunately worded terms of service, but they often written the way they are to facilitate displaying your content on their servers, etc. This language seems quite clear when it comes to Instagram / Facebook
Flickr’s new iOS application is quite nice, but I don’t know how I feel about spamming my Flickr feed with photos of Mythilli. Part of the original appeal of Instagram was that it was a nice light-weight way to share little snapshots. Flickr is a big mix of people posting one-off photos, big sets of photos from their vacations, and all sorts of other random stuff. Still, Flickr probably has the nicest terms of service when it comes to this sort of thing.
I really love Instagram, so this change is really bumming me out.
[10] Technology
13 December 2012, lunch time
How did I forget to write about Skyfall, the new James Bond movie. Like the two films that came before it, the film is pretty spectacular. It opens with a crazy action sequence and then moves on to spies and intrigue. Unlike the previous two films Skyfall feels like more of a throwback to the older James Bond movies. There are all sorts of nods to the earlier movies, presumably because it’s the 50th anniversary of the franchise. Bérénice Marlohe plays the bond girl in the film, and she is smoking hot. Daniel Craig has got to be the best James Bond. This is one of my favourite James Bond films ever, though I don’t know if it’s better than Casino Royale.
The official Skyfall website.
Movies
27 October 2012, early afternoon
I watched the latest Mission Impossible film last weekend. Like all the sequels that have followed the first film, it’s more action movie than spy flick. This film seems much more willing to take itself less seriously. The action sequences are crazy and the plot just over the top enough. Briefly, a mad man is trying to launch a Russian nuclear strike in order to start some sort of armageddon that will ultimately result in world peace and only Tom Cruise can stop him. The first Mission Impossible film is by far the best, but this film was quite enjoyable.
The official Mission Impossible website.
[1] Movies
16 October 2012, early evening
Every time I take the Yonge line I am reminded of just how bad public transit is in the city. The Bloor line certainly gets busy during rush hour, but its a whole other scale of busy. The Yonge line is a disaster. I’m curious to see when it actually implodes in on itself. I wonder if the TTC have numbers on when that will happen? They are extending the line North. Presumably they expect to get people who are taking buses to Finch station out of buses, but I can’t imagine there isn’t going to be a net gain of people on the line. At this point, is living along the Yonge line actually useful?
[5] Toronto
2 October 2012, evening time
I watched Looper on Saturday night. I hadn’t been to Manulife to watch a film on a Saturday night in forever. It was a busy screening. Looper is amazing. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen recently, a great dystopian time travel flick. The movie doesn’t waste too much time on hard sci-fi. They explain the key things you need to know at the start of the film: in the future time travel has been invented and was promptly outlawed; the only people to use time travel are criminals who send people back in time to be executed; the people who perform this task are called Loopers; the last execution a looper performs is killing their future self. The movie is violent in a thoroughly graphic and unglorified way. Early on in the movie you see what happens to a Looper who doesn’t kill his future self, and it’s more than a little disturbing. The film feels thoroughly well crafted. The acting is superb. Joseph Gordon Levit does a great Bruce Willis impression. They made him up to look like Bruce Willis, and it’s actually really well done. The movie features some amazing dialog. It’s really well written, much like Brick. The film is being billed as an action flick, but its much more than that. This is a must watch movie.
The official Looper tumblr.
[2] Movies
25 September 2012, late morning
I’ve been trying to get in touch with you but haven’t heard back.
When I looked at our donor data, I noticed that the last donation you made was during the last election.
Ramanan, what are you waiting for?
Man, fuck you NDP lady. I’ve given the NDP money in a few times now. They seem to think that gives them license to call me all the damn time, never mind the emails. I’ve actually blogged about this before. I don’t know how you can be so tone death and obnoxious with your fund raising efforts. I’ve been waiting years for the success they’ve been having. Is this is what i’ve been waiting for?
[5] Politics
18 September 2012, mid-morning
I woke up last Monday morning and decided to check out another film at TIFF. I looked to see what films were screening in the afternoon at the Lightbox, and noticed one called Him, Here, After. Taking a closer look I learned it was a Sri Lankan movie about a Tamil Tiger heading home to Jaffna after the war. What were the chances? I bought a ticket and got back to work, which ended up being all kinds of crazy. I had to run to the theatre to make the film. Literally. I passed Tiff on my way there. We spoke briefly while I caught my breath. I am in poor shape.
The film is quite good, and I thought much better than the other Sri Lankan art films I’ve seen at TIFF (The Foresaken Land, Between Two Worlds). It’s quiet and thoughtful. The unnamed protagonist returns to Jaffna with no fanfare. The film is about him trying to start a new life. No one is happy to see him back. He struggles to find work and reintegrate in to civilian life. No doubt you’ve seen that story play out before. The Hughes brothers film Dead Presidents is the first that comes to my mind. The film isn’t quite so bleak, but it definitely doesn’t wrap things up nicely. A very strong performance by Niranjani Shanmugaraja is what makes the film. Our screening concluded with a Q&A with Michael Ignatief, which I didn’t think was particularly good. He didn’t really have anything too insightful to discuss. He spent a long time complaining about fund raising for the Tigers in Toronto, which is admitidly bad, but felt a bit off topic. One thing I did learn in the Q&A was that the title of the film is a play on words. Ini Avan translate to “him hereafter”, while the single word Iniavan translates to “sweet man”. The director said he was trying to present an LTTE solider as a more nuanced complicated figure than one sees in the Sri Lankan press. I think he succeeded here.
Him, Here, After at the TIFF website.
Movies
10 September 2012, early morning
The The We and the I marks my return to TIFF. I grabbed a ticket from Limin, my only friend who apparently bothered getting a 10-pack this year. She had two extra tickets, so I used one to go see a film with her. This film was her pick. The We and the I is directed by Michael Gondry, and follows a group of teenagers as they ride the bus home from their last day of school. All the action takes place on the bus; Michael Gondry styled flash backs and dream sequences are used to good effect to provide context and backstory on occasion. At its core it’s a film about high school. There are bullies and the brash, and then there is everyone else. There is melodrama, lust, conformity, and all the things central to high school existence. The two lead figures in the film are Michael, one of the bullies, and Vanessa, his friend not-quite girlfriend who has returned to school after a 3-month absence. There story plays out in full, while we get snippets from the lives of everyone else on the bus. There are plenty of people on the bus. Lots of stories begin, but most rarely come to a satisfying conclusion. People hop off the bus before we learn more about them. There is a point being made with that choice, no doubt. The acting is a bit hit-or-miss, but on the whole I’d say good. The film feels very authentic, I suspect because the characters are all probably playing variations of themselves—Gondry recruited kids from an after-school out-reach program to star in the movie. At times the movie is quite funny; at times it’s quite poignant. The We and the I manages to capture the confusion of adolesence well. You should watch it.
The We and the I on the TIFF website.
Movies
9 September 2012, lunch time
I got 9 rolls of film developed yesterday. It’s been a long time since I’ve shot with film. My old standby, the Shopper’s at Yonge and King, has let their machines turn to shit. I got sick of getting back grimy scans and decided to try something new. I ventured out to Pape to get them processed. There is a Shopper’s there that apparently does a good job—which I can now confirm. Shopper’s still develops and scans for $3, which is probably best prices in the city for film processing. If you want higher res scans and less scratched negatives Downtown Camera is my second go-to place, but it’s about 2-3x more expensive. Photography is an expensive hobby.
Photography
8 September 2012, mid-morning
I was surprised to learn that a show bible was written for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Michael Halperin was hired to flesh out a fantasy world the show would take place in. You can see a copy of the original bible, scanned and marked up with corrections, over at He-Man.org. That’s not the easiest thing to read. I found the text online at the Myteries of Greyskull, but it’s also poorly formated. In a fit of copyright infringement I decided to tidy things up and host the bible myself. Enjoy, because it’s pretty fantastic.
[2] Television
22 August 2012, mid-afternoon
Gerald Brom’s
art work shaped the way the Dark Sun game setting evolved. He would paint scenes that the game designers would then use as inspiration when building the world and the game mechanics that went with it. He has a very distinctive and I would say classic fantasy style. His work reminds me a little bit of the work of Frank Frazetta. He’s probably the greatest fantasy artist alive today—yeah I said it. He also has a Kickstarter project on right now to fund a retrospective book of his work. I’m losing my shit over here.
Nerd Alert
17 August 2012, mid-morning
Twitter published a pretty bizarre post on their developer blog yesterday, outlining changes they plan to make to how developers can interact with Twitter. To say it’s a little bit hostile to their developer community would be an understatement. I think it’s fair to say that much of Twiter’s early success didn’t come from the company itself. I mean, the site could barely stay up for the first few years of its existence. People stuck with Twitter despite the fact it often felt cobbled together. The two most iconic features of Twitter messages, @-replies and #hashtags, were both originated from the Twitter community. They ended up becoming official features because of their wide spread use. All of the good iPhone clients for Twitter were made by 3rd parties — including what became Twitter’s official client. Twitter’s official client is kind of a piece of shit compared to feature-rich Tweetbot or the simple and elegant Twitteriffic. I’ve been a Twitter user forever. Twitter launched on July 15 2006. I joined on July 28th 2006. I am user 3321. It took me a long while to warm up to the site, but I love it now. I find the direction they seem to be moving is more than a little disappointing. I think the best summary of the change comes from Ben Brooks: ‘This is the moment in Twitter’s life where they kicked Steve Jobs out of the company and told Sculley to run it.’
[2] Technology
7 August 2012, evening time
I was discussing Christopher Nolan’s worst movie with my cousin. I suggested Insomnia: a Hollywood remake of a Norwegian film. He suggested The Dark Knight Rises. No fucking way! I watched the concluding film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy over the weekend. The story picks up 8 years after the last film. Bruce Wayne is a recluse and Batman hasn’t been seen since he escaped capture by the police. The movie opens with Bane kidnapping a scientist in a pretty spectacular action sequence. From there it’s all about Batman’s return to being all Batman. There are highs and lows and I thought it was all pretty fantastic. In my mind this film is comparable to the first Batman film in its scope. I feel all three films are an interesting look at the Batman mythos, but the second film felt like a much deeper look at the various archetypes found within the Batman story. The Dark Knight felt stronger and more focused. This is all irrespective of Heath Ledger’s excellent portrayal of the Joker. The acting in this film is great too. All of Nolan’s regular actors make an appearance. Tom Hardy does a great job with Bane. (I actually like his voice, a common complaint I’ve heard about the film.) The action sequences are much better done. The fights aren’t quite as frantic as they were in the first film. Hathaway is super hot. Go watch this. Did you think I’d have anything else to say here?
The official The Dark Knight Rises website.
[5] Movies
19 July 2012, early morning
Moonrise Kingdom was great. I was pretty disappointed with Wes Anderson’s last (live-action) film and was really hoping this one would be good. The trailer hit all the right notes. I love Ed Norton and Bruce Willis. Surely this had to be good? And it was. The weird stilted dialog you often find in Anderson films is ever present in this one, perhaps even more so. That’s the only thing I found grating about the film. Otherwise it was a sweet tale of young love and adventure. It’s zany, of course, but that’s to be welcomed and expected. You should definitely watch this.
The official Moonrise Kingdom website.
11 July 2012, early afternoon
If you are using Hudson/Jenkins you might want to review this article by my coworker: The Operational Reality of Opt-In Security Controls.
This has been a topic of much discussion in my office for the last couple weeks. My co-worker, unaware of what Jenkins and Hudson were all about, thought he had found a pretty crazy exploit while doing an assessment. It turns out he had actually found was a poorly configured instance of Hudson. Responses to his outreach have been mixed, to say the least. The people behind Hudson and Jenkins feel this isn’t a problem for them to solve. They provide a guide to harden your install, and feel it’s up to their users to ensure they deploy things properly. (This is similar to the attitude Rails developers took to their mass-assignment bug.)
Using Google he ended up finding misconfigured automated-build servers all over the Internet. (You’d actually be surprised and/or terrified by some of the people who had exposed their servers in this fashion.) He’s been sitting on this post for ages, waiting for people he has notified to get back to him on whether they have secured their install or not. For every person who replies promptly with a thank you, there are probably two people who don’t reply at all or who quietly fix their install and pretend he never got in touch.
I suspect one reason people simply go the no warning full disclosure route when they find vulnerabilities isn’t because they are trying to be malicious, but simply because it’s the path of least resistance. I suppose this is why patience is an important attribute for a good security professional.
Technology
6 July 2012, late afternoon
[3]
26 June 2012, evening time
I watched Smokin’ Aces with my brother over the weekend. It’s the perfect Netflix movie: a movie I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to seek out, but watched because it was there. Everyone in the movie is famous. Alica Keys plays a foxy hit lady. Mathew Fox plays a dorky hotel security guard. Ben Affleck plays a bondsman. I could keep going on and on. The plot is simple and very predictable. (The big reveals at the end of the movie are pretty obvious.) The movie suffers from too much telling, not enough showing. The characters are constantly narating what’s happening, what the relationships in the movie are all about, etc. That said, it’s super flashy and fun. If you find yourself with nothing else to watch on Netflix, check it out.
Smokin’ Aces reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes.
Movies
21 June 2012, evening time
The last year and change has gone by so quickly. Mythilli has figured out how to climb our fence. Well, at least one rung. Like her father she has no upper body strength. The fence will keep her in, for now.
[1] Life
18 June 2012, early evening
Reviews of Prometheus have been more mixed than I thought they would be. I suppose it has a lot to live up to, being a sort-of prequel to Alien, directed by the man himself Ridley Scott. I’ll be upfront and say I enjoyed the movie. Suck it, haters.
Prometheus begins with some strange Alien dude eating some strange fluid that ends up destroying his body as he watches a spaceship fly away. He falls into a river and dissolves away. The implication is that this is the source of life on Earth. Fast forward a long time and you have scientists discovering cave paintings about these Aliens, figuring out where they originally came from, and then heading off on a grand adventure of discovery. Like the original Alien, that all turns to shit.
There are countless nods to Alien throughout the film. So many so there isn’t much point trying to list them. So many that comparisons are inevitable. The basic structure of the entire film mirrors Alien, more or less. The problem here is that Alien is clearly the better film: it’s far more focused and coherent. Prometheus suffers from exploring too many mysteries and being a bit half-assed about resolving them. I don’t think every single question a movie asks needs to be spelled out clearly on the screen, but a film should probably make more of an effort than Prometheus does. Putting that aside, there is still a lot to like about Prometheus. The specials effects are amazing. It’s visually stunning. There are several great actors in the movie, who probably could have done more with a better script. Michael Fassbender continues to be awesome, and Charlize Theron continues to be omega-hot. The film is much faster paced than the original alien. Things get weird much quicker. (The movie opens with an alien, after all.) You can tell the film maker and his team were trying to out do themselves when it came to grossing out the audience. It isn’t enough to simply have an alien rip out of someones guts. Here I think Prometheus is most successful. You leave the movie not wanting to touch anything, wishing you could seal up all your orifices.
Go watch this film.
The official Prometheus website.
[3] Movies
31 May 2012, late evening
It’s been a very long time coming, but I finally have a Nest learning thermostat in my house doing whatever it is thermostats do. When they were first announced I hesitated just long enough that they sold out before I could buy one. I signed up to be notified when they had more, and eventually I got an email saying they had one waiting for me. It was only then that I learned they were only selling the things to people in America. That was maybe a half year ago. Between now and then is a tale of woe, lost shipments, interoffice mail, random strangers, credit card companies and the horror that is UPS.
You can tell the Nest came from someone who used to work at Apple. It’s packaged with the same aesthetics and the installation process was absolutely painless. It’s packed with everything you could possibly need to install the device: extra base plates, a screw driver, etc. I think it took about 15-20 minutes from start to finish. It’s got a really intuitive interface, especially when compared to other programmable thermostats. (I can barely figure out how my parent’s one works.)
The Nest actually arrived at a good time. For whatever reason my old thermostat would run the forced air fan all the time when the air conditioning was on. That was both costly and annoying. The Nest doesn’t do that. I suppose this is really the bare minimum you should expect from a thermostat. I’ll post an update after we’ve had it for a while and it’s become self-aware.
[4] Technology | Life
25 May 2012, early morning
Like everyone else on the planet, I recently watched The Avengers. It was pretty good for much of the film, as then ends off pretty great. My main concern when I first heard they were making the film was how they would avoid turning the movie into Ironman III. Joss Whedon did an amazing job giving each character in the ensemble their time to shine. It really did feel like a well balanced film about a team, not individual heroes. Being a Joss Whedon film we also have a turbo-foxy strong female lead, Scarlet Johansen, doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to moving the story forward. I think her character would have been an after thought if this project was being run by someone else. The only character that I felt suffered in the film was poor Hawkeye. I think Jeremy Renner plays the part well enough, but he feels a bit out of place for much of the film. His character is a bit too serious and brooding, and his role in the group seems to overlap the Blackwidow’s. As many others have said, Mark Ruffollo was an amazing Hulk. My favorite part (and line) in the film comes when he transforms into the hulk the second time. The plot of the movie makes enough sense to be fun. There is Loki, evil space aliens, that cube the Nazi’s were using to power their laser guns, etc. The Avengers is very much a comic book movie, much like the first Ironman film. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. There is a lot of humour mixed in with the action and (occasional) drama. You can see Whedon’s mark throughout the film. Hopefully now that he’d wildly successful we’ll get a second season of Firefly.
The official The Avengers website.
[4] Movies
25 May 2012, early morning
I liked Captain America much more than I thought I would. I never found the superhero particularly interesting or exciting as a character, but the film really makes his story quite captivating. I suspect a big part of that success is due to Chris Evans doing a great job playing the role. He seems pitch perfect for the part. The film starts with (an incredibly scrawny) Chris Evans trying to get I to the army. He’s so sickly that’s not going to happen. We get to see he has some heart, but not much else. From there the film follows his transformation into Captain America. I thought they did a great job showcasing his super strength, agility, etc. Mr Smith plays the Red Skull and is awesome, of course. This films definitely worth checking out. Who doesn’t like to watch people fight the Nazi’s?
The official Captain America website.
Movies
