Category: Review & Criticism

What’s wrong with this Picture? (Plus John Fitch Bonus!)

OK, so it isn’t a picture, it is a movie.

I don’t know if it is my design training or perhaps an innate ability, but I spot these things all the time. In fact I am likely one of the most prolific contributors to IMDB in this respect. This isn’t a movie, so I won’t be heading over to IMDB now… but do you have any idea what I’m talking about?

On a more obvious note, I never watch Jay Leno on TV really, but I do visit his website from time-to-time*, as he shares amazing stuff like this:

*I just wish his website had an RSS feed for new content. (Get with the program Jay!)

Book Review: Team of Rivals

When I was officiating hockey games in my younger days we were provided a lot of coaching, more so even than the players in the contest. One of the things impressed upon us was the fact that the best officials are invisible. The ideal contest is one where the participants and spectators went home having remembered only that an excellent game was played, with no memory whatsoever of they guys out there in striped shirts. That is not to say that we shouldn’t be there, only that we should not impose ourselves upon the contest in a fashion that would have us stand out. As an official our duties were to the game, and to only see that it was fairly played. Doing so takes a tremendous amount of skill. That fact seems counter-intuitive, but it is true. The best Referees and Linemen however are always the ones you never notice.

In many ways the same can be said of authors. If their storytelling craft is well-developed your mind becomes immersed in the tale. You see the images, the places, the people. Your immersion is so deep that the teller of the tale, through their very skill, becomes invisible. Doris Kearns Goodwin comes very close to this level of perfection in her book Team of Rivals. The only times I became aware of her were the moments when historical fact did not align perfectly with her central thesis; that Lincoln’s choice of Cabinet was political genius. Several grave errors and embarrassments were tossed off as minor when in the end they proved to be major. Otherwise however the read was delightful, and truly transported me back 140 years to this country’s darkest days; our Civil War. Growing up, as I did in “The Land of Lincoln” (as our license plates confirmed) we were taught as schoolchildren about the brilliance and greatness of Abraham Lincoln. He freed the slaves and saved the Union. But other than some dates, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, that night at Ford’s Theatre, and the 13th Amendment, we were rarely taught much in school about the man, as President, as a politician and leader. This book provides an excellent primer on the latter, while skimming over those towering issues linked above. It served therefore to me, as a nice counterweight to my schooling on Lincoln.

I’m glad I stumbled upon this book in the bookshelf and grabbed it, as it has provided me with a lot of food for thought. Thought concerning conflict resolution mostly, but also about our nation’s history and how political wounds can be healed. It was not until I was a few chapters into this book that I heard that our new President is also a fan of it. His choice of Secretary of State was lifted right from the pages. We’ll see how the rest plays out.

Review: Daemon

I read this book, literally in about 4 hours. Those hours were spread around about three days, in 5 to 50 minute increments. It did not even last long enough to make it into my “what I’m reading now” listing over there! ->

My friend and occasional commentator here Dan O’Donnell loaned it to me a while back, and it has been sitting in my bookshelf waiting in the queue. I love to read, and rarely in my life is there not some book in my bag that I’m working my way through. I tend to prefer non-fiction, with an emphasis on history, philosophy, and things that provoke thought. Daemon does not fall into any of these categories. It does provoke a bit of thought, but mostly it is a Crichton-esque techno-thriller. It reads like a near-future sci-fi movie (which, I understand it will become at some point.) I finished Jospehy’s definitive history of the Nez Perce and the Inland Northwest, and am pondering a lot of what I absorbed from that… meanwhile picking up something escapist and swift was a nice change of pace.

While most of the technology it explores is plausible, a lot of the plot elements themselves are absurdly implausible. But like a good Bond movie, you suspend your disbelief and ride the roller coaster anyway. One of my guilty pleasures is spotting continuity errors in movies (I add at least one “goof” to IMDB for every movie I watch) and as this book unfolded like a movie I was able to pick up a bunch of them. The errors started compounding rapidly towards the end, and as the final chapters converged my suspension of disbelief reached a breaking point. Several plot threads were either deliberately or mistakenly left dangling, and at least two major plot points seemed jarringly, or hastily, thrown together. The story line followed this wonderful trajectory that suddenly lost momentum and fell like a brick earthward… with a slight bounce as it closed. It seems to me that either Mr. Suarez felt compelled to leave a lot out there for a sequel, or he rushed to complete this story due to some external pressure.

A great geek bodice-ripper for a long flight, but not much more.

Contemplating a new Camera

One of my frequent commentators, jculpjr recently asked about what sort of camera gear I use. It was a timely question as I’m seriously considering a new camera. I’d like to throw out a wish list so to speak and hopefully get some feedback that will help me make a choice. Your participation is welcome.

This is the machine (photo from a contemporary review) I’ve been using to capture images since 2002:

It is an Olympus C-5050 zoom. It has been a great camera for me and I still find it useful, however it is getting a tad beat up and it has some weaknesses that I’d like to eliminate with a new machine. However, let me start by telling you what I like about it most, in order of importance:

  • It is small and lightweight.
  • It runs on AA batteries.
  • Did I mention it is small and lightweight?
  • It has fairly easy controls, and a lot of manual settings.
  • It works well on “point & shoot” mode quite well.
  • It shoots VERY well in low-light conditions.
  • It has this nifty flip-out LCD:

You have no idea how handy this is when shooting with the camera at arm’s length, something I do a LOT. It flips both up AND down, meaning I can hold the camera way above my head, or down on the ground an still see the LCD screen.

Some other nice things about it:

  • It has a “movie” mode, so at the flip of a switch it can be a video camera, with sound.
  • It has lens adapters so I can shoot with a wide-angle or a telephoto.
  • It has never given me trouble.

Now, here are the things I hate about it:

  • Whenever I change batteries, the date/time reverts to midnight 01/01/2002. This is annoying especially since all the other settings (flash, drive mode, etc) are saved!
  • It is NOT an SLR. It has a viewfinder, which I adore, as that is how I prefer to shoot, rather than looking at a screen, but that viewfinder does not see what the lens sees. This is fine when working with the built-in lens, but utterly fails when you add a lens adapter. In the latter case the lens almost always blocks the viewfinder. This hurts as I shoot with a very wide angle lens MOST of the time.
  • The tripod mount is off-center from the lens. A design crime of the highest order in a camera!
  • The LCD is small compared to today’s cameras.

So my ideal camera is a Digital SLR, that is small and lightweight with a good, reasonably-sized multi-angle LCD. After that, I’d like it to have great lenses, good controls, and the ability to shoot video & sound. Size is my primary concern though. I used Mark Collien’s Nikon D-something on the GTTSR and it is am amazing camera… great lens(!) and awesome photos but my gawd… it was friggin HUGE! I just don’t want to lug around something that big & heavy.

So I’m all ears if you have some suggestions. I have ZERO brand loyalty, and am open to any and all comers.

Mini Movie Review: Religulous

I saw this movie a few weeks ago. I had an evening free, and a coupon for a free movie, so for the price of expensive popcorn, I had some entertainment for about 100 minutes.

(Note: I love movies and as a person with a lot of visual training I appreciate films and filmmaking. I have a continuous NetFlix queue and watch about 5 movies a week. I could probably post as many movie reviews here as I do car photos. Who knows, perhaps I will.)

This movie is not really an artistic expression, or an example of the filmmakers art however. It is a shaky-cam documentary with Bill Maher questioning religious believers about the bizarre and illogical portions of their religions. He takes great joy in revealing the ironies, hypocrisies, and logical fallacies of organized religion. Organized western religions that is, as those of us in the western world have very little knowledge or context to analyze eastern religious belief, so he left those out.

It was of course thought provoking, and entertaining. The relentless knife of Occam’s Razor leaves very little left of religious belief, since so much of it appears to be stuff people made up as they had no other mechanism to answer questions of the unknown. As mankind gains knowledge, mythology is revealed for the nonsense of which it is, mostly. When intellect and empiricism is applied to mythology, very little survives. For example Thomas Jefferson, a man of considerable intellect, endeavored to condense the New Testament into logical statements, devoid of supernaturalism, and it ended up being less than 20 pages long. In large print. Go ahead, it is a quick read.

Or, you can flip it 180° to JUST the mythology and get it down to one small image file.

Of course Judiasm and Islam get equitable treatment in Religulous. Maher is an equal opportunity offender. Even Scientology and pot smokers gets skewered. It was good fun though everyone he interviewed became defensive and hostile when confronted with absurdities they held dear, whether it be virgin birth, talking snakes, expending effort on a particular day of the week, or eating one food but not another. Ironically the exceptions were two Catholic Priests, representing the Vatican no less, who seemed to take it all with a great sense of humor… It only took them about 400 years to come around to accept a heliocentric understanding. Perhaps there is hope after all?

The very fact that every religion continually subdivides into factions, big and small, is sufficient proof to me that nobody has a monopoly on truth. Every religion has at its kernel the golden rule, but wrapped around it are layers and layers of bullshit, mythology and irrelevant minutiae, and wrapped around that is an a hard shell ethic that says “everyone else is wrong.” “Others” are doomed to eternal punishment, or deserving of death, or whatever – and that certitude is in direct opposition to the core belief itself.

Unfortunately humans cling hardest to beliefs that are unknown, and refuse to subject them to serious inquiry and questioning. Instead they accept words written a millennia or more ago, and handed down through time as the divine word.

Then they fight over them. Usually to the point of violating commandments.

Where Religulous fell apart was the ending. Literally the final few minutes. It attempted to draw a conclusion to the previous 98 minutes of lighthearted inquiry. It fell into the same logical trap that religion does: “All those other people are crazy, so we are doomed.” In other words “They are wrong.” This was accompanied by a barrage of disturbing images delivered in a propagandistic style that would make Leni Riefenstahl proud. For me it literally ruined my night. C’mon Bill, you can do better.

One of the founding principles of this country is religious freedom. People can believe in whatever they wish, and so long as they don’t harm, or steal in the process, they’re welcome to be here. The Constitution says that Government has to butt out, and not try to impose any one belief system on its citizens (unfortunately something it fails at in innumerable small ways however.) Roughly one-fifth of all Americans are non-believers, or have chosen to not follow any specific faith, a fact that the believers often forget or ignore. But you can not legislate thought, or belief. Nor can you deny others their freedoms to speak, think, worship, and believe. I have no problem with fundamentalists building museums showing people and dinosaurs living together. Just don’t use government funding to build it, expect tax breaks because of it, or attempt to push it into the public school curriculum. I’ll defend to the death your right to believe batshit crazy stuff. Just don’t expect me to buy into your beliefs.

Bill Maher should have left his doom-filled conclusion on the cutting room floor and left us to draw our own conclusions… but hey, he’s entitled to his own opinions. 😉

An old habit dies… hard.

I have a confession to make: I’ve been using the same email user agent for about eighteen years. Yes… EIGHTEEN years. How many software products from 1990 do you still use?

In 1990 I was using a Macintosh IIsi, System 6.0.7, and Eudora 1. If I recall correctly it was version 1.3 or 1.5. I used my wife’s student account at the University of Washington to get online at first. A shell account on a UNIX host, a newsfeed (Newswatcher!) and trusty old Eudora for reading mail. I had a Hayes 2400baud modem at first, then I joined the 90s eventually with a Prometheus 14.4k modem, with built-in fax AND voicemail. (I was doing full-blown telephony in 1991!)

But trusty old Eudora was my mailer. It stayed my mailer.

I went through many machines (MacII, Centris 650, PowerBook 170, Duos, the infamous green 2400c subnotebook, iMacs, G4s, a TiBook that wheezed itself to death eventually, and now my current, though aging aluminum G4 PowerBook.) But Eudora remained my mailer.

I upgraded operating systems (System 7, OS8, did my best to skip OS9, jumped to X when it finally stabilized, through all the iterations of OSX up to 10.4) and Eudora kept on chugging. I managed to keep just about every bit of mail I had sent or received from about 1994 through 1998… when the great Jaz drive failure hit me as I was moving machines in the UK. Did I give up? Nope, I just started again.

Now I have just about every mail I have sent or received since 1998… all carried around in a pair of “Eudora Folders” on my hard drive (and backed up here, there, and everywhere!)

I have adapted to Eudora and it has adapted to me.

I have two distinct mail modes: work and non-work. I don’t read non-work email at work (except around lunchtime) and I TRY not to read work-related email when I am not at work, at least not on my laptop (that is what my Blackberry is for!) I have YEARS of well-tuned mail filters built (I should screen-shot them… they would astound you! Want to see them? Ask in the comments) and a signature file that is very long (it is how I have packed the “random quotes” here on my site.)

Unfortunately Qualcomm announced Eudora’s demise a while back and I knew this day would come. I test drove several other mail clients, but to be honest… all of them sucked. I know people think Eudora sucked, but it worked for me and I liked it. Hell, I stuck with it for EIGHTEEN YEARS!

I thought about Entourage. Yuck. Way too MS Office-ish. That big honking monolithic mail database terrifies me. Eudora has always stored mail is unix mbox format – plain old text files. Dealing with a corruption was just a matter of firing up BBEdit or vi. Clickty-click. I think that has happened to me three times in 18 years. I have known way too many folks who have had one form or another of Microsoft mail database files go tango uniform on them at inopportune moments. Frequently. No thanks.

I tried Mail.app. I really did. Inertia almost drove me there. It was the one I have test driven the longest. But the rules/filtering is just abysmal compared to Eudora. The mailbox handling lame. And I noted that it becomes a complete pig when you try to deal with large volumes of mail like I do. Searching through my multi-gig mailing list archives for some string of words? Seconds in Eudora! Minutes or a system crash in Mail.app. Yuck.

I’m planning a jump to OSX 10.5, mostly so I can support my family members who all use it. There have been issues reported for the last version of Eudora (6.2) on the latest OS from Apple. I figured now is the time to make the leap away from my old friend.

I thought about Odysseus, as it is billed as a modern replacement for Eudora. However it seems to be in perpetual beta, that seems more like alpha from the users I’ve talked to.

I looked at Thunderbird. No thanks. The UI is just … well… bleagh.

I stumbled across a likely little application that seems to fit the bill: Gyazmail. It has a very flexible UI that allows me to make it behave very Eudora-like when I want it to. It has very good search, rules, and filters. It can import all my old mail(!)

I’m test driving it at the moment and liking it so far. Switched my work mail to it late last week, and my personal mail is still coming over one account at a time. So far so good. If you regularly contact me via email be patient while I work through this transition period.

Good-bye Eudora… it has been a good 18 years.