Santa Clause 2
2002.10.31
I just returned from attending the cast and crew screening of Disney's
"The Santa Clause 2", which GVFX had worked on for quite some
time. To be perfectly honest, the film was much better than what I expected.
I mean, it's predictable and corny in the worse kind of Disney tradition,
but there are some good jokes and the underlying story is decent. If you're
in a Christmas kind of mood, or you need a movie to take young children
to, I recommend this one.
I must admit it was neat to see my name in the credits. Of course, with
the visual effects credits being where they are in movies, millions of
people across North America will have walked out of the theatre, gotten
in their cars and be half way home before my name comes up. At least I
got to see my name on the "silver screen" I suppose, unlike
some people. You know who you are....Chris Wren!
I haven't caught the new Enterprise yet, but it should be on a
tape somewhere waiting for me. I'll try and watch it tomorrow. Hopefully
it was good.
L33T
2002.10.29
To be quite honest, I don't even know what
L33T means, let alone the rest of the vocabulary. I'm sure it has
something to do with "cool" and "computer",
but I can't be certain. If anyone knows of a nifty L33T dictionary or
something, please drop me a line.
I often wonder how the English language is going to evolve into the future.
Will it be permeated by more and more slang until the English of the future
is only a shadowy bastard child of today's dialect? That seems most likely.
As far as I'm concerned, it's free to go that way. The big condition I
have is that English should seep into every culture on the planet. Hopefully
someday there will only be one cohesive language spanning the entire globe.
It may be completely distorted by the time such a thing happens, but I'm
sure English will be that language's base.
The reason English has enjoyed such success is because it is one of the
most flexible languages in history. It's almost infinitely malleable;
conforming to the needs of the speaker, not the speaker to it. English
doesn't tend to get bogged down in too much tradition. It evolves quickly,
mutating into strange forms that a 19th century English professor wouldn't
even recognize. It's very easy to make additions to English, either by
combining existing words or creating new ones. It has permeated nearly
every other form of speech on the planet to the degree that even those
who speak Japanese and Chinese, English's most alien neighbours, have
begun to incorporate English words into everyday life. It is already the
language of commerce, so English only has a little further to go.
Someday everyone will speak roughly the same thing; it's just that you
and I won't recognize it.
Animation Ho!
2002.10.28
I love coming across a good animated short online. Here's one I found
recently (thanks to Rogue Trader for the link), so check
it out and make sure you've got sound.
Hopefully someday I'll actually finish one of my projects. I don't have
an interest in creating stories, short or long, and I definitely don't
have an interest in comedy. I'm not funny enough to create comedy. All
of my projects are technical and artistic exercises to me. They're things
that I like and things I do for myself, so I don't really care what people
think of them. Best case scenario, they'll say "that's cool"
and move on. That's not any way to get recognition, but then again I'm
not after it.
I hope everyone had a good weekend.
Melody
2002.10.25
I recently bought the score from the new "The Time Machine"
film. I enjoyed the movie well enough despite some obvious room for improvement,
but I remembered the music being quite good. It is.
I've never really been able to get into classical music. I mean it's
all very interesting to listen to, and those guys "back in the good
old days" wrote amazing stuff that will most likely never be equaled.
For some reason I just can't get emotionally connected to the stuff, or
at least not to the same degree as with soundtracks. I'm not exactly sure
why; maybe it's because there's a visual image and emotional feeling that
I bring with me from watching the film itself. I guess you're supposed
to "create your own feelings" with classical, but it's just
something I haven't been able to do yet.
One thing I've definitely come to appreciate in film scores is the use
of a simple melody. Many people complain that film composers come up with
one tune and use it over and over. In the purest sense that is true, but
these people tend to be interested in music almost on a mathematical level,
judging it based on the complexity of the composition and the techniques
used, and not necessarily on the emotions that the music conveys. Film
scores tend to use three or four distinct melodies, arranged differently
for slow, dramatic scenes as well as triumphant, high paced action. The
beauty of this approach is that when the music during a film slows to
a crawl, and all instruments are silenced except for a piano or a few
strings, that simple melody starts to convey more feeling that the most
complex musical composition in existence.
Well, that's how it works for me.
Versatility
2002.10.23
I've been really blank on post ideas for the last couple of days. I guess
work is just too busy.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give
orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,
die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert A. Heinlein -
I imagine most people don't live up to this statement, as things like
planning invasions and programming computers take quite a bit of training.
It is generally true however, you should be able to do as many different
things as possible. It seems as though it's human nature to become uninterested
in a task which you've been doing over and over. Perhaps this is a way
of ensuring that people don't become so limited in their abilities that
they need others around them to pick up the slack. Hey, that almost
sounds like a government worker.
New Enterprise tonight. Let's hope it turns out better than last
week.
Edit: Looks like Enterprise is a repeat tonight. Repeats
4 or 5 episodes into the season? That's really lame.
Future Flyers
2002.10.21
First, a little humour.
Now, if you haven't read about Boeing's "Bird of Prey" aircraft
yet,
check it out. Now the first thing that becomes obvious about this
aircraft is that there isn't much to it. It's basically a manned UAV;
no weapons, low performance. However, the "Bird of Prey" does
house some interesting technologies, mostly the daytime stealth abilities.
Having a paint scheme, as well as small lamps and luminous surfaces, that
help to eliminate shadows is pretty cool. The "single piece"
control surfaces are also neat, as I imagine it looks like the wing is
morphing (just a piece of flexible material covering the gaps between
the wing and the various control surfaces). The plane has a maximum speed
of 300 mph and a maximum altitude of 20,000 ft. Not exactly the next generation
fighter.
The "Bird of Prey" was first flown in 1996 however, and was
undoubtedly on the drawing board years before that. These kind of timelines
make me wonder what's being test flown at "Area 51" right now.
I'm talking about the hypersonic, ultra maneuverable fighter with a light-refracting
skin. The kind of fighter that's going to enter service in 2030 or 2040.
This "Bird of Prey" is really just the potato chip before the
5 course meal. Of course, I'm still waiting for an F-22 to show up at
Abbotsford.
I guess I'll just keep waiting.
Different Worlds
2002.10.18
Thanks to Haley for this:
Are men really from Mars? Are women truly from Venus? Here's a great
contribution to the debate offered by an English professor at an American
university.
"Today we will experiment with a literary form called the tandem
story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person
sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the
first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph
and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then
add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what
has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There
is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written
on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been
reached."
The following was actually turned in by two English students: Rebecca
(last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).
First paragraph by Rebecca:
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile,
which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded
her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile.
But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness
was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started
acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
Second paragraph by Gary:
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron
now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than
the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he
had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation17,"
he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established.
No sign of resistance so far." But before he could sign off, a bluish
particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's
cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat
and across the cockpit.
Rebecca:
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt
one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who
had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless
hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes
Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in
her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored
her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had
passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television
to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful
things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a
woman?" she pondered wistfully.
Gary:
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands
of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first
of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed
the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left
Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined
to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty
the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower
to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly
initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the
atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine
headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably
massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million
other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table.
"We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em
out of the sky!"
Rebecca:
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing
partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.
Gary:
Oh Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts
at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have
chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA? Oh no,
I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."
Rebecca:
Asshole.
Gary:
Bitch.
Rebecca:
DICK!
Gary:
Slut.
Rebecca:
Get fucked.
Gary:
Eat shit.
Rebecca:
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!
Gary:
Go drink some tea - whore.
TEACHER:
A+ I really liked this one.
Boring
2002.10.17
Nothing else describes last night's episode of Enterprise better
than that word. An entire hour devoted to Archer's sick dog. If that weren't
enough, it seems as though the writers used this opportunity to paint
"sexual tension" in huge red letters, so that if there actually
were some people stupid enough not to notice it before, they do
now. "Look everyone, there's sexual attraction between two attractive
people. One of them's the male captain, the other his female second in
command. Aren't we dramatic geniuses!!!" Sorry, I was just picturing
one of Enterprise's writers' meetings.
Most of the other Trek series, even TNG, had the same elements. The only
difference was that those shows didn't waste entire episodes on such things;
they happened during the adventures, instead of being the "adventures"
themselves. It's ironic that the writers of Enterprise keep saying
that they're trying to broaden the show's audience to improve ratings,
even though The Next Generation contained no such episodes yet
earned Star Trek it's highest ratings to date. Do you suppose people tune
in to Trek because they want to see fantastical tales of exploration and
danger? If you ask the Enterprise writers, they apparently tune
in to see the crew half naked in a decontamination room, rubbing each
other with medical gel.
On a side note, I'm always amazed at how many people there are who should
just go
away.
Return of the Champ
2002.10.16
Chris Wren is BACK!!!
I guess that whole "drawing a day" thing was too much for him.
Media Morons
2002.10.16
I hate the media. The sentence needed to describe my feelings towards
them would most likely include every single word in the English language
that could possibly be considered insulting. The job of the media is to
report the news, not make the news. They seem to have lost track of that
little definition over the years.
I am of course referring to the case of the
Washington Sniper, and reports like
these (dial-up users beware). So the sniper left a Tarot card at one
of the scenes; a death card which read "Dear Mr. Policeman, I am
God" on the back. Of course, the media comes to the obvious and logical
conclusion that this is referring to the "God-mode" found in
some video games, and that the reason this sniper is randomly killing
people is because of the influence of games which glorify the "one
shot, one kill" life of a sniper. I've got another possibility for
why someone might write "I am God" on the back of a Tarot card
after shooting random civilians: they're a fucking religious psychopath!
Of course, a conclusion like that is clearly not correct, since video
games would be in no way to blame for the attacks. It seems as though
whenever any kind of violent crime is committed, the media somehow
manages to bring video games into the equation. I, like millions of others,
have been playing games all my life, some of which involve killing hordes
and hordes of virtual people (some of which may or may not be controlled
by human players). Now, maybe my memory is a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty
sure I haven't killed anyone.
Read
this. Thanks to Penny
Arcade for posting the link!
The iPod is workin' great so far!
ID3 Tags
2002.10.13
I spent most of Saturday organizing my mp3s' ID3 tags. After my previously
unsuccessful attempt at using Winamp, I looked for other solutions. The
software that came with my iPod, Musicmatch, has some pretty powerful
ID3 options, however it only seems to support version 1 of the tag, so
it didn't serve all my needs. After some searching and testing, I found
a great program called Dr Tag. Check it out here.
I found this program so useful I actually decided to pay for it. First
time I've ever done that. With the help of Dr Tag I was able to
organize the ID3 tags of all 1300+ songs in my collection in only a few
hours. Fantastic.
I do have one complaint regarding the iPod, a complaint that stretches
to the furthest reaches of the portable music industry. The included earphones
suck! It's difficult to describe how incredibly horrible they are. It's
almost as if every single mobile music playing product ships with the
exact same earphones, all of them wrapped in fancy plastic casing
meant to create a false impression of adequacy. I'm planning on going
shopping later today for some new ones, despite the throat choking cost
of a good set. I'm positive that all these corporations have formal
agreements that create this kind of situation, just so consumers will
cough up more money.
Oh well.
Winamp Sucks!
2002.10.11
Ok, well it doesn't suck at everything. I still use it to play music,
since I like its playlist functions, especially now that version 3 is
out. I've been trying to create/modify the ID3v1 tags throughout my music
collection, and it has become apparent that Winamp just isn't up to the
task. Oh sure, I could go through each file, one by one, and change
what I need, but why? There has got to be a better solution for mass editing
of ID3 tags.
The software that comes with the iPod is supposed to be able to create
ID3 tags based on file names, but who knows how well that works. I also
don't usually include the artist name in my files, since most of them
are soundtracks. What would be really handy would be a program that would
let you shift-select a whole whack of files at once, and edit the artist/album/genre/notes
options all at once. It would also be cool if it could pick the track
number out of the file name, since that is something I always include.
I'll have to keep looking for something out there.
I have yet to find an iPod here in Vancouver. Out of all the retailers
I called, only one had any 10 gig iPods in stock, and they were all spoken
for. One of them hadn't been picked up, so I'm next on the list, but I'm
not holding out any hope. I guess it's a popular item. I hope it's worth
it.
Chris Wren's new site is going up next weekend, so I hope you're all
counting down with me. For those of you who are Babylon 5 inclined,
Chris designed all of the new ships in Legend of the Rangers. If
it's as good as he's been telling me, everyone's in for a real treat.
If it's not, I'm sure I can think of something to say, right Chris? ;)
Yeah, it was good
2002.10.10
So Enterprise finally had a good episode. There's very little
in it that can be faulted, so I'm not even going to bother going into
that much detail, as I'm sure you'll be able to find a plethora
of online reviews that nitpick every frame of the show. If you didn't
catch it, watch for it in reruns. The episode is called "Dead Stop",
and is easily one of the best episode in the series to date.
I've been researching mp3 players lately, looking into the hard drive
based models. Apple's iPod
for Windows is certainly tempting, as it comes with all sorts
of extra goodies. I'm also taking a look at Creative's Nomad
Jukebox Zen, which has double the storage of the iPod for the
same price, but forces users to use Creative's god awful Playcentre
software as the interface. The iPod resorts to Musicmatch, which
I haven't used, but it would be hard to make a worse piece of software
than Creative has. I suppose I'll get the iPod, since I can pick it up
right now, whereas the Zen is on backorder at every online retailer I
could find. It will all come down to the software in the end, so I'll
give the iPod and Musicmatch a try, and see how it goes.
Thank god the weekend is coming up.
World Police
2002.10.09
National
Post: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action
I fail to see how this article is accurate. If the anti-American sentiment
is so incapable of getting anything done, then why isn't the US in Iraq
right now? It's because of the antiwar, anti-Yank attitude that
Iraq hasn't been bombed to Hell already. It's not such a bad thing to
be an anti-American, to a certain degree. I like Americans just fine,
but I wouldn't want any country to have the power to do whatever
it wanted. The US is already pretty close.
I don't see why the US has to keep acting as the world's police. Shouldn't
we create a worldwide police force? I'm talking a strong military force
made up of troops from dozens of countries, using the most modern equipment,
and funded by a tax that every country belonging to this coalition would
have to pay. They would act as a law-protecting presence much like a city's
police force. Oh wait, we have something like that, the United Nations.
Well, it's not exactly like that. Police can usually get things
done.
The problem with any kind of organization like the UN is that it gets
bogged down by that dreaded disease which affects all organizations
of a certain size; bureaucracy. What the UN really needs is a system with
some stones, a system that punishes the law breakers instead of one where
people sit in a huge room and talk about nothing. I guess that kind of
system would need a leader. Perhaps an election every ten years or so.
The person elected would be the President of the World. Sounds a little
grandiose, but maybe it's time.
You can't run any kind of institution where everyone is allowed
to have their say.
On a side note, check this
out. It's a little sadistic, but funny none the less. Thanks to Chris
Wren for the link.
Ahhhh!
2002.10.08
The site seems to be accessible from everywhere again, finally. Hopefully
that will have been the only bump for a while. Of course, now that I've
said that, something is bound to happen
If anyone has any experience or advice when it comes to obtaining permission
to use copyrighted music in a noncommercial animation, please drop
me a line. I haven't started dealing with this yet, but I'll have
to at some point. I have no idea how much of a pain it is or isn't, or
how long it takes. I guess I'll find out.
I'm all out of ideas tonight.
Note to Self...
2002.10.07
...when switching website hosting services, sign up for the new one before
canceling the old one. Sorry for the downtime this weekend, but as you
may have guessed I was switching hosts. I'm not sure how the new guys
are going to work out, so we'll see, but it was an offer I figured I couldn't
pass up. Check it out here
if you're interested.
Playing Battlefield 1942 against bots, or on a LAN, has shown
me that there isn't anything wrong with the hitbox code. It's just easy
enough to shoot people, but not too silly al-la Counterstrike.
This being the way it is, the netcode in BF1942 must be to blame for the
horrible hit detection when playing online. The code just doesn't seem
to be very optimized. Now that there's been a patch announced, we can
all hope these issues will soon be things of the past.
I hope everyone had a good weekend. Now it's back to the grind.
Online With a Console
2002.10.03
Online gaming on consoles is a great idea, in theory. However it has
become apparent, just as the first online console games are released,
that it might have to remain a theory. Bugs and exploits are the name
of the game, and it's these things that will prevent console gaming from
really taking off online.
The great thing about games on the PC is that they can be patched. Developers
can do all they want to try and make a perfect game, but no one can see
every single flaw. When a game is released into the public, the number
of eyes looking at the game increases by a factor of millions. All of
those people find problems, the biggest of which tend to be fixed in downloadable
patches. However, a patch requires the ability to rewrite, or replace,
some of the game's files, a task which cannot be accomplished on a console
because the entire game is played off the DVD disk.
Exploits are even more of a problem. For those of you who aren't aware,
and exploit is a technique used by a player which takes advantage of a
particular aspect of a game's design. An exploit is not a bug.
It's usually a feature the developer includes in their game that seemed
like a good idea on paper, but does more harm than good in reality. Exploits
are typically not apparent until the playing public gets a hold of a game.
Example: One of the first online console games, Madden 2003 for the Playstation
2. This game includes an ingenious feature which allows people to pause
their online game (while also pausing the game of their opponent) so that
they may take bathroom/phone breaks. This seems like a good idea up front,
except when loosing players pause the game during the final play and wait
until their winning opponent logs off in frustration. Not only does this
deprive the honest, winning player of their victory, but because of Madden
2003's online ranking system, any player who logs off during a game is
credited with a loss. So what happens? The player who is about to lose
presses pause, waits for their opponent to get fed up and log off, and
are credited with a win.
PC games also have an advantage online because of the fans' ability to
modify the game to their own needs. "MODs", or modifications,
can be an important aspect of keeping the popularity of a game going over
a long period of time. Obviously MODs simply aren't possible on a console,
even on Microsoft's hard drive equipped Xbox, since one has to be able
to access a game's files and replace/rewrite them using PC software tools.
Hey, maybe I'm wrong about all of this, but it seems like console gaming
should stay offline. As with all things, only time will tell.
Invasion of the Inspectors
2002.10.02
While reading about the recent business concerning UN weapons inspectors
in Iraq, something struck me. How willing would the US be to giving foreign
inspectors free reign throughout their most secret military installations?
The US would, more than likely, tell the UN to take a hike. I imagine
there are hundreds upon hundreds of military (and even some civilian)
sites that the US government doesn't want anyone near. Just something
to think about.
Sorry for the short post. It's late, and I'm tired. Have a good day.
Geeking out
2002.10.01
I suppose sometime during my time at VFS I just accepted the fact that
I was a geek. Now it's better to be a geek than a nerd, since nerds are
the ones with no social life (outside of their nerd friends) and almost
definitely no girlfriends. Nerds tend to be fairly rare. Geeks are the
"cool" nerds.
I figure since I've accepted this social standing I might as well go
all the way with it. Buying a $650 joystick for flight sim games, as well
as a $500 Lord of the Rings replica sword, were only the beginning.
Next on my list (besides the DVD collection of Star Trek: The Next
Generation) is a complete camouflage outfit in a Stargate-SG1
theme, for use playing outdoor paintball. After that it's the water-cooled,
neon light enhanced computer system. My goal is to have all these things
taken care of by Christmas, as part of my recent "spending spree".
I just feel like spending money.
Chris Wren has his weekly editorial
up tonight, so check it out!
In case you're looking for any of the old posts, they've been moved to
the archive. This will happen every month, just
FYI.
Copyright © 1999-2008 Alec McClymont. All rights reserved. Created 2005-05.
