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'everything is nothing if you've got no one'

Thursday, February 6, 2003

Bet the study was fun
Now this is really funny. One of those researchs gone mad I think. In the Guardian today there is a brief news item that men who don't shave everyday are more prone to strokes. I quote:
'A sample of 2,438 men found those who did not shave daily were more likely to smoke, be unmarried and do manual work.'

If that's the case I'm on course to getting a strokes as I don't need to shave everyday. Firstly because I hate shaving and secondly my facial hair folicals aren't that particularly active and grow at a relaxing pace rather than having a Homer Simpson permanent shadow. Apparently it's something to do with the testosterone in my body. Guess I'm a more of a girl then.

Read the stroke news item. There's a more indepth stroke/stubble article at the BBCi site.

Posted by Edward @ 09:23 PM GMT
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Monday, February 3, 2003
Portable analogue sounds
I cannot contain my excitement over the very nice portable record player by Vestax. They have found a niche market for all the aspiring DJ's scooting around charity shops picking up records for samples. The Vestax Handy Trax looks cheap but I think the build quality would be better than the portable Columbia Record Player and also inifinitely easier to get hold off. It's bigger but it can play 12" and 10" and comes with a lid. I will be investing into one as soon as money becomes available.
Posted by Edward @ 07:19 PM GMT
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Big cup of Java
Not done much Java programming for a good few months and I go to the Sun site to download the latest version of the development kit. It's a whopping 35Mb! Am I thinking that they just keep shoving more and more libraries into there rather than refining them. I'm guessing the Java Runtime Environment will be proportionally as big. Oh well I needed that and the Servlet stuff too which was another 15Mb. It's a good job I can download it at University otherwise I would have been online for 6 hours hogging up the phone line.
Posted by Edward @ 07:13 PM GMT
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Sunday, February 2, 2003
Cidade De Deus
Okay finally got to see whether the hype for this Brazilian film was worth it. It has been described as a cross between Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction and Boogie Nights. I can see the similarities but for me the film doesn't quite hit the mark. Narrated by Rocket he tells the story of growing up in the Cidade De Deus (City Of God), a slum neighbourhood full of gangland crime. It's an explosive story based on real life events. What we see is how two kids grow up to realise their ambitions albeit in rather chaotic circumstances, one choses his own destiny and the other goes down an unbeaten path. The bullets fly and the so does the language (Goodfellas style) but the rawness of the film demands that. The eighties scenes are the Boogie Nights of the film full of character and style. I wasn't entirely happy with the jumping in and out parts and the way the narrative was driven. It's not done like Pulp Fiction where it allows you to pull the parts together to make it coherant. Sometimes too much time was spent in one part and it neglected others and they didn't gel together that much. It did get you thinking about the story filling in the pieces and the ending is satisfying. I really enjoyed it but had it been more straightforward maybe it would have even better. Not a five but four out of five. The cinematography captures the mood and setting brilliantly as does the soundtrack.
Posted by Edward @ 07:21 PM GMT
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Saturday, February 1, 2003
Feeling sheepish
Forgot one last thing. It's Chinese New Year today. As you will no doubt know it is the Year of the Ram. Being away from home, I missed the celebrations and huge meals that we have. The main public celebrations held around England will on Sunday so you can enjoy some lion dancing and the dragon procession. Read more about the new year tradition.

Google's front image is quite excellent.

Google Lunar New Year image
Posted by Edward @ 09:27 PM GMT
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Click snap, click snap
Passport photos are getting ridiculous. I went to the post office with one of these new booths that claim to have your photos done in 45 seconds. Quite impressed I went in and was amazed that the photos seem to be taken with a digital camera without a flash. The actual photos seem to be printed on a roll of glossy inkjet paper. Without a flash they are not very bright and if my driving license application gets rejected I'm asking for a refund. Everything has gone digital and we are slowly forgetting the art of mechanical processes which will make the future a little scary. Although I don't like sci-fi novels much, I quite enjoyed Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom written by Cory Doctorow, blogger of the excellent Boing Boing blog. I see this as an example of technology gone too far, backups for your brain would be scary. It's free to download in all sort of versions.
Posted by Edward @ 09:07 PM GMT
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