Strings - Fantastic movie. See it. Thanks, Tall Guy!
9 - Not to be confused with District 9, which I did for a long time, much to the bewilderment of those to whom I was speaking. It's an interesting contrast to Strings, because while Strings let me have the (to me) supremely satisfying experience of saying "I wonder why that's... oh... oh right, of course things would be that way!", 9 did the opposite. The more I thought about it, the more I was going "Wait a minute, how is that even... why would..." There's also the whole CGI versus "real" thing, and I'm glad people are still experimenting with the real. At the risk of sounding like those audiophile snobs who only ever listen to vinyl on tube amps... I like the real stuff better.
Scribblenauts - Really quite fun. I can't believe I didn't think of this. For the record, it doesn't work (you get the Starite but it's inert. Though if you throw it at a muskox you will anger the beast and it will trample you).
STOnline - Got a good response at PAX. I was very pleased to hear that the space UI isn't as impenetrable as I'd thought.* Friends and Family is going gratifyingly well for what is basically an alpha test... it's good to see that we try and improve on the past. Champions learned a lot from CoX, STO is learning a lot from Champions. Onwards and upwards!
Art You Can Eat - Just cool. I think the last one's my favourite. Again, setting up the real thing and taking pictures of it is (to me) more viscerally satisfying than if the whole thing were Photoshopped.
* I'm having to adjust my design principles slightly; having someone say "it was hard at first, but I figured it out eventually" usually triggers a redesign in "grownup" UIs. In games, having someone say this can be a good thing. Which is sort of ironic; people usually have to learn to use a UI for work, yet those UIs tend to be underdesigned (to say the least) exactly because the user doesn't usually have a choice. People will adapt to just about anything. Games, which are entirely discretionary, have to have UI that carefully steers between hand-holding (insulting) and impossible (why bother?) and tries to hit the sweet spot of overcoming-an-achievable-challenge and giving a sense of accomplishment. It's a challenge.
(ever have a verse that gets stuck in your head and won't leave? The title is the first bit of one that I'm giving involuntary brainspace to right now...)
But as R:tAG put it:
Yay us! If you were at our wedding, do you feel old yet?
Regency trousers are done, vest is in the works*, shoes are ordered, my hat and reticule are still on deck. Prognosis for achieving full costumed status: favourable.
We attended the RiffTrax Live event here in San Jose last Thursday and it was very funny. Perhaps not the best thing to attend with a friend who is suffering from a double hernia** though. I was also thinking of what they could have done to make it feel more like a live distributed event... this is a cool thing to do and it's odd that it just still felt like we were watching a taped live performance, if that makes sense.
So of course I started thinking about the U of C HCI lab and their Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) projects because they had some really neat ideas (even years and years ago when I was in academia) on how to make people who are geographically separated feel like they are still working together. So now I'm thinking of designs to make people in ~200 theatres feel like they are having a shared experience, without that becoming the main event. Like Walt Whitman nothing good will come of it,*** but it's a neat problem.
Oh, and here are some random links. It's been a while since I've done random links:
Otter Half
ZooBorns - As good as Cute Overload but without the tooth-gratingly twee text.
Cute Kitten - Hi, Bne!
Wondermark
A Handy Flowchart
Zebras
Hm. A picture-heavy link list, I notice. Maybe I've used all my words.
ETA: Yep, I'd used all my words before I mentioned that Terry and Dancin' Cicada Jen paid us an all-too-short visit last week. It was great, though it was such short notice... only six weeks!**** We just hung out and talked, really, but we also found this good Ethiopian place. Ethiopian bread is like eating sour J-cloths... but in a really good way. Yum.
* With the caveat that the collar modification is still unimplemented. And that rayon brocade is a slippery bitch goddess.
** Not a figure of speech, alas. Poor guy.
*** Hi, Cenobyte!
**** The sarcasm hand sign is up.
R:tAG is feeling better, but everyone should still noodzh him into seeing a physiotherapist to find out what preventative measures he can take. And then noodzh him into actually taking those preventative measures.
So I didn’t want to really mention this at the time, because of perhaps over-thought privacy concerns and everything, but the “quite a lot of stuff” that I mentioned in my last post including entertaining the fabulous Neuba and James, seen here experiencing Bay Area prices* for the first time:
Despite R:tAG’s lack of mobility we got a reasonable amount of stuff done, showing our guests some of our favourite places and also turning them loose to fend for themselves (and walk for miles; sorry about that) when we had to work. So it was an excellent visit and it was wonderful to see them again!
If you like fantasy on the order of George R. R. Martin or Warhammer (low, gritty, muddy, cussin’, bad-things-happening-to-good-people fantasy, in other words) then may I recommend Joe Abercrombie? I’m halfway through the second book of his “The First Law” series, and I am enjoying it quite a bit.
I’m not going to complain about my ant problem for a good long while.
Those Twilight books seem to be the new big tweener thing (alas for feminism). I don’t have to read them, thanks to the marvelous Cleolinda. ETA: They seem to be a direct ripoff of the Anita Blake books, just minus all the sex. And plots not related to sex. And female characters who are easily differentiated from doormats. OK, I'll stop now. ETAA: Check these out. Haw!
I think I need these boots like I have never needed footwear before.
* This was the same restaurant wherein Cheruby managed to break a tooth on scrambled eggs; we had no dental misfortune during this meal.
The visitors of Round 3 arrive today, hopefully, ‘cause their plane’s fifteen minutes late already and it hasn’t even left yet. And there have been Baggage Issues.
Here are some links that I’ve just been idly collecting. You’ve probably seen most of these. You might have even sent me these. Forgive me, the temperature outside just shot up to 100F / 38 C today, and my brain is correspondingly sluggish.
Find Your Daemon - Golden Compass related, of course. A very pretty web site. “Your profile reveals that you are modest, spontaneous, inquisitive, a leader, and assertive. You are therefore matched with the Crow Daemon.” Modest? I don’t think so, but I think all in all I’m very pleased with Anicetos. One of the other questions was about being easily distracted, and of course I
Sorry, I just saw something shiny. Where was I? Oh yeah. Crow daemon. Yeah, I like him.
- Flying Chocolate Pig - A culinary principle of mine is that any food can be improved by adding chocolate or bacon. But both?
- Lori Nix Photography - Pritty
- Desiree Palmen Photography - Amazing
- Weird Japanese Fetish - Or is that triply redundant?
- The Atheist Apocalypse - Look especially at the details.
- Weird Nature - Fascinating and horripilating.
- Miniatures by Thomas Doyle - Love. This.
- My latest earworm - "Latest" in that it's been in my head for almost a month now. Argh.
OK, first of all, HAH! I told you it was evil and disgusting!
Second, I don’t understand why this is funny. I’d watch it.
Thirdly, why was I not told about The DM of the Rings?
Fourthly… ah, the hell with the numbering thing. Here are some more cool links.
The Reader’s Manifesto - Cenobyte, read this.
And on a related note (sort of) the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Contest results
Goth dance instructions
The pinnacle of Lolcats (it gets no better)
Eyeball Pincushions - I’m going to make a batch of these. Who wants one?
Laid-Back Labour - Hobbies and economics. Actually interesting.
Oh, and we had an anti-Labour Day weekend because R:tAG had to work for most of it. On the plus side, I finished off three items in my knitting queue, made progress on another, and started two new ones, and since I was alone in the house, was able to commandeer most of the living room floor to block the Mystery Stole.* I keep forgetting how much lace grows when it’s blocked (no pictures of it being worn; I’ve tried and tried to get decent pictures in the only full length mirror in the house but the light is just not right.)
* My room is taken up right now with the construction of a polonaise. It is fiddly but straightforward. I even remembered to use my corseted measurements, which meant that I could use a fabric width of 36" instead of the recommended 45" (barely!), which meant that I didn't feel quite as stupid for accidentally buying 36" fabric (the lesson here is if the price seems really low for a fabric, CHECK ITS WIDTH!).
We’re on daylight savings three weeks early, by government fiat, so today is a day of confused computers and general brain-lag because all of a sudden it's an hour later than it should be. Luckily my Mom called yesterday to remind me it was happening (she knows that, having been raised in a sane place, I tend to forget these arbitrary time changes).
I’ve just been accumulating links for the past few weeks and saving them for a day where there is nothing else particularly of interest. And that day is here!
We went to see 300 yesterday. I liked it, but I think R:tAG liked it more than I did. I think the movie appeals especially to something in the male hindbrain even though visually this is a movie for the ladies, what with all the leather posing pouches and the CGI enhanced abs* and all. We did get a few giggles from one scene where the narrator describes Leonidas as standing in front of the Persians with his 300 men behind him… and what’s actually behind him is this little turtle of about 15 shields. I started snickering and R:tAG whispered “Maybe they’re all in a hole” which made me snicker even more**. And poor Ephialtes… it’s not enough that his name was already synonymous with Benedict Arnold, he gets portrayed as a deformed monster? And Xerxes? The hell?***
We also saw Ghost Rider last weekend (which was powerful weak IMHO and others’) and Talladega Nights, which was funnier than I thought it would be. It’s sort of unfortunate, though not really, that the two movies are getting blended together in my head. I mean, both have racing guys in suits covered in logos (with pornish girlfriends and good ol' boy sidekicks) screaming about being on fire… I’m not crazy, it’s true!
Anyway, on to these links!
Person Cosy - I have so had days like this.
Huggies Thongs
The Awful Guide to Graduate School
Squee! - They’re making a “The Dark is Rising” movie, and it’s got Christopher Eccleston in it!
Scott Adams’ Happiness Formula - Similar to the old “Good, cheap or fast; pick two” axiom.
Bulwer-Lytton 2006 Fiction Contest - the long-running contest for the "best" (i.e. worst) opening sentence of works in various genres.
NFCTD - So, so pretty
Order of the Stick - This is always funny, but Mr. Burlew has really outdone himself with this one (no background required)
OK, these last two are knitting-related, sort of, but they’re so ridiculous that I think they’re of general appeal:
Scarf - This is a pattern. INSTRUCTIONS for wrapping a hank of yarn around your neck. For when actually making anything from it is just too much work
High Fashion Knitting - This just made me stare and laugh. The sixth picture in particular. How much would you have to pay someone to wear that?
* Really, it was excessive. At one point I thought it looked like nothing more than a parade of McRib sandwiches in red cloaks.
** The other time I snickered was when a Spartan referred dismissively to the Athenians as “lovers of boys.” O RLY? Though I did appreciate that they kept a few indicators that the Spartans continued homosexual relationships into adulthood – i.e. that the dismissive remark was on the order of “They are lovers of boys… we are lovers of men!”
*** My biggest problem with the movie was how much it felt like thinly disguised Republican propaganda... the small group of Manly Aryan Men (are there that many blonde Greeks?) bucking the cowardice of the (old and/or diseased and/or corrupt) opposition and going to defend themselves against the evil and degenerate threat from the Middle East... eeesh.
