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Movie Review: Assault on Precinct 13 (Carpenter)

Good movies establish the rules they are going to work by, so they can be logically self-contained. (OK, there are movies trying for other things, and they can be good, but I'm not talking about those yet...) In sci-fi or fantasy, this means establishing the level of technology or magic that exists, and the limitations of those rules. In action movies, this often involves establishing the location of the action so the audience can follow what is happening clearly. When the action primarily centers around a fixed location, this can be done very effectively - see the original Die Hard. Or see this movie. The buildup takes a while, and never fully explains what is going on, but it gives you what you need to know. Gangs appear to be working together, and they are very upset about the police trying to crack down on them. Some of the events leading to the assault seem a little far-fetched, like the angry father, but once the assault begins the tension level stays way up there the whole time. Enough so that when it got to what was supposed to be the happy piece of resolution, I expected a final, horrible twist. The soundtrack leaves something to be desired - very minimal synthesizer tones, which do increase the tension but also introduce a bit of dating to the movie. The shrieking female secretary wasn't much of a character, either. But the main police officer, criminal, and the useful secretary all did a fine job with their roles. So it was entertaining to watch, although it didn't really address the "this can't be happening in a city, in this day" issue as much as I expected. But sometimes good movies don't answer the questions they ask.

Tonight's Dinner

Rosemary focacchia. So tasty.

Event Report: Art Cars, Phenomenauts, and Gluey Brothers

I went to the Art Car Fest at the San Jose Museum of Art tonight. Here's the new camera at work:

A van covered in cameras, including lots of old Kodak Disc cameras, some Time cameras (free with your paid subscription!), lots of old cheesy garishly colored plastic cameras, some old school box cameras, and all sorts of stuff. Much better than the typical "crazy crap on the car" artcars, since this all fit a theme.

Easily the creepiest car there, although this picture does not do it justice. The faces were all over the car, looking like souls trying to escape hell or something. Yikes! Very cool, though.

Who wouldn't like a little fruit and some Carmen Miranda to go along with their drive?

Named after Mondrian, of course. (Maybe I need a refresher art history class...) I was impressed that the interior completely matched, too. And they had a good sign in the window encouraging donations to be left under the wiper blades, although my picture of that didn't turn out.

Perhaps the most unique idea. Not sure how it all works, but I bet it would be fun.

Creepy looking, although my picture did not do it justice. Lots of toys and parts of toys, all painted bright red, looking like the mutant toys at the end of Toy Story.

I really liked this idea. Does the monster power the car? Hrmm...

And a pirate ship, with a skeleton captain. Just don't go under any low bridges, I guess.

After seeing the cars, we also got to see the Phenomenauts play some swing-ish stuff. The crowd was up and dancing, and it was a good time. They also had an art car van, which was nice and sci-fi looking. Their set was pretty short, so I didn't get to really get into it.

Then there was a break for some art museum cafe food (food was ok, but the service was so amazingly inefficient...) before the Gluey Brothers came on. They did what I think of as "white boy rap" but with some 70s and 80s rock and heavy metal influences, mixing it all together into a reasonably fun sound. Although their set went on a little too long for me, but I may have been influenced by the impending darkness and the colder and colder wind picking up. They put on a good show, though, and knew how to keep the crowd involved. Some entertaining dance moves, too!

Overall, very entertaining, especially considering it was all free. And it reminds me I should look for more things to do in San Jose, since it is a much easier evening out than San Francisco.

Bam!

Maybe the new camera wasn't such a great idea!

New Toy

Today I got my new toy: Sony's DSC-U10, a tiny digital camera. I wanted one I would actually carry with me places, so I can start putting up more pictures around here. It looked tiny on the website, but I figured it would seem larger in real life - can't trust those trick photographs. But it really is tiny! Tinier than lots of people's flip phones. It doesn't feel cheap and toylike, though, and it fits nicely in a single hand.

No pictures yet, though, since I am being a good boy and waiting for the batteries to charge up...

Overtime

In case you are wondering whether you are exempt from being paid overtime (1.5 times wages past 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week) here's the California legal code pertaining to the software industry:

I thought it wasn't looking good until 515.5(a)3. $41/hour is (41*40*52) $85280 / year. If I read this correctly (and I am most definitely not a lawyer) if you make less than that, you are entitled to overtime.

Today's Silly Philisophical Thought

Much human effort is devoted to trying to reduce the complexities of the universe - trying to generalize, categorize, create rules applicable to all situations, find reductive explanations for how things work, build layers of abstraction to hide details, specialize to limit what needs to be known. But the complexity can never actually be reduced, only temporarily hidden, making these pursuits ultimately doomed to failure. Of course, the journey may be more important than reaching the final destination - unless I'm just trying to simplify things.

Programmers tend to try to oversimplify things. My theory is that this happens because we spend so much time dealing with such simple, predictable systems that we get used to trying to model everything in such simple forms.

Soccer: Win (2-1)

We had a pretty good first half, scoring two goals, one on a far away chip shot over the goalie when he came out. I played stopper, subbed out for a little bit, and did OK, but not too great. It was hot, which was making it difficult to run. The second half didn't work as well - the players shifted around a little because some people had to leave, and the heat was making everyone tired. The play was also getting a little more physical - I got kicked in the hand in the box on a corner kick, and fell down while running with someone and scraped my knee. They scored once, on a nice header on a corner, and we had a few chances but didn't get anything else. So we won another close one. We aren't getting the same people each week, though, so it is hard to get our lineup feeling more solid.

Stanford Prison Experiment

Go read the presentation-style overview of the Stanford Prison Experiment and be reminded how close ordinary people (including us, I'm afraid) are to being compliant when faced with an authority asking them to participate in something morally questionable. Power over other people can lead to strange behavior and eventually cruelty, even for professors or college students or people that experienced that cruelty themselves in the past.

Now think about the current situation with Iraq and draw your own parallels.

Full House

I went to the Earthquakes game tonight, and while it was terrible to see them lose another game to L.A. that they should have won on a questionable late goal (I want to blame the officials, but things would have been much different if they hadn't blown their own PK opportunity) it was awesome to be at a sold-out game. The crowd energy was not overwhleming, but it was lively. Sometimes it is fun to put away any pretenses of objectivity and just root for something, and root against whatever is in its way (officials, opposing teams, whatever you've got). And I found both the "Asian Specialties" food vendor in the stadium, so I can get edamame during the game, and the specialty beer vendor so I can pick from a good range of beers for $5. Of course, I asked for a Sapporo and had to show the guy pouring my drink which bottle that was. Is this where people who get poor grades in bartending school go after they graduate?

Today's SF Short Story Idea

Scientists on Earth detect a large asteroid on a likely collision course with the planet. They have time to analyze the situation and develop a plan. Analysis of the composition of the asteroid shows that it is likely too dense to break into small enough pieces with the amount of explosives or even nuclear devices they could launch that distance, assuming they all were on target. The best plan seems to be to deflect it, strike it just hard enough to make it miss. Unfortunately, the calculations based on the spin of the asteroid and its movement relative to the planet make it an extremely risky scenario. The interfaces designed to simulate the situation are refined to be more intuitive, since there seems to be a high degree of chaos in the system, and results vary wildly. One night, the simulation programmers decide to try putting a billiards interface on the system, and have a contest to make The World's Most Important Pool Shot. Their results are actually slightly better than they had achieved with the other interfaces. A call goes out for better pool players to try it. They get even better results. And soon it becomes clear, someone really will have to take the shot and try to save the Earth...

Wired Lawyers

As long as my sister hasn't graduated yet, I can still say that Larry Lessig is my favorite lawyer, and Wired has an interesting article about him. Almost makes me wonder if I should start subscribing to Wired. $10 per year doesn't sound too bad.

complaint

sometimes i think i complain too much. sometimes i think i might be one of those people that complains about things even when they don't have anything to really complain about just because they need to complain about something. how are you supposed to know?

Record Labels

After reading about attempts to ensure artists' rights I start to think my dream of being involved in an independent record label should wait a while. The California Music Coalition certainly is comprised of more major labels than indie labels. The Recording Artists Coalition lists mostly famous artists. So who do the indie labels I like think about all this?

Perfect Designs

I didn't have time to read the whole thing yet, but this interview with Ken Arnold seems to have some interesting thoughts about technical design, especially relating to APIs and the importance of context for what "good" design is.

chocolate goodness

"Were you expecting something chocolatey in the mail?" my roommate asked.

"Ummm, yeah," I responded as I spied the Priority Mail envelope on the table.

"Because there was no name on it, and I couldn't tell if it was for you or for me."

"Ohh, yeah, I think it is mine. Thanks."

I picked up the package and leaned in to sniff it. Sure enough, it smelled like chocolate. Good chocolate. I inhaled again deeply before I realized I really should just try opening it as fast as I could.

The larger, nameless envelope gave way to an equally unmarked box inside. The chocolate smell was more intense yet, but I knew it would be better the further inside I got. I tore open the box, revealing six individually wrapped brownies and a little envelope with my name on it.

The chocolate smelled wonderful.

Soccer: Win (1-0)

Last week the team played and lost while I was enjoying the last part of my vacation. This week we played the same team again, except this time Mark and I were there. We got there just after kickoff (we both thought we had already given up a goal!) and subbed in, putting our side up a player or two (we thought it was one, but later I realized it was two - but we had someone switch sides at halftime). I played stopper, and had to do a lot of running across the whole field to put pressure on in the midfield. Our defense was pretty good individually, but the organization was not there. Our midfield was weak - I wasn't really sure who was playing where. I played OK for having not played for a couple of weeks, breaking up a lot of plays, and even blocking one shot in the second half. By the end of the game, though, I was getting too tired to make full-speed runs back on the breakaways. We kept control of the ball most of the game, but didn't take enough shots. Finally, in the second half, we took a shot from outside the box and got lucky as it took a bad bounce past the keeper for the only goal of the game. The closest they got was a shot through traffic that hit the crossbar - all their other shots were easily stopped by Mark, who played keeper for the second half. Hopefully Dave can get us some more goals and we'll have a solid team. I can definitely feel the difference from the mixed A/B games of the summer. Maybe the spring will be our graduation to the A league.

good egg

i know that i am actually not that old in the scheme of things, but it is still surprising to me when i can feel good in ways i have never felt before. gives me hope that things don't have to get boring...

:-)

So it turns out the first smiley emoticon was developed at CMU. How didn't I know this before? Anyways, the smiley's 20th birthday is coming up next Thursday, so make sure to give it a gift.

6 by 4

the world spins

i want to grab onto you for support

but you aren't here

and i don't understand

why i am not there

well...

still nothing to really say here. things are going on, but i'm resisting the urge to make this place to journal-sounding, and i don't have the motivation to catch up on the normal junk i put up here.

maybe the real problem is not having any time at work to find interesting things to link to.

and in case you are curious, the song in my head is a classic:

you are my sunshine

please don't take my sunshine away

don't tell the indie rock kids!

real life

i still haven't gotten settled back into this "real life" thing, as you may have noticed from the lack of web site entries. someone today mentioned how i was off in my own little world. that may be true, although i like to think it is actually a shared little world of craziness and hot chocolate and late night walks... maybe i don't want to go back to this supposed "real life"...

And sometimes

I just don't feel like saying anything...

Vacation

Well, I am back from vacation, full of happy thoughts. I can't help but wonder, though: why do vacations have to end?