Posts from — December 2005

Wired recently covered a story about Siemens and their new flexible display technology. This is really neat stuff! This advancement, along with other emerging technologies such as e-ink and OLED, are going to radically change what we think of as a “display”.

The Wired article indicates that the “Killer App” for this flexible display technology is packaging. Basically, a box of Cheerios that plays an add for Cheerios right on the cover. Predictably, some people are in favor of this technology advancement and other people think it will be a doomsday device, contributing to the slow short circuiting our synaptic pathways via visual stimulation overload.

So, I have to admit, a new way to hawk excessive carbo-loading really isn’t that exciting for anyone other than General Mills, but something has to pay for technical development. Ideas for applications of this technology are just staring to surface, and while advertising may be a necessary evil, its these other applications that will ensure this technology is used for generations to come.

Here is my wish list for e-paper applications:

Wallpaper!

Imagine it – a room, wallpapered in this stuff! You’d never have to paint again. Want blue walls today, and yellow walls tomorrow! NO PROBLEM! Heck, this stuff will have a resolution of 80DPI when it is released and will soon be followed by 160DPI. To give you an idea of how “good” that is – the monitor you are reading this on is only 72DPI.

I envision a “Home Designer” application that will let you change the color of every wall in your home. Want a patterned wall paper in the living room for your dinner party? CLICK – Yes, that matches the new napkins quite nicely. How about a window over here – CLICK. You’d even be able to put a picture of what is actually on the other side of that window, were it made of real glass. Heck, you could even take a snapshot of the static components of your back yard and use weather generating technology to add the appropriate weather based upon a real-time lookup of the weather conditions in your area. Sound far fetched? Not by a long shot – they’ve been doing similar things with MS Flight Simulator for years - why not for the multi-billion dollar housing industry?

The ever-changing paperback!

I don’t know about you, but my house is bursting at the seems with books. Novels, how-to’s, self-improvement, technical manuals, comics, instruction booklets, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could still have all these books, but not have them take up the space? How about taking my six full-size book cases and condensing that down to a single shelf? I envision still having several e-paper books of varying sizes and lengths, but this way I can download the actual content to a suitably sized book and still read it in my living room like I do today. Its hard to curl up with a laptop, but an e-paper book makes more sense. It’s molding technology to your lifestyle, not the other way around. And that’s just smart business.

Moving “Photographs”!

Imagine merging On-Demand Printing from companies like MyPublisher with this e-paper technology! You could have a Video Book – something that is much more user-friendly to the casual visitor than traditional home videos. Grandma would dig a Video Book, just like she adores those photos you send her from Shutterfly. Combine the Video Book idea with the e-paper paperback above, and you’ve really got an amazing, endlessly configurable way to display your family memories!

My Conclusion

The possibilities are almost endless! If this means I have to put up with Tony the Tiger bouncing around in the cereal aisle, then I think I can live with that…

While C3P0′s incessant worry and constant complaining aren’t something that’d I’d particularly like, I can’t wait for the day when I first buy my very own Droid!

Android, Robot, Mech, whatever you want to call them – humans have been contemplating people-shaped automated technology for almost a century. And now, with Honda’s release of ASIMO 2.0, it seems that we’ve taken one step closer toward being able to keep up with the Skywalkers.

The amount of “technology” that goes into allowing us to walk, talk, and decide thousands of minute details every second is truly amazing. Yet this is really only completely apparent when we try to make a machine that can behave as we do. Over the last 18 years, Honda has made some amazing strides in robotics and artificial intelligence.

One of ASIMO 2.0′s improvements over ASIMO 1.0? Being able to walk in a circle. Sounds simplistic, doesn’t it? How about being able to notice an obstacle in its path, and wait for the obstacle to move? Recognizing faces? Moving to a location that is indicated by someone pointing? All things that seem like baby steps, yet they are true miracles of modern engineering.

Bravo Honda! I can’t wait till one of these babies comes standard on my Odyssey! Its like a Trunk Monkey but better!

Honda posted about 5 minutes of movies showing ASIMO doing a number of tasks, and despite my best intentions, I’ve already found myself “liking” ASIMO. Great! I’m already attached to this lump of plastic! In the movie listed as “Capabilities” there is a scene of ASIMO delivering a tray to someone in a hallway. The woman takes the tray and turns around and leaves ASIMO standing there. ASIMO bows to the woman, who has walked away, and without thinking, I was saying to myself “How rude of the woman to just walk away when he is bowing to her.”

OK – LOTS of stuff wrong with THAT statement! First of all, IT isn’t a “he” or a “she” for that matter, and second of all, do you thank your toaster for making you breakfast? Of course not – yet add a cute little head and big hobbit feet to that toaster, and all of a sudden you want to offer it a seat and see if it wants a cocktail.

From the movies, it’s certainly easy to see that ASIMO has a long way to go before being confused with a human. But the more you watch, the more you get the feeling that there is a little person inside of that suit, just waiting to pop out. Isn’t it weird the fascination, emotion and automatic good will that go with the human form?

Widespread usage of robots will spark a ton of these emotional foibles and create new social problems that we can’t even imagine now. Hmm… Maybe C3P0 was designed to be a pain in the ass as simple self defense.

I don’t know how or why I have been so blessed to have this little girl as part of my life. When I look at her, there is such a feeling of complete joy.

It’s a deep, heartfelt, never-gonna-be-able-to-accurately-describe-it kind of feeling that takes hold of you in your gut and finishes you off with a lump in your throat. It makes you proud, nervous and excited all at the same time.

Does she have clue how much I love her? I doubt it! In fact, she’s still kinda giving me the shifty eyes since I scolded her for trying to eat that last Crayon – but, no matter. I know how much I love her, and that will have to do for now.

For those of you who read Emily’s Blog, sorry for the cross-post. I just couldn’t help it.

OK, so I don’t usually like to just post a link to suttin’ here without much comment – but I think my RIAA post qualifies as commentary on this particular subject.

Anyway, I can’t believe that Sony has screwed up its DRM deployment AGAIN!

To borrow a quick quote from the ArsTechnica link above:

“…if Sony is trying to alienate its customers, expose itself to massive legal liability, and get the general public up in arms over DRM, it’s doing a fine job. If the music label has some other goal in mind, it needs to change its tactics quickly.”

Well said…

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately from soldiers deployed in Iraq, and also reading the blogs of their family members as well.

These people are amazing Americans. Shame on anyone who says anything to make them doubt the value of the job that they are doing.

I’ll continue to post links to blogs that I’m reading, but the ones listed below are a good place to start. There are views I agree with, and some I don’t – but the overwhelming sense from these people who are in a MUCH better position than me to know, is that a lot of good is being done in Iraq.

Thanks again to these wonderful people for their strength, dedication and sacrifice.

• 365 and a Wakeup
• A Soldier’s Perspective
• Blackfive
• Dude, Where’s the Beach?
• Intel Dump
• Major K
• The Cabarfeidh Pages
• The Officer’s Club
• Andi’s World
• Froggy Ruminations
• Counter Column
• Argghhh!
• One Marine’s View
• Euphoric Reality
• Sgt. Hook

What to say about this movie? My feelings are conflicted about it, but not in the way you would normally think

1. It was a very touching film
2. The acting was superb, all around
3. The characters were very well done
4. It left me very sad, for a number of reasons

The film was touching – I cared about everyone (except maybe Deborah Clasky, played by Tea Leoni), I wanted to the best for them, and I could empathize with everyone’s situation. The “message” was really good, not overstated, but firm enough to let you know a point has been made. The character interactions were superb, with each person taking from the “new” family what they couldn’t get from their own. On a personal note, a lot of the “mixed messages” really hit home for me, having spent a good part of my childhood relatively poor compared to those around me.

If you are looking for a deep, yet still fun, heart-felt movie then Spanglish is your film.

The acting was phenomenal, and the characters were spot-on:

• I mentioned before that I didn’t care about Tea Leoni’s character. Not because she did a poor job with it – exactly the opposite. She was so good as a neurotic, self-centered, full of false-confidence, former career woman that you just had to despise her. In fact, its her overall character that leads to one of the best lines in the film, which is delivered by Cloris Leachman playing Leoni’s reformed alcoholic mother – “Lately, your usual low self-esteem is just good common sense”. OUCH!
• Adam Sandler was very likeable as John Clasky. I normally say that I don’t like Adam Sandler films, but after Spanglish and 50 First Dates I need to change that statement. I expected this to be your typical, “I’m not just a comedian” type of role, but Sandler made me believe and care for his character. He even managed to still be a bit Adam Sandler funny, but no to the distraction of the persona. His relationship with daughter Bernice was well done and added a lot of depth to the film.
• Speaking of Bernice, Sarah Steele is absolutely worth mentioning. In a film full of great acting, she managed to pull off the most natural characterization in the bunch.
• Paz Vega’s Flor was amazing. The fact that she didn’t speak English for most of the film didn’t stop you from knowing exactly what she intended. Her facial expressions communicated more emotion and garnered more feeling than most actors can with words. Indeed, Flor was likeable from her very first scene. Her interactions with the other characters were overwhelmingly real, each conducted with a cohesive flair that rounded out a fully believable persona. With a combination of stunning beauty and flawless delivery, Vega portrayed a character that I won’t soon forget.

So, why, isn’t my review just a simple “stunning, must see”? Because the darn thing made me sad!

I was sad that the Claskys’ marriage had decomposed into the remnants of a once-good relationship. I was sad for Deborah’s choices, and for the personal devastation that they wrought throughout her family. I was sad because the movie ended without finding out if Deborah ever changed!

I was sad because John and Flor could never be together – not because of social complexities or some other BS, but because of real reasons; reasons I firmly agree with and admire the characters for acknowledging. In a society where people so quickly throw the responsibility of marriage out the door for their own selfish desire, it was great to see two such perfectly matched characters deny themselves for what is good and right. But still, their “loss” made me sad.

On a More Personal Note

While this is a heck of a list of sad things, it still just didn’t add up to why I was feeling such a loss. It finally hit me that what really made me sad, was the relationship that Flor and her daughter Christina shared. An elder Christina, who narrates the film, says towards the end of the film “My identity lies secure in the knowledge that I am my mother’s daughter.”

I find it odd that I would feel a sense of loss at not having such a relationship with my own mother, the least reason of which is the fact that I’m not a woman. I couldn’t possibly have that kind of relationship with my mother… Yet, the character of Flor embodied a caring, hard working, deeply convicted person who dealt with hardship in a manner that we should all aspire to, and Christina’s acknowledgement of that, despite the difficulties her younger-self had with her mother’s decisions, made fitting tribute.

With the passing of my own mother over 3 years ago, it saddens me to think that in many ways, she never was able to triumph over her own hardships before God called her Home. Seeing this stark contrast with Flor (albeit a Hollywood character who I’m sure would have an equal number of flaws in real life) made me regret not being able to look up to my mother in the same way that Christina did with hers.

My mother taught me many things, but self-sacrifice, grace under pressure and hard work were not among them. Those I first learned from HER mother Ruth, known to me as Grammy. Maybe one day, I’ll be as good at them as she was…

Conclusion

Spanglish is a great film about life, love and family. I heartily recommend it to anyone that wants more than your average romantic “dramedy”. But, be warned, the film may stay with you for some time, depending upon your own life.

Favorite Quotes

John to Flor: “They should name a gender after you. Just looking at you doesn’t do it. Staring is the only way that makes any sense.”

Deborah: “Are you really that much nicer than me?”
John: “You don’t set the bar too high.”

Flor to John: “I have never met a man who can put himself in my place, as you do… How did you become this man?”

Flor to Christina: “I’m sorry to have to pose to you the question of your life, as you are just a child, but the time has come for me to ask… Is what you want for yourself to become someone that is so very different than me?”