Stop Farting on me!

The Times had a really interesting article on Sibling Rivalry. Well, more like sibling abuse. Pretty much an extreme form of the jabs and pokes that the older sibling usually inflicts on the younger.

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that violence between siblings transcends all socio-economic fronts.

Also, the author brings up the rivalries that appear amongst animals:

Baby animals, researchers theorize, fight mainly to establish dominance and to compete for scarce food. Human children, on the other hand, fight not only over who got the bigger bowl of ice cream but also over who decides what game to play, who controls the remote, who is supposed to do the dishes, who started it and who is loved most.

Perhaps there is nothing we can do about getting the beats if we are born 2nd (or 3rd....). I maintain, if I were born before my sister, I'd be the one farting on her.

Starting Production

Long time no babble. The reason is because I'm knee-deep in work. It's been a crazy week, and I don't think it will let up for at least another week.

I'm still working on cutting my documentary, which is supposed to be an observational 5 minute character portrait, using no 'talking head' interviews. I shot about 8 hours of footage, which I cut down to 15 minutes. That took me a couple of weeks. The hardest part would be to cut it further down to 5 minutes, since I actually like my 15 minute version. That has to be done by Thursday for evaluations. It will get done, it just needs some time.

We also started casting my next narrative film, which will be shooting in about 3 weeks. I'm pretty close to locking down the script, so all I need now is just to find the right two people to lead it. I put a posting on Craigslist last week, and got about 300 responses within a couple of days. It's so strange the amount of people willing to work for free on your productions. I mean, it's mutually beneficial, but still, it's just awesome that people are willing to trust you and get aboard your ship.

My producer and I cut down the applicants to about 30 (honestly, it becomes really boring and tedious), and invited them for auditions this past weekend. As usual, there was a range of quality: from the laughably awful to the incredible. I'm going to have call-backs really soon for a selected few, and then decide from that.

Once I nail down actors, I'll be able to work with them to really get the film going. Then all of the work with my director of photography. I think it's going to be a challenging shoot in that respect, as I plan to use a lot of natural light and simple sources like candles and flashlights.

The hardest part in this whole film game, is getting the movie you have in your head on the screen. Usually it's not possible, and you have to compromise and be willing to change your vision. I think I need to be more of a control freak to be a better director.

FASTER! HARDER! HARDER!

The Superbowl party I had the pleasure of going to this year was given by a sketch comic, and thus a bunch of his cohorts were in attendance. Much laughter occurred, except for the crack about curling. Naturally, I took offense. Curling is a lot of fun, and it really is quite strategic. Chess on ice.

There's also some interesting physics involved: you sweep the ice in front of it, the friction of the broom on the ice creates heat that melts the top layer of ice, creating a slicker surface for the rock to move even further. Also, it underscores a seemingly basic question: why are things (more precisely, ice) slippery? Some Scottish blokes have made some interesting discoveries using Great Britain Curling Team as experimenters. Pretty cool experiment, with great results. They hope their study can be used to better design tires that grip better on ice. Read the article, if only to see that they spell tire as 'tYre'. Teehee they spell things different.

For your enjoyment, play some Championship Curling Game on the CBC site (it's on the left side).

UPDATE: By some weird coincidence, the Times has an even better article summing up everything that we know about ice. There's even a cool (i.e. goofy, but good) video with their science writer Kenneth Chang. Definitely worth checking out.

We're cool. Try not be jealous

Much to my surprise, the hats sported by the Canadian squad in Torino have become the 'it' fashion accessory. I can't say that I'm surprised, but it's just a bit ho-hum since I've been sporting mine for 5 years now. Why am I such the fashion visionary for?

In general, this year's Olympic wardrobe designed by The Hudson's Bay Company is a bit boring compared to the slacker-chic designs of the last few Olympics done by Roots Athletics. Then again, Roots' work with the American team has clearly shown that they have become followers rather than leaders.

In case you are wondering, you can get all of your toques, scarves and other over-priced swag here. Get 'em while they're still hot.

Tell GQ: I plan to be wearing a White-Sox baseball cap for my Spring '06 collection. Make sure it's smaller than your head.

I've Got a Hunch...

Although there is no rhyme or reason, more and more I've found myself making decisions purely on whim, or my gut feeling. Perhaps you have too. In general, things work out or at least work out not too badly. I've learned to trust my gut, even if the 'logical' part of me tries to rationalize it.

Easier said than done, following your intuition never made much sense. Until now.

Some Dutch researchers have tried to quantify the effect, and their results agree with common knowledge: your guts know best.

They asked people to buy clothes or housewares (defined as 'simple purchases', unless you're a girl. Zing!), and a separate group of people to buy furniture (defined as a more involved decision making process). Their results:

Department-store shoppers who made simple purchases were happier if they had thought consciously about their choice in advance. IKEA shoppers, on the other hand, were happier with their choice if they hadn't mulled them over.

At least when making some complicated decisions, such as choosing a car or house, the results suggest that we would actually do better to go with our gut.

This seems to suggest that our unconscious mind is far more important than we originally thought. Perhaps the mind is able to quickly move through a huge amount of information and produce the most prudent decision, unknowingly to our conscious mind.

With that being said, I feel that I need to eat some pie. Citing current research, I shall indulge.

I'll have a Buddha Burger with extra blood of Satan. To go.

This is just as huh-larious as the Freedom Fries debacle.

Skiers with Lipstick

After a lengthy 'discussion' last night, I've been thinking a lot about female/male societal roles. I'm more interested in the deeper philosophical ideas: how we perceive ourselves and how external people perceive us. This all sounds like humdrum intro to phil stuff, but can we ever not be influenced by other people's perception? Are all of my actions done with other people in mind? Whoa!?!

Where was I...oh yeah women and society. I saw this interesting article about 'powerful' women, and their woe when it comes to relationships. The results are not that surprising: in general, women with larger IQ's (granted, a rather dubious measuring scale) find it tougher to hook up. If they do, it's usually to someone in their profession.

I remember reading a more in depth study a few years ago involving physicists (still pretty much a man's game, although it is changing...slowly), which stated that ~90% (ok, I don't remember the exact numbers. Let's just say the overwhelming majority) of male physicists that are married, are married to women outside of the field. Whilst ~95% of married female physicists are married to other physicists. From my experience, I've found that to be true.

In a sort of related path, I started to look up old Helmut Newton photos (he's responsible for that one above), and learned that he died a few years ago, which I didn't know. His work for Vogue is the stuff of legends, not to mention his nudes. In general, people are divided by his body of work: Feminist or misogynist? You decide.

Dick Cheney in the News

Apparently, Dick Cheney thought he was at the Source Awards this weekend and put a cap in his homey's ass. Quick to villify him, the mass media forgot to mention this far more heinous revelation:

A Million Words

It's that time of year again. Nope, not the Grammy's or the Oscars. World Press Photo Of the Year Contest. Every year, the images are of such staggering beauty that one must pause after seeing some of them.

This year, Finbarr O'Reilly (a Canadian, bigups!) working for Reuters, won for his image in Niger.

I've always wondered about a photographer's ability to spot images, under such difficult conditions...that whole creative process. Maybe, there is no process, maybe it's all just about 'being in the right place at the right time'. I doubt it, as these photographs are no mistake. Their makers have a clear idea of colour, composition and framing.

You really should take a look at all of the other winners.

Not So Funny Cartoons

Weighing in on the whole Anti-Islamic Cartoon situation that seems to be rocking the world these days. I just don't like the idea of publishers hiding behind "Freedom of Speech" as a way to publish clearly inflammatory work. From all accounts, newspapers gets thousands of submissions every day for publication, and it's the editor that decides what to print. Someone made a decision to print it. S/he thought they could sell some newspapers. That's what it comes down to. I don't believe they looked at them and thought "The fine Danes NEED to see this, it's their right!", because there are tons more things that the Danes need to know (like the racist undertones in their fair country).

For a great piece written on this check out Haroon Siddiqui's essay, or an even better letter on Al Jazeerah's site. Even "funnier" cartoons can be seen here.

In short, yes there are rights to freedom of speech, but with that comes responsibility to human decency and respect.

Genius

I get accused of throwing around the word 'Genius' quite haphazardly. However, when it comes to Leonard Cohen, there really is no other appropriate description. The man seems to be coming out and making appearances as of late. Make no bones about it, he's got to push some records and some books, as apparently he got screwed over by his old manager who swindled him out of millions while Lenny was in a self-imposed exile in a Buddhist Monastery for years. What a guy.

But seriously, he recently got inducted into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame (yeah, I didn't hear of it either) and a bunch of good people were there, including my O.G., Willie Nelson. I'm not going to lie, I didn't really get into Leonard Cohen until the latter parts of his recordings such as The Future, and I'm not really a big fan of his really early work. I still remember the first time I heard The Future, I thought 'how the hell did this guy get a record deal with such a crappy voice?'. Then he grumbled 'It looks like freedom, but it feels like death, it's something in between, I guess'. I remember that album got me through at least two Toronto winters.

Maybe I tend to romanticize the tortured, but profound artist way too much, but why is he so cool for?!

Mr. Cohen accepted the award and promptly said:
"We shuffle behind our songs into the hall of fame, shuffling not quite believing that we wrote them but happy that you do....The brevity and poverty of these remarks do not reflect the abundance of feeling in my heart for you".

Shivers up my spine. Let's hope he never dies.

A Treatise on Actors

So I got together this afternoon with the lead actor in my last film, just to give him a copy of the film (hopefully for his reel). Aside from being a great actor, Chris Prangley is just an all round nice guy. He told this great story about his role in an upcoming episode of Guiding Light, that he had just shot hours before meeting up, and the near disaster of it. It was cool to hear about the work he's doing, and his take on the whole 'business'. I've said it before, but for all the crap that actors sometimes bring with them, at the end of the day, there is no way I could do what they do. To put yourself out on the line, in front of an audience, and if the circumstances are right, you bare your soul. No thanks, I'll stick behind the camera. He also seemed genuinely interested to know about directing and writing and all that. I'm always trying to become a better director, so I hope my conversation with him will inform both of our work.

At the end of the day, audiences will forgive crappy editing, poor lighting, inaudible sound, out of focus shots, but they won't forgive bad performances. It's been said that 75% of filmmaking is casting, and I've found that to be true.

Profound

In one of the more profound articles that I've read recently, Nature published an article called "The Scaling Laws of Human Travel". What the authors (some badass physicists) studied was data from Where's George, the website that tracks american dollar bills, and assumed that money is a good indication of how people move (i.e the movement of cash implies that people have moved it). They modeled over a million pieces of data and came across some interesting conclusions. Namely the movement of people is much like a Random Walk, rather than the dispersion equation (the traditional way of thinking about it), amongst other things. This type of work, they hope, will give better insight into how pandemics travel and spread.

Aside from that, it's just very cool to know how people move through space in a large way. It's also just an incredibly creative way of using existing data sets.

*SOME* people dismiss the whole study, saying that data from wheresgeorge.com does not constitute a reasonable sample of people. To that, I say "psh".

Here's a news article from my brethren at the CBC.

Dumbing It Down (Even More)

The Ontario government is playing with the idea of eliminating Calculus from the high school curriculum due to declining enrollment. They would then add in some more algebra, geometry and trigonometry.

What morons.

The idea is that they'll just pass the burden on to the eggheads in Colleges and Universities. Kids are happy, faculty is pissed. I mean, I remember back in highschool, Calculus was the KILLER. The people in your class were your fellow soldiers. You were in it together, and it quickly became a badge of honour to walk around the school with a textbook that said "Calculus" on it. My parents couldn't help me, most of my friends couldn't either.

I sucked at it then, and I still suck at it. With that being said, there is no doubt in my mind the necessity and importance of the calculus. It really changes the way you look at the world and of mathematics. As I've seen in some of my teaching duties, some students are woefully unprepared for college/university level science, and most of it stems from their lack of training in math. This is not their fault, but rather the system. Awful or over worked teachers, and a dumbing down of the high school curriculum. Even if the kids are just exposed to it a bit, it will help them down the road.

With all that learnin of calculus going on, check out an application here at Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics (created by some well meaning, albeit creepy person). It's a good thing the physics is legit in it. (yes, I know there's no real calculus in that picture).