Mythic Flame

Jesus spells Pareidolia

2009-03-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

Our brains are basically pattern-recognition machines.

I'll save the meta discussion for another time.

Penguin Video Game Classics

2009-02-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

In the style of Olly Moss' "classic" video game covers, here are my interpretations of two of my favourite games:

The Tale of Desperaux

2008-12-15T10:08:00.001-08:00

This past Saturday, the Vancouver Siggraph chapter hosted a charity film showing of The Tale of Desperaux, with all proceeds going to local food banks. Kyenta and I had both read Kate DiCamillo's book when it came out and were eager to see how it had been translated to film.

Luckily, most of the book's charm makes it through. The animation and look (by the folks at Framestore) are both suitably captivating, with a standout pseudo-2D style employed for Desperaux Tilling's flights of fancy.

The film stumbles on occasion. There are a few notable continuity problems where it feels like they had too much material and decided to drop important scenes. Also, I'm no book purist -- changes do need to be made when translating from one medium to another -- but a few of the alterations were rather jarring and unnecessary.

Overall, though, The Tale of Desperaux does entertain. It's a worthwhile fairytale film to watch this Christmas season.

Urban Rec

2008-10-22T12:50:00.001-07:00

Torturing Democracy

2008-10-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

I watched Torturing Democracy last night, a stupefying documentary on the legalization of torture by the current US administration -- not just for Abu Ghraib but in Guantanamo Bay and in dozens of CIA extraordinary rendition black sites around the world.

I couldn't stop watching. It wasn't so much that the documentary proved enlightening; I was already aware of much of the information presented. However, it was gripping in the sense that each progression and each revelation provoked a fresh reaction of disbelief.

How can human beings behave this way? How can a person make such decisions and be able to live with himself or herself?

Abu Ghraib was the public face of US torture. My belief then, as it is now, is that Abu Ghraib combined with the reprehensible legal shenanigans by the US government as to what torture is acceptable has done irreperable harm to the US. Not just that other regimes can treat US soldiers the way prisoners are treated in Gitmo, although that in itself is bad enough. No. Now, any higher value or purpose espoused by the US is seen as hypocritical, viewed by everyone internationally through a lens of distrust.

Can the US really be considered a shining city upon a hill any more?

Do yourself a favour. Watch this documentary. And ask yourself if an administration that participates in this kind of behaviour is worth any kind of support.

Urban Planet

2008-07-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

Fire(works) Walk With Me

2008-07-27T23:44:00.001-07:00

I hadn't planned on going to watch the Celebration of Light fireworks this year, having gone at least once a year, if not more, ever since I moved to Vancouver. Plus I thought it was probably prudent to skip a year, considering how busy my life has become of late. Kyenta and I are moving to East Van in just a few days and we had to get a bunch of packing done on the weekend.

At around half past nine, we had just finished packing for the day when Kyenta turned to me and said, "You know, this is probably the last time we'll be able to walk to the fireworks."

Right now, we're about a thirty minute walk to Kits Beach, which is a prime viewing location. Once we move, we'll have to drive to see them -- although we'll still park south of Broadway and walk the rest of the way to avoid the crazy post-fireworks pedestrian traffic.

We scrambled out the door and just made it to the beach when the fireworks exploded into action.

The fireworks themselves were great, but the musical selection was a bizarre medley of opera lite, pop rock, and vegas glam: Sting, U2, Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion.

We walked back home amidst the throng, enjoying the cool night and the slight breeze.

I'm going to miss living here.

Urban Impact

2008-07-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

The 10% Myth

2008-07-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I read Stephen King's Cell, his somewhat flawed take on the zombie genre.

Speaking in broad generalizations, once you get past the "grrr, argh, brains", zombie tales are allegorical in nature, whether it's consumerism, foreign policy, or the democratization of the media. Cell is no different. It takes the rather obvious premise of "cellphone users as zombies" and runs with it.

Overall, I think King did an OK job -- the zombies aren't really classic George Romero zombies; King injects enough of his own variations into the equation to keep you guessing. Sadly, the novel falls down when King tries to explain the cause and mechanics of the outbreak, and falls down hard. Technical plausibility has never been his strong suit. Given the story direction this was probably not possible, but I'd have preferred if he had left out most of the details completely.

One of those details is this: that humans only use 10% of their brain, and by extrapolation, that the other 90% is untapped potential just waiting to be unlocked. No one is sure exactly where this myth originated but there isn't any doubt that it's pretty widespread. It's most often used as evidence to advance claims that psychic powers are plausible.

I don't mind psychic abilities appearing in speculative fiction. Just figure out a different way of rationalizing it (assuming you bother to; it's not always necessary). Explicitly quoting the 10% myth breaks the suspension of disbelief--at least for me.

It's just not true.

The Urban Rack

2008-07-21T08:50:00.001-07:00

Elevator Blues

2008-04-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I came across a fascinating New Yorker article on elevators (via kottke.org). Framing the article and interspersed throughout is the account of Nicholas White, an office worker who was trapped in a stuck elevator for 41 hours.

41 hours. Think about that for a second. That's almost two whole days in a space smaller than most jail cells, with no food, water, bed, or toilet.

The control panel made a beep, and White waited a moment, expecting a voice to offer information or instructions. None came. He pressed the intercom button, but there was no response. He hit it again, and then began pacing around the elevator. After a time, he pressed the emergency button, setting off an alarm bell, mounted on the roof of the elevator car, but he could tell that its range was limited. Still, he rang it a few more times and eventually pulled the button out, so that the alarm was continuous. Some time passed, although he was not sure how much, because he had no watch or cell phone. [...] He also began hearing unlikely oscillations in the ringing: aural hallucinations. Before long, he began to contemplate death.

White's ordeal was captured on a security camera. Watching the timelapse video is quite discomfiting, primarily because White looks like a bug trapped in a glass box frantically beating its body against the walls, but also because I start to imagine what White must have gone through -- panic, boredom, futility, and despair.

The story doesn't end well.

Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape, and emerged from it with his life in another.

The rest of the article does a good job of delivering details on what is seemingly not a rich topic. I was glad to see that the article mentioned a key fact about elevators and skyscrapers that I learned in a Humanities course in college:

Two things make tall buildings possible: the steel frame and the safety elevator. The elevator, underrated and overlooked, is to the city what paper is to reading and gunpowder is to war.

I also found the concept of "elevatoring" a building--designing the entire elevator system based on predictions of how many people will use them and in what patterns--very interesting. People have a maximum elevator wait time they're willing to endure. Any more and frustration sets in. Elevatoring is an inexact science but you know when you've got it wrong.

And this tied nicely into an article I'd read about bottom-up game design by Ernest W. Adams, where he talked about SimTower. Ostensibly a skyscraper "software toy" in the same vein as SimCity, the fundamental gameplay mechanic of SimTower was really elevator simulation. Elevatoring a building is a great problem to approximate and simulate on a computer but it doesn't necessarily translate into fun gameplay.

As a coda of weird synergy, two days ago the elevator in our building got stuck between floors. They're going to install a 24-hour support phone shortly.

Radioactive Kitty

2008-04-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

Just like his brother before him, Rascal turns out to suffer from hyperthyroidism. He's always been a somewhat manic cat but our first real indication came when he lost his appetite and began throwing up all over the place. Luckily, after a quick visit to our vet, Dr. Bill Ignacio, we managed to bring his thyroid levels back to normal through twice-daily applications of methimazole.

Methimazole treats the symptoms of hyperthyroidism but not the cause: it's a lifelong prescription. After much consideration, Kyenta and I decided to give Rascal the radioactive iodine treatment option, which targets the thyroid tumour itself. Rascal had to get some bloodwork done. All was normal except for the initial indicators of kidney disease -- sigh. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Because the treatment involves honest-to-goodness radioactive iodine, Rascal has to follow some pretty strict procedures. He gets his treatment on Wednesday and has to remain at the clinic for 10 days of observation and isolation. After that, he can come home but we have to avoid holding him for extended periods or allowing him to sit on our laps.

That last caveat made me think of a really cut-rate way to perform sterilization. Instead of going in for a vasectomy or a tubal ligation, you just have to cuddle a radioactive kitty for thirty minutes.

I wonder what superpowers Rascal will manifest when he's back from the vet? The ability to miaow constantly for hours at a time? Super-hearing that detects a can opening anywhere in the house? The powers of incredibly prolonged stasis in the presence of strong sunlight? The mind boggles....

Memories of Pixar

2008-04-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Vancouver Siggraph event last week was a double bill, with the first half being Michael Rubin talking about Droidmaker, his book about George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.

The second half was Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, one of the pioneers of computer animation and co-founder of Pixar. Over the course of about an hour, Alvy recounted story after story about those early days, starting off at the New York Institute of Technology, getting the call from George Lucas (actually George Lucas' real estate lawyer), moving to San Francisco to start up the Lucasfilm Computer Division with Ed Catmull, the Pixar spin-off and subsequent acquisition by Steve Jobs, and more.

It was serendipitous to have both Alvy and Rubin there because, as Alvy noted several times, Rubin was quick to point out inaccuracies or inconsistencies in Alvy's stories. Alvy was quite frank about this, stating that while his memories of those events were indisputable in his own mind, he had to reconcile them with Rubin's facts. And when facts weren't available and Rubin had to rely on memories alone, he had the people involved "vet" each others' stories and come to a mutual consensus. One such story was the naming of the company's hardware product, the Pixar Image Computer.

Not only did I find Alvy's reminiscences fascinating because of the personal glimpse into the history of a seminal CG company, I also identified strongly with his self-aware recognition of the interplay between malleable memory and immutable fact. Discovering that Alvy is also interested in consciousness and cognition was just the icing on the cake.

A friend of mine, who was the main impetus behind this event, got to have dinner with both Michael Rubin and Dr. Alvy Ray Smith. That would have been wonderful company with great conversation. You are a lucky man, Tim Belsher, and I am deeply envious of you.

The Man Behind the Digital Revolution

2008-04-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm talking about George Lucas, of course. Everyone knows that he created Lucasfilm when he made Star Wars (the first one, A New Hope). Most people know that he also started up Industrial Light and Magic to create the effects for his films. And many people know that Pixar was originally a section of the Lucasfilm Computer Division before it was spun off and Steve Jobs bought it.

Michael Rubin, author of Droidmaker, spoke at a Vancouver Siggraph event last night. An animated, energetic individual, Rubin presented highlights of his book and gave us an overview of the genesis of many of the digital technologies in use today: computer animation, digital non-linear audio and video editing, digital optical printing, online avatars, and more.

Rubin also talked about the context behind Lucas' drive and decisions. Much of Lucas' ambition is framed in the context of his friendship and rivalry with Francis Ford Coppola. And despite his films having the reputation of being high-tech and cutting edge, Lucas isn't very techno-savvy. He started up these computer divisions as skunkworks projects--knowing full well that they wouldn't bear fruit for ten or twenty or more years--in the hopes that they would produce results that would help him make better films more easily. And say what you will about his talents as a writer or a filmmaker... you have to give the man credit for funding these projects (and Steve Jobs after him, in Pixar's case) that eventually came to fruition and yielded many of the digital technologies we now take for granted.

I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in a behind-the-scenes perspective of the history of the digital revolution.

Remembering Las Vegas

2008-04-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

About twelve years ago, some friends and I flew down to Los Angeles. One friend in particular convinced us to do a road trip to Las Vegas, partly because it was so close but mainly because he was particularly taken with the idea.

I remember two things keenly about that road trip.

I remember thinking that there was a remarkable amount of plant life (cacti, brush and scrubland) in this so-called desert. Having grown up in Kuwait, I associated the word 'desert' with barren sand dunes.

And I remember cresting the mountains and seeing Las Vegas for the first time, the pyramid of Luxor standing out like, well, like a 350-foot tall pyramid encased in black glass. I thought we had maybe 15 minutes tops before we hit the city limits, but we just drove and drove as that pyramid got bigger and bigger and bigger.

It was my first introduction to the sheer scale and whimsy of the Strip. It seemed wasteful and extravagant and I couldn't fully appreciate it.

The thing about Las Vegas is: to enjoy your time there, you have to spend money, either on the shows or on gambling or on drinking. The thing about me at the time was: I was a student with barely any money, I didn't care for gambling and I didn't drink.

Needless to say, I didn't particularly enjoy my visit. The casinos were full of cigarette smoke, which I detest, and I was somewhat beholden to accompany my friends around. We had dinner at the overrated Planet Hollywood, went on a lackluster ride film at the Luxor, ventured into an adult boutique off the strip (where we were somewhat stunned by the sight of a large prosthetic fist), and partook of the international buffet at Feast Around the World.

The highlight of that trip was the New York, New York coaster. It seemed a somewhat tame affair, given that the start and end of the ride went through the building itself. I woke up early, leaving my friends asleep, and went to try it out. I didn't bother putting in my contacts because how bad could it be, really? It's practically an indoor tram, right?

I tell you, once that coaster got started, I had to hold on to my glasses for dear life. I was thrilled by the speed and the turns, and more than half scared that my glasses would fly off and hit one of the tourists on the Brooklyn Bridge. It probably would have been different had I worn contacts. The reason why I remember it so well, why that ride was one of the most exhilirating I've ever been on, is precisely because I spent the entire ride with a death grip on my temples.

Panorama Pandemonium

2008-04-14T20:49:00.001-07:00

I like taking panorama photos. My first real experiments with them were on a cheap analog camera without the benefit of a tripod. I'd note what was on the extreme right of the frame, take the shot, pivot extremely carefully until that rightmost object or landmark was on the extreme left of the frame, and take another shot. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Once the photos were developed, I'd scan them in, align them as carefully as possible in an image editing package, and then alpha blend from one to the other across the region of overlap. Pretty crude by today's standards:

(Laughton Glacier, near Skagway, Alaska)

The artifacts from different auto-exposure settings across different photos is pretty apparent.

Still, the technique yielded some nice results:

(View from the Burrard St. Bridge, Vancouver)

Of course, once I went digital, this became much easier because of in-built panorama modes and stitching software. The first one I tried was an HP Photosmart R707, and it yielded pretty good panoramas:

(Cypress Mountain)

Our current camera is a Canon Powershot SD700 IS. Most of the time, its panorama mode and stitching software work well:

(The aptly named Sunset Beach, Vancouver)

And sometimes it fails miserably:

I did some research and discovered that the current software of choice is AutoStitch, developed right here in Vancouver at UBC by Matthew Brown and David Lowe. The algorithm is licensed in several commercial products, but the demo version provided at the website is very serviceable.

I fed it the same input images as the Las Vegas panorama above and got this:

Quite the difference! The software's strength--its no-user-input robust stitching algorithm--is also its weakness. I discovered at least two panoramas that it balked at: one which cropped a distinguishing feature at the very left, and one which produced a very distorted view. I couldn't help feeling that if I had more control over the stitching process I might have been able to get it to work on those panoramas. Perhaps the commercial versions allow you more control.

I'll have to experiment with it some more but at first blush, it's very impressive indeed.

The Armed Man

2008-04-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

For Valentine's Day, Kyenta got us tickets to a performance of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man. The concert was put on by the Vancouver Bach Choir at the Orpheum on March 15, 2008.

The show was a double bill. The Armed Man was preceded by the premiere performance of John Estacio's The Houses Stand Not Far Apart, which, though I applaud its anti-war theme, was a somewhat pedestrian piece overall. During the intermission I was hoping that The Armed Man wouldn't be in the same vein. Luckily for us, it wasn't.

The Armed Man is subtitled "A Mass for Peace", which is an apt summary. The piece is anti-war, and takes its structure from the Christian Mass, with a Kyrie, Sanctus, etc. Jenkins, however, doesn't restrict himself solely to Christian hymns, effectively blending in Muslim (the Adhaan, or Call to Prayers), Hindu (The Mahabharata), and Japanese (a Toge Sankichi poem) texts.

For me, the section that impacted me the most was definitely the "Call to Prayers (Adhaan)". We were seated in the centre section of the Orpheum's balcony with a great view of the orchestra and choir. They'd just finished performing "The Armed Man", the introductory section that opens the concert, and everyone had quieted down.

On the balcony to our right, a man dressed in black with a high collar, surrounded by a calm and serene air, stepped forward to the rail, closed his eyes and extended his arms. He then sang the Muslim Call to Prayers a capella, the way it's meant to be performed.

I managed to find the version of this song that comes on the official Armed Man CD, sung by Mohammed Gad.

For me, it doesn't quite capture the simplicity and melody of Hussein Janmohamed's performance. And though the Adhaan is sung from mosques by muezzins five times a day, every day, in Islamic communities the world over, I've never heard a more beautiful rendition than the one by Janmohamed that night.

A Sour Taste

2008-04-12T18:27:00.000-07:00

Kyenta and I went to Las Vegas recently, where I surprised myself by having quite a good time. On the way back, we hit a few snags, mainly as a result of trying to cram in too many activities into too little time. After we boarded our flight, I thought that our return trip misadventures were at an end.

Not quite.

We got through customs and immigration relatively painlessly and waited anxiously at the baggage carousel, keeping an eye out for our sole piece of checked luggage. As the minutes ticked by, we came to the realization that the suitcase wasn't going to magically appear.

At the customer service desk for US Airways, we spoke to a nice but apologetic man called Sonny. He scanned our baggage receipt barcode and verified that our suitcase had indeed made it onto the plane. He scouted around the carousel area briefly for other left luggage and discovered two that were vaguely similar to our suitcase. His theory was that someone had taken our bag by mistake and forgotten their own. Unfortunately, he couldn't get in touch with either of the owners of those pieces of left luggage. He assured us that they usually found missing bags by the following day and that our suitcase would be delivered to us the next evening.

This highlights one of my biggest complaints about the baggage retrieval process. Every customer with one or more checked bags gets a barcode attached to his ticket that corresponds to the bags that he checked. It seems to me that an additional verification check when a customer leaves the airport, confirming that he does indeed have his own checked bags and not someone else's, would be relatively straightforward and would cut down on the number of mistaken and intentional baggage mismatches.

I filled out a missing baggage form and gave them our contact info for letting us know if and when our suitcase was found and would be delivered. In passing, Sonny also mentioned that our bag might be on a different plane. Hmm. But didn't the system scan verify that our bag had indeed made it onto our flight? Yes, he said, but occasionally the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) removed bags for further security checks and didn't notify the system.

Grr. Doesn't that circumvent the whole point of tracking bags?

Thankfully, Kyenta got a call the next day informing us that our errant luggage had indeed been found and would be dropped off that night. An airport van drove by at around 9:45pm and lo and behold, we had our suitcase back. I took it inside, opened it and discovered the following form placed neatly atop our clothes:

Transportation Security Administration

Notice of Baggage Inspection

To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law* to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection.

During the inspection, your bag and its contents may have been searched for prohibited items. At the completion of the inspection, the contents were returned to your bag.

If the TSA security officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution.

For packing tips and suggestions on how to secure your baggage during your next trip, please visit:

www.tsa.gov

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact the TSA Contact Center:

Phone: 866.289.9673 (toll free)
Email: TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.dov

*Section 110(b) of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, 49 U.S.C. 44901(c)-(e)

The part that infuriates me is the casual absolution of responsibility for any damage incurred: "[...] however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution". In order to facilitate these random security searches and prevent your luggage from being vandalized, you need to leave them unlocked, making your personal belongings less secure.

The easiest way to commit a crime is to legislate it.

The Quest for the Date Bun

2008-03-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in Kuwait, one of the special treats we got was the date bun. It's a simple enough thing: a yummy torus of baked dough with a few vents cut into the side, stuffed silly with date filling.

Once we moved to Montreal, I went into a great date bun drought ... until my parents discovered a Middle Eastern store, Marché Adonis, that had a large selection of baked goods. Baklava, halva, and yes, date buns.

Sadly, though, I've never been able to find them in Vancouver. Every so often, when I'm back in Montreal for a visit, I pick up one or two dozen to bring back. I freeze them and slowly ration them out over many days. Things would be so much simpler if I could hook up with a date bun dealer in Vancouver for my fix but all of the local Middle Eastern stores I've tried have never heard of them.

The Death of the (Film) Theatre

2008-03-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

A friend and I went to see The Bank Job last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Apart from a resolution that strayed into action-movie territory, I thought it was a great heist movie, presenting everything from build-up to aftermath. Recommended.

Unfortunately, my curse with theatre experiences has come back. I had a relatively long run of seven or eight nights where I enjoyed watching movies with no annoying whispers, chit-chat, interruptions. However, last night we had:

Two or three separate groups of talkers
Annoying laughter guy braying at the back of the theatre
Clapping and "Yeah!"s at certain characters getting their comeuppance

I know I'm a film snob. I know that preferring to watch films without audience participation is a predilection that's fast moving me into the minority (if I haven't already). I know that many of my friends have made the switch to home theatre as their primary venue for seeing movies rather than the cinema.

And I know that I'll follow pretty soon.

This lack of cinema etiquette is but one voice in the chorus that is sounding the death knell of the theatre. The others (digital downloads, home theatre improvements, HDTV, etc.) all factor in too. The combination will, I believe, relegate theatre-going to watch films into as much of a niche pastime as theatre-going to watch live shows.

It's just a question of time. My prediction is 5 years.

Interminable Game Shows

2008-03-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, I watched about two and a half episodes of "Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader?"

[No, don't ask.]

The thing that drives me up the wall with the newer game shows ("Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?", "Deal or No Deal", etc.) is the sheer amount of time the host and the contestant spend blathering. If it takes you more than a minute to answer a question, I've already written off your show and switched channels.

[Again, don't ask.]

Not that I'm a huge fan of game shows anyway. I think I'll always have a soft spot for Jeopardy, but that's about it.

And coming back to "Are You Smarter Than a Canadian 5th Grader?" When the hell did "Biology" get renamed to "Life Systems"?

And Justice for Some

2007-09-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Observing how cops routinely flaunt the traffic laws, I've long suspected that they've got an unwritten rule never to ticket other cops.

Sadly, my suspicion has been confirmed.

I read a few of the submissions and it's hard to believe the sense of entitlement oozing from every word.

(via BoingBoing.)

Please Stand By

2007-07-05T09:08:00.001-07:00

No, I haven't died.

As seems to be the case more and more often these days, my free time dwindled to almost nothing in the past few weeks. We finally moved back into our place, but then were occupied with unpacking everything. We also had to coordinate schedules with the restoration contractors for the remaining work.

And then work got stupid busy. So I spent a lot of time there.

And now my sister and her family are visiting, so I'm spending time with them.

I've realized that the main problem is that my home computer is slow as molasses, and I will actively avoid using it if I can help it. Hopefully, I can get a new computer soon. That will alleviate part of the problem.

Finding balance is the other part of the equation. This is a priority for me.

Demetri Martin's Findings

2007-06-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Toren Atkinson, I've discovered a new favourite comedian:

Here's Demetri Martin's site.

Yes, Please Clean Our Room

2007-06-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Once we'd moved into our hotel room at the Inn at False Creek, Kyenta and I thought we'd make it easier for both the cats and the hotel staff and use the "Do Not Disturb" door hanger throughout the week. That way, the cats would not freak out at having strangers invading their space, and the hotel staff would only have to clean 156 rooms instead of 157.

Our first weekend here, I ran into one of the maids in the hallway outside our room.

"Clean your room now?" she asked.

"Sure, yeah," I said. We'd been here a week and I could use the new towels. "Thank you."

"And during the week? What time do you leave?"

"We both go to work," I replied. "But it's OK, we don't need the room cleaned."

"Oh," she said. "But we can clean it when you've gone."

"Well, we've got two cats. So it's OK if you don't clean it. We're fine."

"If you have the sign on, we have to go home."

"Yes, it's OK. We're OK with that."

We went back and forth like this for a few seconds before I finally cottoned on to something she said: "We don't get paid by the hour." The hotel cleaning staff gets paid by the room; the more rooms they clean in a day, the more money they make. If a guest leaves the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door for the whole day, it's the same as an unoccupied room to the hotel.

I thought I was being polite and considerate, and to the staff I was being the exact opposite.

"Ah," I said. "Sure. Please clean our room."

"Thank you!" she said. "Thank you so much."

I remembered the cats. "But no vacuum cleaner. Just towels will be fine."

The State of Our Floors

2007-05-28T17:44:00.001-07:00

This is what our living room looked like after the floors were ripped up due to water damage:

The machine on the left is an industrial dehumidifier, and the one on the right is a blower. We had three other blowers set up in the rest of the apartment, to ensure that the air circulated enough for the dehumidifier to pull out all the residual moisture.

Sadly, if you remove the machines, this was exactly the state of our floors three years ago when we bought the place and ripped out the carpet in preparation for the wood floors to go in.

Sigh.

Lisa Gerrard in Concert

2007-05-23T09:32:00.001-07:00

Last night, Kyenta and I went to see Lisa Gerrard in concert at The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts. The show was spectacular, anchored and transcended by her stunning voice.

Live at the Forum, Melbourne, Monday 2 April 2007 (from Wikipedia)

The first time I heard Lisa Gerrard was during the denouement of Gladiator. Maximus has just defeated the Emperor Commodus, at a mortal cost to himself. What could have been merely tragic is elevated to triumph with the exultation of "Now We Are Free":

I decided I had to hear more of Gerrard's work. I discovered that she had been in a band called Dead Can Dance before going solo. Previous to Gladiator, she'd also provided the music for The Insider (with Pieter Bourke). I picked up a couple of her solo CDs -- Duality and The Mirror Pool -- fully intending to listen to them immediately.

For some reason, I never got around to it, until some friends and I decided to go on a road trip to Alaska. We loaded up the car, grabbed a stash of CDs, and hit the highway.

When we finally got to Lisa Gerrard, we were somewhere in the Northern British Columbia Interior, driving along the Alaska Highway. It was really late, around ten or eleven p.m. This was in July, and we were far enough north that there was still light in the sky that late at night. The road was dead straight, lined with firs as far as the eye could see, and the arctic light was quite surreal.

This sort of landscape was made to be paired with Lisa Gerrard's powerful, haunting vocals. My soul was lost.

Watching her in concert, I had no idea how such a distinctive sound could be produced by any human, let alone this woman. The way she uses her voice is less "singing" and more like playing an instrument. When she did speak -- briefly, to introduce her fellow musicians, and to thank the crowd -- her voice was breathy and slight and completely dissimilar from her performances. She explained that singing stressed out her voice (no kidding) and made her light-headed; in fact, for each piece in the show she used the support of a stool for balance.

Her works and her voice don't speak to my conscious mind. They thrum around in my unconsciousness, stirring my heart, filling the spaces between the atoms. They are both melancholy and triumphant, both desolate and beatific. They are an elegy for the world.

If a voice had created the universe, this was it.

Breaking Down 300

2007-05-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, May 16, I went to a presentation by Lindsay Adams put on by the Vancouver Siggraph Chapter. Lindsay is the Senior Compositor at Animal Logic. He gave an excellent presentation on the compositing work they did for 300.

Interesting takeaways:

There were very few real sets used. Occasionally, there would be a bit of rock wall (that eventually was heavily enhanced with CG/matte work). The rest was all digital/comp work.
A concept artist on set did quick comps to get initial production approval, which were then used by the team as a guide for their work.
They did a first-pass comp of all their assigned shots in about 5 weeks. It let them get production approval much quicker and reduced wasted effort.
The skies were all matte paintings / photos that were warped, morphed, and transformed to give the appearance of motion.
The skies had a neat coffee-stain plate overlaid onto them that production really liked – they felt it gave the film more of a graphic novel feel.
They filmed live plates for a number of elements because they just looked way better than CG: smoke, dust, some water.
The process to achieve the desaturated/palettized look of the film was called "The Crush" – Animal Logic (and the other vendors) delivered shots that were "Half Crush", and a final production studio took it the rest of the way. This was to achieve a consistent look for the whole movie.
The on-set lighting was very diffuse and flat. All of the shots were "re-lit" in compositing using comp tricks.
For shots with variable timing, they’d always work over-length and on the slowest timing, and adjust to the final timing variations as the last step. This gave them the most flexibility to changing production demands.
To multiply the Persian army in the close-up shots, they took the plate, isolated various actors, and duplicated them using flopping, re-timing, etc. Because they were mostly hidden by the "hero" close-ups, it worked.
Lots and lots of hand roto work to get the CG spears and swords matched up to the actors’ props.
Their most complicated shot was the "Crazy Horse" – in the final film, this shot was the first one which had Leonidas breaking away from the main Spartan group, attacking multiple enemies and launching a spear. They shot this on stage with 3 cameras mounted on the same head, shooting fast (i.e., slo-mo) at different zooms and focal lengths. In comp, they managed to blend all of these together into a single shot, using warping to merge the different camera shots together, and retiming to get the slo/fast/slo effect. Plus all the usual crazy layering.

A very detailed look at what goes on behind-the-scenes. It was also neat to see the full extent of what can be accomplished using compositing.

A Room with a View

2007-05-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is the view from our new, temporary digs:

That's the Granville Street Bridge you're looking at.

All I can say is, thank goodness for insurance.

Samantha Bee -- NILF Hunter

2007-05-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show takes aim at female TV journalists.

Traffic Light Rage

2007-05-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

The worst intersection in Vancouver... the absolute worst... is the traffic light clusterfuck at Terminal and Main/Quebec. Who designed these intersections? Did anyone do an analysis of what the optimal traffic light timings would be? It certainly doesn't seem that way.

You'll be waiting at a red light for what seems like at least five minutes (which is really an eternity for a traffic light), have it turn green for fifteen seconds, and be unable to proceed because the section of road in front of you is completely full and waiting for their own traffic light to turn green.

I can't believe there haven't been more road rage incidents at these intersections.

Every time I have to traverse these asphalt minefields, I'm sure I'm shaving a day off my life expectancy. Which is troubling, considering that my drive to and from work routes me through this twice a day.

Of course, with all the construction going on in Vancouver right now in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics, these intersections are becoming competitive:

Cambie and 2nd Ave.
Cambie and Broadway.

Memories of High School

2007-05-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

After much prompting from Kyenta, I finally succumbed and subscribed to Facebook. Dear God, is it ever addictive. Not so much the status updates and wall-writing, which are sorta fun. No, I'm talking about reconnecting with old friends from high school.

When my family arrived in Montreal, I was enrolled in Ecole Secondaire Dorval, a French school that "specialized" in accueil programs for immigrants. Yes, Quebec does have English high schools, and yes, English is my native language. This was cause for quite a lot of resentment on my part. But that's another story.

I made a number of friends in high school, and as is usually the case, lost touch with all of them after going on to college and university. As Stephen King wrote in "The Body" (from Different Seasons):

"It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant."

Once I joined Facebook, I immediately saw a few familiar names and faces. I must admit, I was apprehensive about contacting them. What if they didn't want to reconnect? What if they'd changed? What if I'd changed? And did I really want to relive all the pettiness and insecurity of high school?

Thankfully, I was wrong. It isn't like that at all. Reconnecting with old friends on Facebook is like finding a dusty diary that you'd lost many years ago, opening it, reading familiar passages with a fresh perspective and discovering completely new pages.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2007-05-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was joking that my condo must be built on an Indian burial ground. He might be right. In the three years we've been here, we've had:

A car accident resulting in a write-off
Building re-plumbing
Slow contractors
The death of one of our cats
A burglary
A flood

I realize that not all of this is specifically condo-related; and of the ones that are, I'm well aware that I'm remembering the hits and forgetting the misses (or is that remembering the misses and forgetting the hits?).

Still, that's not much consolation right now.

We're currently coping with the last one, a flood caused by a broken water pipe that resulted in damage to most of our new hardwood floors. Luckily, our insurance and the building's insurance is covering most, if not all, of the cost. In terms of logistics, though, with the hardwood floors all ripped up, we're right back where we were before we moved in: bare concrete floors, damaged walls, damaged bathroom floor tiles, and furniture and personal items in storage.

On the upside, most of our stuff made it through with no damage (which is a minor miracle). And our temporary digs are just off Commercial Drive, which we're discovering is a pretty neat neighbourhood.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

2007-05-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

The events of the past week or so have gotten me a trifle depressed. Thinking of the following song helps me keep things in perspective:

Searching for an Agent

2007-05-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

When people discover that I've written a novel, they're fascinated. They ask me lots of questions, which I'm happy to answer. Almost invariably, though, they also ask me if it's been published yet. They assume that once you've finished your book, the hard part's over; publishers should be falling all over themselves to get your stuff into print.

Ah, if only it were that easy....

Writing your novel, while a significant milestone, is only the first step. (Let's ignore for a moment the many, many revisions you've probably gone through.) Very few publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts or (God forbid) book proposals. First, you need to search for an agent to represent your novel. This involves finding someone who is (a) willing to represent the type of novel you've written, and (b) accepting new clients. Each agent has different requirements for solicitation. Some prefer only a synopsis; a few like to get the first ten pages; one or two accept the first three chapters.

You write your synopsis, sweating blood to condense your hundreds of pages of finely developed characters and intricate plot twists into one sparkling page. You hand craft your query letter, making sure you're witty--but not clownish--and bold--but not ostentatious.

You get your packages ready, submit to three or four agents at a time (making sure you note in the query letter that you're sending out multiple submissions), and sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. After about three or four weeks, you send out another three or four packages, rinse, lather, and repeat.

And you collect the rejection slips. Until you hit that one agent that is the perfect match who is willing to represent your novel to the publishers.

This is only the second step. Your agent will probably have a number of suggestions and recommendations. And after that, your agent will then need to find a willing publisher.

At this point, I'm not allowing the "finding a publisher" part to take a lot of my headspace. I'm solely concentrating on the "finding an agent" part. So the mailings continue....

Hello, world

2007-05-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Hello, world.

Had to be done, right?