I'll soon be moving out of the historic core/old bank district -- my home for the last four years -- so I took a couple evening walks around the block with camera in hand last week. Each photo is geotagged in Flickr; clicking any one will bring you to that photo's page to view location, specific architectural information, and camera data.
View original size for the impressive close-up of the 960x640 Retina display, compared to the 2007 iPhone's inferior graphics.
Returned to Tom's a little while ago, trying out FaceTime now. We arrived at Glendale Galleria at about 06:30, but there were at least 500 people ahead of us in the parking garage reservation queue, which snaked around like those stacked lines you see at amusement park rides. There was a separate line of at least 100 people who hadn't made a reservation at the far end. The Apple employees handled everything quite well -- coming out and distributing water, coffee, danishes and donuts. At 07:00 the first people were let in to the mall, 25 at a time, in pulses about 12-13 minutes apart. For every 50 people in the reservation queue, one person from the non-reservation queue was taken to join that group. The non-reservationist girl who came up to join us had been waiting since 22:00 last night; she was the 7th person in the non-reservation line. Once inside the mall there were several more (shorter) lines to stand in before reaching the store. The Apple Store was processing about 150 people per hour. We were out of the store, activated iP4 in hand with contacts transferred, at 10:45.
Rebecca Keegan has written an interesting article on Time.com describing some of the difficulties facing the Visual effects industry:
"If you want to see the names driving Hollywood's growth, you have to stay for the movie's credits. The very end of the credits. After the actors and electricians — sometimes even after the people who serve the tacos on set — come the visual-effects artists. These are the people who make superheroes fly and cities fall into the ocean, and the effects-reliant films they work on, like Avatar and the Harry Potter franchise, are Hollywood's biggest moneymakers.
Their place in the credits says something about visual effects (VFX) artists' place in the Hollywood pecking order. Ironically, just as they are peaking in creativity and propelling box-office hits, VFX companies are facing a crisis years in the making. Thanks to fierce global competition, the hangover from Hollywood labor unrest and a lack of negotiating power with studios, many VFX firms are closing up shop or outsourcing to stay afloat.
Visual effects has now become the most bankable "star" in Hollywood, with FX movies reliably making more money for studios than famous actors. Even so, American artists are being paid less while many jobs are outsourced outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco: ILM has a branch in Singapore; Rhythm & Hues and Sony Pictures Imageworks have both opened their own extensions in India (the latter has also opened a facility in New Mexico where they've transferred a hundred or so jobs, taking advantage of that state's tax incentives); and smaller houses have opened facilities in Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Where do we go from here? Will we follow the paths of manufacturing, the auto industry, and corporate call centers? For now at least, the artists in cities like L.A. and London can produce more convincing effects than their south Asian counterparts, but with training and experience the latter will catch up within a few years.
Hopefully by then I will have made my money and retired -- perhaps to Mexico, India, or the Philippines, where I can make a small income training my replacements.
Click to view the entire set. Tim's Kitchen (桃花源小廚) in Sheung Wan, Cheung Hing Coffee Shop (祥兴咖啡室) in Happy Valley, DTF (鼎泰豊) in Tsim Sha Tsui, and a last dinner at Fan Tang (飯堂). And if you're not into food porn, there are pics of some other stuff too.
Not only is he dead wrong on history (The Haitian revolution took place in 1791, while Napoleon III wasn't even born until 1808) he's encouraging Christians to believe that the Haitian people brought this disaster onto themselves by bargaining with the devil. Similarly, Rush Limbaugh stated on his radio show last week, "...besides, we've already donated to Haiti, it's called the U.S. income tax." So if I were one of the millions of American Republican Christians who hangs on every word uttered by these two demagogues, why then would I want to donate aid to a people who were dumb enough to make a deal with the devil, especially when the government to which I begrudgingly pay taxes has already sent succor to them?
This Rachel Maddow clip on the Christian Broadcasting Network's defense of Robertson is priceless:
If you are a Christian Republican who is not easily swayed by these two bastards, please consider donating a little of your hard-earned cash that the government hasn't yet stolen from you to the Center For Inquiry's S.H.A.R.E. program. 100% of your donation, with no operating costs retained, will be given to Doctors Without Borders, a secular organization that is at this very moment doing invaluable work saving lives in Port-au-Prince.
A stimulating Intelligence Squared debate from the beginning of this month, addressing the above question.
The first video features the introduction of the speakers and Archbishop John Onaiyekan, who ineffectively argues for the motion before Christopher Hitchens is introduced and begins his argument against.
In the next video, Hitchens continues arguing forcefully against the motion, and includes a trenchant response to the archbishop:
"I think it will one day be admitted with shame that it might have been in error to say that AIDS is bad as a disease, very bad, but not quite as bad as condoms...I say it in the presence of His Grace and I say it to his face: the preachings of his church are responsible for the death and suffering and misery of millions of his brother and sister Africans and he should apologize for it; he should show some shame."
Next up: Ann Widdecombe, conservative MP, who at least brings a little game to her arguments in favor of the church (her speech overlaps videos 2 & 3). Now it's getting interesting! Will this secular British audience be moved by Widdecombe's sharply acerbic debate skills?
Last comes the gentle Stephen Fry, who talks of the punishments meted out by the Church to progressives and scientists throughout the ages, and the hypocrisy of canonizing Sir Thomas More, who tortured the English for owning Bibles written in their own language. When he mentions that only nine years ago More was named the patron saint of politicians, both the Archbishop and the MP nod enthusiastically -- as if his legacy is something of which to be proud. Fry also delves into the current pope's lies about condoms, his holiness' claim that homosexuals are morally evil and disordered, and contrasts the Church with the object of its affections:
"Do you know who would be the last person ever to be accepted as a prince of the church? The Galilean carpenter; that Jew. They would kick him out before he tried to cross the threshold. He would be so ill at ease in the church. What would he think? What would he think of St. Peter's? What would he think of the wealth, and the power, and the self-justification and the wheedling apologies?"
The questions of the audience and the debaters' closing statements in the final video are definitely worth watching:
In the end, as at the beginning, the audience was polled to see whether they were for or against the motion and we get to see how many viewers were persuaded by the panel. Prior to the debate, 346 were undecided; afterwards, that number dropped to 34. 410 fewer people believed that the motion was true, and 774 more people believed it to be false. In other words, the argument that the Catholic church is NOT a force for good in the world was much more persuasive than its counterargument -- quod erat demonstrandum.
Remember that old TV show, LANCELOT LINK, SECRET CHIMP? The one with apes running around wearing funky clothes and wigs, with people offscreen dubbing their voices? My blog has nothing to do with that. This is where I come to comment on my life, culture, and skepticism.
Extreme Exposure: free photography exhibit
-
Went to the Annenberg Space for Photography for the Extreme Exposure
exhibit. It is a small museum, but the space is amazing. The whole plaza
was very...
April 27, 2010
-
Roll With It
It would have been great if things had gone as planned – if Little Guy was
floating in his slip I would have been able to work on the trailer ...
A Cook's Life #6 - Adding Insult to Injury
-
about six months ago, i injured my back at work. i was wrapping up some *mise
en place*, when i suddenly felt a sharp twinge down the right side of my
low...
