Escaped Thoughts

Not only is it warm and sunny, and the last day of class, but I finally have a job for the summer and next year! Not just a job, but a job that I think I will enjoy.

It's good to finally not be in limbo about the next year of my life.

Category: Life

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This line, from Noises Off..., speaks for itself: "Nothing could prepare us for the horror of Cleveland."

Category: Random

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The only good thing I can say about Daredevil is that it made Two Towers seem a whole lot better. I went in knowing that the reviews were bad, but I was totally unprepared for the level of garbage I was exposed to.

I'm pretty sure that they were going for "dark", but all they accomplished was "insanely violent". And while it wasn't really gory, it was very graphic. Basically, the script writers didn't seem to realize that in order for a story to be dark, it has to be both disturbing and (at least somewhat) powerful. All they managed to pull off was unpleasant.

They were far too enamored with fight scenes (I'd conservatively estimate that two thirds of the movie was fighting) and bad CGI. That unfortunately left almost no time for other things like, say, character development. I think that Ben Afleck tried to convey the whole tortured soul thing that is vital to it being a good story. Unfortunately, except for a scene where he trashes his apartment, he didn't really have much chance.

They did save time for trite one-line "insights" into his soul: "I set out to save the city, but with Electra's help, I saved myself." And that's their idea of character development? And no, putting him on the edge of a building looking out over the city each time he delivers one of these gems does not offset the fact that there was no build up and magically make it a good line.

Oh, and for crying out loud don't use CGI, badly, for no reason. If you want to drop a rose onto the ground in slow motion just do it. It's hard to be moved by the symbolism when all I can think is "Wow that rose looks fake as it bounces off the concrete without deforming."

Category: A & E

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I finally saw Two Towers last weekend, and one question has been really bothering me since then: Why was there no rioting? Why didn't a torch-and-pitchfork-carrying mob descend on the studio, and wreak havoc?

As near as I can tell, the people in charge of the move sat around one day, and one said, "So are we going to mostly stick to the story, like we did for the first movie, thus ensuring that we'll have a good movie?" To which, someone responded, "Heck no! That's been done, so we can't just do it again! What a stupid idea!" The first guy slapped his forehead and said, "You're right; silly me! Lets give the story to amateurs and have them rewrite it to be nothing like the original story instead." Everyone agreed that that would be best, and so they did.

So then the script-writers got together and brainstormed, and came up with all of the following ideas:

• "First, instead of just editing for time, let's also modify basically every event in the book just for kicks. Then, people who have read the books won't know what's going on, and it will be new for everyone!"
• "Lets make all of the characters one-dimensional. Gimli? Why have waste him as a character when he can just be the butt of midget jokes? Eowyn? A strong shield-maiden of Rohan? But she's much more effective doing nothing but wandering around and staring longingly at Aragorn! Faramir? Honorable and courageous? Only the heroes should have virtues, so lets make him a total schmuck instead. Oh, and let's emasculate the King of Rohan, so he makes Aragorn look cooler."
• "Expanding Arwen's role totally out of proportion in the first movie worked well, so this time, let's not only write her into the story, but also add elves lots of other places, for no real reason."

When, at the end of their brainstorming, they sat down and read their list of changes, they couldn't decide which ones to cut. So they said, "What the heck, we'll just use all of them." Frankly, Dave Barry's version of the script would have been far better.

At least, as Laura pointed out, the movie wasn't a total waste. It was an excellent tourism advertisement for New Zealand.

Category: A & E

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So I've suddenly started saying "in the before time" an inordinate amount. I'm trying to figure out where I picked it up, and except for being almost positive that it's nothing recent, and a vague idea that it features in some popular sci-fi book or movie, I haven't a clue. Google isn't really any help.

Plausible theories, anyone?

Category: Random

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That's right, you don't have to be a teacher at one of those high-brow institutions to cause stress and anguish! You too can anger your students with this simple, fool-proof recipe:

1. Wait until the last week of classes, when stress is already at the highest level of the semester.
2. Assign more work than is reasonable for a week: remember, it's ok, because your class is the only one they are taking (or at least, the only one that matters to you)!
3. To add zest, make it due on a reading day, despite school policy, secure in the knowledge that no-one will complain lest you simply move the homework deadline up even more.

Now there's nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the suffering. As an added bonus, tell your TA to grade all of them in 48 hours, and relish the horror of his realization that he could to give up sleep, research, and all of his classes, and he still probably wouldn't get it done, but that you'll blame him if the class wonders where their homeworks are while studying for the final (once they wake up from their stress-induced coma).

Category: School

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Switching to the Solaris machines as my primary lab machines was a mistake, I think. Sure, I don't have to use Windows at all anymore, and all I was doing from them was ssh-ing to the Solaris machines anyways. But I got to use a real keyboard on the Windows machines, ones that weren't designed to be a pain.

All evening, I've been hitting \ instead of [delete] on my computer, all because some goon had to go and move the ~ key on those keyboards.

When I find that person, I will rearrange a few random keys on his keyboard, and see how he likes it.

Category: Geek

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It's pretty amazing how much there is to learn from other students; it's way beyond most of my formal education.

Today, I learned more about 3-D rendering of first-person games than I had ever even thought to wonder, all from a 45 minute conversation with another student. It seemed wildly more interesting and practical than so much of what I learn in classes, that it makes me wonder if the CS department should, instead of having so many classes, have a few classes and a ton of little student-run workshops. It would be like the ACM talks, but all the time. To graduate, you'd have to both attend a certain (large) number of workshops and demonstrate your understanding (with little projects or bigger projects tying multiple concepts together), and also teach some number of workshops. It would be a choose-your-own-adventure major.

Sure, it would stand a snowball's chance in hell of being accredited, but it would make the experience so much richer for those of us who actually want to learn. Granted, we can do that some now (like I did today), but we'd have so much more time for it in my system. I know it would not be for everyone, but with a large group of interested people, I think it would be fantastic.

Category: School

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In any semi-stable group of peers, there is almost inevitably someone who needs to be argumentative in meetings. So the question is, are argumentative people attracted to stable, friendly groups, or does the nature of a non-antagonistic group transform one of its members into a spiteful person?

Category: Society

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Whenever I'm walking alone and I see someone approaching on a relatively clear sidewalk, and I know them well enough to say hi but not more than that, there are always a few awkward seconds. I don't want to make eye contact right away, because I'm still too far away to say hello, but that leaves me trying to avoid eye contact until I'm closer, without looking like I'm avoiding eye contact. Even worse is when they happen to see me at the same time I see them, and make eye contact, because then I have to pretend we didn't make eye contact while avoiding eye contact.

I hate that.

Category: Random

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There are times that I'm really, really glad I didn't leave just a few minutes later. Getting inside very shortly before a sudden torrential downpour mixed with pea-sized hail is very high on my list of such times.

Category: Random

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Simon, the benevolent god of Vorlon, tweaked some Apache config files for me, the upshot of which is that this is now building the blog pages on the fly, but the url is still clean and shiny. Thanks Simon!

So now... at long last... the moment you've all been waiting for...... *drumroll*....... Comments!

*chirp*chirp*chirp*

Ok, so maybe this would be cooler if I told all my friends about my blog, so there were people actually reading it.

Category: Geek

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What qualifies something as a "sense"?

I'm not going to be so weird and philosophical as last time, don't worry. I was just thinking about picking up on emotions, the way it feels, and the language we use to describe it. Sure, we pick up on little clues through all of our normal senses that let us know how people are feeling, but that's not how we really think about it. When someone is really happy, or really angry, we say that it's palpable. We say tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. When it's spring, we say love is in the air. We don't actually think, "Certain ways they are speaking and acting and looking tell me that they are angry/happy/whatever, so now I know that." We "feel" it at an unconscious level

So no matter how we may get the clues that give us perceptions of people's emotions, we have this whole system in our brains that automatically interprets that information, and feeds it into our conscious through a channel that's totally separate from our other senses. So to some extent, I think it's fair to call it another sense. And I, for one, think that's pretty cool.

Category: Random

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