A good online advertisement

I must have seen millions of online ads, and ignored nearly as many, but this one, despite not being a smoker caught my eye. Good job Nicorette advertising dept.

Flip Camera is Fun

 

Digging through my Flip Camera’s settings today. Found the following in a ‘settings’ text file in a SYSTEM folder. (I was trying to figure out if firmware was updated).

[
#release:"1022590",
#object:"Have a nice day"
]

Gee, thanks flip software engineer. You have a nice day too.

Procedural Drawing

My Creative thing for today, using this tool:

these are the good ones.

Foobar setup sort by Album Artist

I noticed something very annoying when I ripped my new Galactic album in my library. It is sorted by track artist, not album artist! This also happens with Wax Tailor, and other artists that have guests.  Well, I need to fix this visual problem!

Checking the tags, all of the artists are joined together by ‘album artist’. So I went into my preferences, and made some changes.

I changed that to this:

%album artist%[ / %album%]

Then, everything works as I want it to:

Nice and Tidy!

 

The rest of my Foobar setup is currently based off of this guys. I started there, and am still tweaking things. I want a better way to see ‘now playing’ and I want support for my Logitech G15, but baby steps.

A different system of movie ratings

I dislike rating movies. They are way to subjective, biased, and unreliable. of a 0-10 scale, only the numbers 0-1, 5, and 8-10 will appear. People do not have a solid way to rate things. YouTube changed their 5 star system to a ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ system to get past inherit human disability of rating things. People would only bother rating if they thought it was great, or sucked, so a better system needed to exist.

For my own personal movie reviewing system, I got rid of the 0-5 system, and I decided to use a ‘hated-disliked-meh-liked-enjoyed-loved’ scale. Works better than numerical, but most of the movies are liked or enjoyed, and the ratings only use is finding loved or hated movies. So When I get around to reprogramming my system, I will be changing the ratings once again. I had a sense of an idea last time, where I included ‘don’t recommend, meh, recommend’ as an option. For someone going to the website looking for movies to watch, this is a much better system for movie ratings. It is no longer a subjective opinion based ‘is this good compared to all other movies?’ question, it is a ‘Do you want other people to see this? should they?"’ question. Add my new ‘never-don’t-meh-worth it-yeah-RIGHT NOW’ scale with the area open for free response. ‘I recommend this documentary, but its still a documentary’ to give users a reference point and further opinions. In my mind, this is a much more ideal system for reviewing movies. I will try and implement it soon.

Some Thoughts on Government

I am taking my high school senior mandatory Gov class. I dislike it, as it makes me think and I would rather sleep. Anyway, wrote some stuff down during classes. Taken from notebook, expanded slightly.

• Interesting: A liquid system of Gov’t where the size/influences of parties (geographic, party, interest group, branches, wings, organizations) is recalibrated regularly as needs change over time. During a hurricane / natural disaster, war efforts decrease. (a generals opinions on war would be less effective at policy changing/lower on agenda), and homeland efforts increase. Not due to need, as how current system deals it out (IE: we see hurricane, put money into homeland). but due to opinion influences changing. (during hurricane, homeland people have more power.) The system that would control this is difficult to conceptualize so practicality is farce, but imagine liquid governing.


• One individual person cannot represent one sole idea. So take this out. A representative represents his peoples opinions, all of them, multiple issues. “this guy is pro-choice”. No, he's a human being with an opinion on all or most or many issues. we want the representative to represent out opinions as best as possible.


• Compromise wins. Congress, wake the fuck up.


• Purist theory will only work with compromise. But with compromise, it is in my mind a very well-working theory. Policymakers must be in right mindset for the government to work, government cant just work because of its institutions, the people have to be willing, wanting, and knowledgeable for it to work.


• Want: an Open, transparent government, with all data available for statisticians and regular folks to analyze. Sweden?

Every Day Carry

My EDC as of now:

As for paranoid induced survival:

• Leatherman Black Oxide Surge Multi-tool
• Swiss Army Knife
• Leatherman Straight/Serrated blade Drop-point Knife

General EDC, or when at school (no knifes allowed):

• Fisher Price Spacepen
• Sharpie Pen
• Moleskin Reporter style black notebook
• Swiss army brand tri-fold wallet
• ‘Lucky’ Dollar coin
• Cell Phone
• Small Notebook with school’s class schedule glued on. Used for school assignments
• Class Ring
• Fossil Watch with broken face
• Car Keys on lanyard, with multi-key-tool, USB drive
• A daisy chained length of 550/Para Cord, length about 2.5 feet, maybe 7 inches in chain.
• Sailors Bracelet (have had one of these on for the past 7 years. Haven't gone one minute without it – I put new one on before cutting old one. Been through 3 in the 7 years)

Sometimes on me

• My mp3 player (an XMp3i) – too much of a hassle to have with me, I want better music solution, a better phone could do the trick. Works great in dock, I am too addicted to XM.
• Sunglasses/my aviators.
• Hat, gloves, etc.
• Harmonica in pocket. I swear I will practice more.
• Deck of cards – used surprisingly often
• Nook. for reading books.
• Book. for when Nook is out of juice
• Crumpled post-it note in pocket reminding me to do something deathly important.
• Chinking Coins
• Titanium Spork. Yes.

Want-to-but-Don’t. Things I wish I had on me at all times but don’t

• A small, tough flashlight – haven't found a good one, often bulky/heavy in pocket.
• My aviator ‘driving’ sunglasses. Afraid I will break them, too bulky to have on me, not needed enough. Leaving in car works well enough 97% of use is when driving.
• Cash. (awww, I’m broke!)
• Camera. The times I see something I want to take a picture of but can’t. Cell phone will not cut it! Damn!
• Lighter – not enough use for it.

From the notebook 1/19

Presented without comment. Each bullet is just another entry in my daily notebook. These are here as they where in my notebook, unless [bracketed] or otherwise italicized

• “I only sleep in my dreams” – [turn into] song/poem?
• Abandon rapping career.
• Square root of negative one friends.
• Where should one live to have greatest say in gov’t? Smallest district?
• Roald Dahl was a BAMF
• Find that movie where that skeptic travels across country with that old crazy guy. ed: help?
• Season 4 of IT crowd, netflix
• People go crazy when they lose false consensus effect . . .story?
• What’s the relation between areas and surface areas? IE sphere is integral/derivative related. true for all regular 3d shapes? non-regular?
• What types of music let one be most productive when studying, IE retention. Test this bitch.
• Math: In elementary school they brought us numbers. Middle schools brings letters. High school brings Greek. And at college its just ‘fuck it, squiggly lines’. ed note: integrals, closed integrals, AP physics class
• Do magicians tend to be skeptics? Then a short paragraph arguing that they do. May turn into essay soon.
• Switzerly. Make it real.
• The onion is right, we really do need a etch-i-sketch-istan
• Try Pointillism
• Not new years resolutions. They are a set of acts, acts being daily, mental, or progressive towards bettering myself. what the hell that means, I don’t know.
• Monty Hall problem
• Multiverse theory is a cop out answer
• New sunny in Philly season that I don’t own?. Get it

Genre fixations of music

My friend wanted to start a band, he was talking to me about ideas for band names, but during the conversation I asked him what type of music would they play. He responded “Kind of a rocky style, but keeping in touch with the indie movement”. I was surprised, here this guy is, no members, mixes, songs, or grooves, and he already knows what type of music he will play. This is the norm. People hear rock, they want to play rock. I will go to someone and say “so I got this great bluegrass jam by leftover salmon” and their reaction will most likely be “Bluegrass? You listen to bluegrass?”. Yeah I do. But more to the point, I listen to music. Eclectic is a word commonly used to describe my feelings. People: Be more open to artists, categorize by artist not genre, by album not artist, by song not album. Artists: Be open and accepting of all music genres. Try merging some styles together. Some of my favorite artists do this well (Free the Robots, Wax Tailor, Man Man), others don’t. My point is that genre is only a nifty useful way to classify music, but should not be a way to play.

We live in many worlds

By world, I do not mean planet. We only have one of these. What I mean by world is social environment. I would venture to say nobody, but at least very few people live in only one world. I live on this planet, where I see news of foreign affairs, but never see personally. But this world really doesn’t count. I am not socially involved with the earth to any globally measurably degree. My world is my social world. School is one, where all of my friends and most of my time is spent. Then there is my hockey team, which is overlapping my school life. Global Venn diagram. I have a world on the internet, where I read posts and share them. Other internet worlds exist on message boards and chartrooms, although I am not personally in any of those. I have my own world, inside of my head, where my thoughts and ideas taunt my tongue. My notebook may show you a few of the tangible of these lingering streams of conscious, but my mental world driving towards self-awareness has a population of one, arguably. Arguably? nature influences me, as do other people. Tell me an idea, now I have that idea. Did not have it own my own, but It is in my brain. My inability to block out senses may provide me with unwanted input to my brain, could lead me into logical fallacies and my mental world may become less real, but this is not what I am talking about. I have a world with friends through an email, a world with parents. A world with adults at my school. A world with friends and enemies, I am presented and perceived differently, if only slightly, in each of these worlds, which is what makes them separate. This could be a definition I am searching for in this writing piece here, but most likely not. The concept of multiple social worlds is not a very involved or complicated one, it’s just an interesting way of looking at the world around me.

Snow Day

Weather is not under the control of man, unfortunately. While [mad, crazy, awesome] scientists are working on changing this, the ability to control the weather is not something we have mastered. I won’t get into philosophical and moral issues with control weather (resorts forcing sunshine, etc.), so lets move on to why I bring this fact up.

Weather is not supposed to do anything.

I do not care what your weatherman and or meteorologist said. He (or she) gives you percentages, not facts. He predicts, as nothing in the future is certain. The weatherman is a helpful addition to modern life, and should not be cursed.

I do not care how badly you wanted a snow day. A snow day was not supposed to happen. Stop complaining.

Two A’s in Caramel

There are two A’s in the word Caramel.

I live in the town Carmel, which has one A. Carmel is pronounced ‘car-mel’. Caramel, the “firm chewy candy made from caramelized sugar and butter and milk” is pronounced care-a-mel. This not an optional, accent, choice thing. This a this-is-how-you-should-pronounce-this-word-and-this-is-how-you-are-pronouncing-this-word thing. Don't Believe me? Click the little speaker here.

One of my many pet peeves.

Anime is strange

Was convinced to stay after school by my friend for an Anime club. There are a few people there who I like and am friends with (others who hate me, but it’s a balance).

Anyway, I think western indy movies do not have a challenge to top of my entertainment genre. I could see getting into a few things, I mean, visual metaphors and elaborations I am fine with – even if that means massive mouths and overdone … cat … ears. In the two episodes (one from ‘east of Eden’ the other I don’t remember, but it had animal wearing angles, cancer, and an ‘singing audition’.) Characters where unbelievable and not relatable. This over all of the other crazy things is why I was disappointed in the anime.

The Home Stretch, or senioritis is upon us.

I don’t know about you, but I am a second semester senior who’s life has been filled with nothing but COLLEGE! stuff for the past for months. That is the cause of ‘senioritis’. College. Focusing on nothing but college for a few months, then having to turn back around to high school is impossible. Either a student is already in to college, and does not care, or they are just waiting to hear from colleges. High school life is behind us. But we still have this last semester, this last set of tests, classes and work to focus on. Yeah right! Senioritis is not this laughable condition of students who no longer care. Its what happens when you focus on the next step in your life for months strait, stressing oneself out and freaking oneself out regularly, and then suddenly stopping. I am not going to care, are you?

So this is me, two days into my second semester, wanting out. I want to be somewhere new, meet people, have fun, do something different. But whatever. Right now I am going to focus on classes that interest me, such as this intro to psych class I am in. The less interesting classes that frankly don’t matter. They might slide. I will do my best to keep them out of the C and certainly the D range, but you know what? I am definitely not going to kill myself over it. It is time to move on, and go to college. In a bit.

On a similar note, I do need to make the best of what time is left with my friends. Only when I am with them am I sad of the approaching eminent end of the era.

A soap bear

For my creative thing today, I went to my childhood. I remember this soap bear that I carved in boy scouts (I think? maybe some school program), it was in my bathroom for 5 years (guessing… It was there until we moved). I don’t miss it, but I was reminded of it when I acquired some soap. I don’t use bars of soap, so I didn’t know what to do with this trial size of face cleansing soap from my dermatologist. Thus, bear.

I am a music troll.

Damn do I love music. I also love having music. I spend weekends slowly churning through the CD collection, ripping into being played again with a digital format. Amazon MP3 loves me. My friends find me annoying, as I am always asking them what they are listening too. Hey, sue me. I am no good at discovering music on my own, I have to ask other people. In doing this, my music is very eclectic. I already like most genres, and showing me this strange stuff, I love it. So keep it coming and feed me. I want music.

Naming a Fish

Our school library has a beta fish. I am charismatic and friendly to librarians. Most students seem to despise librarians, but if your nice, you can be a little noisy. Befriend school staff! There is no reason not too. Extra food in lunch line, janitors always know everything -- let you borrow tools, etc. Trust me, it helps.

anyway, I have named the library fish for the past years, previous, now deceased fish being names Lieutenant Crunch (not captain yet) and Beo-fish. I am purchasing the next fish for the school, and have to give it a name. So it was time to brainstorm!

• Inspector Gadget
• Agent 86
• Mr. Fluffs
• Wanda
• Stick (as in “This is my fish, stick”)
• Curly
• Ignatius (I go to Jesuit school)
• DaVito
• TROGDOR!!
• The Fonz
• Detective Squiggles. (there is something fishy here…)

What does ‘Hollywood’ movie mean?

I read movie reviews, recaps, lists, featurettes, gossip, and more on Movie blogs. One phrase that often recurs is negatively describing movies as ‘Big-Budget Hollywood’. Since when was this bad? Lets make a list:

• Big Budget yet disappointing: Bad
• Big Budget: Good!
• Big Budget, poor execution: Bad
• Hollywood: not really good or bad, it’s a place

Generally, it all has to do with the promotion. Looking at actual numbers, usually fantasy, sci-fi, or other hi-tech needed movies are big budget, They require special effects, and they cost money. The actual cost of a movie is generally proportional to the effort that went into it. Special effects, numerous actors, raise the cost, but when a movie is described as ‘big budget’ usually it just means ‘well-promoted’. Possibly ‘over-promoted’.

TRON: Legacy is a good example, as it is a ‘big budget Hollywood movie’. Tons of money went into it, and much of that was the over-the-top promotion for the movie.

The point I am poorly trying to make is that describing a movie as 'Hollywood’ doesn’t mean anything! There is not a secret set of directors and screenwriters that all work for the man, churning out blockbusters while independent and cult directors make their own movies, the hard way. Stop describing movies as ‘Hollywood’. What does that mean anyway? Every movie, good movies, bad movies, ugly movies, they all had humans creating it. People putting time, effort, energy into their storytelling creations. Somebody had to write TRON, had to edit AVATAR, had to film The Last Airbender. Movies are created by humans! When a disappointing blockbuster comes out, and I hear people talking about how ‘Hollywood butchered another good series’ (remake?) or how its just ‘another Hollywood over-the-top action film’. It is not Hollywood! Hollywood is a location, a community, and an icon, but not a group of people. (it is a massive community, yes, but not the type that makes these individual movies) You should be saying that people butchered your beloved 50’s television show, and that people created a self-propelled plot with too many flashy bits!

Stop attributing a city to the creation of movies. Use directors and writers names, or even the name of the producing company. Please.

Potentially flawed, un-researched, and stream of conscience, but I don’t care. This is my rant for the day.

Exploring 2010 Movie Data

Eventually turning these data graphs into a poster that I will have printed. First I must collect data (done!) then organize it (shit!) then graph it (fun!) and analyze it (shit!). This blog post is a stepping stone to the poster, I will be using Google's chart API while the poster will be designed in Illustrator, I just want a playground I can start playing with the data on.

Lets start with what I already have, the graphs I created for/on the website, that are created up to date every page load from the database. The following are saved images from 2010 only.

The most difficult graph to program:

(click for bigger)

This graph shows you that in 2010, I mostly watched movies from 2009. This is because I went through and tried to watch all of the best movies of 09 in 2010. Woohoo! OK, lets look at movies released in 2010 alone.

 Home vs. In a theater for movies released in 2010

 

 

 

 

Home vs. In a theater for all movies watched in 2010

 

 

 

These results are exactly what is to be expected, so no real analysis here. Up next, Some high definition!

HD vs. SD

 

 

 

This graph ignores everything seen in theaters, only focusing on what is viewed at home. Blu-ray, or HD streaming is HD, and the rest is SD. Again, this data is pretty standard, although I am surprised that HD is as high as it is.

First Time Seen vs. Seen

 

 

 

This one I am surprised at, I did not know I watched so many movies before. I would have expected the seen before graph to be a mere sliver. But whatever.

And now my favorite, a graph of the medium of movies watched.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the home v. theater graph with home sections elaborated on. Netflix takes the cake, with over half of the movies I see coming from them alone. Amazon instant I use mostly for TV shows. TV or Tape is the expected minority, and I am surprised to see ‘owned or borrowed’ just barely beating out movies in a theater. I would have expected myself to have watched more of the DVD’s that I own.

This ends the graphs that I have already created, Now it is time to start playing with Google's chart API yet again, and get dirty in the numbers.

I will probably update this post, or create another when I make more graphs and get more data.

Mild Paranoia

I have come to the conclusion that I have mild paranoia. Not legitimate paranoia, but paranoia of a sort. Amateur paranoia. Chronic Nervousness.

I have discovered this not because of a constant nervousness that plagues my brain, but rather, the means in which I prevent this from happening. It is not secret to anyone who knows me that I keep a knife on me at all times. During school, its just a small one in my backpack. Waiting in the car is a Leatherman ready to be fastened to my waist, where It will remain until society says ‘no knifes here’. Most people think it’s a cell-phone belt clip, and this avoids awkward situations.

It was only recently when a friend asked me why I kept one with me. “I don’t know” I replied. “Just in case. . . I mean, you never know.” My friend was not content with this as an answer, and he was really the one who came to the conclusion that I am a paranoid. “Dude, nothing bad will happen!” It was the conversation between us that forced me to enter my own mind and figure out why I have to have this protection on me. Knives and 550-cord are on my body at nearly all times! I came to the conclusion that the heavy multi-tool obstructing things and weighing down my belt makes me confortable. I am more comfortable when I have it than when I don’t. Therefore, I wear it. Besides, it is still a useful thing to have with you. As a person who likes to spend time studying and ‘hacking’ their own brain, I was curious if I could figure out a way to wean myself off of the knife habit. A bit more thinking led me to the conclusion that It wasn’t worth it. There is nothing socially wrong with having a knife on you, and if it makes me confortable, than that’s all right.

A creative thing a day

I have been trying to do this for the past 4 months or so. I won’t document it daily, but I will try and show any interesting things I do. If I write as part of one my writing projects, don’t expect to see anything, but if I draw something or do something musically, or do whatever interestingly enough, I might throw it a post over here. Heads up.

Creative things (reminder to self)

• Writing
• Art, Drawing
• Music, Harmonica Practice
• Website creation/design
• Programming
• Poetry (I know, right?)
• Art/Craft
• Whatever else

So I don’t know. I have been doing this for a little while, resorting to writing for most of my creative things (thingsthatarewin.com, anyone?), and I guess 2011 means I will try to stick to it more rigidly. Being creative is a good thing, right? Yeah. It is.

Quotes For Today

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.
–Chuck Close

“Requires surgical expertise and keen moral flexibility” – E merl.

thinking about taking that chuck close quote, grabbing some Helvetica and maybe a lens flare, making a desktop background

Finding Happiness

Adapted excerpt from an essay written as part of an application to a college. In regard to finding happiness.

. . .Ok, hobbies are different for everyone, maybe you have a secret passion for pin-hole photography or possibly cross country skiing. So what is a more universal answer to this find happiness question? My answer to that: creating and discovering. Discovering is the ultimate bringer of joy. Who doesn’t like watching Discovery Channel or Animal Planet? Not you? Liar. Learning things is naturally fun! The natural act of learning brings happiness, perhaps it is as simple as an evolutionary advantage -- learning things means survival. The brain releases endorphins when you succeed and while I do wholeheartedly believe this is the cause, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good! Creating is similar. Perhaps not as global as discovering, but look at the world. Creation is arguably the largest conveyor of happiness. From Lego sets to novels, writing to painting, filming to cooking, creating brings happiness in greater volume than anything else on this planet, and not just creating, but showing others your creation! . . .