Peter Howard is Wintermute, mythologist

Updates/Weirdness

28November2005 [directLink] [personal]

Been experiencing some weirdness with the website over the last couple days, but it looks like it was only me — there was a France Telecom router sitting somewhere in Aubervilliers (near Paris) that didn’t know where to find my website… What was odd was that it had no problems connecting to my webmail, nor to my other websites, but I couldn’t get to this site, nor send email, nor connect to Jabber… I tried some DNS hackery to mirror the site somewhere I could reach, but now it’s all of a sudden started working again (somewhere near Paris some bored technician tripped over a cable and rebooted the dodgy router). Anyway, some faux-drama makes everything interesting…

• Wrote another project for UTS over the weekend, available online already: First Impressions Redux: Foreign- and local-ness in French film and culture.
• Am about to dive into the editing of my film for my final project for UTS. Am hoping to put snippets on here as I work through it.
• Made a couple rather insignificant changes to the CSS round here, am hoping to hack on it a little more, or alternatively to hack a WordPress layout to look like this site; was going to add a ‘countdown to china’ for my departure, but can’t get it playing nice in IE, may try again later

Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions

23November2005 [directLink] [movies]

Been a while since I’ve seen these, so over the last couple nights I watched the Matrix/es Reloaded and Revolutions (they stand largely independent of the first Matrix). Watching them from a cyberpunk perspective, I was pleasantly surprised at how well they stood up. I always liked the films but was half-expecting to be let down with a repeat viewing. Anyway, they’re remarkably internally consistent, which is by far the most important aspect of a film and complicated story like this. (Though they’re not really internally complete - many references are dependent on The Animatrix and Enter the Matrix, both produced at the same time as the sequels.) …A few observations about the myth:

The purpose of The One is to bring about the end of the world (Matrix), in order for it to be created anew. Smith, as Neo’s equal and opposite, shares his Purpose. Notice that everything we are told about the Purpose of The One, by both the Architect and the Oracle, appears to be true. Though the Machines clearly didn’t mean for Zion to survive, and nor for Smith to run rampant, all programs served their Purpose. And I’m inclined to see ‘The One’ as a Program.

The character of Sati, the Purpose-less Program girl, is fascinating because she is so mysterious. There are hints throughout the sequels and Enter the Matrix that she is extremely important, but aside from the final pretty sunrise, she doesn’t actually do anything. I want to believe that there is more to her than presented just in Neo’s story.

And if this were Gibson, when the Merovingian proposed a deal (The Eyes of the Oracle for Neo), our heroes would have accepted.

The Cyberpunk Educator

21November2005 [directLink] [movies]

Watched The Cyberpunk Educator, available for download. It’s an exploration of 1980s cyberpunk film and isn’t half bad. Watch out though: very long and geeky, and it’s a big download (666MB, whoo) so only get it if you have a very fast connection. Though it drags on a fair bit (about 2hrs), it got me thinking about myth again, so what follows is a bunch of random observations…

There’s lots in it about different archetypes, and the different ‘realms’ of myth. It divided myths into four types, corresponding to the seasons, and arranged on a hierarchy from the Pastoral/Good to the Demonic/Evil. I don’t entirely agree with its divisions, but some useful stuff. What I was most interested in was the different realms: the ‘pastoral’/paradise, and the demonic, and the various levels between it… There’s lots of myth about the Fall, and lots about Redemption.

And it made an observation that where in a traditional Tragedy, the fallen Hero fades away and becomes a ‘wraith’, in cyberpunk, they become a Machine. Anyway, that made me think about the role of the Machine - basically as the modern take on the world of angels and demons, meddlesome spirits and mischievous sprites. The machine ‘underworld’ in The Matrix, ruled over by the Merovingian, is not Hell, it is Hades, it is the Otherworld.

The film argued that women in cyberpunk get a mixed portrayal: often they aren’t simply the representation of home and family. Sometimes they are a part of the ‘demonic’ society of concrete and steel. I’m not entirely sure this is actually a positive portrayal though. I wonder if women playing the ‘wrong’ role is just another representation of what’s wrong with the depicted society. Women are still usually portrayed as wanting family, but being forced into a different role by an oppressive society (or oppressive circumstances — even just ‘technology’). This isn’t everywhere though, I have a feeling William Gibson’s Molly challenges stereotypes (and Trinity is based off-of her, though introduces her own quirks). Also, the simple ‘family’ link isn’t necessarily an oppressive depiction, sometimes there’s a depiction of feminine strength under the circumstances, or whatever else…

Demonic Inversion is a common storytelling technique in cyberpunk: challenges what we are told is ‘good’ (the State, the Nation, &c.), asserts that ‘bad’ is ‘better than good’. Image of Lucifer challenging God (particularly in the Gnostic myth where Lucifer does so to free mankind).

Finally, a few interesting notes about Sin and Pride as the deadliest Sin, about Lucifer, and about the Tower of Babel. Lots of material for exploration anyway. Ooh, and Icarus.

Anyway, random, but I was playing with some similarly cyberpunk ideas in the recent snippet The City, which I hope to explore further. And I’m catching some buzz on a few blogs about the Singularity again, which is related to this, The City, and Turing’s Cathedral. I plan on writing more about it soon…

White vs Beige, Round 3

21November2005 [directLink] [wishlist]

White makes unexpected 3rd Round comeback

Apple played a little sneaky, showing its ‘education discount’ card - a saving of nearly A$600 on its low-end PowerMac G5 - bringing it firmly back into the game. I customised the G5 to my liking (dual 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB, 256MB nVidia 6600, and a 20” Apple Cinema Display) and hit A$4248.20. Then went to PlusCorp.com.au and, based on an Athlon 64 X2 system, customised with specs to match. With very similar offerings, (and in fact matching the LCD identically) I hit A$4189. There’s no educational discount involved there of course.

Now, if I want, Beige still gives me the option of further tweaking (read, cutting corners) to save a little. The monitor is the biggest issue — the Apple LCD is one of the more expensive, I could easily save a couple hundred dollars there, (or pull back to a 19” screen and save A$700). But, after doing a lot of research about CRTs and LCDs, I’ve concluded that it really is worth investing in a good LCD - they’re _much_ easier on the eyes (I am going to be sitting in front of the monitor all the time and would like not to go blind), and when I want to judge how a video I’m editing will look on a TV-screen, I should use a TV-screen and not just a CRT (which has way too much colour variation anyway). I’m not into publishing enough for the issue of screen and print colour variations to be a problem.

And even ignoring the price, I’m coming round to like the idea of not having to dual-boot anymore! Linux video editing just isn’t up to scratch (it’d work fine for a lot of stuff, but any serious work needs serious tools), and I’d hate to have to boot out of my ‘everyday’ OS to edit, when I want editing to be a part of my ‘everyday’ anyway!

Also, I gave Alienware a chance at competition here, and they came out matching Apple’s non-education pricing. So still a close fight, but between an educational discount and the sheer awesomeness of single-booting a workable Operating System, White is looking like a winner in this fight.

The City

20November2005 [directLink] [film]

Lost. Stumbling. The Silence of the City overwhelms me. Without Her sounds I am blind. I cannot feel Her rhythms, cannot see the flow. Stumbling from the pavement, ejected onto the street.

Follow the road. Like an artery; the flow has to be here.

Flashes of sound and light. I touch my finger to the pulse and it is gone again.

 Silence.

The city taunts me; offers me a glimpse: “All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me”.
Assimilate; become a part of the crowd; access knowledge never imagined.

But I cannot return to that. Though I lust for the knowledge of the City, I cannot return to Her arms.

I have been there before.
This is my story

Desktop Specs

15November2005 [directLink] [wishlist]

After making lists of suitable desktop Beasts, I’ve gone back and reduced to a set of minimum specs. For now they’re very basic as I haven’t quite got my head around all the details; this also means the specs could be met by an Apple, a Dell or a homebrew machine…

Update: with further research I’ve tied down a few specifics, all of which are Beige; White’s only hope now is similarly priced equivalents

As explained in White vs Beige Round 1, my decision will really come down to hardware - if I go White, the software will be all Apple; if I go Beige, I’ll continue to dual-boot Win and Linux. And my list of tasks is short, but important: I have to be able to day-to-day multitask, and I have to be able to render video at an acceptable speed. So, what it comes down to, is how can I get a quality machine that meets the following specs for the least cost:

• Some sort of next-gen dual-core processor; currently favouring an AMD64 X2 (Update: 3800+ X2 or 4200+ X2)
• Motherboard is dependant on the processor; must support Serial-ATA, preferably PCI Express; Gigabit networking and Firewire (1394b) would both be useful (Update: based on an nForce4 Ultra chipset)
• HDD: a SATA RAID1 setup, with at least (2x)160GB, 250GB looks a good balance before becoming too expensive
• RAM: at least 1GB, preferably 2GB (Update: having tied down the cpu, I’m aiming for Dual-/DDR400)
• Video: probably a 256MB minimum; must support dual-monitor plus TV-out so I can expand to a decent editing setup; probably involves moving to DVI LCDs
• And a decent-sized monitor; I want a min 1600x1200 resolution, but getting an LCD native that supports that is expensive, might be looking at min 20” (Update2: Looks like I might go old-school with a CRT or two; they’re far cheaper and short of spending over a thousand on an LCD the video quality just won’t come close)

I’ve still got to work out the power requirements on my beast too. And there are a couple places I could take ‘shortcuts’ until I get the cash to get things better: eg, get a mobo with integrated graphics and a cheap (but large) CRT at first, then upgrade with a graphics card and LCD later… And I could just get one HDD instead of 2 upfront, but the difference in cost for effort (of converting to RAID later) doesn’t seem worth it.

2006 Enrolment

15November2005 [directLink] [personal]

Just enrolled in next years classes… Was hard to make decisions as it’s going to be my final year of full-time uni, and I still don’t really know what I want to do… Ended up with a rather boring-but-compulsory cultural studies subject in each semester (‘Culture and Technology’ looked really interesting but timetable clashed). Plus a screenwriting elective in each semester, the first ‘Writing for Performance’ and the second plain ‘Screenwriting’; they’re both practical subjects for people enrolled in the Writing degree. And a Media Arts & Production prac in each semester: the first ‘Creative Techniques for Shorts’, and the second a Concept Development workshopping class, mainly designed to prepare me for my final project, which I’ll do in the first semester of 2007 to wrap up the degree.

Site Updates

13November2005 [directLink] [personal]

Made a few changes to the site over the last couple days.

• Dumped the ?tribes box and moved the ?currently box to the bottom of the ‘fat’ panel
• Rewrote a few bits of text to (hopefully) better explain navigation options
• Added a few funky gradients: one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom of each of the white content boxes; just a test for now as I’m not sure if it’s overkill
• Changed ?bits navigation: can no longer navigate by categories, But, whenever you view an individual post (however it was reached) it lists all the posts in the relevant category as ‘Related’ items; I think it works better this way as there’s no doubling up of URLs

Languages I Want To Learn

10November2005 [directLink] [personal]

This year in France (and travelling in Europe) has changed the way I think about language. I don’t want to be proficient in French, I want to understand it; I want to be able to have conversations in a mish-mash of languages - whatever works best at the time. Being in Europe, where so many people speak, or at least understand, a handful of languages (trying not to generalise, this is obviously only really the case in certain circles), highlights what’s missing in Australia: we barely have _any_ contact with people that speak (regularly) languages other than English, by which I mean, those that do speak other languages are expected to speak English to communicate in commons. (What’s nuts of course is that three of the Aussie girls in Reims can speak different languages with their families; Australia doesn’t really want to admit that it’s an immigrant nation and that languages-other-than-English are so widespread). But slightly off-track, because I _don’t_ want to just speak a second language to say I can; I’ve loved being able to travel and get by with a mix of English, French, and (horribly) basic Spanish. So when I return to Aus, as well as keeping up my French, I also want to learn (in no real order, just as they come to me):

• Spanish
• German
• Celtic (*cough* there’s no such language: I’d like to learn both Welsh and Scots variants)
• Ancient Greek (okay, defeats the whole ‘communication’ thing, but it’d be cool for reading in)
• Mandarin (and some Cantonese would be nice, but should really just pick one)
• Japanese
• Indonesian
• Tagalog (though only one of many Filipino dialects, it’s what’s commonly known as Filipino)
• Arabic (hmm, there’s both the ‘literary’ and ‘spoken’ variants)

Only problem (beside there being way too many languages) is that I’ve _no_ idea where to start… Ancient Greek and the Celtic variants aren’t starters, but beyond that I can’t choose. Nothing stands out as more ‘useful’ than any other, and really, I don’t want to learn something just because it’s ‘useful’.

Final note: this entry will be updated whenever I think of another random language

White vs Beige, Round 2

09November2005 [directLink] [wishlist]

Been researching further. Started by going after the high-end systems, completely out of my reach financially, but worth getting an idea of what’s available and what of it I really need. Much to my surprise, the PowerMac G5 complete with 20” screen actually worked out cheaper than similar offerings from IBM, Dell and Alienware.

Add to that the fact that I’m finding that the PowerMacs don’t seem to be so difficult to upgrade after-all. Certainly the RAM and hard drive space can be upgraded; there are spare internal card slots, and there may be workarounds for other upgrades too.

So White is making a rather unexpected comeback. The next round will be fought over mid-range systems (ie, top of my budget). Beige has a strong initial showing as it has many more options, but I shan’t rule out the low-end PowerMacs just yet.

Oh and I’ve moved this post and the previous one into a new ?bits=wishlist category, which is really just somewhere for me to explore all the gadgets et alia that I’m after.

Drop that double-u-double-u-double-u-dot

08November2005 [directLink] [webprog]

Seriously, get rid of those www.’s. They’re clumsy to say, and they’re four extra keypresses I don’t want to have to do. All server setups allow you to drop the www and still get served the same site, or even be redirected (if you enter www.wintermute.com.au, you’ll get redirected to wintermute.com.au, and I’ve done the same for all my sites). When I don’t type in the www. and get a server not found error, or worse, a misconfiguration that gives me a different page altogether, I don’t want to hang around.

Also extremely important for advertising, as saying those extra-long letters takes up a chunk of your 30-second ad-slot. And everyone should now know that if those few words you just said have a “.com” in them, but no @, it’s a website.

A History of Violence

07November2005 [directLink] [movies]

Though only 1h35, this film is too long. It’s okay all told, a take on the former-gangster’s American dream is disrupted when he’s recognised… Mortensen can be a great actor, but he didn’t have enough material to work with here — nor did anyone for that matter. The film spent too long setting up the ‘happy life’ that he had made for himself as middle-American Tom Stall; then too long in denial about whether or not he was Philly-gangster Joey Cusack, while not really exploiting the possibilities of split personality; then finally wrapped up the loose ends, but missing the ‘bigger-fish’ possibilities. Though the plotlines were closed, the film ended rather abruptly, unwilling to make a call between a happy ending and ambiguity, nor a call over Mortensen’s character’s morality. I like ambiguity in a film, but this was worse, like it wasn’t sure about whether or not it should be ambiguous, so just stopped…

Elizabethtown

07November2005 [directLink] [movies]

This is up there as one of the most confused movies ever made, proving that the whole is never equal to the sum of the parts. There were really about three movies in one: the first ripped from Garden State and its kin, with the city-kid returns to small town motif; the second about family, revolving around the death of the father; and the third an Ode to the American South. The latter showed the greatest potential — had it not been introduced _so_ late in the movie (completely changing focus) it could have been spectacular.

Following the city/smalltown storyline the movie seemed to desperately want to be Garden State, complete with Kirsten Dunst playing Natalie Portman and not really being up to the task (though perhaps it was just really bad dialog). Tried too hard to be trendy anyway… The family storyline just got annoying and _really_ corny; Susan Sarandon should be ashamed. For the final storyline, Kirsten Dunst got away from the Portman role and played ‘The Spirit of the South’ and did so rather well. I realised early on that she was playing the angel role, but once the Ode to the South storyline dominated it became much more obvious — her character shines when she is offscreen, manifested in the road trip through the South she prepares for Bloom’s character.

And Bloom himself seems to have taken acting lessons from Tom Cruise (who is listed as a producer, something we didn’t realise beforehand or we would have passed this movie over entirely!), consistently inappropriately exuberant; though as with Dunst, his character makes sense for the final storyline, where he is appropriately enamoured with the South. So not sure if I’m going to write off Orlando Bloom just yet, as long as he gets far far away from Mr Cruise…

Update: I knew Cameron Crowe had previously directed Almost Famous, which wasn’t a bad film, but I’ve just discovered he also directed Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky, also two of the worst movies ever made (especially the latter)… Must remember to steer clear of him in future!