Home of DJ and technophile Jonathan Puddle (aka J Puddy)
Posts by Jonathan Puddle
10 favourite cinematic experiences of the last decade
12 years ago
Many people and organizations have released their best 100 or best 50 films of the last decade already, which are available elsewhere. I’ve decided to distill my own favourites into 10 of the best cinematic experiences. So that means the Lord of the Rings trilogy are grouped into one, as they truly are intended to be a coherent cinematic experience, but Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are separate. This is not what I think to be the best of the decade, just the ones that I personally enjoyed the most.
- Lord of the Rings (a masterpiece)
- Avatar (Avatar will literally and figuratively usher in the next 10 years of cinema)
- Little Miss Sunshine (if you haven’t seen this, go see it now, it’s the best “family” movie not suited for families, ever.)
- Gladiator
- The Dark Knight (special mention also for The Prestige, and Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan is a genius)
- Big Fish (special mention also for Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
- The Simpsons Movie (I was looking for nothing more than a regular episode stretched to 90 minutes, and that’s what I got. Fantastic!)
- Inglourious Basterds (special mention also for everything Tarantino did this decade: Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, and Grindhouse)
- The Bourne Trilogy (I had to think hard about this. Having read the Bourne novels, the films really pale in comparison. But as films go, they are pretty excellent.)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Other special mentions:
- Star Wars Episode II and III – awful. It’s worth mentioning how awful they are. I recently re-watched all the prequels, and they’re just so bad, it’s painful.
- The Matrix Sequels – I re-watched them all recently, and I think they were judged quite harshly. They are enjoyable films, and I dare say, good filmmaking.
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – Wes Anderson was in top form here, as was Bill Murray. I have yet to see Fantastic Mr Fox, though I’m told it’s excellent.
- Wall*E – I’m not a huge fan of Disney/Pixar films. I enjoy them, but they generally don’t rank high with me. Wall*E was the one I enjoyed the most, I did not see Up.
- Everyone tells me I would love Pan’s Labyrinth. I never got around to seeing it.
Highlights of the coming years? I’m definitely looking forward to The Hobbit and it’s accompanying film, the Tin Tin film(s), and the rumoured Alien 5 helmed by Ridley Scott. Here’s to 10 more years of exciting cinema!
Open Source Security
02 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Uncategorized
As a cryptography and computer security expert, I have never understood the current fuss about the open source software movement. In the cryptography world, we consider open source necessary for good security; we have for decades. Public security is always more secure than proprietary security. It’s true for cryptographic algorithms, security protocols, and security source code. For us, open source isn’t just a business model; it’s smart engineering practice. – Bruce Schneier, Crypto-Gram 1999/09/15
Modern Technology vs The Past
02 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Uncategorized
CNet UK has a great writeup comparing our modern technology and lifestyle with the arcane wizardry of the past. Quite witty :)
Changing the DHCP range for Internet Connection Sharing in Windows 7
82 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Tech
ICS, or Internet Connection Sharing, is a simple method to share the internet connection on your computer with other local computers. It’s fairly simplistic in it’s approach, and not a lot of configuration is available. Which is by design, it’s not meant to be a robust routing solution. One drawback is that the DHCP range is not easily configurable (the range of IP addresses your computer gives out to the network). This is a problem if your existing home network uses the same IP range as the ICS range… or in my case, if your work VPN uses the same range as ICS. I connect my laptop to my Xbox 360 (cause I’m too cheap at present for their 70€ wireless adapter), but it means I can’t work from my laptop after I set up ICS.
Luckily, there are workarounds. In Windows 9x, Microsoft offered a simple registry hack to change the IP range, which did the trick wonderfully. In Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, however, it’s not so simple; you cannot actually change the DHCP range, but you can still make ICS bow to your demands. Once you’ve set up ICS, go to the adapter that ICS is available on, and you’ll see a static IP has been set. You can change this IP to whatever you’d like, in any subnet you want. The caveat is that DHCP will no longer function, so in order for ICS clients to work, they’ll need a static IP in the same subnet as you configured for the PC. Then just set the router and DNS addresses as your PCs address, and you should be in business. For me and my Xbox 360, this solution works just fine.
Thanks to Steve for pointing out this was possible, after numerous other searches said it was not possible.
The right netbook
02 years ago
I’m trying to convince Maija to ditch her 2 year old white Macbook and get a netbook. She’s almost sold on the idea… and once I find the perfect model, I know she’ll go for it. Why ditch the Macbook? Because she was looking for a small machine… and it’s 13.3 inches is really not that small anymore… and it’s quite heavy for it’s size. It’s dog slow… ever since she bought it, and it’s falling apart (casing cracks in multiple places, stopped charging the battery this week).
So… I’m hunting for the perfect model. It needs:
- an 8-10 inch display
- graphics powered by Nvidia ION
- Windows 7
- multitouch swivel display
- upgradeable RAM
- full size (or close, >85% size) keyboard
- other obiqutious features that don’t really need listing (webcam, enough usb ports, etc.)
So far the Asus T91 seems to be the only machine sporting the tablet-style display with multitouch, but it lacks ION. There aren’t too many Nvidia ION powered machines yet, though the HP Mini looks good (but lacks the touch display and Windows 7). I think we’ll have to give it another few months…
Picasa 3.5 photo tagging = voodoo magic
02 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Personal
Picasa 3.5 just came out… Picasa being the fantastic photo management software from Google. 3.5 features, among other things, photo tagging. Which is all fine and dandy… except that once you’ve started tagging people, it figures out what their face looks like and tags the rest of your photos automatically. It’s insane. I mean… I tagged 1 photo of a friend of mine, and within a couple of minutes (I have many thousands of photos) it pulled up another 15 photos of the same person… perfectly matched.
It’s not foolproof, and you’ve got to keep tagging and fixing incorrect tags, but it’s flipping awesome. Download it today. Oh, and the tags can be integrated with your Google Contacts… so you’ve got lots of fun options for stuff.
Awesome game: World of Goo
12 years ago
I came across World of Goo this week, because it was featured in an article on Slashdot. For its1 year anniversary, the makers of the game decided to sell it for a limited time, at the price of your choice. It’s basically donation-ware. This proved so successful that they’ve extended the “pay what you want” period till October 25th… and I highly recommend you get this game. I paid 5$.
In World of Goo, you get a certain number of goo balls in each level, and you must build a goo structure, by linking the balls together, to reach the pipe that indicates the end of the level. You’ll be crossing chasms, climbing walls, and all sorts of bizarre variations on the theme. It’s physics based, super easy to learn, and very addictive. Oh, and it’s available for PC, Mac, Linux and Wii!
goo
Finland makes 1MB internet access a citizen’s right
32 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Tech
I love living in Finland. The approach to all sorts of social, economic and political problems is refreshingly different from that of Canada. The latest in a line of intriguing citizen’s rights: 1MB broadband
It’s not clear yet exactly what that means for actual consumers… but it’s interesting to note.
The future of computer interaction
12 years ago
by Jonathan Puddle
in Tech
People have talked about what the future may hold, for computer interaction. The keyboard and mouse are stalwart input warriors, but surely their days must be numbered. Lots of people talk about touch and multi-touch as they future… but there are plenty of problems to be addressed there. I’ve just seen a video of the most impressive and potentially realistic solution to this problem… it’s certainly worth your while:
http://10gui.com/video/
10/GUI works by providing a hardware and software platform, so a considerable rethinking of the entire process has been done. It works by using a multi-touch interface that is separate from the screen, but has a 1:1 ratio. So you can rest your palms on the desk, in front of your keyboard, and use this surface as a multi-touch input area mapped to your screen.
There’s a tech demo, which is quite impressive.
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