Wolverine in AWARE EGM

The claws came out, I mean X-men Origins: Wolverine . Hugh Jackman is always watchable but the plot just did not connect and there wasn’t a whole lot of novelty to prop it up. There was something rather unconvincing about his hatred for his brother and love for Kayla. It’s not the acting but the progression of events and the narrative.

Now, the claws also came out at AWARE EGM yesterday. It was mighty uncivil from the start with the heckling and jeering. Looks like there is some anger management issue here. (Hey, another similarity with Wolverine.) For a group whose mission is to protect women, especially marginalised women, the attacks on the women on stage were a tat too vehement. I think it was more militant than passionate — as also observed by a running commentary behind me.

A man made a similar comment – a gem this one. He said something about revising the title of the famous tome to ‘Women are from Mars and men are from Venus.” He went on to plead that the women not come and harass me, “I am a man. Don’t harass me.” He was referring to a “cat woman” hissing at him and asking who he was supporting.

Did the women on the stage deserve this kind of treatment? No respect given at all? They couldn’t even respond because of the badgering and had to proceed to the voting. It was very irrational and hysterical, reminds me of one of those crackling generators in Science Centre.

However, when the new guard did eventually have some space to reply to the questions from the floor, they fumbled. Their answers largely could not connect with the audience and their style was too officious. Their fate had already been sealed by then anyway as the votes were already cast and were being counted. But this was a demonstration to me, who has so far watched this filtered through the media and other 3rd parties, of why the new guard is not able to win this.

Well well, Wolverine…misunderstood or just mutant?

Koheles

I recently heard this comment. With regard to change, we often overestimate its impact in the near future but underestimate in the long run.

Now this reminds me of how yesterday can feel like ages ago and the distant past can feel like yesterday. But this sentence and the one preceding are really very different.

Point is, I think, that we over-react and over-hype, so we inadvertantly get a bit disappointed, and then we downplay it or forget it.

Still on this matter of expectation…I had heard that the electronic theatre is one of the highlights of siggraph so you can imagine my excitement today on my way to catch it at suntec, especially after being very impressed by the animation festival. I think you know the rest of the story. Still good but I think I expected more.

Now the animation I saw on thursday, also as part of the inaugural siggraph Asia, was a prized find – the story of how I was spoilt. “Insight” – about the destitute old lady with a talent in making origami – moved me deeply; the one on the ugly big bunny, the boy with the x-ray eye box and the claiming of the planet were hilarious; and there were other memorable ones.

Ok ok so what is the conclusion? All is chasing after the wind…I’m sure you must be ????!! by now. Merry Christmas!

creative commons

Before there was the copyright law, people had to resort to book curses to prevent others from making unauthorised copies. Since the Statute of Anne (1709), the idea of copyright has evolved and according to some camps, like Dr Lawrence Lessig’s, desperately needs a makeover to stay relevant in these new media days.

Dr Lessig thinks there is still a place for copyright, such as for movies and creative expressions that require significant investments, but there is also need for some other licences that are not “all rights reserved” by default. So he and a group of people came up with the “creative commons” — akin to open source licences but with perhaps some enhancements. The creator can now decide upfront the amount of freedoms he or she would grant users of his or her creation using any one of the creative commons licences which are very user-friendly.

A framework is important, but so is the mindset, and Dr Lessig and the creative commons movement seek to address that too. We have to rethink the application of the copyright law, afterall the formula is “how = f (technology)”. He said the present copyright law is making our children criminals (and if you are honest, you too…heee…I know what you did last summer…) as we have all shared pictures, songs by others without seeking their permission.

The idea is to cater to a diversity of human motivation, offering incentives for the professional while affording freedoms for the amateur. Sounds good? Well, the creative commons has been officially launched in Singapore today. Off with the unproductive fetters on the creative digital conversations on the Net.

Buzz everywhere

NUS was abuzz with activities yesterday. There was the workshop on experiential media systems in the morning and while I was on my way to the engineering auditorium for Ken Mogi’s keynote on the contingent brain, I was told that the chief scientist of Baidu Dr William Chang would be speaking shortly in the seminar room around the corner, so I changed my plans.

A bit about what Dr Chang shared…The Internet penetration in China is now 16%. Generally, after 15%, there will be a hypergrowth phase. So there are lots of opportunities now, specifically in distribution/marketing; legitimate business models for free music, video, etc; 4 necessities (shelter, transport, food and shopping); education; finance and personal wealth management. Examples of some popular sites — shelter (http://sh.focus.cn/), restaurants (http://www.dianping.com/citylist), shopping (http://www.alibaba.com/, http://www.taobao.com/). He also spoke about search…big topic…the database of intentions…

Then I had to zip off for the National Museum for the ISEA2008 opening where a big announcement was going to be made, and it was. Then the food and the drinks. The crowd was clearly quite artsy.

Meanwhile, the museum was ALSO abuzz. There was the giant David on display. Took a few pictures and my friends thought me perverted. Sigh. Misunderstood. And the night festival too. Unfortunately, I was too tired and had to leave earlier. Still, I caught a glimpse of what I missed while I was passing by SAM. I wonder how many projectors they used.

Princess Leia can clearly convey her message recorded in R2D2 soon

You can imagine how dangerous it is for actors to play dead underwater. The solution? Virtual actors. You probably have seen a fair bit of that already. Spiderman 2, Superman, etc. In fact, it turned out that the virtual actor Spider Doc — in the Spiderman 2 scene where he scooped up Kirsten — looked more real than Kirsten who was composited onto the scene. Why? Because of the more precise control of the lighting. Fancy that.

Image-based lighting, high dynamic range imaging…check out a lot more cool stuff here — http://www.debevec.org/. For example, it is difficult to scan the skin because the light becomes diffused once it hits the skin, being slightly translucent. So what could be done is to substract the diffused lighting from the normal one, which includes specular lighting, so that you only have specular lighting. All round cool. Looking forward to SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore in December this year.

I SEE ISEA

I was amused by a message I left myself some time ago in my handphone: “As u wake up tmrw morning, picture the rooster crowing k k keio. And bring the file.” I think I did remember to bring the file in the end, don’t think it could be attributed to this attempt at mnemonics though.

Keio keio..you’ll hear more about it soon. The coming 2 weeks are packed with activities, meetings. ISEA2008 will be fun. Interesting folks will be in town… Ken Mogi, a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Labs will talk about the contingent brain, Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford, will talk about copyright. Many workshops too like the luminous green workshop and another on investigating the language of animation.

Meanwhile, I’ll be a report-churning machine because of the meetingsssss…my bimonthly circuit training. And disturbingly, I have been showing signs of avoidance. Like watching drama on Internet (finished the last episode of first king this morning so can get that out of my system at least), blogging, when I should be working. Gotta burn ze weekend me think.

Well, one thing’s for sure, I’ll have a some interesting things to blog about in the next 2 weeks.

Of Zanzibar & Widgeo

A friend is going to Tanzania to stay for a while. Fancy that! That’s the land where you can find the unique blue/purple mineral Tanzanite. And that’s where you have Zanzibar…you know, “pearls of Zanzibar”, which you can find in Robinsons…and Tin Tin has been there too.

So we farewelled the friend over a dinner at Gluttons Bay with fireworks and much fanfare, courtesy of the National Day Parade Organising Committee and taxpayers. When the ashes started to rain on us, we adjourned to 爱琴海民歌餐厅 at Marina Square. So we sipped the milk tea with the not-so-shiok not-big-enough pearls while listening to the ballads, sharing tales of accidental (or not) animal killings: one put her pet tadpole into a jar of copper sulphate solution thinking that it would be a pretty sight…

Earlier in the afternoon, I was at an unconference organised by E27. Saw several useful applications. Looking to buy a home? Check out homespace. Want to know how to get to one place from another? Come to GoThere. And good shopping deals? Udrool. Widgeo.us and Wobile sounded promising too. Wunderbar Web 2.0!

Genesis

The unconference yesterday went smoothly enough. Very orderly, and the set-up was efficient. Need a bit of time to process what happened and thereafter. Meanwhile reading this book about AI, The Emotion Machine by Marvin Minsky. Pretty interesting and fresh awe at the creation that is man. Hard act to follow.

Hulk

Yesterday, I was at the Toy & Comic Convention in Suntec. It was packed with people, cheek by jowl, so not a place that one would want to linger. I bought this card game based on the Three Kingdoms, called Generals Order, after the person at the booth patiently explained the game to me. Did a quick sweep around the hall and saw all sorts of quirky toys. There was Breadou fake bread that looked like bread and was supposed to smell like one too. And there was Hulk, who was more ”Sulk” in this instance. 

I also ate like Hulk on Saturday. Started tame: carrot cake and chicken soup at home, then 3 fitballs at the 12 x 12 Cafe while waiting for my friend. Things got wilder during dinner. The food was great…hors d’oeuvre included cheese, some ang moh lap cheong, chicken wings. This was followed by a 10-course Thai-themed dinner with Tom Yam soup, braised pork, etc. The alcohol spewed forth like the geysers in Yellowstone park: Chinese hua diao and bai jiu (53% alcohol content!),  Daiginjo sake, Mongolian horse wine and  the comparatively more standard reds and whites. I drank all that and several cups too. A personal record certainly. Think my liver and body didn’t like it so I did some barfing when I reached my home.

Wed the Web

No more “echo”. Yes Lord, lottery’s not my lot. Caught the keynote by Brad Garlinghouse, Senior VP of Yahoo! yesterday morning at ad:tech. Brad spoke about the social web and what Yahoo! is doing to that end. Social web is not about social networks in the web, but the web itself being social – enabling us to, for example, take our friend list everywhere we go. Still lots of experimentation going on.

While traipsing around in the exhibition hall, I found out that the lady from the Asia Digital Marketing Association went on the Trans-Siberian trail last year. Cherubed! Something I really want to do. And this man who was working on technology to help protect the young on the Net happened to be from the same church as me. Serendipitous.

Likewise, likewise, the Web must be social AND serendipitous.