It happens on other phones but it definitely is accentuated on the new iPhone if you bridge the two antennas on the left. Merely contacting the two antennas at the same time isn’t enough – I tried putting my fingers on the two antennas as close as possible without covering the gap, and the connectivity sustained. You have to cover the gap. I suspect it will only strongly affect left handed folks who choose not to get a case.

Still, a pretty big design flaw. I get the feeling someone overrode the engineers and made an artistic design decision, because it seems like a fairly trivial issue to overcome. Cover the gap in plastic or glass? It would have messed with the clean design, but eh, people eat up some ugly android phone designs, so I doubt people would have given too much of a damn about an extra panel of glass or plastic.

I predict next year’s phone will have some kind of cover over the gaps.

I told myself if the antenna issue was major, I’d just return the thing, but given that I’m right handed, I suspect it won’t affect me too much. We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks.

On another note, I’m pretty happy with the phone. My coworker showed me Family Guy Blue Harvest on his, and it looked amazing. Video call, while gimmicky, was still quite cool.

The skull logo seen at 0:42 is designed by his friend, Huck. Ken Block had seen a similar logo at Huck’s site, which can be seen here: http://huckgee.com/.

I guess he makes a pretty nice living as an artist/designer. They were just going to license the skull logo to Block, but QuickSilver wanted to buy the logo out completely (and they did, for a nice sum).

Huck also designs for kidrobot.com, which sells zany stuff, such as a Soviet walrus plush. The artists primarily have urban roots, according to my coworker.

I don’t know how this led to Nigo, and Bathing Ape, but it did. Nigo is some popular designer from Japan, and Bathing Ape is his brand of trendy clothing that people like Kanye West wear. All for ridiculous prices of course. Nigo has teamed up with two others to form the Billionaire Boy’s Club/Ice Cream, where you can buy $80 shirts, and $250 hoodies. Insane.

What was the point of this? I don’t know anymore, sorry. Well I stripped out all the business parts because I didn’t know how much of that I could talk about, but it looks like if you have talent, there’s some fun ways to make some money!

So Avatar, the anti-corporate-excess, anti-unregulated-mercenary, anti-imperialist, anti-war, anti-materialism, anti-racism, pro-environment, sci-fi action adventure romance just passed $1.1 billion not too long ago (and stands as the fastest movie to hit a billion). Not too shabby, especially for sci-fi, which traditionally does not have wide appeal. I guess James Cameron knows how to make a movie.

Personally, I think Avatar is the best action/adventure movie I’ve ever seen. There, I said it. I think I’m a picky bastard, too. It easily tops Dark Knight for me, another movie that ranked highly with me. I loved Dark Knight, but DK is totally consumed by raw negativity (And I can be a jackass). There’s no rest, no break, no salvation. Just cynical bleakness. It’s a great window into the darkness, but as a result it just lacks balance, and that gets wearisome. I’m not surprised that men seem to favor DK more than women (in my personal sphere).

Avatar on the other hand has superb, technically accurate action (yet it’s an anti-war film; just like in Terminator 2, Cameron is so good at annihilating things while simultaneously being against it), but it also has a pretty well developed romance, for a movie that’s supposed to be action/adventure anyway. As Kim Masters of the Daily Beast wrote, “Cameron’s genius is this: He makes movies for women disguised as movies for men.” I’m sure the girls will say that it can’t match The Notebook or something like that (haven’t seen it, don’t want to), but that would probably throw off the balance for the men. But with the girl…er, female power, and the love story in Avatar, I’m not surprised that Avatar is doing quite well with women, probably not to the extent of Titanic, but still, I’ve heard plenty of women who want to and have watched Avatar multiple times.

Basically, the only way I can fathom someone not liking Avatar is if they hate fun and adventure—and love (or if one is diehard conservative, more on that below). If one finds such things abhorrent, then yes, Avatar is a bore. Hell, even A.O. Scott of the NYT liked it, and that mother is one of the snobbiest, high brow pro-reviewers I’ve ever seen. For the rest of us, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Avatar, at the moment, is the closest any of us ghetto 21st century folks will get to experience what it’s like to travel to another planet. You’re buying a ticket for an experience, a trip almost (especially when seen in 3D). Along the way, there’s a universally appealing story. So, relax, and enjoy the ride!

But is it just the effects, and the wonderful immersive 3D? I’m not sure anymore. I read an argument somewhere that movies don’t make over a billion dollars on effects alone, that Avatar is connecting with people at an emotional level somehow. I think I must agree. It definitely made me question whether I need to make so many unnecessary gadget purchases, and rekindled my doubt about the role of the cubicle in my life. Apparently, in China, some interpreted it as representative of the battle between real estate developers, and impoverished homeowners.

The most major initial criticism I hear is the simplicity of the story. Yes, it is simple, but it’s also epic, truly epic. “Epic” gets tossed around a lot these days, particularly with action/war movies, but Avatar is a true epic in the old school sense. Love, culture, and war. All in 2 hrs 40 minutes. It wasn’t totally predictable either, as some claim, especially towards the end. And it’s also complete. No further sequels are needed or alluded to. I’m actually hoping there won’t be any, because I wouldn’t want the franchise to be destroyed like so many others due to crappy sequels. While I love the characters in Avatar, their story is over. Unless Cameron can pull another miracle.

Besides, it’s how a story is told that is important. That’s all epic storytellers have really been doing for the last few millennia anyway, adding their own permutations to common storylines, or telling the same story, but better, like different productions of the same musical.

But I would also argue Avatar’s story is not significantly simpler than most movies out there anyway. I think it was just an easy aspect to criticize, especially by people I like to call the “nouveau intelligentsia,” who make the argument without really considering if it’s fair or not (especially Will Heaven’s poor argument that Avatar was racist, but more on that later). Because most movies aren’t that complicated, especially in the genre Avatar is in, and such movies definitely didn’t get as much heat. Success attracts disdain I guess.

Yes, in other movies, the dialogue can be more sophisticated, but unlike most other movies, Avatar pushes hard on multiple, relevant contemporary themes simultaneously (as previously listed). In this sense, I honestly think Avatar is actually quite sophisticated. Avatar tends to expound its themes through visuals, instead of telling through dialogue, letting the viewer stew on it later, like a painting (indeed one guy interpreted some 9/11 imagery that I hadn’t thought of, and that I don’t think Cameron intended, though he found it interesting). Of the recent “good” films I’ve seen lately, District 9, Dark Knight, Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, I think Avatar generated more introspection and personal thought. Basterds came close (but in a negative way. More in its own review). Up in the Air was an interesting character sketch, but hey, I’ve got my own issues to deal with, and if I want to waste my time to see you conquer or deal with yours, I’d only want to see it once.

Here, I stumbled across a well-written argument by an Amazon customer; I can’t really put it any better, so I’m just going to quote her:

You could boil the plot down to Dances With Wolves does Star Wars in Middle Earth, but that wouldn’t do real justice to this fantastic film. It follows an archetypal storyline (archetype, not stereotype), which may make it feel familiar (or trite, if you are looking for a plot twist a minute). Think Joseph Campbell: the Hero Journey (the basis of tales like Star Wars and LOTR). I think a familiar, archetypal, mythic storyline will draw much more of the audience into this fantastic world than a quirky tale with plot twists. Here in York County PA, tastes run to beer and blue jeans, and it’s hard enough getting them into the theater to see “some weird story about ten foot tall half naked blue guys”. Kudos to James Cameron for creating a tale with relevant issues (decimation of indigenous peoples, our overconsumptive culture, our relationship with tech and the natural world), awesome visuals, and universal appeal.

I’ve got to agree; I don’t think a jumpy or soapy plot would have been appropriate, nor would the sharper, snarkier dialogue of someone like…Joss Whedon. Cameron went for classic epic that appeals to children and adult alike, while hitting on relevant real-world topics, not “hey, that was quirky and interesting, but I have no intention of watching the movie again.”

And Avatar only seemed to get better with another viewing – if you were like me who was kind of cynical about the whole thing at first. From my first viewing, I came away liking the movie, but I was not amazed with it. However, the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me. Then I saw Avatar again and I was definitely hooked. The amazing visual effects definitely do the grunt work, but the attention to detail do as well, like the Na’vi language created by a USC professor, the alien flora and fauna, also created by a professor, and the raw emotion of the actors captured by Cameron’s upgraded mo-cap technology. You can see every expression that the original actor made, but on an alien body. No uncanny valley here. It really helped me empathize with these “space smurfs”, and it definitely put Zoe Saldana on the map for me.

Sadly, Avatar made me realize that there could be tons of talented leading ladies out there that will never get the time of day because of their skin color, unless they get roles like Neytiri. Other than films sketching minority life, how often do you see a colored woman in the lead actress role?

I suppose I should now mention the subset of conservatives that hate the movie for such themes. But they hate most things out of Hollywood, so I don’t want to waste my time. Besides, I think their complaints are legitimate, in the sense that it definitely crosses their ideology. Although I think the movie is less about anti-America, and more anti-Blackwater/Halliburton. And well, if you can still defend either of those, our ideologies are way too different.

Basically it’s erotic gore. I don’t know why such a genre exists, but it does. And it’s very disturbing. Ah what a coincidence, origins starting around 1920-1930 Japan, just before the war…My pop psych analysis says it’s a hyper extreme case of needing to dominate another person, but man, WTF?

You put people who like that kind of stuff in an imperial war machine that has them convinced that other ethnicities are less than human…it’s not hard to put 2 and 2…I highly, highly, highly, highly^35 recommend you do NOT google either term, unless you are extremely desensitized, or have some kind of purely academic curiosity (of which you will pay a price). What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

And sigh, of course, my usual disclaimer for the knee-jerk, “OMFG YOU’RE STEREOTYPING” folks. No, I do not think all Japanese (likely men) like this stuff. It’s probably a small subset, blah blah blah, although whether it’s an insignificant subset is debatable. There’s definitely a market for it over there, which itself is disturbing.

“Cameron’s genius is this: He makes movies for women disguised as movies for men.” Definitely a pretty good balance of yin and yang.

OK, I’m addicted. I’ll admit it. I’ve seen Avatar in 3D, three times now. If I know someone that hasn’t seen it, I unabashedly agree to go with them. I’m slightly ashamed, yet the addiction is strong enough that I don’t care. Twice in Imax 3D, and once in RealD. I didn’t know there was a difference, but apparently RealD is superior. Link about different 3D tech. The trade off is that the screen is smaller, and I believe some of the image is cropped = less immersion. I sat in the back for the RealD show and it was like watching a picture-in-picture broadcast. Too much of the peripheral vision was filled by “theater”: speakers, walls, people….definitely sit around the middle or closer.

The 3D…hmm the first time I watched it, I didn’t really think it added all that much. I think it’s because Cameron used it tastefully, did the whole movie in 3D, and didn’t make it in-your-face, save a couple scenes here and there. Hence, since we naturally view things in 3D on a daily basis, I just didn’t notice it and didn’t think it added that much. However, when I saw it a 3rd time at the Irvine Imax 3D, the feed for the left eye was extremely messed up (you can verify by closing each eye individually; the image should be sharp for each). It pretty much ruined all of the 3D. That and the dumb broad next to me who was literally texting on her cell every 5 minutes. I wanted to throw that phone down the stairs. Although I’m guilty of being retarded for not saying anything…

But on the flip side, while constantly fiddling with my 3D glasses, I noticed just how much of the movie was in 3D, and how much of it I was taking for granted. I watched the trailer when I got home, and boy did it look like crap in comparison, like watching some kind of ancient Egyptian papyrus version, or some kind of stone tablet version. I seriously don’t think I can watch this movie in 2D. The bluray isn’t going to do this movie justice, so I figure I should catch it in theaters while I can, until 3D TVs come around. Our kids will wonder how we could put up with 2D TVs.

If you read the first comment in the link above, he mentions a tech called XPAND, supposedly the best of them all. There’s a theater in socal with it…tempted…

http://www.gchope.org/my-hands-have-a-voice

What’s the proper usage for “benefit” in this case? “Cancer benefit” vs “Anti-Cancer Benefit.” “Slavery benefit” vs “Anti-slavery benefit.” Hmm.

So I was working on some documents and was starting to fiddle with fonts when I realized, “Hey! I’m on a Mac now! Helvetica should be accessible to me for the first time ever!” For all you Windows-only people who have never heard of Helvetica, Helvetica was/is the original de-facto standard font, before Arial was created to counter Helvetica’s licensing fees. There’s even a film about Helvetica. From its Wiki:

Versions exist for the following alphabets/scripts: Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Khmer and Vietnamese. Chinese faces have been developed to complement Helvetica.

Helvetica is a popular choice for commercial wordmarks, including those for 3M, AT&T, Jeep, Lufthansa,American Airlines, Microsoft, and BMW.

Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica, and NASA uses the type on the Space Shuttle orbiter.^[1] Helvetica is also used in the United States television rating system. New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority uses Helvetica for many of its subway signs.

Arial is almost exactly the same; it is the pretender to the Helvetica throne. So I’ve been told. Curious to know what the actual differences were, I googled and found the following article:

http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/

Wasn’t that interesting?

A contest was held to design a new Dutch 5 Euro coin, and a guy named Stani won, using fairly geeky methods and only free software to come up with something that’s actually quite beautiful and modern.

You can read about his detailed methodology and his rationale at his blog.

http://pythonide.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-money-with-free-software.html

Here’s the executive summary if you’re lazy and don’t feel like looking at diagrams, but I really do suggest reading it:

A list of names of famous Dutch architects are listed radially using a custom font, from most famous to least, as determined by Internet search results, to form an image of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The reverse side depicts books written by architects, also arranged radially to form a general outline of the Netherlands itself. Birds represent the capitols of each province.

Unfortunately I think his design is better than the actual creation (which you can see at his blog), but that’s what typically happens when things go from concept to production, eh? The coloration is just a bit different.

So, I went to a variety performance about a month ago called Fall for Dance at the OC Performing Arts Center. There were some interesting dances. But the last one, called Soldier’s Mass, by The National Ballet of Canada, kind of prodded me on a topic that I’ve been thinking about for awhile, and that would be the balance of Yin and Yang, or in my broad, non-Taoist use of it, masculinity and femininity, in the liberal arts.

Wiki describes Yin and Yang as the following:

Yin is usually characterized as slow, soft, insubstantial, diffuse, cold, wet, and tranquil. It is generally associated with the feminine, birth and generation, and with the night. Yang, by contrast, is characterized as hard, fast, solid, dry, focused, hot, and aggressive. It is associated with masculinity and daytime.

I hadn’t read the program prior to watching the performances, so when the last one came up, all I knew was that it would be a ballet. And it was. A ballet about soldiers, war, death, and what have you. An ambitious goal. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t really buy into it. It was my first ballet (well, not counting the pas de deux before it), so I’m not sure if there is even such a thing as a masculine ballet (I presume not), but the dance was definitely too feminine given the subject matter. Yes, the obvious war symbolism was there, soldiers falling (slowly), dying, etc. But when I deconstructed the moves, I saw men lifting up other men, spinning them gracefully about, with their perfectly pointed tippy toes, all while exuding the traditional “lightness” of ballet. The flamboyance just didn’t really convey the tragedy of war to me. One can’t just throw on some fatigues, play back a sad soundtrack, and call it a day. Too much Yin. Perhaps if the movements had been a little less smooth and fluid, if the forms had been more “serif” versus “sans-serif” for you typography nuts, I could have liked it more. Just a little more Yang, please.

In of itself, there’s nothing wrong with flamboyance, but the question is, does it fit? The stereotype against gay people is that they are flamboyant. And that’s usually not the case. You go to the battlefield, (if) you (can) find a gay soldier, he’s like any other soldier. You find a female soldier on the battlefield. Same thing. You’re not going to see her whip out her floral dress while unloading an M4, blowing kisses. So I wouldn’t expect a Maori war dance to be sung along to how Jack met Jill and how stellar their romantic getaway was. Nor would I expect a Star Trek ballet to work without me busting up laughing. Props to trying to get dichotomies to work together, but if it fails, it can result in pure comedy, intended or otherwise. If it works, I guess the artist(s) has struck gold.

That’s not to say I don’t think it isn’t possible to convey Yang through Yin or vice versa. I think some of my favorite balanced works are by female artists and authors giving their take on masculinity or on traditionally masculine works. Take for instance, The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. That’s one of my favorite books. It’s a retelling of the Arthurian legends as told completely through the perspectives of the women. Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar , etc. The men are still in there, doing there thing, crushing skulls, etc, but they’re largely in the background. Man, I really wanted an autographed copy, but she has passed on. Then there’s Neil Gaiman. He has pretty balanced works, as well. Stardust (the book, not the movie) was so cute. Ha, speaking of the word “cute,” I used to shun that word like the plague back in high school. Too feminine. I actually used surrogate words in its place. So stupid. “It looks…funny/strange/odd/neat/cool.” But never “cute.” Now, I don’t give a shit. “Cute cute cute cute cute!”

I realize now my example of conveying Yang through Yin or Yin through Yang is a bit of a cheat, though. Both elements are still present. So is it possible to convey the other while using only one? Now that would be an interesting problem to tackle, and a very interesting artistic work to see, if one exists (and, I think, totally counter to the Yin/Yang philosophy). It’s like those literary exercises: “Describe green without using green, nor any shade thereof, and without using any object of said color.” Hmm, that’s not quite it either. More like, describe “white” only in terms of “black” or vice versa.

So yeah, balance. It’s a good thing. You’ve got Saw and other ultra-violent movies on one end. Then your Dawson’s Creek on the other. The former didn’t interest me at all, the second made me feel really uncomfortable, almost physically uncomfortable. “Cannot compute.” Actually, almost like the tv was reaching out, and applying foundation on my face = change channel. And then you’ve got the tasty stuff in between. I would say Kenshin from my other post would be 65/35 masc/fem. It’s pretty bloody, but there’s a nice subplot of femininity tempering unchecked masculinity. And, no, I’m not trying to say anything about gender roles. A female could easily epitomize masculinity, and vice versa. I do find it more likely that a woman can dig masculine stuff rather than a man enjoying feminine stuff, though. I’m still looking for that work written by a heterosexual male that totally pulls off the female perspective convincingly. I think it would be an interesting demonstration of skill and understanding. But I don’t know of one. Hmm. I wonder if Joss Whedon counts, actually. I’m not a girl so I guess I wouldn’t be able to recognize for sure anyway. Though Buffy did do ridiculously well with the womenfolk.

http://www.sfballet.org/

Now, this looks interesting. Not sure how long that splash vid will be there, but this program has a nifty modern feel to it. I don’t think ballet will be replacing motorsports or MMA for me anytime soon, but still, I won’t know if I’ll like it until I see it, huh? These dancers definitely look more into it than the dude in the pas de deux I saw.

Damn, SF looks like a nice place to live.