A Personal Blog
Archive for May, 2004
Review: The Day After Tomorrow
May 29th
I went to see The Day After Tomorrow with Ryan and a bunch of other friends (this is looking to turn into a semi-regular thing, which could be really fun). What could be even more fun is the bloggers’ (myself and Ryan) collective reviews.
Ryan has already posted an audio and regular review (busy boy).
Much like Van Helsing, this movie needs to be set in context. This is an “end of the world” movie. It stands alongside other such movies as The Core and Armaggedon (thankfully, the cast doesn’t go around singing cheesy love songs in this movie!). So, before you do anything, think back to how bad (and yet entertaining) these types of movies generally are. You don’t go to see dialog, you don’t go to see plot points…
In fact, an End of the World movie is really just one thing: a story with great special effects.
And, really, that’s what TDAT is. A decent story with spectacular special effects. The dialog has weak points, the story has at least 1 needless ‘suspense builder’ and there are several times where you have to suspend disbelief (maybe even consciously). But, as a story it is a decent story.
Some of the visuals will kill you in different ways. Some are incredibly scary, others are incredibly touching and others might just shake you.
As a story / visuals movie, I’d easily recommend this. If you can’t go to a movie with very bad dialog in choice places, or where the plot is slightly disbelievable at a few places, grab this on DVD if only for the story.
But, if you do want to experience this movie in all it’s glory, you could do much worse in the theatre this season than TDAT. It didn’t meet my expectations, but everyone who walked out of the theatre walked out laughing and talking and jibing. Not a bad way to end a movie.
Anti-Bush Game
May 28th
This is blatantly anti-Bush, hence the name: The Anti-Bush Game.
I’m not endorsing it, and there is some sexual content in this (not nudity or anything); and I’m not saying it’s accurate.
It is well done though, and it does get it’s message a cross. I can’t say if the figures in the game are accurate, but it’s certainly a good reminder (if you’re so inclined).
Plus, I completed it, so you have to try too ;-)
IT Manager v2
May 28th
Intel has released an upgrade to their free online “IT Manager Simulation” game.
It does include upgrades to the interface, to the options (specifically for hiring staff, which is a very welcome addition) and to hardware (most notably Itanium 2 servers).
However, the gameplay still plateau’s at a certain number of PC’s and earnings.
Welcome adjustments, but for those of us who basically plateau’d in the last version it’s the same old thing (though there are more problems, so you will need at LEAST 2 staff, instead of only needing 1 before).
Blog Comment Notifications System
May 28th
Tejas Patel mulls over ways to keep track of your comments:
1) As you said, blogs should have notify function in them, yes might be helpful, but think of negatives too, how many people would provide their right email address on the blogs? I know aboutmyself, I never do, although I would have my right blog link :) ( I fear SPAM). Then think of the network bandwith it will utilise, there will be tremendous amount of email jumping all over the internet. After a while, I am sure you will yourself be tired of this option, as you start visiting 1000 blogs a day and respond to 300-400 of the posts in it. I don’t think that you want to get notified for 300Post X 5 replies each post times in your email!
2) I know now most of the smart bloggers use services like Technorati & Feedster to track their blogs, so if you think that you have anything susbstantial to add to the post on a blog, link to that post on your blog and comment on your blog, as I am doing it now, this will have two benefits, the moment you comment on it, it will be tracked by the other blog and a link would be created there showing that you have replied and also you will have more people visiting your blog. Check your referrers from time to time and follow the links.
(the original conversation started here, at Michael’s blog)
Which got me thinking on two levels. First, the blogger level.
Blogger
The question isn’t “is there any way to notify a user of new posts?” as that’s easy: email, as Tejas mentioned.
So, the question becomes “is there an easy way to keep up to date with comments individuals have posted on a blog?”. While one way (that I’m using right now) is to add comments to your feed, this gets pretty boring, pretty damn fast. People don’t necessarily (again, necessarily) want to read every comment. They only want to read when people respond to comments they have made.
Step 2, then, is to create a set of custom feeds based on a criteria. Email might work, which would make the URL for the feed something like www.ensight.org/feeds.aspx?email=mine@mine.com, which would produce a list of comments the individual had posted.
One way to do it, but it doesn’t actually provide the value we are looking for.
We actually need to almost do the opposite: update the feed list when someone posts something to a blog post you commented on… after you commented.
The logic isn’t too bad:
1. Get list of posts by [criteria] 2. Reference original posts from #1 3. Count number of comments to #2 4. If the number is greater than 1 (ie: skip logic if you can); check for position of comment from #1 in #3 5. If there are more comments beyond #4 in #3, update feed
I haven’t written it yet, mainly because it would be difficult in MovableType. Definitely motivates me to move to WordPress, as I’m sure I could whip this together in PHP in a few hours (I know, others could do it in an hour, but given me a break, okay?).
Service
The second way you could look at comments is from a service level. Like Technorati, only for comments. It would do virtually the same thing as the logic I outlined above, only as a service.
I have no idea how this would be trackable without bloggers participating, but maybe people smarter than I am could drop some ideas in.
Nothing is impossible, after all ;-)
Picked Up Hats
May 27th
I finally picked up the hats I bought a while ago.
They look and sound fantastic. For those who are counting, here’s where I’m at with the kit:
Rack: Gibraltar 350C Rack (2 expansion side kits) Hats: Manhattan Groove Hi-Hats Snare: DW Collector’s Series Snare
Plus some various cheaper cymbals (mainly Zildjian Edge series).
Next on my list (in order):
- drums - kick pedal - better cymbals - throne - ‘gear’ (all the extra stuff which makes my kits fun and uniquely mine)
Good times :-D
