Milo (欧安民)

Annoyance informed by misuse

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:34:22 GMT

I haven't written here in a while, but I have something that I really want to get off of my chest. For several years now, I've seen a strange use of "informed by" explode within intellectual (or perhaps, pseudo-intellectual) circles. The first example that came to my attention and just confused me when I heard it is the title of Richard M. Gula's book, "Reason Informed by Faith." Notice how there are no sentient beings informing or being informed? A quick Googling led to several more examples of this odd usage:

"Ape Consciousness–Human Consciousness: A Perspective Informed by Language and Culture"
"Fiction informed by science"
"A view of Current Affairs informed by a Religious Tradition"

and it goes on... In all of these cases, there are easy alternatives for phrasing, but perhaps they sounded too quotidian for the authors. A good sign that this phrase is climbing the ranks of those used by the intelligentsia is its frequent appearance on the airwaves of NPR. I love NPR, but this usage makes me cringe each time I hear it.

Stephen Mulholland of South Africa's, "The Citizen," recently wrote against this practice with an interesting insight that its use is merely for affect. "It seems that once this sacred term is announced all the speaker then has to say carries with it the force of intellectual affirmation."

Perhaps this truly is the information age as concepts are able to produce, deliver, and receive information on their own without the aid of a human.

The problem is, I'm not sure if this usage is incorrect. I simply don't like it. As I mature and even out my temper, I find that I'm no longer as interested in grammar and spelling as I was. These sorts of nitpicks, I've found, are often the domain of those with low self esteem or an inappropriately analytical mind. I might have drawn inspiration for this screed from a scene in the last season of "The Wire" in which it is explained that people should not be evacuated from a building, but rather that the building should be evacuated. To evacuate people is to clean their bowels. Perhaps this will be my last diatribe on grammar or spelling, but writing on this one is particularly cathartic.

It was a nice ride, while it lasted

Sat, 05 May 2007 14:38:31 GMT


Exhibit A (Monday)	Exhibit B (Saturday)

Wikipedia challenge of the day

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:33:59 GMT

Try to read this article without laughing.

Happy New Year

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:19:51 GMT

Guess what year it is...

His laughter is infectious

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:41:40 GMT

Movie Roundup

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:39:26 GMT

Because you've all been wondering what I've been watching lately, here's the list, along with snide commentary:

Green Street Hooligans: Frodo goes to England, falls in man-love with a gang of soccer thugs. The fight scenes were well done, but that's about it. Ridiculously cliched plot devices throughout. Poor show.
The Elephant Man: Deformed man experiences hardship. I wanted to like this movie because David Lynch made it, but it's soooooooo boring. I had to take two whacks at this one to make it through... I tried to watch it in college but couldn't make it through. This time I had it in a window while I surfed. Lynch found out the hard way (i.e. Dune) that he needs to write his own stories. This falls within that lesson.
Moulin Rouge: Gay fun, in all senses of the word. Like a sugar overdose.
The Long Goodbye: Philip Marlowe meets the pastel 70s. A bit slow, with that 60s/70s pacing that seemed fine when everyone was on hippie drugs, but pretty decent nonetheless. Elliot Gould is a bit more like Bukowski's detective in Pulp than the Marlowe that Bogart defined.
Touch of Evil: Charlton Heston as a Mexican detective. WTF, right? Well, it almost kind of works. Apparently Orson Welles was contractually obliged to make this and there's even a passing reference to the fact that Heston looks nothing like a Mexican, despite the thin mustache and thick tan he wears in the movie. This is an incredibly moody and creepy movie that keeps you anxious the whole way through, meaning success in my book.
Eros: Three short films about love/sex. Wong Kar-Wai's short will make it impossible for you to look at a handjob in quite the same way ever again. Also, Chinese tailors do some very interesting, intricate work. Steven Soderbergh's short would have been fine as a play, but isn't that interesting as a movie. Michelangelo Antonioni's short was utterly unwatchable and laughable stereotypical as a cliche European art film.
The Ice Storm: Sex is complicated for adults and children! It all ends in tears. Watchable, but no grand revelations.
The Good Girl: Crime and Punishment meets King of the Hill. John C. Reilly is one of my favorite actors and I have a lot of respect for him, so I couldn't buy him as being stupid. Fairly pointless all over, unless you count "Even common girls in the middle of the country have dreams" as a new message.
The Rules of Attraction: Gay man falls in love with Frankenstein's monster who falls in love with Denise Huxtable. American Psycho seems to have a diametrically opposite view of these people than is displayed here, which is why I liked it. This is basically a long, after-dark version of a WB show. There was an interview with the director on the DVD which shows him to be just the kind of jackass I'd never expect to get a date, much less laid at such a school, yet has him declaring how it tells the story of his college experience. On the plus side, hot girls + nudity.

Dare

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 09:01:40 GMT

Try to read this without laughing at least once. These guys must hate American Pie.

When you'll see posts

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 07:48:48 GMT

I was thinking about the frequency with which I post, which is in decline of late, and not due to any conscious effort. Non-LJ friends will probably not see very many posts at all. LJ friends might see posts, but frankly mostly of a whiny nature. But nobody has seen many posts at all lately for some reason. Does this mean I'm no longer a whiny bitch? Not at all... rather that I'm simply uninspired to write out my complaints. And God help you if I somehow manage to get a girlfriend. None of you will ever hear from me again until she dumps me.

Anyway... here's an abridged update for the truly bored:

Working hard and gaining traction at work

Reading Tropic of Cancer (I relate in the sense that I'm arrogant and lonely, but not in the sense that I don't whore around or write well)

Been watching The Wire (rent/buy this now... it's too good)

Continual photo nonsense

For more info, feel free to send me an email. I'm even answering some of them now. ;-D

Chris Isaak

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 07:29:15 GMT

Just saw Chris Isaak at the Green Apple Bookstore in the Richmond. He's one of my favorite musicians, but I didn't have anything say to him. He seemed really nice to this other guy that recognized him. He also has really nice hair.

I must now have a 3D camera

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:00:28 GMT

Warning: don't stare at this too long, but this is the best thing I've seen in a long time.

JPG Magazine

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 05:44:32 GMT

I just discovered JPG Magazine, which is one of the better photo magazines I've seen. It also gets all its content from user contributions.

I entered one of my photos to a contest called "Embrace the Blur".

Please vote on it if you get the chance... Thanks!

Fuel

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:33:31 GMT

Anyone who has ever done a significant amount of coding in their life knows that there are three things that fuel the process: sugar, caffeine, and music. I've got the first two covered by my (very aristocratic) Arnold Palmers. The last bit is the hard part. I'm happy with Arnold Palmers for life. Music burns out fast. As a poor substitute, I occasionally listen to podcasts and today I was listening to "On the Media" from NPR. They played a short bumper clip from Ben Allison & Medicine Wheel's "Riding the Nuclear Tiger", a drum and bass track from jazz musicians. In general, this is a far better situation than jazz from drum and bass musicians. Anyway, I bought the album, also named "Riding the Nuclear Tiger" from iTunes and am pretty happy with it. The titular (I love that word) track is the most exciting, but the rest of the album is very solid jazz. Not only that, but Ben Allison is a bassist! I've been looking for jazz bassists and so far he and Ron Carter are on the list. Solid.

Photo news

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:16:44 GMT

My "new" Yashica-Mat 124G works! It was touch and go there, but it turned out some pretty clear photos without vignetting or focus falloff. The meter even works!

I had a few problems with it the day after I got it. I got it from a seller on eBay who wrote something like "worked perfectly last time it was used, but hasn't been used for several years". Ok, fine. The seller had good ratings and I bought it anyway. It arrived and virtually everything worked ok. The shutter fired correctly at one second, which is supposed to be a good indicator of it working in general. The battery case was very tight, but after a lot of effort, it finally opened. The old battery had leaked all over the place. I took it out and cleaned the compartment with Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. I wasn't too sure about the connection though, since one of the contacts had a little jiggle. In any event, I didn't have a battery and I expected that I'd just have to go to some camera shop and buy one. Turns out that this particular battery isn't made any more because it contains a lot of mercury and alkalines just don't behave the same way. Ok, I put that on hold. The next day I woke up and started playing with it again. Now, the shutter didn't work. WTF? After a little searching online, I found out that cameras that have been sitting for a while often develop grease or grime in the sides of the shutter and when they are used again after that, the blades pick up the grease from the sides. I'm pretty sure now that that's what happened with mine. So I needed to clean the shutter blades. That turns out not to be so easy. There were no obvious entry points into the camera, except for two little notches on either side of the lens ring. These are actually intended to be turned by a "spanner wrench", a little thing that looks like two miniature screwdrivers framed together with two bolts. Well, these cost from $30+ which I didn't want to spend on a one use tool. Of course now, I tried to jimmy it. It kind of worked, but then there was another piece of glass behind the front lens element. Now I was pretty sure I was screwed. There were a few assembly diagrams of the camera online, but they showed screws that were not apparent on mine. The trick is that you have to pull up the vinyl cover on the front of the camera to reveal the screws, which in most cases destroys the covering. I managed not to tear mine up too badly. I finally got the front casing off of the camera and got access to the shutter blades, cleaned them with a Q-Tip and alcohol and... the blades fired! I put everything back together, pasted the cover back on with school glue, and started thinking about how to power the meter without a mercury battery. Turns out that there is a company that makes replacements for these using zinc-air chemistry, which they claim is close to the behavior of mercury but without all the nasty environment problems. I ordered two online, one of which didn't work :-/, but one of which did! I put it in and the meter seemed to be correct when compared to my Nikon 35mm SLR. The final test of course is actually to shoot a roll of film and in the end, I got negatives and they're much clearer than the Lubitel.

Results are on flickr.

Every state I've been to is a red state!

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:16:12 GMT

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Surfer

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 06:57:16 GMT

For the holiday season...

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:25:05 GMT

Were you thinking about buying me a watch, but wanted to spend more? Well then look no further. "Warning: Requires State Department License for export".

Where to shop

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 21:54:02 GMT

Those of you who are tearing your hair out, trying to figure out what gift you could possibly buy me, look no further.

For those of you counting, this is one more piece of evidence that I have a strange curiosity with clocks and watches.

Steve Irwin is dead

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 06:21:34 GMT

And Wikipedia already includes his death in his entry. Creepy fast.

Desert island CD

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 05:24:46 GMT

On my way home from Taiji class, I popped in my Lost Highway CD. It's definitely my desert island CD. I bought it before the movie came out when I was in high school, knowing nothing other than that it was a soundtrack for a David Lynch movie. It became the soundtrack for my senior year. It's got Trent Reznor, David Bowie, Antonio Carlos Jobim, crazy acid jazz, and one of the few good Smashing Pumpkin songs from the utz-utz era of electronica. It's a veritable cornucopia of ear-meat. Aside from the Marilyn Manson nonsense, it's almost flawless.

It also reminded me that I need to get some more friends in the city. They kind that you could call up and say, "Let's have a David Lynch marathon" and they'd say, "Cool. Should I bring my Eraserhead DVD?" and I'd say, "Of course not, nobody really likes Eraserhead." But of course I'd be happy that they were down for watching the rest. I really only have 2 friends in the city that I can call up for spur of the moment things and neither of them are freakish enough to like David Lynch. I'm interested in people who thought they might go to film school, but ended up just having their souls eaten by the desire to make money. You know -- my peer group.

Flim Springfield

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:30:07 GMT

I bought a scanner so I could scan in all the film I've been shooting lately and after 8 months of doing photography seriously, I finally made a picture I like.

Sure, it's got a lot of dust, it's not cropped properly, and there's a lot of vignetting, but I like it. Maybe I'll fix all that.

The scanner is pretty decent. It did a pretty good job on the B&W film I threw at it. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that well with the Velvia and Provia I've scanned, but I'm also not sure that monitors can even come close to the beauty of these films on the light table. I'll keep trying though...

Finally

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 02:59:17 GMT

Somebody finally put up the interview of Ice-T on Conan. Let's just put it this way... "Go buy Tupperware right now. It's O.G. It's real 'hood."

Something Blue

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 05:53:14 GMT

Something Blue

The Planet Krypton

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 05:26:16 GMT

Just got my Superman soundtrack in the mail. I really shouldn't get teary and patriotic whenever I hear the song "The Planet Krypton", but I do.

Miami Vice

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:43:23 GMT

I saw Miami Vice last night and loved it. It's basically pure testosterone, injected into the audience with a digital video camera. Looking at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, you can see it's not gotten the greatest reviews, so I thought I'd address those, in addition to giving my two cents. First, the only thing bad about this movie is that Jamie Foxx isn't featured enough. (Ok, maybe the dialogue as well, when it slows down to an understandable speed.) They spend a lot of time focusing on the relationship between Gong Li and Colin Farrell, which is forgivable since she's incredibly hot and actually acts in this one. There is a scene with Jamie Foxx and his girlfriend in the movie early on, when they're both naked in a shower. I particularly liked this one not because of all the naked, but because they showed stretch marks... on the girlfriend. For some reason, I'm really happy that they didn't try to put make up on her. I'm not some sicko, stretch mark perv, I just like the realism. Speaking of which, when people get shot in this movie, it's not clean or bloodless, also a good thing. I'm a fan of the Scorsese principle that violence should be shown for all it's horror to show how unsexy it is. (Not that this movie particularly makes a comment on, or even against, violence.) When someone gets shot in the arm with a high-powered rifle, the arm comes off. Finally, who doesn't love the neck-length, slicked-down man-hair? It's featured prominently not only on Colin Farrell, but also Justin Theroux, of Mulholland Drive, Six Feet Under, and Charlie's Angels fame.

Now to address the critics' points. First, there is an argument that Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx have little on-screen buddy chemistry. I saw their relationship as more of a tight, professional one with both men being very driven to purpose. When I think of "buddy chemistry," I think of Bad Boys or Rush Hour. I think the approach in the movie is very appropriate for its tone. Second, the critics argue that there's not depth or character development in the movie. My response: BOOOOM!!!! BAANGG!! That's what I think of your character development. Why does there need to be any? Just because it's Michael Mann? This is a plot-driven action movie. There's not only no reason to have character development in this genre, there's a good reason to be suspect of any action movie with character development. Can you seriously tell me that you would be genuinely interested in the back story and psyche of Detectives Crockett and Tubbs?

Update: Even Edelstein likes it. And he hates everything.

Final act

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:05:41 GMT

On the ride home tonight, I was listening to my Ultra-Lounge Rhapsodesia CD and thinking about Taxi Driver. You know, the usual. I'm sure there's at least 10 badly written college term papers on this, but I realized that Taxi Driver and Crime and Punishment are very similar. Not because of the whole insanity thing... that's fairly common in fiction. The thing that I thought was weird was that their endings are both out of left field, both in content and theme. Taxi Driver develops as a story about a lonely, crazy guy and ends as a comment on the media. Crime and Punishment is also about a lonely, crazy guy and ends as a Christian redemption story. There is also the difference that we expect that Travis Bickle will backslide into even more crazy and Raskolnikov won't, but these facts are more extensions on the main story, not a result of the tacked-on endings. It's almost as if the authors of these works didn't feel like lonely+crazy is a sufficiently interesting storyline and added a little something for sweeps.