The show looked brilliant. The mix of miniatures and CGI was perfect. For a great example of where this works well you could see Moon. For examples of where just CGI doesn’t work see Star Wars Episodes 1-3. The whole look was organic, more natural than pure CGI.
I have no idea of which Tracy brother is which. I just can’t do similar faces and names. I will probably end up knowing them by colour. Quite clearly Kayo, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker were obvious. The others? No idea. My facial recognition fails me completely.
The vehicles looked and sounded brilliant. I had two “moments”. The first was when TB2 took off from Tracy Island and there were a couple of “boom” sounds that made me shiver. Then, and this is just brilliant, when TB1 flew there were condensation clouds behind shock waves that made my hairs stand on end. Yes, I am that much of a nerd.
Who cares if the story was over the top, that’s just what we want. Overall, this was a great piece of television. It is something I am really looking forward to sharing with my children The wait for something like this has been too long!
Nerd Stuff:
The animators have been very clever. They have given the humans a slightly shiny face in homage to the plastic models of the original series AND at the same time they have avoided falling into the UNCANNY VALLEY. Well done. Any more realistic and people would have felt an urge to throw up and turn off. Also, creating a smooth surface with certain reflective properties saves a ton of rendering time.
If you aren’t sure then think about why in Toy Story ALL the characters have plastic faces [rendering time] and then think about Monsters Inc, only one character has hair, why? Rendering time and computer power. I saw a documentary about Pixar where they essentially said that if they tried to re-create Cars using the computer power available when they made Toy Story the rendering would have taken around 2000 years. Computers are awesome.
[I had watched the Reggie Yates documentary called No Strings Attached, but I got bored. It was a modern documentary with reviews and reminders bracketing every advert break and that ruined it. Not worth watching.]
So, here’re some photos from the Disaster Area gig on the 20 March. Our set list, although small, was perfectly formed.
Detroit Rock City
Symphony of Destruction
The quality of these photos is terrible, mainly because they’ve come from the Disaster Area Facebook page. If you really want to see more head over to that stuff. As I’ve explained before: I don’t do Facebook.
I went to see Insurgent. It’s the second film in the Divergent series [if that’s what they are called]. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and you should read this communication for a better understanding of how I rate films, it’s subjective you see. I reviewed Divergent.
I’m not entirely sure this film had a stand out moment. It was a quite pedestrian storyline. I have a feeling it could have been made more exciting, but I may be suffering from YAL overload. You see, I watched Maze Runner recently. It’s probably fair to say that the overall plot of the films are exactly the same. I’m not sure the youth can claim this kind of dystopian future for themselves, but then every generation needs their own films and music to claim. We have to give the youth these views so that they feel empowered to contribute and change the system.
I feel a certain nostalgia for the badfuture films of the 70s and 80s. Granted, we did have a cold war and the threat of death within four minutes [if you were lucky] but we also needed the films to promote social change. The problem as I see it is that the wrong kind of social change happened. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that politics, power and greed gets in the way.
The poor youth of today constantly worried about the extremely low probability of being killed by a murderer [or terrorist as we now call them if they are a little different to us], they must find it very upsetting. Bollocks. It’s been worse in the past. It’ll get worse again.
Gran Turismo is a wonderful game. If you log in on your birthday you get a car from the year of your birth. Me? I was born in 1972. This is the car I got. Sheer beauty.
I guess this is an historical type communication. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to write this but this site does have some odd pages, like this one and this one. The communication about my home network is incorrect now and one day I intend to update it.
I am a bit of a gadget fan. Although I would like to think that I evaluate whether something will add to my life and make it easier before I go ahead and buy something. The Apple Watch, for instance, or any other smart watch is not something that I am currently willing to invest in. I have looked at it, and decided that I am currently happy to stick with my watch and phone as separate devices. My phone is within easy reach and the watch tells me the time and date [if I remember to correct the date at the end of months where d<31]. I also spent quite a long time looking into wearable technology when my Up band died [again].
So, this communication is a list of televisions I have owned. The title really does say it all.
Pre-personal ownership:
<1982 black and white valve based TV, needed to be turned on 5 minutes before you wanted to watch it. Blood was black. Had to physically move and touch the TV to change channel. RF port only.
1982 – 1990 colour TV with remote control AND Ceefax! Probably a 21 inch machine 4:3.
1991-1992 lived in university halls, no need for television.
1992 -1994 bought a second hand TV for £50 from a second hand TV shop. Carried it down the North End Road to Winchendon Road. RF port only. No remote. Maybe 6 programmed channels. Mainly used for Megadrive games. Maybe 21″? 4:3
1994-1999 inherited a 21″ 4:3 colour newish TV. RF and SCART ports. Mainly used for Megadrive games.
1999-2006 bought a Sony 28″ widescreen 16:9 CRT from a TV shop in Brentwood. RF, SCART and S-Video inputs. Remote control. Quite heavy. Good sound but never used it as got into external amplifiers in 1997 or so. Loved this TV but before a year was up a single pixel died in the middle of the screen. I had a new CRT fitted but the alignment and colour mix was never quite correct after that. Used mostly for West Wing, Sony PlayStation and PS2.
2006-2013 Sony HD Ready TV. 40″ 16:9 screen. 720P. RF, SCART, S-Video and 1 HDMI. Mostly used for West Wing, PS3 and Gran Turismo. Lovely television, bought after seeing HD images on similar TV of the Royal Albert Hall. HD looked great, even if it was only 720.
2013 LG 1080P 3D Smart TV. 47″. It has speakers but I have no idea what they sound like as I currently have a 7.2 home cinema amplifier. This TV is used for streaming TV from BBC iPlayer and the Amazon video thing. You can play games on it but they are shit. Both the PS3 and PS4 are wired into this thing. Amusingly I rarely use the 3D effects because I don’t think 3D adds anything to the viewing experience.
So, there it is. The list. I’m not sure I get the 4k thing. Once the resolution is high enough your eye can’t differentiate a higher resolution. I think 4k content providers are also a long way away. Curved TVs – WHAT!!!!? How does a curved TV improve my experience? It reduces your viewing points and take sup more space, surely a backwards move.
I think a little next morning rethinking means that I could possibly downgrade this to a 6/10. If you need to understand my rating system then read this communication.
I really enjoyed this film. Within the last six months I watched District 9, made by the same people and I enjoyed it and also found it a very interesting film given the storylines and location. District 9 dealt with the legal repression of a race of beings in South Africa. I thought it was a great film you can sit and watch or an even better critique of the recent past.
Chappie [apart from having an awful title] was quite similar. Many of the locations seemed very similar as it was films around Johannesburg. The laboratories looked and felt similar. I wonder whether the director has the same location or a very distinct look that he wanted for both films.
I would describe this film as a grown up version of Short Circuit. There was so much about it that I liked. There were some science-type issues that I had, but I am willing to let the film have those technological problems for free. This film is worth a watch, just make sure you put the kids to bed first.
An aside is that there was a couple sitting next to me. Before the film they were talking, I was reading a book on my phone, I don’t watch adverts or trailers. The girl asked why the screen was curved. The bloke responded because it makes it look nice. Now that’s not really the case is it? The screen is curved so that all points on the screen are the same distance from the projector so that the focus works properly. I didn’t interject, that seemed rude but I really wanted to. Also, if you have a question like that why don’t you look up the real answer on the internet and learn something. don’t except any answer you hear, even the one I’ve just given, look it up, find out the real reason.
This was an enjoyable film. It was a pretty standard con movie. There were twists and turns all the way. I very rarely watch con movies more than once, hence this is rated 6 on IMDB. The only con movie I can remember watching more than once was The Usual Suspects, although I guess that’s more of a thriller.
This film was quite good fun. It had all the glamour that you would want and rich people being used. The two main areas of play were New Orleans and Buenos Aires. Both cities looked lovely. Both I think I would like to visit.
The big con was interesting as it involves the world of car racing. There are a number of plot points that didn’t make a great deal of sense but I think I only spotted those because I do like car racing and follow the news and events.
I discovered this on Amazon recently. I used to watch this “back in the day”, or in other words in ancient history. This TV series by Hanna-Barbera is just right to show to my kids. There’s no real violence and it introduces mega-fauna and superheroes.
when reading through the reviews there’s plenty of scorn aimed at this series claiming the Godzilla never worked together with man, blah blah blah. Those should observe that Godzilla isn’t real and so anything can be written about it.
Firstly the spelling of the title of this communication is deliberately wrong, I’ve used the US American English version. Secondly, where is this going?
I like watching Hawaii Five-O. I like seeing the wonderful Hawaiian scenery. I also quite like the characters. I’ve been watching for five seasons now and I still enjoy it. OK, the technology is purely comical and the team can hack into any CCTV system and use facial recognition etc. The plots are far fetched and they have jumped the shark many, many times. In fact I think I have tweeted about that before.
Now I have a problem with this and many other films and TV series which include dubious science. Having this level of nonsense in the public domain creates an impression where some things are seen as essential or that they actually work. I do understand that 5-O is a TV show and that they must get their man. I honestly do get that. I also understand that a major plot device is that they aren’t the police but a “special taskforce” and so they can blow shit up without too much hassle. Much like Inspector Morse gave the impression that Oxford was full of murderers so 5-O gives the impression that violent crime is rampant in the USA’s 4th smallest state [by land area].
Another thing that this TV show pushes into the public perception of acceptability is torture. Suspects are often beaten and are left chained to a chair in a small room to consider their options. I am pretty sure that this helps permeate public perception that torture works. There are many films where the bad people are tortured and then the world is saved. This is all good for governments who indulge in poor unscientific behaviour. I would suggest you follow the links in these articles to see what I mean.
Ultimately, torture doesn’t work. It’s illegal. It won’t help you get the information you want. It makes you barbaric. For a good discussion about stopping terrorism then I suggest you listen to this episode of Freaknomics. I still watch 5-O. But at the same time I like to think that I can ignore the bullshit aspects of it and use the TV show as 45 minutes of escape and relaxation [apart from the bloody Halloween specials that they do I hate those shows].
Halloween specials in TV series are annoying. — Ian Parish (@iparish) February 12, 2015
While I’m on terrorism here’s why data-mining doesn’t work.
Hmmm. Went to see Jupiter Rising last night at the IMAX cinema screen in the Bluewater shopping complex. Even though it was the 19:40 showing the shopping centre was really busy, I just wanted to use a megaphone and shout “go home people”. Well, as ever I rated this film on IMDB, and even more please remember how my scoring system works.
So, I expect that I will watch this film again, probably with my children as an entry into grand science fiction themes. I think we need to call this one fantasy rather than sci-fi though. I quite liked the grand themes and scenery of this film. It was pretty impressive work. The overall story was interesting and a good idea.
BUT. This was not a great film. The acting seemed pretty poor to me and the script was dull. It was like a poor man’s Dune with grand themes of ruling families and expensive commodities. The action scenes were too busy, it was hard to follow or see what was happening. This has been a problem I noticed since Transformers. In that film there was lots of CGI fighting and machines changing but everything happens too quick or too much of it, it’s like they are trying to distract you from the fact that they don’t know what’s going on or how the machines work.
Jupiter Ascending had an awful lot of falling in it.
Overall, this film gets a 6/10 from me but only because I will probably watch it again, not because I thought it was an OK film.
When I’m drafting communications I tend to write a title and then put a little bit of text in the body so I remember what it was I intended to say. I have no idea what this communication was going to be about and so this can only be labelled as random.
There’s a flag on the play.
I love that saying. It normally means that a great football play is about to come back because someone couldn’t keep their aggression in check in a game which is entirely about aggression.
With respect to previous communications I would have to say that I am still angry. Being completely without religion I don’t understand why people believe the things they do. I also don’t understand the people who back them up.
Let’s state quite clearly why so many media outlets and people do not show Mo cartoons or mention how crazy religion is. Because they are scared. No one wants to take responsibility for approving a cartoon and then having some crazed religious twats find their house and kill them. That seems fair to me. But then they don’t say that’s the reason. They waffle on about not causing “offense”. It’d be nice if publishers said what they really think. We are scared at being targeted and killed or maimed by the maniacs who believe they are doing god’s work.
Our religions are so contradictory that we suffer because of them. Islam is a religion of peace except for all the barbarity in the book. Christianity is a religion of love and peace except for women because they aren’t worthy and don’t forget all the barbarity in their book too. God is all loving except for all the people who sin and are going to BURN forever in hell. These ideas are fucking crazy. They make no sense.
Now, I don’t like the idea of a pope and I have little respect for anything he will say. Let’s remember that the Catholic church has SYSTEMATICALLY covered up child rape and refuses to pass information to the authorities. It has caused endless hardship and disease because of its stance on contraception. It has more money that it knows [recently discovered a ton of cash in a Swiss bank account]. But worst of all the Pope said something along the lines of “if you insult my mother expect a bash on the nose” while defending the Charlie Hebdo killings. FUCK YOU Pope. You’d expect a religion of peace and love to preach that all people should talk to each other. They should learn to forgive and spread love. Oh no, not the religion that hides abuses of children.
I’m not really sure that the apologists saying it’s not really Islam know what is going on either. Killing people just because they published some cartoons can only be motivated by the flawed thinking that religion promotes. Non-believers don’t go around killing in the name of non-belief. There are plenty of examples of Christians and Muslims killing in the name of their religion. Killing for their god. Killing because someone doesn’t believe the way they do. Killing because a book or someone sanctioned it. Can’t we all just be a little grown up about this?
Killing is bad.
Perhaps you should try discourse? Discuss why you feel so offended or upset about something. Oh yeah, you have sincerely held deeply religious beliefs and they can’t be scrutinised or questioned. Bollocks. All ideas can be questioned and scrutinised. They are ideas. Evidence needs to be presented and then a conclusion made.
You aren’t allowed to draw a picture of Mo. Why? Because a book says so. Except for all the previous pictures of Mo in your culture. Not being allowed to draw Mo is a recent thing. Remind why women have to be covered up? Oh, someone says so because otherwise men will be distracted and rape the women and that will be the woman’s fault. Grow the fuck up. Do something worthwhile, educate your people. Education will improve livelihoods and the economy. Education will help create a fairer society and improve living standards. But at the same time it will erode your power.
[still angry apparently and in need of a penguin on my shoulder telling me good things]
Firstly, it might be worth noting that I went food shopping before this film with the intention of popping the cold stuff in the fridge at home before heading to the cinema. The traffic was at a standstill to get home and so I ended up eating the ice cream in the car on the way directly to the cinema. Even then, there were road works that meant I was delayed on the A228. I arrived at the cinema at 17:04, the film was meant to have started at 16:45. The luck was in for me as I arrived just as the last advert was playing. The frozen stuff in the car survived as it was pretty cold outside.
I was somewhat surprised that this film was a 15. You don’t tend to get many films that are above a 12A nowadays. For each rating you rise, the overall takings drop.
So, the film was funny, slightly gory, predictable and just bloody good fun. They nearly broke through the fourth wall and I loved the self referencing. This is well worth seeing. I will likely watch this again sometime soon.
The use of Elgar in one of the final scenes was inspired.
Not much of a review or spoilers. Recently I’ve done too much of that.
From the previous communication you should be aware of a bike trip I did in 1999. This contains the maps. This is a digital version of the original map that I used to navigate France. Mostly I let Daryl lead the way and I would mark the map just so I knew where we were heading.
This is the NORTH part of the map (if you click the map it is a LARGE file). Yellow is day two. Day one was Harlow to Boulogne. Orange is day three and the green is the last day.
Map Part 1
This is the SOUTH part of the map (large file size warning). Yellow is day two. Orange is day three. Pink is day seven, mustard is day eight and green is day nine.
It has taken a while to get around to writing this communication but I hope to give you some of the flavour of my best ever bike trip.
Montage
In the summer of 1999 Daryl, John, Chris and I headed off for a week long tour of France. Our aim was to get to the Mediterranean and stay at a place Daryl had visited on his previous trip. I was riding a Honda NTV 650 v-twin called Libby. I had a top box, tank bag and pannier set. The top box had a tool kit and emergency stuff. The tank bag and panniers held clothes and camping equipment. This is a picture of us in Old Harlow just before we set off for the ferry.
France 99 Departure
Just after this photo was taken we travelled about a mile to rev up the engines outside my mum’s workplace and waved to her. Then we set off for Dover. After a smooth channel crossing we headed to Boulogne where Daryl and I camped the Friday night.
The first day was a journey to Nevers in the centre of France. We headed south, had coffee and lunch in Paris, negotiated the Champs-Elysees and the enjoyment of the traffic around the Arc De Triomphe. The open road beckoned and we stayed in a Formula1 hotel on the edge of Nevers for the Saturday night.
Sunday and we headed south. Coffee and cigarettes at Clermont Ferrand, Le Puy (curiously twinned with the borough in which I now live) and then Daryl and I bombed down to the coast. We reached the Mediterranean late that night but I was exhilarated. To have travelled on a motorbike all the way to the south coast of France seemed fantastic. All the pain and ache had been worth it. We found a campsite and set up for a few days.
France 99 Cavaliere
We stayed at Cavaliere for four nights. Spending time visiting the local area, St Tropez and generally lazing around. Daryl and I had an afternoon on a nudist beach which was a curious experience. Eventually our final night, Wednesday came along and we started to get ready for the journey home.
France 99 St Tropez
On the Thursday we worked our way to the Alps. We stopped off in Turin and saw the weir featured in the film The Italian Job and then wound our way into the mountains. Daryl and I stayed in a wonderful campsite near Lanslebourg. The views were fantastic. The next section of the journey was to get to Geneva or as far north of there as possible. We traversed the Col De L’Iseran which at roughly 7500ft is far taller than any mountain in the UK. The motorbikes weren’t happy with the low air pressure hear but they did keep working.
France 99 Alpine Pass
Daryl and I tried to run but found that we needed more oxygen, a few paces was really all we could muster although we did manage a snowball fight.
France 99 Alpine Snowball
A few more miles of gorgeous alpine roads and we were stopping for lunch, coffee and a cigarette at Lake Annecy. The three lads on the trip had a swim. It was noticeably less buoyant water than the sea as it was freshwater.
France 99 Lake Annecy
From Annecy we found Geneva and there was a rock festival at the lake’s edge. We paid for an expensive McDonald’s from a trailer at the festival and then wandered out to the fountain.
France 99 Geneva
At one point there was an odd wind that blew from the lake and we looked at each other. Time to see how far we could get before the storm arrived. Daryl and I made it to nearly the top of a mountain pass in the dark, wind and rain but when the lightning is below you and there are trees falling into the road you have to make a decision. We turned back down the pass and blagged ourselves a hotel room. Once inside we tried to wring out our bike clothes and sleep. The next day all was calm and we could see that we were probably only half a mile from the hotels at the top of the pass when we turned around. It was still the correct decision though.
France 99 Alpine Waterfall
Saturday was upon us and we headed for Calais. This was a very long day motoring along A roads until we decided that motorways would get us home quicker. That night we spent in tents on the beach at Calais. A ferry home and then two hours more biking and we had competed our journey. It was such a remarkable thing to do and great fun. The pain was worth it. If you aren’t sure what pain there could be then try spending 15 hours on a motorbike while attempting to map read, put glasses on, smoke and get caffeine into your system.
There are highlighted maps in the next communication. Up to you if you want to see them!
Odd memories:
Buying ham and cheese at a shop in Cavaliere.
Driving on the wrong side of the road one early morning.
Riding without a helmet on some alpine passes.
Attempting to smoke a cigarette while riding with a helmet on.
Cigarettes that only cost 20F per packet (about £2 then).
The woman in the blue swim suit.
Wearing my panama hat whenever I didn’t have my helmet on – I was paranoid about getting burnt.
Bombing along a French country road at 105mph just because it was straight.
Paris being crazy but great.
Le Puy looking beautiful as we approached.
Daryl being freaked out by a pretty big insect in the tent.
Daryl and me having radios to chat to each other while riding.
Gunning the throttle at a set of lights in Nice and Daryl zooming off as he thought the lights had changed.
Seeing Mont Blanc.
The alpine tunnels.
Smoking
Ordering stamps in Monaco
Bombing through the tunnel at Monaco
Coffee in Monaco (and a cigarette)
Could be called the Fairmont Hairpin or the Lowes Hairpin
By the way, this was first drafted on December 16 2011. It’s taken me three years to get around to completing this communication!
Well, I have X-Plane installed on the home PC and good fun it is too. I’ve downloaded lots of extras including some HD mesh scenery. Here are a collection of screen shots I have taken [for no real reason].
This is a belated communication as I saw Selma about five days ago. I normally write up a film quickly after seeing it but this time I was pretty busy on Sunday at the AST competition and so this has had to wait.
So, I rated this a 6/10. In reality it should have been an 8 but then you have to understand my scoring system which is explained here. This was a very good film covering some of the most important issues of the 20th century. It was well acted and well filmed. I would recommend that all go and see it.
Upon reading around the film it turns out that LBJ was more for equal rights than the film makes out. The claims are that the film is not a documentary. Hmm, I’m not sure. If you take something like the civil rights movement and want to make a film about it then I think you have to make it accurately.
While watching this film I was constantly reminded of my main life rule:
Do no harm
The extended version of this is that you can do what you want but make sure you cause no others any harm. This seems a perfectly good rule. It’s essentially the same as my mum’s saying:
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all
And also similar to the following quotation from the most excellent Tim Minchin:
Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will break my heart.
There was so much hate in this film from ignorant people who had grown up in a segregated society. The USA is still not mended from these issues. Go see it and then promise to do something good.
