I’ve just about got settled back into the old haunts again. I’ve built the ‘new’ server (in fact its just an old desktop which I’ve upgraded) so now the gallery should be back up & fully functional!
On a slightly sadder note, Japanese lessons finished last week but probably at the right time considering that major *final* exams are looming around the corner! I hope I can keep up with the small amount I’ve learned this year (big thanks to Kanako-sensei for that!) and hopefully one day actually visit Japan to practice it 
Some premium linkage for a Monday evening:
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After a fairly uneventful journey I’m back home now. I would have posted yesterday had I not been so horibly tired but better late than never! The nice surprise back home is that our ADSL provider has upped our connection to 2MBs, the downside being that it’s now capped at 15GB per month 
Hopefully the old photo gallery will be back online again in a few days time once I’ve had a chance to rebuild the server (yes, again!). Hopefully with this new fast connection it should ease things a bit.
Saw the first episode of the new Dr. Who tonight (ask me no questions & I’ll tell no lies!). It was OK but only just. The acting was mediocre and although the story line may have only just been an introduction it didn’t particularly inspire me to see any more of it. To my mind it’s one series which is of its time and trying to bring it up to date is a little silly. I may be proved wrong on this one but still…
More soon
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It’s amazing how six months can pass so quickly, which incidentally is the release cycle period of the Gnome desktop environment. Last week saw the release of Gnome 2.10 and although I haven’t had a chance to upgrade yet the reviews are looking very positive. Everythings basically been polished up and better organised by the looks of things but this can only every been a good thing and I look forward to even better things to come in future releases!
This is my last week in Durham before I return home for the Easter holidays (all 5 weeks of it!!) but before I get to excited I have to keep reminding myself of the pile of project and revision work which awaits me! Yesterday I had an A0 (i.e. very big) version of my project poster printed, it looks pretty good stuck on my wall right now (if I do say so myself!).
Do you remember the cool Honda adverts which featured a series of mechanical devices setting each other off in sequence, apparently taking 606 takes to shoot (allegedly)? Now some enterprising folks have put together their own ‘contraption‘ in a similar (but not quite so slick) vain. Take a look at the videos on both sites, really nutty-professor stuff
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Although far-fetched and extreme, try to imagine this:
You’re taken without reason one day.
Held without reason in a single room.
Locked up for 15 years with no human contact.
The set free without reason.
You have only 5 days to find out why.
Sounds like a horrible nightmare but is the premise of Oldboy, a relatively new (2003) Korean film which I watched yesterday. It’s been likened to Kill Bill for its graphic violence and tale of bloody revenge yet in many respects couldn’t be more different. With its main character, Oh Dae-su, on the verge of insanity seeking revenge against mysterious captors it makes for a riveting two hours viewing.
Quite how you get into the mind of someone who’s been kept in solitary confinement for 15 years without reason is a bit beyond me but it’s pulled off extremely convincingly in the film. Between being drugged up and trying to escape Oh Dae-su analyses every important and insignificant action of his life trying to figure out why this is happening to him yet although he has many suspicions he draws a blank and cannot make sense of it.
Upon his release he is led through a murky world of discovery and brutality, in particular, the movies portrayal of violence is quite jarring (even by my standards). As each door to his life is opened skeletons from the past emerge and all the pieces of the jigsaw slowly come together which eventually leads to a chilling truth which I must admit didn’t see coming (and wont spoil here!).
The cinematography is stylish and fresh. The director, Park Chan-Wook has given the film a vicious intensity and an unrelentingly dark tone which keeps you glued to the action throughout. In one breathtaking scene Dae-su takes on a group of thugs in a narrow hallway. Shot in one continuous tracking shot, Dae-su fights his way out with nothing but a claw hammer, and as the camera refuses to cut away, it becomes that much more torturous and draining to watch. How they managed to shoot this is incredible and a testament to the work which must have gone into it.
Whilst it has flaws like any film to my mind its an excellent film but not for the faint of heart. I have questions about whether it was right to include a live squid being eaten in one scene, but apparently this isn’t all that un-common a practice in some regions (but you’d never get me trying it in a million years!). Other notable qualities include an ultra cool classical/modern infused soundtrack and genuinely good acting from all the main cast. The Tartan DVD release also includes some great special features which for once actually have English subtitles!
(8/10)
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As a general observation much of the best graphic design seems to be coming out of Japan these days. Maybe it just looks fresh to us because we’re not used to it but it seems to have a certain edge which is lacking in the West (purely my own rather uninformed opinion!).
The Nagaoka Institute of Design is a good point in question where a quick browse will show you some pretty cool stuff. Be sure to take a look at the Collection 2005 Gallery where the flash interface is as radical as some of its content.
[via Future Feeder]
Seriously nifty if you ask me - good visualisation in action, simple but very effective (as well as being quite fun!). It was created by Yugo Nakamura from yugop.com which also features some pretty far out content! Worth a click or three.
If you havn’t already seen the new ‘Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith’ trailer download it here (52MB, while it’s still avaliable!). Looks great but as we all know trailers can be deceptive. Incidentally this will be the first Star Wars film to get a rating higher than PG (it will probably be a 12 in the UK, PG-13 in the US) as it “is much more dark… more emotional. It’s much more of a tragedy” according to Lucas.
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