Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

XXX

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Okay, yeah, so everyone told me it was a bad movie. I just wanted to find out for myself. And whaddaya know — they were right! A willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but when the fight scenes in both Matrix films pay more attention to the laws of physics than the stunts in XXX, it’s really not a good sign (and that thought hit me in the first twenty minutes of the film).

Ah, well. It killed a couple hours, and there were plenty of scantily-clad women scattered throughout the film to ease the pain a little bit. Too bad the female lead looked like a strung out Juliette Lewis, though.

Getting personal

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An interesting article in the NYT today about the pros and cons of getting personal with weblogs, something I occasionally struggle with. My site tends to be somewhat dry much of the time, but while I occasionally toy with the idea, I’ve never been too sure if I want to “open up” more in such a public medium.

I’m not likely to make a dramatic shift in the tone of this weblog — I’m naturally fairly private and reserved, and not likely to go into any sort of no-holds-barred expose — but there are definitely times I consider broadening the scope of what I write about. Maybe I’ll head that direction at some point, maybe I won’t, I’m not too sure. It bears consideration, however.

Of course, since I just edited this post three times, and almost deleted it, things may stay just as they are. ;)

(via Paulo)

Almost perfect

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My current workspace here at home has been a bit cramped for a while. I’ve got two computers under my desk (one Mac and one PC), and three 17\” monitors on my desk (two for the Mac, one for the PC). It’s a nice workspace, but when you factor in two keyboards and two trackballs, it leaves very little actual deskspace left over.

This weekend, I picked up a new trackball for my Mac (a Microsoft Office Keyboard that I got free from work), my trackball, and my printer all plugged into the USB hub, switchable between both of my computers. Far more manageable, and I’ve got a lot more desk space available (of course, that means I’ll just have that many more soda cans strewn across my desk, but that’s beside the point…).

The only oddball glitch is that, for some odd reason, the Mac will occasionally forget about all the devices after I switch over to the PC and then switch back to the Mac. I’m not sure why this is, and was afraid I was going to have to go back to two sets of keyboards and trackballs. Then I discovered that as long as I leave the old Mac keyboard plugged in (sitting vertically on the floor, leaning against the Mac’s case), then when the Mac doesn’t respond to the keyboard or trackball that are on the switch, all I have to do it tap a key on the old keyboard with my toe, and suddenly everything on the switch starts responding again. It’s a little odd — and not quite a perfect solution, but hey, it works.

This babble brought to you courtesy of the fact that as I’ve been posting rather sporadically for the past week, I need some filler posts on the main page so that my site doesn’t look too tweaky. ;)

The Matrix has me!

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I’ve been in complete Matrix mode for most of this weekend — saw the sequel Thursday night, watched the original yesterday with Prairie, and then went back to see the sequel again tonight.

I’ve also been going through the discussion thread on the Home Theater Forum (all 20-some pages of it so far!), and in addition to a lot of very interesting conversation about the film, many good links have been posted. I’ve added quite a few of those to the end of my movie post, so if you’re as caught up in all this as I am, you might enjoy poking around some of them.

Lastly, an amusing post from the forementioned discussion thread…

I’m entirely baffled how anyone can characterize this as the WORST Movie/WORST sequel of all time

Many people

  • don’t see a lot of movies
  • have a short memory or attention span, so they give more weight to recent events
  • have a poor vocabulary
  • have no sense of scale or nuance, as evidenced by the typical “sucks”/”rules” dichotomy
  • can’t hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time
  • are unable to balance their high expectations in an objective appraisal
  • are idiots
  • are about as useful as a Duracell
  • some of the above
  • all of the above

— Ken Chan

The Matrix: Reloaded

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Just got back from seeing The Matrix: Reloaded. In short, I’m quite satisfied with what I was presented with. At the same time, I can certainly understand why so many middling to flat out bad reviews have been popping up in the last few days. I don’t think that this is the sequel that people were really expecting, and I think that that is what is affecting many of the reviews. For my part, the fact that the story is moving in ways that weren’t expected is exactly the reason I enjoyed it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final chapter in six months or so.

Briefly, I’d definitely recommend it — on three conditions.

First: Realize that this, much like Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, is not a self-contained movie. It doesn’t answer all the questions it raises, and ends on a cliffhanger. Thankfully, it’s a relatively short wait for the next and final chapter.

Second: Don’t expect a standard-formula Hollywood sequel. Don’t turn off your brain when you go in (one of the things I enjoy about these movies is that they provide brain food as well as good eye candy), but don’t head in with too many preconceived notions and expectations, either.

Third: Probably the most important, this is not a movie to go into cold. I’d highly recommend watching The Matrix beforehand, if you’re not already fairly familiar with the first film in the series. The Matrix: Reloaded builds and expands upon the foundation laid in The Matrix, but without some familiarity with the first film, it’d be fairly easy to get lost, especially towards the end. Optionally, if you have the time/bandwidth to do so, reading through the comics (especially ‘Bits and Pieces‘) and watching the Animatrix episodes ‘The Second Renaissance, Part One and Part Two to get some historical background of the Man/Machine conflict and the creation of the Matrix. More thoughts…more loosely structured, and ripe with possibilities for expansion and further exploration later on.

Firstly, just to get it out of the way, the effects are 95% of what they were hyped to be. There were a few instances in the “burly brawl” (where Neo is fighting upwards of 100 Agent Smiths) that didn’t quite look right, but overall, mindboggling work. So. Done. Now on to the more interesting stuff.

The Matrix set the ground rules, but The Matrix: Reloaded is rewriting them. Not disregarding them, but fleshing them out and re-interpreting them, finding the loopholes in the rules that were previously written and exploiting them, while still remaining true to the core story. Fascinating to watch, and a big part of why I believe that this isn’t a “safe”, normal Hollywood sequel.

Lots of interesting questioning of beliefs, and how much beliefs (or conflicting beliefs) really matter. Early in the film, Morpheus is having an argument with one of his superiors. After Morpheus expresses his belief in Neo as “The One” and in Neo’s ability to save everyone, his superior says, “Not everyone believes what you do.” Morpheus responds, “My beliefs don’t require them to.” A little later on, Link (one of the new characters) is getting ready to leave with Morpheus and the gang. His wife, not thrilled that he’s leaving, gives him a necklace for luck. “Aw, come on, you know that I don’t believe in all that…” he complains. “But I do,” she tells him, and gives him the necklace. I thought both scenes were nicely done.

Three key scenes that I’d like to watch quite a few more times to work my way through the various ideas and concepts presented, just to make sure I understood them all: the Merovingian’s monologue in the restaurant regarding choice and cause/effect; the conversation between Neo and the Oracle in the playground where we learn more about the Oracle’s role in the Matrix; and the revelations regarding the Matrix given to Neo towards the end of the film. Lots of information is presented fairly quickly in those three scenes, and they each bear some re-watching.

A very interesting (and very spoiler filled, don’t read this before seeing the movie) rundown of the events in the film is up at The Hot Button (via this (spoiler-filled) HTF thread). There are a few other Matrix articles up on the same site, all linked to at the bottom of that Hot Button page. It’s worth reading them all.

This is good for a giggle.

Salon’s review is excellent (both a positive review of the film, and a well-written review).

A transcript of the conversation between Neo and the Architect can be found here.

Dad sent me this article from Beliefnet exploring some of the religious symbolism in the Matrix films.

Local Seattle alternative paper reviews: The Stranger and the Seattle Weekly.

Another nice point to the movie: when Trinity has some hacking to do, instead of flashy 3D “movie style” graphic displays, she calls up a command line and uses the real-world nmap utility! I noticed this and grinned while I was watching the film, and other people are picking up on it too. The Register has an article about it, too.

The New Yorker’s pan of The Matrix: Reloaded, and The Hot Button’s rebuttal (snide, but has some good points).

A good analysis of religious symbolism here.

Something amusing: MatrixXP. ;)

Thanks to Kirsten for this Salon article: The Matrix way of Knowledge.

Not In Our Name wants you to take the red pill.

Abstract Dynamics points out possible political undertones.

The teaser for The Matrix: Revolutions has hit the ‘net.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

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Thoroughly enjoyable! Not really a lot to it, all told (Greek-American girl meets American boy, boy has to cope with her very proudly Greek family), but a quite pleasant and silly movie. When Dad was telling me about it after he saw it, he compared it to his family — having survived (and enjoyed) a couple family reunions, I can definitely see the parallels. While our middle-American roots aren’t quite the same as the Greek roots in the movie’s family, in many ways, a big family is a big family, no matter what their heritage…and I think I’m glad I don’t have 27 first cousins! Anyway, definitely worth a rent.

Speeding things up

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If all has gone well, I should have just sped up my site when processing new comments or trackback pings, thanks to Sean Willson’s mt rebuild type modification.

Technical details follow (Kirsten, you’ll want to look at this one…)

(via Phil)

By default, MT rebuilds all index templates whenever an entry is created or edited, or when a comment is added. This is done to keep everything as up to date as possible, and is as it should be.

However, as a site grows, and as more bells and whistles are added to it, the time it takes to rebuild all those templates keeps growing. The usual set of index templates includes the main index page, the RSS feed, the main archives index page, the CSS stylesheet, plus whatever archive pages may be set up — all this has to be rebuilt, along with the page for an individual entry, whenever anything changes on a site.

I’d already done what I could to speed up my rebuild by setting my stylesheets to only rebuild when I specifically tell them to (as they normally don’t change), but I’d also added a few more index templates to the mix (the excerpts for my main table of contents page and a secondary RSS feed). All of this was what has caused my server to run so godawfully slow whenever comments or trackback pings are received.

Sean’s modification changes the way MT’s rebuild system works, though. While by default, MT only allows you to set whether a particular template is an index template (and therefore needs to be rebuilt regularly) or not, with this modification in place, there is much finer control over which templates are rebuilt under what circumstances.

So now, my table of contents excerpts, master archive list, and RSS feeds will only rebuild when I add or edit an entry. The main index file will rebuild whenever entries are added or edited, or when new comments are received. Additionally, individual entry pages should rebuild when trackback pings are received automatically, instead of my having to rebuild them manually (which is what I’ve been doing).

Kirsten — the reason I wanted you to peek in on this one is that as this is a modification to the MT system itself, and not just my weblog, you may need to go into your templates and set the rebuild options for each one. Everything may work normally if you don’t, but I’m not entirely sure how it will work if those fields haven’t been set, and you try to add an entry. The changes should be fairly obvious (you’ll need to go into the edit screen for each template, and choose the right option from the new drop-down menu), but if you need any help, feel free to e-mail me or IM me if it’s late enough. Hopefully this doesn’t leave you grumbling at me! ;)

Signs

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First and foremost — creepy. Extremely so. Shyamalan excels when it comes to creating unsettling moods, and he uses that to full effect throughout the movie. Unfortunately, after ninety minutes of buildup, the end is something of a letdown — a bit too pat and sudden after all that suspense, not to mention an extremely heavy dose of ‘deus ex machina‘. I was reminded both of Chrichton’s ‘Andromeda Strain’ and many Heinlein novels — page turners ’til the very end, when everything just suddenly stops. Quite unsatisfying.

Having watched all three of Shyamalan’s films now (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs), I think he’s an excellent director, and a very gifted conceptualizer, but I also think he could benefit from turning over his ideas to a more accomplished writer. While I’ve enjoyed each of his films, I’ve also found each of them somewhat lacking. The Sixth Sense was very much a one-trick pony (worth watching only twice: once to be surprised by the twist end, and again to catch all the clues you missed the first time), Unbreakable was an interesting idea but was too distant and cold in its execution to really grab me, and Signs topped off an atmosphere of tension and suspense that many horror movies could really use with a letdown of a resolution.