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
25 May 2012, early morning
My recent stint of watching comic book movies began with X-Men: First Class, which just popped up on Netflix. I should start by saying the film is so much better than the last two X-Men films, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men III. (Bryan Singer was invovled in this film, being credited in part with the story, which might explain why it wasn’t horrible.) The cast is pretty awesome, with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender playing Professor X and Magneto respectively. They both do an amazing job with their roles. There are also few pretty enjoyable cameos. The film is an origin story for the X-Men, taking place during the early days of the cold war. The super villain was a pleasent surprise. As with all X-Men films there are lots of cool super powers and people doing interesting things with them. You should watch this.
The official X-Men: Frist Class website.
[1] Movies
14 May 2012, late afternoon
When you order with Well.ca you can enter special instructions for shipping. A couple days ago I placed an order, and I had used the box to request Ali, their CEO, autograph my order. (To quote myself, “Tell Ali I want him to autograph my order!”) When my order arrived, it was autographed by the person who packaged my order up, but not by Ali. As a joke I was going to complain on Twitter to Ali, but thought he has better things to worry about like running a company and all of that. (The package actually arrived way faster than I thought it would.) So that is where the story ended.
Today I got a unsolicited email from their customer support about my order.
My name is Angela and I am a part of the Customer Care Team at Well.ca. Thank you for your order. I’m so sorry but Ali was unable to sign your order since your order was already shipped out. The most effective way to communicate with us is emailing info@well.ca as opposed to order comments. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do let me know and I’d be glad to help in any way that I can. Have a great day!
Is Well.ca the best? Don’t answer: that’s a rhetorical question.
[2] Life
24 April 2012, early morning
I’ve been on a serious D&D kick recently. (That would be Dungeons and Dragons, the nerdiest thing ever.) I discovered a few weeks ago, via Kickstarter, that the version of D&D I played when I was a little kid is still “popular”. There is a sub-culture of a sub-culture that is all about playing old-school D&D. People play versions of the game from the 70s and early 80s, and speak disdainfully about the version of the rules being sold today.
There are retro-clones of the old games, so if you don’t own a copy Red Box D&D you can pick up Labyrinth Lord which more or less reprints the rules in a way that avoids a copyright infringement suit. If you prefer the first edition of AD&D you can grab a copy of the OSRIC. There are also modern day re-imaginings of the old-style game. I recently grabbed a copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, which is very much its own game, but one clearly inspired by the same things that inspired the original D&D.
There are countless blogs all about this movement. Grognardia, written by James Maliszewski of Toronto, seemingly the most popular. It was from Grognardia that I learned about Loviatar, a D&D zine. I ordered a couple issues of Loviatar last week, and they arrived last night. I never get mail, let alone mail with my address written out in pen. It felt good. The little booklets were an enjoyable read as well.
I’m planning on converting funkaoshi.com into a D&D blog: stay tuned!
[1] Life
18 April 2012, mid-morning
My coworkers and I participated in the HackTO 2012 over the weekend.
Read the rest of this post. (729 words)
[2] Technology | Life
5 April 2012, early morning
In the middle of the winter I ended up a MetaFilter meet up that took place in a bar at the edge of Scarborough called The Feathers. It was a strange spot for a meetup, neither central or transit accessible. The bar made up for these two short comings with its scotch selection. I’m not aware of another bar in the city with a bigger collection than The Feathers. (Though I suppose I haven’t been looking very hard.)
The Feathers is home to hundreds of Single Malt scotches. They probably have anything from Scotland you want to try. If you aren’t sure what you want —like myself—you can sample scotches in pre-selected flights. I wasn’t sure when I’d have a chance to drink 30 year old scotch again I opted for there flashiest flight, The Feathers Flight:
- Aucentoshan 21 Years cask strength
- Brora 18 Years Cask Strength Laing
- Coleburn 1983 Signatory
- Ardberg 27 years Cask Strength Laing
- Port Ellen 1980 Signatory
The Port Ellen is as old as me. That’s some serious-ass scotch. It was so very good. The strangest of the bunch was the Coleburn, which was very fruity tasting. I don’t think i’d want a bottle of the stuff, but it was definitely one of the more interesting scotches I’ve tried in quite some time. The other scotches were all quite good, but I don’t remember any of them really standing out. They were all delicious old scotches, of varying smokiness.
This bar is worth well worth the trip to Scarborough—as if you needed another reason to go.
[1] Toronto | Restaurants and Bars
4 April 2012, early morning
Netflix continues to step up its game. I watched Thor over the weekend. The film is a sort of origin story for the character, explaining how he ends up on Earth fighting bad guys. The story jumps between Earth and Asgard, his mythic Norse homeland. The film has a several excellent actors, presumably slumming it in a superhero film. (Anthony Hopkins plays Odin, Renne Russo is his wife; Idris Elba—what?!—plays Hiemdall; Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd plays some random Norwegian scientist; Natalie Portman is the sexy physicist love-interest.) The film was directed by Kenneth Branaugh, and he does a good job with all the fantasy and Shakespearean-style pomp. He seems like an odd choice to direct an action film, and at the end of the day Thor really was your typical action film. (It’s no Iron Man or X-Men 2.) I think it’s still worth watching, but don’t expect too much.
The official Thor website.
[1] Movies
30 March 2012, mid-morning
Yesterday a company called FiftyThree put out an iPad application called Paper. The team is made up of ex-Microsoft employees who look to have left the company when Microsoft cancelled the Courier project. Apparently there was a big exodus of talented people that followed the cancellation, most notably J Allard of XBox fame. It looks like the guys at FiftyThree weren’t done with tablets just yet.
I was playing with the application yesterday. It’s really well done. If you have an iPad it’s well worth checking out. The application is free, but you can pay for access to other pen types: pencil, fat marker, pen, and water colours.
The Verge has a long review of the application.
[1] Apple Computers | Software
Dave: Just noticed the iPhone screens’ pixels are polarized in orthogonal directions. Genius.
Me: English mother fucker, do you speak it?
Dave: You forgot a command and, perhaps, a semicolon.
Me: God damn it. You win this round.
— A Conversation on the Twitter.
20 March 2012, early morning
As you may or may not have heard, Mike Daisey took several liberties in telling his story about the Foxconn factories in China that Apple uses to build their junk. A lot has already been written on this topic, and I’d have ignored the story if I hadn’t written about it myself.
Daisey’s take on things is that what he does is theatre, and the liberties he took with the truth improve the story. There I agree: his radio piece was really quite engaging. I wouldn’t have written so much about the story had it not be so good. His piece wouldn’t have been the same if the story wasn’t told in the first person the way it was. He presents his stage show as non-fiction. His definition of what that means in the context of theatre is clearly different than what most people think a piece of non-fiction is. That said, I don’t think i’d be that put-off had his work remained in the theatre.
The thing is, he represented his work to NPR as if it was completely true. His interaction with NPR suggests he knew he was deceiving them and that they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be cool with his piece if they knew so much of the story was fabricated and half-truths. It’s one thing to say a bunch of things happened in a stage show and other to repeat that fiction when interviewed by reporters. That latter is just good old fashioned lying. He lied repeatedly to Ira Glass and other NPR producers. He lied repeatedly to other reporters who interviewed him subsequently. He’s really just a liar.
To NPR’s credit they dedicated a whole show to a retraction of their previous story. It’s well worth listening to. It’s as engaging as the original podcast. NPR clearly feels horrible they aired the piece.
The Mac blogosphere’s response to this story is as boring and obnoxious as their initial reaction. The best reaction i’ve read about all of this comes from Defective Yeti: Putting the I in Story.
Apple Computers | Current Events
