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In my job as IT demigod, petitioners unto My Grace open “Cases” where they ask for “Help.”

Like a good Deist Diety I frequently look upon these “pleas” with disdain and go on about other things like imagining what the perfect color of yo-yo is.

Unlike a true diety, however, the petitioners unto my favors are invited to fill out satisfaction surveys.

This does not work so well in the real world. Rating a diety on His or Her success in fulfuilling your request for miraculous intervention generally has bad side effects varying from Elk-Turnings-Into, Wanderings-Until-Messiah’s-Return, and the classic lightning bolt.

Recently I opened a great number of cases to get a number of things set up. As it so happens one particluar individual took all those cases and solved them all to my expectation. But I grow so weary of filling out the surveys. While I could certainly ignore them, I want the good-natured Raj to know that I appreicate his work.

Is clicking “5” (the highest rating) enough? I daresay not. I have decided to reward Raj with poetic praise. I few samples:

In a world of support dwarves Raj’s level of service towers like Polyphemus.

or

Raj’s service provided a rainbow in the midst of a rainy San Jose day.

I’ve been imagining more…

Based on Raj’s excellent service, I would consider inviting him to a fancy dinner party. For hors d’ouvres I was contemplating fine French cheeses served on Carr’s Table Water Crackers (or, perhaps wheat thins). The cheese should be garnished with grapes and served by an inconspicuous catering company that charged reasonable rates. In the background we should have a Diana Krall-like chanteuse singing jazz standards. Raj could come in, meet my majordomo who would then take his overcoat and, if applicable, hat and umbrella. After the cheese and crackers, crudites and a fine course of lobster tail would be served. If raj is a vegetarian I can make arrangements as well.

or

Because I could not help my self /
Raj kindly help-ed me. /
The case notes held but us and /
Ended successf'ly

(I still hate Emily Dickinson)

Vietnam: The VC believe in re-incarnation, Joe doesn’t. Who has more to lose?

Iraq: The fundamentalists believe in martyrdom providing bliss, Joe doesn’t. Who has more to lose?

To this, I ask, should we not be a bit worried about an apocalyptic evangelical leading war in the mid-east and trying to force God’s timetable (apparently God doesn’t believe in setting timetables, like the Pentagon, evidently)?

With these questions rattling around in my head, Arianna Huffington wrote the following piece:

It came during the Q & A session following his speech on Iraq. The first question came from a woman who asked: “[Author Kevin Phillips] makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?”

The president was clearly taken aback. He reacted as if he’d just seen a burning bush — or had just been asked a really hard math question.

First he hemmed. Then he hawed. Then he hemmed some more.

“Um… uh… I… The answer is, I haven’t really thought of it that way,” he finally spit out. “Here’s how I think of it. The first I’ve heard of that, by the way. I guess I’m more of a practical fellow.” He then abruptly Left Behind the question at hand and went off on a long, standard-issue answer about 9/11 and fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.

…

I mean, come on. The man is a born again, evangelical Christian whose favorite political philosopher is Jesus, has let it be know that God speaks to — and through — him, believes “in a divine plan that supercedes all human plans”… and he wants us to buy that he’s never even heard of, let alone thought about the biblical implications of terrorism in relation to the apocalypse?

—-

Lifted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/apocalypse-what_b_17664.html

When I last undertook to teach myself Cocoa, about a year and a half ago, one technique in particular seemed poorly documented, mysterious, and generally lacking intelligible example that didn’t involve pulling out advanced trigonometry books.

If, by chance, you are searching on these terms and you should find my site here, I should hope that I make your life a goodly bit easier by giving you a simple example with concrete explanations. Thanks to the proliferation of people liking Mac OSX, a great many tutorials on the topic have surfaced, but as you’re asking “How do I turn my image about 90 degrees” these tutorials are a bit “heavy” and confusing.

Some of you may pull your hair out upon seeing something like this:

Geez. That really hurts.

Here’s my application that you can use to create a custom subclass of NSView called “ImageFlipView”.

The function of imageFlipper is to allow you to drag an image into a view and then drag that image into the “flipped” view and, lo, behold the power of the NSAffineTranslform.

Some visuals to give you the idea:

See, I’m dragging my original JPG of an Athena bas-relief, and dragging it into the “flipped” spapce. The inverted mini-image is the product of an NSAffine rotation.

When the image arrives, it looks like this:

You can drag images out of the Finder into either one of those views and it will be displayed “stretched to fit” in the box either right-side-up or inverted.

Here’s an example:

(Hook ‘em Horns!)

More after the jump…

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Imperialism is the policy of an empire, and an empire is a nation embracing different people living under different forms of government. The Republican party has never dared to admit its imperialistic purpose and yet it is administering a colonial policy upon a theory utterly opposed to the theory of self-government. The Democratic party has for nine years parted out the evils of colonialism. It has for nine years challenged the Republican party to discuss the governmental principles which underlie colonialism. And it opposes colonialism today as it has from the beginning. The platform adopted at Denver condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic.

- William Jennings Bryan: orator, anti-imperialist

Today Elle and I took in V for Vendetta. Both being people who don’t really care for conservativism, conservative government, or quasi-theocratic leaders, we were right in the target demographic for the film.

I had read the graphic novel before seeing the film and, having liked it, expected the movie to disappoint me horribly.

I was not disappointed, I was entertained, amused, and had my thoughts provoked.

There were some great big explosions, some interesting meditations of monsters and anarchy, and a name-drop of one of my all-time favorite books: The Count of Monte Cristo.

After that we hit the Cold Stone, groceries, and then headed home.

The movie also featured trailers for Pirates II and Silent Hill.

I love the Silent Hill series of games and I’m expecting to get horribly disappointed by the movie. Buuuut there was hope, the special effects looked creepy and in the brief display of the “world shift” effect (known to game players as entering The Otherworld) I was reminded of all that makes me love to get the bejesus scared out of me playing those games.

I’m a bit upset they changed the storyline (single father loses his daughter to mother loses daughter and dad is chasing after) - but I still think they can make it work provided they balance ambient, creepy, suspense (a la the grudge) against in-your-face action (a la Resident Evil).

The directors best be good else i shall USE the white chrism to summon Samael and haul them to the bottom of Toluca lake!

Incidentally, Davey Jones, the antagonist of Pirates II has a tentacly Cthulu face.

I was wary about raising my expectations about the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta, but I will gladly say that I loved the movie.

While Alan Moore is right to be wary of Hollywood screwing him I think that he should be pleasantly surprised with The Brothers Wachowski faithful re-telling of his tale. I understand he’s got a bone to pick with DC (and don’t blame him), but as far as I could tell the message of V came through loud, clear, and relatively unmuddied from what I read in the graphic novel.

There are differences, but not so many that the core story is altered. V is an idea, not a man. Evey is our ingenue with whom we are transformed and altered. We are asked to decide how much of ourselves we would betray for comfort, how much of ourselves would we entrust to the government, and, if the call came, would be willing to dump tea in the harbor / take up arms against hostile imperialists / detonate the monuments of a perverted ethos.

What to make of the performances? Hugo Weaving as V has the difficult task of acting, from behind a mask. He doesn’t even have a mouth wherewith to emote as the Lon Chaney monsters or the various Phantoms of the Opera have had. Instead, V’s page-boy haircut is the only way of expressing doubt, a change in attitude, or tenderness.

Natalie Portman shines. Evey begins complacent, accepting of the fearful world of her circumstance. Her beauty and daily regimen are those that can be bought conveniently at Rite Aid. She then moves to become amazed, independent, and then triumphant. Richard Roeper complained of her on and off British accident, but this is nit-picking and doesn’t diminsh the quality of the performance.

V’s penchant for explosions also creates big boom entertainment and the special effects are great. While people familiar with the Brothers’ W’s work may be expecting Matrix-like action they will not be underwhelmed by V’s mastery of close-quarters combat with an array of knives that are fastened to his belly like so many lethal teeth.

The film is also unrepentantly visual, moments where masked masses doff their covering provide a true glimpse of the power of an angry public turned against their government. Did I mention the stuff on screen blows up very prettily?

V is philosophical, above all about himself, about Evey, and about their world. The wit of a being that has ingested the known works of Shakespeare and the Oxford English Dictionary provides a charming rhyming brigand quality to V’s dialog that leaves him as impenetrable as his Guy Fawkes mask.

Invariably there will be people asking if this is a cine a clef: is the indictment of Conservativism and its tendency to theocracy, intolerance, and suspicion of the unpatriotic meant to be mapped to the US, today?

That’s for the viewer to decide. It’s not directly commenting on the state of things, but it does note that fundamentalism and power make for dangerous companions.

Other, largely conservative, commentators have asked if Vendetta, celebrates terrorism.

This is simple idiocy. One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. I will be accused of moral relativism here and I will point out that I am not a moral relativist, I’m a virtue ethicist. There is a difference.

In the end, don’t believe the hype, see V. Besides between this, The Shaggy Dog and She’s the Man what are you going to take?

Bram Moolenaar, creator of the Vim text editing environment has a great article on how to think about editing text files quickly - especially in his editor.

I guess after years of editing the code to a text editor, Bram has had many hours of time to think about the aesthetic value of what he was doing .

Bram’s Insights.

Let it be said that Keira Knightley is not an unattractive woman.

That is if you like women that are lean, tomboyish, without hint of feminine curves, yes.

I mean honestly, the fact that Monica Bellucci (example, light nudity) and Keira Knightley are both credited with being in the same gender simply goes to show the wonder of genetic variation. Hooray for evolution.

Owing to a perfect Keira storm, I have managed to see a lot of Keira lately:

1. Cover of Vanity Fair
2. “Bend it like Beckham” on Encore
3. DVD of Pride and Prejudice picked up by my Lit. Degree girlfriend

Upon these several reviews within a short amount of time I have noticed that Ms. Knightly has a very unusual facial tic.

Here’s how to recreate:

1. Start to smile (very lovely teeth indeed hath Keira)
2. Pull the corners of your smile back and high
3. Open mouth to the size of being able to fit a grilled cheese sandwich in-between upper and lower teeth
4. Scrunch up nose into puggishness
5. Flare nostrils
6. Squish squintily your eyes

I find this a very odd facial expression. It was used to great effect repeatedly in Pride and Prejudice where, as Miss Elizabeth Bennet, her pithy remarks would cause her to giggle with her female confidant. It’s very much used as a tool to go from Elizabeth Bennet deadpan to “deadpan commentary over.”

I wondered though, if her co-stars ever feared Keira was about to consume their organ for smell sensation when the bared teeth loomed nearer.

But a picture is worth a thousand words. I ask you, intrepid readers, be there KK movies sans this expression?

(from Getty Images)

Update: I noticed that in all the Academy awards pictures she’s opted for this now “the front six of my teeth beatific smile”. I think she must have gotten a press-stylist-whatever agent. That’s a bit of a pity, I liked that she was genuine in that regard.

In the tradition of posting books that I have finished on this site, I thought I would do the traditional thing and post a quick bit of text for Bel Canto.

I will copy from my book journal (where quotes and analysis are written longhand).

….In which revolutionaries seize control of a Latin kleptocracy’s grand ball planning to ransom the president.

The revolutionaries are three adult generals served by a children’s army.

The guests are all the wealthy and ambassadorial class. Most attended the party so as to hear the guest of honor, soprano Roxanne Coss, sing.

After the seizure of the president fails, for he remained home to watch a soap opera (think GW Bush + Fujimori), they are prisoners to the paramiltary siege. In this time relationships between the prisoners develop. More interesting is the dynamic between the revolutionaries and the hostages.

While the dynamic starts with discipline and confrontation, absent the social pressures of modern class-induction, the longer the class definers are away, the stronger the quality and deeper the depth of the interaction between captive and captor.

The book works very finely with human questions of desire and love. many characters ,realizing that contact with their loved ones shall soon end ruminate on love and relationships. One couple, she about to be ejected form the scenario asks what memento of my love could be accepted until reunited? An earring, perhaps?

The plot is much hlike that of “Lost”, the characters, united in bizarre predicament move through time with odd flashbacks detailing the string of coincidences that put them in the hostage situation: why this country, why that night, that time?

One of the most interesting twists is the death of the soprano’s accompianist. He dies for want of insulin while a bio-pharma CEO thinks of the free samples at his office. It seems to put the reader to thinking of “Why can’t he have that? He is of the appropriate earnings base to afford that specialized, synthesized sugar-catalyzing drug?”

Yet this serves as a parallel to the captors’ poverty in the Latin jungle. Why must there be abject poverty when the wealthy / ambassadorial class lives so richly? So richly that they could pay for the world’s greatest soprano to come to their country in an attempt to lure Japanese investment?

His death inspires Roxanne to think: “The kind of love that offers its life so easily, so stupidly, is alas the love that is not returned.”

It is this emotional setting that opens up (further) the self-examination that is the heart of the remainder ofd the story. The stories of the hostages seem to move between Mersault’s guillotine-day celebration of life and Frankl-like meditations on find ing beauty in all circumstances (The vice-persident enjoys the pleasant slant of sunlight playing about the floor while hostage (p89)).

Over time ,absent the human contact with the outside world (which increasingly starts to look hostile and corrupt), their contact with one another deeepens and changes. This applies to the inter-hostage dynamic as well as that between the hostage and captor.

Underlying conversations tend to skew to love (or class) often.

“[The declaration of love] is a gift. There. Something to give you. If I had a necklace or a book of paintings I would give you that instead. I would give you that in addition to my love.”

“Then you are too generous with gifts.”

“…Perhaps…But…I hear you sing every day … and what I feel in my heart is love. There is no point in not telling you that… Why should I carry this with me to the other world? Why not give to you what is yours (221)?

or…

“…all he wanted now was…the right to lie with his head in his wife’s lap, his face turned up to the bottom of her sweater.”

But this genuine relating to one another is anathema to the world “outside” which seeks to tunnel-in and end this “reality camp.” Such real interhuman discussion, appreciation, understanding, simply cannot be borne in the capitalist world outside. The longer this experiment lasts the more its light casts a hollow pale on the illusions of the world outside. Therefore this project must end.

And thus the story ends: leaving the survivors reflecting that it is love and beauty which assure them that they can continue on in life. Perhaps it is the right to beauty and eudaimonia that was absent in the lives of the revolutionaries. Perhaps in that time of the captivity they were able to live as the wealthy, to enjoy pure beauty.

<hr/>

I was struck by how much this operation reminded me of Burning Man. Perhaps it is wise that that experiment knows to be temporary - becoming too fixed on the map is to invite active destruction by the elements without.

Patchett’s language is beautiful and, even if the tale sounds preachy (it’s not delivered in such a manner) her skill with assembling beautiful, elegant sentences makes the story a real joy. The point of view of the narrator (omniscient, third person) is wry and dispassionate which makes an interesting counterpoint to the fevered tension found within the captivity camp.

[ Trailer Here ]

I recall it being asked in the press how did Charlize Theron take her career to dizzying heights, while Gretchen Mol seemed to have vanished.

Ladies and gentlemen, I daresay she’s found a great vehicle back in.

A lot of ink and bytes have been spent contemplating the mystery of Bettie Page, but let me tell you what I think the secret is.

First, the bang cut. It’s cute.

Secondly, Bettie never lost her innocence or feeling of fun. In many ways the viewer of her work can’t help but almost giggle at the contrivances. On the one hand Bettie is getting flogged with a hairbrush, but we have the feeling that the moment the flash fuse blew, she started laughing. Somehow because she’s laughing with us, we never feel too shamed, too silly, or too depraved. In fact, we feel liberated (oddly while seeing bondage photos?).

Bettie reminds us that the erotic is, above all, about life and the enjoyment thereof, and the propagation thereof.

It need not be gone over again here about the erotic nature of laughter and the mystery of the Jessica Rabbits of the world who are with their guy because “(breathy) he makes me laugh”.

All I can say is the world is a better place for her dirty pictures (which really aren’t that dirty, in case you haven’t seen a perfume ad lately).