I’m off home tomorrow for a few days mainly so I can attend my grandparents golden wedding anniversary (quite an achievement in anyones book) at the weekend. In the course of things I also plan to build a super-hybrid compost bin out of technologically-advanced composite materials (read: wood) for my parents who have been lacking one since the previous incarnation had to be destroyed because of rot and general old-age - be sure to check back in a few days time for the highly interesting/riveting photos of its construction 
Today has been a generally lazy day with not a huge deal happening. One thing which I got round to doing was updating the old site with a new front page and a summary of news articles taken from this site all fetched via the ultra-cool RSS feed! Hopefully things should begin to settle down soon on the website front once I get things how I like them!
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
Just watched the much anticipated film ‘The Eye 2′, although the original was great this bears about as much resemblance to it as Russell’s paradox does to a runaway train (hows that for a Tuesday evening!). Even so, it isn’t a total disaster, it just isn’t particularly scary.
Pregnant Joey (Shu Qi) is verging on the brink of insanity after several failed suicide attempts. During the course of her pregnancy she is the unwilling recipient of an influx of haunting shadowy images that deeply disturb her. Having sought help from many source she finally turns to her estranged friend Sam (Tik Jesadaporn Pholdee), who may be able to shed some light upon the mysterious twilight world descending upon Joey…
None of the cast of the previous films appear in this one and there are no links between them. This time around the directors attempts to shock are poorly conceived and rely to much on the gross-out factor (see stomach pumping etc). This reeks of an attempt to cash in on its predecessors success, unless you’re an avid fan of the original I’d avoid - 5/10.
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
Today started off a little abruptly when I realised only 30 mins before I had to be there that I had to attend a compulsory ‘Project Resources Course’ in the Library so no breakfast for me today! It was vaguely helpful as I managed to locate a couple of useful books (a medium that computer scientists are not well acclimated with!) in relation to my project. The one which I have found the most interesting was an ‘Atlas of Cyberspace‘ which “explores a remarkable universe of visual representations of the Internet’s diversity, structure and content”. It has an amazing variety of maps and general visual representations contained within it along with some pretty in-depth textual analysis.
My project is going to revolve around the visualisation of network traffic and this book is a fascinating insight into how data can be represented in visual forms you wouldn’t normally imagine, I only hope I can do something as cool!
You may be wondering what this has to do with the title of my post but it has a couple of connections to the above namely its the name of William Gibson’s sci-fi thriller novel as well as the name of a pretty cool track from The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack both of which deal with virtual environments, i.e. visualisations of digital worlds.
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
Today has been a bit of a write off as far as doing much is concerned. Having not had much sleep in the last couple of days I’ve been wandering around in a semi trance-like state today and am looking forward to getting a good rest tonight.
Whilst lounging in my spacious garden (!) this afternoon my ears were greeted by the unusual sound of the famous ‘Flying Scotsman‘ which was hurtling across the viaduct which runs parallel to the house. It was recently saved from being sold abroad by the National Railway Museum and it was an interesting sight to see a steam train running on the busy main line. No, I’m not a train spotter but its a very slow news day and I wanted to at least write something!
I’m off now to carry on reading my shiny new copy of ‘MegaTokyo - Volume 1‘ which I picked up the other day in Newcastle (of all places).
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
My younger brother (aged 13, code name ‘Russell’) was kind enough to send me a review of the latest harry potter film which I thought I’d post here this morning instead of writing something up myself - I’m too tired after all the excitement last night!
A new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for Harry, Ron and Hermione brings more magic with the dark Azkaban guards and more magic to our cinemas as the new director - Alfonso Cuaron - creates a masterpiece that will surely rival others in the Oscars. OK maybe the new Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) isn’t as good as the late Richard Harris, but we can’t complain for the odd mishap as most of it was pretty good. Professor Trelawney (Emma Thompson) and Remus Lupin (David Thewlis) have made good appearances as new teaches. The ever outstanding performances of Alan Rickman (Professor Snape), Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid) have added to the flavour of a great movie. The role by minor characters (Draco Malfoy, Neville Longbottom and The Fat Lady (Dawn French)) was played with what seemed enthusiasm. And now the main three characters: Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grin) and Hermione (Emma Watson). Harry is growing up and becomes angrier, as is shown with Aunt Marge and after hearing what Cornelius Fudge and Prof. McGonagall have to say on Sirius Black. Ron and Hermione are growing older as well with having arguments about pets, storming out of lessons and throwing punches at certain people. A certain map also finds it way into the story, and I’ll now have to say
Mischief managed
Having seen it yesterday I’m not sure if I’d call it a masterpiece or Oscar worthy but it was definitely an improvement on previous installments with the Disney style sets being dropped but unfortunately none of it was filmed in Durham. Its always a shame when so much of the story is dropped to make it fit into a 2 hour film but this time I think they did a pretty good job.
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
Recent Comments