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kisskitty: …biggest film disappointment in-a-very-long-time. went in pumped. left deflated… …the film looked visually amazing… …not unhappy. but not thrilled. I can sympathise with this. Although I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Ultimately the trailer set too high expectations and was better than the film - matching the length of the book perfectly. Could I sympathise with the brat of boy? Nope. But he does learn his lesson by the end. And this comment about it not being for young kids: well, you can’t really blame the parents, we were mis-sold on the trailer as much as anyone else. The youngest did fall asleep, but still thought it was “the best film ever!” or something like that, and spent the rest of the day howling. All in all I did like it. And I can imagine us buying it when it comes out because it was a beautiful film to look at. You could pretty much turn the sound off and still have a pleasant viewing experience. Anyway. One bonus of having kids is cheap Saturday morning cinema deals and seeing as it’s winter and there’s knack else to do, we’ve seen a couple of others recently: UP Must be one of my most favourite films ever. Making odd company with films like City of Gold, Requiem for a Dream, Mississippi Burning and Freeway. Comparing the trailer for Up to Where the Wild Things Are, well I just wasn’t as enthused to see Up. But, when it comes to the film itself, as someone else said (but can’t remember who): The thing about Pixar is not just the visuals (although they are amazing - the photos in the photo album aren’t just photos, but great photos) but that they can tell a cracking story. Story first. Everything else second. This is where Pixar win. It just grabbed me and took me and my emotions all over the place, not giving me a choice - it was superb. Fantastic Mr. Fox I knew it was stop motion, but I was surprised at quite how quirky it was for a mainstream movie. Again, probably not quite as good as I hoped (although can’t put my finger on why? Perhaps it’s just watching it in a cinema full of kids?), but good all the same. George Clooney translated naturally from Mr. Ocean to Mr. Fox; A bit of a twist on how I envisaged Fantastic Mr. Fox from the novel, but hey that’s what “based on a novel” is all about.

kisskitty:

…biggest film disappointment in-a-very-long-time. went in pumped. left deflated… …the film looked visually amazing… …not unhappy. but not thrilled.

I can sympathise with this. Although I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Ultimately the trailer set too high expectations and was better than the film - matching the length of the book perfectly.

Could I sympathise with the brat of boy? Nope. But he does learn his lesson by the end.

And this comment about it not being for young kids: well, you can’t really blame the parents, we were mis-sold on the trailer as much as anyone else. The youngest did fall asleep, but still thought it was “the best film ever!” or something like that, and spent the rest of the day howling.

All in all I did like it. And I can imagine us buying it when it comes out because it was a beautiful film to look at. You could pretty much turn the sound off and still have a pleasant viewing experience.

Anyway. One bonus of having kids is cheap Saturday morning cinema deals and seeing as it’s winter and there’s knack else to do, we’ve seen a couple of others recently:

UP

Must be one of my most favourite films ever. Making odd company with films like City of Gold, Requiem for a Dream, Mississippi Burning and Freeway. Comparing the trailer for Up to Where the Wild Things Are, well I just wasn’t as enthused to see Up. But, when it comes to the film itself, as someone else said (but can’t remember who): The thing about Pixar is not just the visuals (although they are amazing - the photos in the photo album aren’t just photos, but great photos) but that they can tell a cracking story. Story first. Everything else second. This is where Pixar win. It just grabbed me and took me and my emotions all over the place, not giving me a choice - it was superb.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

I knew it was stop motion, but I was surprised at quite how quirky it was for a mainstream movie. Again, probably not quite as good as I hoped (although can’t put my finger on why? Perhaps it’s just watching it in a cinema full of kids?), but good all the same. George Clooney translated naturally from Mr. Ocean to Mr. Fox; A bit of a twist on how I envisaged Fantastic Mr. Fox from the novel, but hey that’s what “based on a novel” is all about.

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My Last.fm Chart No.1s for 2009

Forgot to put this under my year in review post. My Last.fm chart No.1s for the past 12 months (so roughly 2009).

  • Top Artist: Freestylers
  • Top Album: Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
  • Top Song: Magic - Ladyhawke

Ladyhawke is a good album. So many good tracks. I said that at the time. Freestylers are still way ahead and I suspect it will stay that way for a while. There is nothing else I enjoy listening to more than the Freestylers. It’s just not getting old for me.

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» Vimeo goes mobile (at last!)

Never been a big fan of YouTube and have always preferred Vimeo for hosting and watching video creations. That was until my main computing platform became an iPod and I was locked out of Vimeo. I’m glad they’ve finally sorted mobile (non-flash) access out.

It may have taken them a long time, but they’ve done it in a beautiful way.

Maybe one day I’ll get back into videography, but for now it remains photography.

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Year End Review - Code

Like photography, I’ve ended the year better skilled than I started it. Which feels good. But in both subjects I’d still consider myself a beginner (or always in Beta!)

Highlights:

Much of the coding I do are little side projects at work, so can’t go into details, but:

  • I’ve got better at Ruby. I still stop when I get to modules, classes, etc - I could (and have) figure(d) it out, but I haven’t had a real need yet (keep it simple and all that). Since I’ve mainly been using Shoes, and quick and dirty coding is fine there.
  • Javascript and user scripting for Chrome. The interesting thing here is I moved beyond moaning and bug reporting about the intranet not working fully in anything else but IE6 and started using userscripting to actually fix stuff.
  • Starting with Java. Not finding it as easy as Ruby, but it’s certainly easier porting a concept from one language to another rather than starting completely from scratch. Looking to do a Jabber chat bot so a nice small enough project to learn on.
  • Oracle SQL. I’d done a tiny bit of MySQL before, but got the chance to write a query for an Oracle SQL database. Easier enough once I twigged the differences.

Using Shoes at work has also lead me to look at the Shoes source code:

ashbb actually did all the leg work here in actually fixing Shoes for Windows, but just trying to follow his work has been an achievement for me.

  • Even managed to dabble in a bit of C in modifying Shoes to provide Key up and down on Windows. I was, of course, subsequently totally eclipsed by ashbb, but I had a go, and that’s the main thing. And the thrill of editing C code (never been near C before), compiling and actually managing to improve the functionality of a programme, was ace.

Next year plans:

All coding I do is work based - it’s the only place I have time - just going to continue with the above. Hopefully be able to help out more with Shoes.

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Year End Review - Art

Well, I say art, but at the moment it’s just photography. I seem to have stopped writing so much. And I think that’s about as arty as I’ll get.

Highlights:

  • Getting a Yashica Mat for a smidge over £40. Bargain, and it works well. Not done that much with it this year, but gets my foot in the door of medium format - All other options are too expensive. ‘Paid’ for itself with this shot:

  • Getting a Praktica 135mm f2.8 for about £25. Nothing better than a huge chunk of glass on your camera. Great for stuff like this:

  • Getting my Great Grandpa’s Kodak Folding Autohraphic Brownie converted to 120 film. Now I just need to fix the bellows:

  • Shooting Kodachrome. I have still to get this scanned, but I’m very happy with what the slides look like. So, all good for my first and last ever roll of Kodachrome.

  • Having a kind fellow send me some APS film from the US.

  • Roidweeks. First did this last year. One of those global community events on Flickr where you can feel the love. Always fun.

Lowlights:

I didn’t want to have any of these, but on New Year’s Eve I found out my Praktica was broken. It had broken cleverly: The lower shutter curtain is not working on automatic. Only on the fixed 1/60 speed. But since the top curtain was working it gave an almost perfect impression of a functioning camera. The thing is, once I realised it was broken, I then twigged when it broke: about four rolls of film back. So that’s all the shots in the run upto Christmas, and from Christmas itself, gone. Arse.

Next year plans:

Large format - Ha, in my dreams! Equipment wise I reckon a close up lens for my Yashica and a 50mm f1.4. That’ll do. Although I still need a 110 camera for the one roll of film I have (and like the Kodachrome, probably ever will have).

Well, they were my plans before my Praktica broke. So now a new Praktica is first on the cards.

I never really have any photographic outings planned. I’ll just see what happens.

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Flickr are running “Your best shot of 2009”. This was done a bit more informally last year as just a thread in the Flickr Central group. My choice this year was very easy; interestingly I (obviously) don’t think I’ve taken anything better since and I’ve also not been as drunk this year since. I wonder how much more productive I could be at work if I was allowed to drink there? I’m going to do a general end-of-year-review / best-of-2009 blog post nearer the actual end of the year, but since this is running now, and I’ve run out of time to surpass it, this can go up now. This was my best photo for last year: She’s My Little Shadow

Flickr are running “Your best shot of 2009”. This was done a bit more informally last year as just a thread in the Flickr Central group. My choice this year was very easy; interestingly I (obviously) don’t think I’ve taken anything better since and I’ve also not been as drunk this year since. I wonder how much more productive I could be at work if I was allowed to drink there?

I’m going to do a general end-of-year-review / best-of-2009 blog post nearer the actual end of the year, but since this is running now, and I’ve run out of time to surpass it, this can go up now.

This was my best photo for last year: She’s My Little Shadow

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I love the end of a roll of film; I think some of my favourite pictures have come from finishing a roll of film off.

I love the end of a roll of film; I think some of my favourite pictures have come from finishing a roll of film off.

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I need to listen to this. I’m actually excited about it. And a little bit worried it won’t live up to my expectations. After reading about Foxbase Beta I got a bit worried that it was only available in as a limited run of 3000 copies and to fan club members only. I might love Saint Etienne, but not enough to join the fan club* (Afterall, it’s not Desperate Dan’s Pie Eater’s club - I ate two today, thanks - probably the only club I’ve ever joined). But It’s only the 2CD thing that’s the limited edition. The normal Foxbase Beta is available on iTunes (Only place I’ve found it so far). Woohoo. * I think the fan club is actually free to join, but to mention that would have ruined the Desperate Dan thing.

I need to listen to this. I’m actually excited about it. And a little bit worried it won’t live up to my expectations.

After reading about Foxbase Beta I got a bit worried that it was only available in as a limited run of 3000 copies and to fan club members only. I might love Saint Etienne, but not enough to join the fan club* (Afterall, it’s not Desperate Dan’s Pie Eater’s club - I ate two today, thanks - probably the only club I’ve ever joined). But It’s only the 2CD thing that’s the limited edition. The normal Foxbase Beta is available on iTunes (Only place I’ve found it so far). Woohoo.

* I think the fan club is actually free to join, but to mention that would have ruined the Desperate Dan thing.

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» Start a side project, says GitHub founder

dhotson:

Pretty old, but worth a re-post I reckon.. :-)

This post has been gestating for too long: I was going to start with “The problem I have with side projects is that all mine seem to be at work”. This was a problem in my head because I felt I needed a side project outside of work, something visible to ‘show off’, but in the process of writing I realised that was only half true, and not necessarily a problem.

With the work thing: yes, unfortunately that means my employee gets all rights to them. Which means I can’t really share source code and have something out there as bragging rights. However, even if I could share, their relevance outside of work would be minimal, and the main benefit I would get would not be bragging rights, but rather feedback along the lines of “Gosh, that’s a really bad way to write that, you should do it like this…”. So, I am missing out on something to showcase, ok, but worse I’m missing out on feedback - personally I consider that the bigger negative. However, on the plus side it’s currently the only place I can find the time to do stuff and, equally as important, I’m inspired to do stuff: There’s an odd mix of old and new technology. Chuck in the fact that IE6 is still the defacto and designed for web browser on the intranet, and there’s plenty of scope for improvement and innovation. Especially since these are tools you have to use everyday; When you are using a tool or a bit of software, everyday, to get a job done, it is very easy to find inspiration to improve or fix things (In fact at the moment I have too many side projects at work).

I have also found this true in the past. The term “side project” not only means something you do as an aside, but reflects that these projects grow out of the side of something else. So my foray into programming started with things like visual basic scripts for CAD software, or javascript macros for FEA software I was using. Outside of work, back when I was using Final Cut Express I wrote a FXScript that would benefit me day to day.

So it seems it’s not all bad having work based side projects: I may lose out on an external showcase, but it does bring the benefit of internal networking. And seeing as how my current role is not within programming, not even within IT, but that is something I’d like to move into, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As to why there is a lack of side projects outside of work, well I’ve already alluded to above. One of the biggest is that I don’t use a bit of software any more to the extent that I used FCE and so I’m not inspired enough to fix or improve anything. Second biggest is probably time. And the third issue is that at home my main computing platform is now an iPod Touch; which, although a great time killer, is perhaps not so great a productivity tool. (You can’t program on it. Yet.)

When I first started thinking about writing this I was worrying about finding a side project outside of work, and thinking that perhaps because I’m mainly on an iPod at home I should go down the route of iPhone apps (although it would have to be a web app, since I can’t get on my mac to develop…). But for one I have NO IDEAS and two, well it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m using my brain somewhere.

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New Tumblr iPhone/Touch app

A quick test from the new app - native editing - Woohoo!

[edit] And it does Markdown.

[edit 2] Not so happy - seems to want to tweet my posts even when I’ve got that preference turn off. Spammy.

[edit 3] Have removed all Twitter settings from Tumblr account, that seems to have solved the problem for now.

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