WookBlog

2011-11-16T14:41:00.001-08:00

CentOS5 -- Beware!

2011-09-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

So, I've been maintaining a system for a Client that I and an associate installed CentOS5 on.I was vaguely uncomfortable with the decision at the time, probably owing to the fact that atvarious other installations, we had some problems w/ CentOS that took a little too long toresolve (for my comfort).

Recently, some hard disk errors caused some system files to blow up, so I elected to do some cleanup.Here was my first mistake:

% alias yrm 'yum -y remove \!*'

and while perusing a package list generated by aptitude, I discovered at some point that cracklib had been installed,so I elected to remove it, ie:

% yrm cracklib

This was my second mistake, but my third was in looking down at my notes for a second.During which yum removed every system package it could lay it's hands on.

I hit control-C as soon as I looked up (it was still deleting packages).

I've since installed Ubuntu NN Server (11.04) over it, but I thought I'd share mytale of woe with anyone still running Centos 5 in their facility...

Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 X Hangs

2010-01-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

So, if you (like I did) recently installed 9.10 on a laptop
with an integrated webcam, X may have (mistakenly)
identified it as a keyboard. Yep. A Keyboard.

I have the HP G71-320US, and it started exhibiting the
following behaviour the first night I had it on overnight.
The next morning, the keyboard (neither an attached USB
keyboard nor the laptop keyboard) were being acknowledged
(nor the mouse, etc.).

Because I was in too much of a rush to debug it at the time,
I just rebooted (using the power button), and found I had
the same problem the next day. I ssh'd into the machine,
saw it was up and running without apparent
problems, and started googling to see if other people were
having this problem (they were). There were some references
to the webcam being setup as a keyboard, and
some very installation specific ways to surmount this.

I took a slightly different
route, and X seems to work well with things at the moment.

# First, get the list of input devices
xinput list

# This was the name of a device identified as a keyboard
# in the output
xinput query "HP Webcam-101"

# Ok, now we know the device name, get it's properties
xinput list-props "HP Webcam-101"

# Hopefully you saw a "Device Enabled" property in the output
# The 8 means this is an 8-bit field (empirical result)
xinput set-int-prop "HP Webcam-101" "Device Enabled" 8 0

It's the next day, X hasn't hung on me, so I hope this helps
any/all of you. Let me know the results,
so I can post it to launchpad once I have a wider sample.

Also, once you have the correct incantation for the set-int-prop, you can
add it to your ~/.xstartup file.

Avatar

2009-12-18T03:39:00.001-08:00

So, it's 3:40 in the morning, and I just got out of one of the first
regular showings of Avatar in L.A. (IMax).
So why am I I blogging?

I've been involved with Visual Effects for going on 25 years now.
I read Jim's Avatar treatment back in the 90s while we were still working on Titanic,
and I thought it was amazing.

During my time in and around this business, I've
learned about the syntax, semantics, and lexicon of film,
but I've spent most of my time learning the process
of film-making.

Avatar changes all that.

At a bare minimum, it raises the bar for Visual Effects in Film
(and Performance Capture, and Photo-realism in CG/VFX).
While driving home from the theatre,
we thought everyone else should politely throw in the towel
at the bake-off, watch the Avatar reel, and agree to go
directly to Kates to celebrate this
game-changer.

More significantly, the process of making this film will mark
the beginning of the transition to Virtual Production on a grand scale.

Some people will think that Sky Captain made that mark.
I don't. Jims landmark ability to completely re-compose
his shots post-performance marks the beginning of
capabilities most film-makers have never dreamed of.

I don't mean to take away from the accomplishments of others,
but this film makes 3 Jurassic Parks, 6 Star Wars,
and 3 Lord of the Rings films all take on an
almost-amateur cast by comparison
(and I apologize to all the artists
who made history with each of those 12 films,
lending further credence to the
saying that all comparisons are odious).

This is not the product of 12 years of technology development
in conjunction with Moores Law. This film is an accomplishment
of will, vision, and the ability to be uncompromising in getting
the best possible efforts out of all your collaborators.

Well, I'm starting to blather now. Night night.

On Becoming My Father

2009-03-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

I have a certain degree of renown among those who know me for my ability to go to sleep quickly (within 30 seconds of putting my head down), and under any circumstances (like in the back of a Jeep CJ5 on a freeway, without a seat, blanket, pillow, or anything else between me and the steel body. That appears to be done (for now), as I apparently have become my Father.

I go to sleep at around midnight, and I wake up around 4am. By 5, I'm pretty sure I'm not going back to sleep in the next hour, much less the next thirty seconds. So, I get up, maneuver around the three dogs and 1 cat (used to be 2 cats before this past weekend -- Lily, we all miss you so much), pee, and move to the next room to sit at the computer.

It almost doesn't matter what I do on it, hack Processing (processing.org), email, freecell, I'm going to be at it until 6 or 7am, maybe feed the cat (Dash is as insistent about his 6am breakfast, as I am about a noon lunch, even though he is clearly still looking for his sister Lily). I'll go back to bed then (but at this point, unless Mia Houdini has reserved a spot for me, all the normal human bed configurations are taken, so Molly has to put up with me stretched sideways and using her for a pillow) and sleep until Molly wakes me as she heads off to work.

I realized during this mornings cycle, that this is exactly what my dad did for, oh say, the last 30 years of his life, as his and moms sleep cycle transitioned from 8 hours a night to 2x4s or 3x3s through the course of the day. And now that I've realized this, I also realize I'm not freaking out about it (which I have in the past, when attempting to fight some of my fathers more onerous demons), and not even trying to circumvent it (I have a number of techniques for falling asleep quickly under stressful conditions, none of which I'm using). Whether I'm easing in to the next genetically-dictated phase of life, or taking a page from dads book, I have to wonder what this portends for the future.

Somehow, through the magic of some cruel psychological twist, I've tied the death of our cat (which I was present for) with the death of my father (which I was not, and barely), and I spent most of my weekend in a fairly vegetative state, during which of course several other deaths, medical emergencies, and other vagaries of life managed to pile on during. Fortunately for me, I married extremely well, and my fabulous wife was able to help me along, even in the face of her own burdens (we both practice the alternating-meltdown technique).

The idea for this blog-vomitus started out as me planning to send an email to my little (yet deeply fabulous) sister Liz, and I thought about cc'ing some friends who I've been through a lot with, and ended up posting here (planning on sending them all pointer to it). To some, blogging is just a step away from the verbal diarrhea that has infected modern discourse. To others, a chance to share information. To me, if I'm not solving a problem with it, I'd better use it to improve my writing skills. So let me know which of these 3 categories it seemed to fall into from your perspective (if you'd be so kind).

What's on my kindle (with help from the iPhone Kindle App)

2009-03-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

Authors (without naming series):
Aaron Allston
Isaac Asimov
Jim Butcher
Lewis Carroll
Tory Denning
Ian Douglas
Warren Ellis
Harlan Ellison
W.E.B. Griffin
Neil Gaiman
Charlaine Harris
Stephen King
Edward M. Lerner
Richard K. Morgan
Walter Mosely
Naomi Novik
P.J. O'Rourke
Robert B. Parker
Don Rickles
John Scalzi
e.e. 'Doc' Smith
Hunter S. Thompson
Karen Traviss
Andrew Vachss

Books both read and recommended
World War Z
Soon I Will Be Invincible (Austin Grossman)
Storming Las Vegas (John Huddy)
Halting State (Charles Stross)
Spin (Robert Charles Wilson)
Generation Kill (Robert Charles Wilson)

Lets hear it for Anarchy!

2008-08-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of creative anarchy.
Making change for changes sake can be
inspiring, powerful, and most of all fun.
And when it doesn't work out, sometimes
there are valuable lessons to be learned.

Recently (last week), ACM Siggraph did a major
change up, some of which I applaud, and some of
which I hope they'll learn from, move on, and never
repeat. In the former category, I applaud the return
of Friday Sessions (because traditionally, Friday
sessions have the best papers presented). In the
latter category, doing the 'Welcome'
dinner on the last night of the exhibition and the
penultimate day of the conference always strikes me
as silly; Making it impossible to see the best of
the CAF/Film Show/Electronic Theater at a single sitting
was disappointing. I'd also like to commend everyone who
stepped up and provided for an otherwise great CAF, the Stan
Winston tribute, the showing of Clone Wars, and other great
uses of the Nokia Theatre.

I'd like to give particular props to:

Diffusion Curves: A Vector Representation for Smooth Shaded Images,
A. Orzan, A. Bousseau, H. Winemuller, P. Barla,
J. Thollot, and D. Salesin (INRIA, Grenoble U, Adobe, UWashington);

Real Time Gradient-Domain Painting,
J. McCann, N.S. Pollard (CMU);

and
Interactive Visual Editing of Grammars for Procedural Architecture,
M. Lipp, P. Wonka, M. Wimmer (TU, Austria)

Oktopodi, winner of both the Jury and Audience awards, and
Our Wonderful Nature, winner of the 'Well Told Fable' award at the CAF.

And what of Siggraph 2009?

New Orleans has a great history and culture of
both food and entertainment.
I hope the committees take advantage of what the
community has to offer. It also seemed like the show floor was
both small and somewhat under-utilized...might I humbly suggest the
wheel of fortune for next year -- an interleaved circle/pavilion of
recruiting booths (DD, Imageworks, ILM, Pixar, etc.) and Schools
(SCAD, Ringling, etc.) perhaps surrounded by an outer ring of book,
Magazine, and DVD publishers (thanks Carmi for the initial idea).
And if the recruiting organizations or people don't like the idea of
everyone seeing who is talking to who, face the recruiting booths outwards...

Marriage

2008-06-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've found recently that getting married was much more
interesting than I expected...because we had lived
together for some time before getting married,
and spent most of our spare hours together once we
started dating, I expected marriage to be a sort of
continuance of that. It wasn't. I'm trying to stay
away from trite and over-used cliches, but without them,
the nuance about the growth of the relationship
(and the responsibilities it brings) as we work out
various things (you know, the kind involving banging
your head against the wall), is that I'm looking
even more forward to it every day.

Thank you, Chris Evans!

2008-04-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

It's nice to see the blogosphere actually helping people out, so if you
are another prisoner of python in Motion Builder, you might want to look at
Chris' very cogent example/tutorial on exploiting the telnet port
here

Love,
Wook

MoBuPy #8

2008-03-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

Not so much a Python issue as a general Mobu issue.
I tend to leave Mobu up and running all day
(I have two machines side-by-side with 1 shared monitor),
and I find that Mobu tends to die an annoying
and horrible death within 2 to 24 hours.
Often it just decides to leap off to the low address range,
but right now it's just hung,
doing nothing (or as Windows puts it: 'Not Responding').
Other people seen this?

MoBuPy #7 -- why does it soil itself?

2008-03-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that MoBu at Qt don't appear to get along well.
It seems like every 4 to 6 times I run something under Mobu during the
debug cycle, MoBu is crashing.
Even without necessarily making any changes to the code.
I'm having to go the diagnostic print route while getting this
code to work, and it doesn't seem to matter how simple a scene,
or how minimally I've changed the code, after a while,
it just crashes Mobu.

7.5 ext 2 for those who care.

MoBuPy #6

2008-01-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

Hey, were you wondering just how much Python sucks in Motion Builder?
Try this, in either Python, or Idle:

>>> import time
>>> time.strftime("%D %T", time.localtime())
Now try the same thing in Motion Builders Python window,
but do it without anything
important (or time consuming) loaded...for me,
it blows up (Unknown software exception
(0xc00000d) occurred in the application at location 0x78148b5

Thank g_d they have an easily scrolled and searchable
output window -- oh wait, they don't...

...well, at least time.ctime() works...

MoBuPy #5

2008-01-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

LoadBegin takes 2 arguments: a filename, and a 'merge' boolean;
Strangely enough: setting merge to False doesn't wipe out story information
(like existing character tracks), but setting merge to True does.

Oh MoBu, why dost thou screw with me?

To recap:

mgr = FBFbxManager()
lbv = mgr.LoadBegin(filename, False) # Really merge, don't trash existing data
set anim/elem states if any
lv = mgr.Load()
ev = mgr.LoadEnd()

If any of lbv, lv, or ev is False, this didn't load...

MoBuPy #4

2008-01-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

1) ProcessNamespaceHierarchy doesn't work as far as anyone on the web can determine;
2) This means that if you want to do what it does, you have to do your own recursive
descent of the models, rig models, and effectors AFTER you get them by index and
individually ProcessObjectNamespace them

MoBuPy #3

2008-01-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

Since sys.exit(any) causes all of MotionBuilder to shut down,
is there any quit method that gets you back to
the Python Console top level?

One can always just 'raise RuntimeError', but it's pretty ugly...

Also, FBMessageBoxGetUserValue always treats the
second button as the abort case,
so if a user updates the value of the text,
it reverts to the originally
supplied (default) text before it returns.

This is anti-helpful.

MoBuPy #2

2008-01-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well, Python in Motion Builder is a joy to work with.
And No, I don't really mean that.
Say you have a library, let's call it 'mobu'
(which you've written to hide some of the
C++ knowledge/complexity resulting from the swig interface)
that lives in someplace a little off the
beaten path (ie: not in the default PYTHONPATH),
so normally, our client app would
have the following:

import sys
mobu_home = 'z:\net\libdir'
sys.path.append(mobu_home)

import mobu

. . .

Well, this has two unfortunate side effects:
1) every time you drag this client script in,
sys.path will have mobu_home appended to
the end of your sys.path -- go ahead,
bring up the python window, print sys.path after
each time you drag this in...
it's fun to watch it grow endlessly...

2) It doesn't necessarily get the latest (current)
version of the library (I do cross platform
work -- I edit/test (when I can) on a linux
system on the network, and then run apps on
a windows system that has nfs mounted the
target directory where the library lives).
I don't think this is a Windows or NFS problem,
because the following workaround appears
to alleviate the problem(s):

import sys
mobu_home = 'z:\net\libdir'
# Only extend sys.path if we have to...
if mobu_home not in sys.path: sys.path.append(mobu_home)

import mobu
reload(mobu)
# This has to happen every time, otherwise the Python instance in mobu thinks the copy it
# loaded last time is still current
# The good news is that the 'if' above should speed things up in the course of a long session

Welcome to the obscure -- MoBuPy

2007-12-17T15:50:00.000-08:00

Python for Motion Builder -- sometimes it's Python, sometimes, it's just Swigged C++
The docs (such as they are) appear to assume expert fluency in the MoBu SDK. I'll be
tidbitting here as I work on this stuff at the office and at home. Unless a search brought
you to this stuff, please ignore...

1) pyfbsdk FBSystem() returns an fbsystem instance whose Scene attribute is the
root scene, so:
from pyfbsdk import FBSystem, FBGetSelectedModels
fbs = FBSystem()
scene = fbs.Scene
chars = fbs.Characters # This acts like a python list (len, getitem)
all_models = fbs.Models
selected = copy.deepcopy(all_models)
FBGetSelectedModels(selected, None, True)
unselected = copy.deepcopy(all_models)
FBGetSelectedModels(unselected, None, False)

2) You now have root scene access, and dir(scene) will show you most of the other attributes
which will give you access to Actors, Materials, Textures, Meshes, blah blah blah

Marriage and Bears

2007-11-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

I got married last month (for the first time!). It was fun, exhausting, and wonderful. My fabulous wife is my dream come true.

Big Thanks to the right reverends Daring Rant, Bopo, and Fred (who didn't preside, but he did provide a fantastic venue for a beautiful wedding and over 400 friends and family) -- we couldn't have done it without them!

Also thanks to Jean Huang, Dre, Jo L, and AmandaJ, Andy & P. Lo, Boom, and Lesa for not just coming out but helping to set up. Much thanks to Matt and Jo for providing a rehearsal space for us. Thanks again to Brad, Renard, and Johnny for all the great pix!

We lucked out big time, the wedding was one week before and 2 canyons over from the last round of big fires.

While honeymooning in S. Lake Tahoe, our three dogs treed a small bear in the back yard. This was apparently their high point in the trip. They also seemed to realize for the first time that we are never leaving them.

Now that we're back, we've re-integrated the cats into the household (after being away for over a year). We're all back to sleeping together in one big furry bed...and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Teaching from the perspective of a recovering Student

2007-06-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

So, now that I've been teaching for a while (how did this turn from a two-day course to a 3 week course)?, it helped me understand so many of the things that suck about being a student:
1) Giving positive reinforcement has a negative effect (saying someone
did well in front of the class is the 'teachers pet' effect);
2) Getting people to interact with the material (at the board,
or in this case driving the workstation) forces people to think
beyond self-consciousness, and really engage.
Unfortunately, it's really hard to get their brain to re-light up.
3) Everyone at this age thinks they are a true badass,
right up until the time to show it.
People have to be forced into admitting that they don't quite get it.
4) Homework isn't a punishment,
it's the most basic metric of determining depth of understanding.

Return to the blogosphere -- Prepping Courses

2007-05-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

While I'm feeling rather chatty (see the blog on myspace.com/mrwook), I guess I'm trying to get back to writing here, so I'll see what I can talk about without talking about things I shouldn't...

So, I've been putting together a trio of courses (Absolute Beginners: Python for the (previously) non-Programmer; Python for the Perverse; and Python for ATDs). I've discovered something:

It's easier to write about things I could never cover in a bug (how to debug) than I thought, and harder to do examples than I would have ever thought. I hope Rod is having a easier time of this at Keio than I am.

QC Visualization: Semantics and Syntax

2005-07-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

So,
What are some reasonable semantics to use for visualizing QC operations?

; -- starts a comment
#output "file" -- specify the destination of the image,
    where "file" can also be a string variable
#state clockvec -- indicate the Qubits state should be shown by an angular pointing vec;
#state vec2 -- indicate the Qubits state should be shown by to angular vectors
#state color -- indicate the Qubits state should be indicated by it's color
#state light -- indicate the Qubits state should be indicated by the
    direction from which it is lit
#nstates n -- set the number of possible states

str vname -- create a null string variable
int vname -- create an integer variable
float vname -- create a floating point variable

Qfile[n,m] qname -- indicate a `register file' of Qubits n wide, and m high;
Qubit[i,j] where index (i) starts from zero,
    indicating the leftmost qubit,
    and index (j) indicates the topmost row of Qubits;
Qubit[i] = Qubit[i'] The Qubit at i receives the state from i';
Qubit[i,j] = Qubit[i',j']
    The Qubit at i,j receives the state from i', j';

The implication is that simple programs might look as follows:

; A simple carry visualizer?
#nstates 2
int f
f = 1
int w
int h
w = 6 ; 6 bits wide
h = 2 ; 2 lines
Qfile q1[w, h]
q1[0] = 0 ; Set all values in first line to zero
q1[5,0] = 1 ; except low order bit
q1[0,1] = q1[1,1] = q1[5,1] = 0
q1[2,1] = q1[4,1] = 1
#output "frame_" + f ; Display the current (initial state)
f = f + 1
for x in range(1, w):
    q1[x-1,0] = state(carry_add,q1[x,1],q1[x,0])
    q1[x,1] = state(add,q1[x,1],q1[x,0])
    link(q1[x,1],q1[x-1,0])
#output "frame_" + f ; display the relationships after the add

Yeah, I think I'll build this on top of Python...

A return after the interval

2005-06-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

The PDP-10/20: Back from the dead, or just running backwards in time:

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/hall94reversible.html

So, I've returned to a job, after leaving a job I've returned to, so here I am back
again, and talking to old friends.

But back to Quantum Computing and Computer Graphics:
POVRay seems like a fine way to do things, but Ray Tracing is sort of
a high cost way of doing CG images of Quantum State diagrams. So,
why not look at Scan line rendering techniques, to with: Renderman
and it's open source cousins (BMRT, which has gone into hiding
as Ex Luna has hightailed it inside of Nvidia; Angel; and others).

CGKit is some python support code for generating RIBs (the
scene definition language for Renderman). It's still pretty
preliminary, but shows some promise.

I guess this is a good time to plug Rod's School of the Internet course
on Quantum Computing:

http://www.soi.wide.ad.jp/class/20050012/

As I slowly take my head out of its carvernous rectal hideaway,
I hope we can get back to the good stuff...

Wook

Blogalog 1.0.1

2004-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

So, Rod says that a full physical simulation of a QC architecture is
prohibitively large. That is so not where I am coming from.

The primary strength of computer science is abstraction.
The primary tool of abstraction is modularity.
The width of a blogspot window is too narrow for my tastes, I hate it's wrapping decisions and this sentence should illustrate that.

There are two basic responses here, one is that the simulation
need only represent the 'useful' states of a Qubit,
not it's full domain. The other is that the serial simulation
of Qubits requires at worst a data-flow dependency,
and at best an output only state-capture.

Now comes the part where Rod tells me how much I
don't get it, and not how I don't get it. But that's
okay. It's more important to start reaching
a common mental state (and concomitant lexicon
and grammar) than it is to be right.

In my next non-reactive entry, I'll challenge
Rods assertion that QC is best served as
a co-processor (which we actually questioned
in Blogalog 1.0).

Now, a word from the CG Front:
While Rod's dilemma of how to constrain if camera to a POV
that keeps all his QuBits, their state, and captions viewable in frame,
I ask the next cinematic question:

What is a fly-through of a Qubit, and can it be used to visually
express the superpositional quandary that lies at the heart
of transitioning to a new way of thinking about harnessing
quantum behaviour for computing applications.

Blogalog 1.0

2004-12-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Rod Van Meter (here) and I are
going to take a whack at a blog-based Dialog.
Well, two, actually. I'm going to post
some ideas about Systems and OS Architecture
for Quantum Computing Systems,
and Rod is going to post stuff about CG Visualization of same.
Hopefully we'll neither bore each other to death, or over-expose
our respective ignorances.

This evening during dinner, Tom, Harold, and I were making some guesses
at gate counts required to make interesting QC Systems. We've posited
about 100k gates builds a system of (traditionally) 8008/6502 complexity.
This is about the complexity that really starts to benefit from the presence
of an OS. By comparison, a PDP-8 can probably be built in about 10k (or
less) gates, and the operating system (OS/8) provided probably 1/4 of the
functionality of a contemporary BIOS.

So, I guess my first question is what does a QC gate simulator have
to provide to start building 'interesting' configurations?

Random Plugs

2004-12-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

Complete Randomness is substituting today for the search for truth thru depression:

1) I'd like to thank Jon Postel and Co. for giving us the Internet. VoIP rocks. This appears
to be another case of technology leaping ahead of industry in a very open-source kind of
way.
Now that people have made `the obvious thing' into `the right thing', how long before
billionaire mega-corps try to take it over or legislate it into uselessness?

2) Non-Photorealistic Rendering is cool, but this is cooler still:
MERL NPR Camera
The guys at MERL are coming on strong these days (Howdy, HPF)

3) Where should we eat in Vegas this year, and has anyone seen the new Cirque show
at the MGM yet?

Still More on Restaurants

2004-09-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

Despite the format change, some things cannot be left unsaid.

Mediterraneo, Hermosa Beach Pier, Hermosa Beach, CA;
Tapas, Greek, and Pasta for the young and unadventurous at heart.
Flights of wine to accompany your meal,
and an incredibly helpful staff (Thanks again, Lauren!)

4 of us devoured about 20 different dishes. We just wish we had
room for dessert.

Out with the Old, Sweep in the Stupid

2004-09-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

So, Terry he say: Why no wook-bloggy? Me say: Time for a format change
Enough insipid JarJar'isms, on to the dopey meat of it:

Cheerios.

So, a couple of months ago, I got a tiny little basket from Trader Joes.
In it, I was keeping things that were very good, but very bad.
Sour Skittles, Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Parmesan Chips.
None of these things were very good for me, but all quite tasty.
The extraordinary thing was that all their flavor was collecting
in the bottom of the basket, making for a melange of flavor that
could warp space and time in an instant.

It was so delicious it was almost scary, and could be
taken by itself.

Clearly, I had to give up the base foods.

Now, it's filled with Cheerios.
Cardboard in little O's with the texture of wood impregnated graphite.
Hmmmm....mediocrity made digestible!

It however appears to have it's own habit forming qualities.
I found while reading Slashdot this evening,
that I was devouring Cheerios so fast it was exploding over my keyboard.

Faster than pasta,
Faster than steak,
Faster even then dark chocolate...

What Satanic ingredients do those base villians
at General Mills put in this stuff anyway?

Help me, I'm reaching new depths...

Siggraph Day 1, 2004

2004-08-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

Our first day in the booth

Truth: I inspire more fear than I realized. At dinner, someone said they were afraid
I would beat them if they made stupid comments. This started in a lengthy discussion
on anxiety, and ended in discussing step 4.

Madness: The people at Blur have issued party tickets that we are told read:
"This ticket will admit 1 man and 3 women". There is a certain hopeful
arrogance to this that caught our attention. We've started a movement
to get tickets, and bring every queen in Hollywood to the party. Time
will tell.

Food: The Water Grill downtown.
Excellent seafood, desserts that are elegant without being extraordinary.
The steak ain't bad neither.
Long on presentation, and why in G_ds name won't
they seat parties of more than 6?
Over the phone, they seemed to not care when we wanted
to eat or who wanted to come.
I suspect we'll be passing this place up in the future.

Fun: The MERL party at Ciudad was a great deal of fun, many fine desserts (the tiny
lemon meringues made me crazy). I hadn't realized how much I missed Coco until tonight.
The nVidia party at Casey's laid new ground in it's own pathetic way.
Why is it every dinner with Carmi, Daryll, and the Lord-Blacks is so much fun?
Every 6 months is FAR too infrequent...

You can't always get what you want

Siggraph 2004, Day 0

2004-08-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Booth Buildout, Film Show (Electronic Theatre)

Truth: I have always considered Chris Landreth to be an extraordinarily talented animator.
His technical skills complemented by his sense of the intersection of the surreal and the real.
In his latest piece, Ryan, he has made his most overtly personal film,
without falling into the traps of self-indulgence or maudlin sentimentality.
For me, he has just crossed the line from extraordinarily skilled to extraordinary storyteller.

Madness: Okay, the film show is going to sort of take over this blog entry.
There is some wonderful craziness in the film show. Strangely enough, the
french had some of the best stuff I've seen in a long time.

Food: Wokcano has the worst commercials on L.A. cable. But the food isn't bad,
the service is excellent, and I'm never going to make the mistake of passing it up
again. Indoor seating, outdoor patio, and everyone from the waitress to the
busboys were some of the nicest service industry people I've ever met in one place.

Fun: So, once again, the film show pre-show is a audience based video game.
Giant sensor-tracked beach balls turned hundreds of people into crazed participants
without anyone even knowing the rules.

Sunrise, Sunset, Pollo ala Naranja

2004-07-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

A evenings respite...

Truth: Does friendship live at the core of all intimate relationships?
Without it, trust and respect are absent,
which are the foundations of a successful relationship (intimate or not).
You may not have to trust someone to do what you want,
but you must trust someone to be who they are.

Madness: Anxiety has a sharp edge,
like the tongue of a demon slicing across your eyes,
It leaves you just as blind.

Food: Bamboo, Culver City(?), corner of Westwood and Venice Blvds.
The frappes have gone peach,
but it's still one of the places where the plaintains are delicious,
and they serve Guarana Antartica straight from the can.

Fun: This weekend: Cinespia presents _The Big Clock_ at the
Hollywood Forever Cemetary (Saturday night, gates open at 7:30pm),
Starring: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton
Maureen O'Sullivan, Harry Morgan, Elsa Lanchester; Classic Noir Crime Story:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0040160

Escape into the future, feet first

Anxiety, Aggression, Anger, and Caesar Salad

2004-07-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

How can you express anger towards people you love without boning the situation?

Truth: I'm having a problem dealing with relationship frustration.
My anxiety in a complex situation is creating a lot of difficult emotions for me.
I find myself becoming physically (sexually) aggressive in the moments
where articulation fails me. This is generally tragically unwelcome at such moments.

Madness: Another unwelcome by-product is mounting anger.
I am amazed at the ease at which this sublimates towards people
outside of the exchange.

Food: The Kettle in Manhattan Beach (just off Manhattan Beach Blvd,
down by the water) is open 24x7.
Although I can't decide if I love the food there or not, I'm pretty sure I love the place.
It skews young after hours, although last night was the first time I wanted to feed someone
their digital camera.

Fun: I'm going to see the Bourne Supremacy at 23:59 tonight...
Why they just don't open on Wednesday
to get a 5 day box-office, I don't know.
I'd love it if the Studios would stagger their summer
releases (Wed/Fri/Wed/Fri/...). It would make summer more fun.

I hope this one reduced the pressure on the pretensiometer (c).

Lost in the blogtime continuum

2004-07-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

A moment of joy, euro-angst, Big Mac, return to Anaheim

Truth: The light in a young girls voice, the note of joy in her words, can set the sun to shame;

Madness: Heute kann ich vom Fahren des gebrochenen Glases in mein Fleisch kaum halten.
Ich fühle so aus Steuerung heraus,
daß ein blutiger Tod zur dunklen Ungewißheit des Lebens vorzuziehend ist.

Food: The Mac and Cheese at Global Cuisine could stop a hummingbirds heart;
It's the top layer of emmenthaler that really locks in that smoky goodness;

Fun: A friend just called me and told me there is an event at
(Linda's) Doll Hut in Anaheim next week.
He's catering, and I'm hoping to go.
I thought Lindas had closed years ago,
along with the other shelters for alternative music across the Orange Curtain;

Life is a terrible, painful, humiliating experience, that is over with much too quickly
-- Woody Allen

Another Day, another meal, another bad idea

2004-07-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

Trust, Pain, Gelato, Bad UI Adventures

Truth: What inspires trust? Apparently not honesty.
Honesty can inspire fear as easily as trust;
If Glasnost threatens through subtext, what text can overcome that?

Madness: Without trust, fear becomes prevalent. Often we think brave leadership inspires
brave action. Into what depths must we leap to inspire reciprocity?

Food: Gelato -- Massimo's on Abbot Kinney in Venice -- Try mixing
Hazelnut Chocolate and White Chocolate and hope your tongue
doesn't melt into the goo;

Fun: What is it that makes User Interfaces get uglier as they get more comprehensive?
The weight of detail slows development, even as it makes for navigational challenges.
Does default lead or follow?

Trying to find the balance between meaningful and stupid...

another night in paradise

2004-07-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

Friends, Loss, Italian, Monsters

Truth: When friends share what they've learned on the
hard part of the road, they share the truest parts of
themselves. When friends who care enough to reveal the
things that have little pride for them, they light
a path in the darkness;

Madness: When loss is self inflicted, it feels less
like loss. Fear of loss seems to make us drive away
things and people before we lose them;

Food: The C&O Trattoria on Washington (on the
Venice/Marina Del Rey border) has some nice
food, in abundant quantities, and I'm glad
I found someplace besides Casablanca that has
a decent Calimari Steak;

Fun: The more I see of Monsters, Inc. the more impressed
I am by it. While the technical work is excellent,
the writing shines brighter and brighter with every
listen...and I hadn't noticed before tonight that
Nemo (which was release after Monsters) is one of the
toys in Boo's room;

I sure hope someone will tell me when this gets too pretentious...

Falling through the blogosphere

2004-07-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

So, here I am...and I'm not sure what I'm doing here...
I guess I'll pick an arbitrary set of foci:
Truth
Madness
Food
Fun

Two Trivial, Two Serious, but I'm not sure which is which...

On Truth: Do we sacrifice respect by putting others before ourselves? Is this in a sense
enabling behaviour that validates the selfishness of others?

On Madness: Anxiety is a cumulative illness; Just putting this down in a blog makes me wonder
if it can be held against me forever, and by strangers (in itself a symptom of anxiety). The
downware spiral is the result of an accumulation of anxiety. It's nice to be analytical about
an irrational emotional state.

On Food: Geez, is Emerils Fish Market in Las Vegas one of the best restaurants in the world or what?
I have had some of the very best meals of my life there (although I must say both my companions
and the absolutely fabulous attentions of the staff add considerably to the experience). In our
last adventure, we sat at the newly renovated Kitchen Table (yes, turn on the privacy glass, if
you are facing the wrong way, you can still see into the kitchen). Emeril, Dave, Diane, and
Ed made a great night even better...

On Fun: Will Farrell in _Anchorman_ has created one of the most surreal and wonderful slice of
a decade that might never have been. Christina Applegate is all grown up, and hasn't lost
her talent for comedy, even without playing a dumb blonde.

On my first blogontology: What the fuck am I doing, and will I keep doing it?