How to Prevent Unfounded Assumptions?
My brother answers people very literally. I tend to do that to. It’s a sort of defense mechanism against assumptions. People tend to make a lot of assumptions in conversation. They assume you’re a friend who’s willing to help, they assume you are in the same group, they might assumee you’re stupid, but the biggest is the assumption you know what they are talking about, you know what they are thinking. And that tends to be very annoying, especially when I have no idea what they want. When I do, I try a reply that will demonstrate their assumption is incorrect. Example: I’m sitting in a class after the lesson ended wrapping up some things. A guy walks in. He asks: “Isn’t there a lesson today?” His wrong assumption: I’m in the class where his lesson should be and thus I know about it. This is a logical fallacy. He should have asked specifically about his lesson and if I knew anything about it and I would have truthfully responded I have no clue. But to that question I could only come up with “There are lots of lessons today!” but I chose the more subtle “I don’t know about you but I had lessons today.” But, for some reason… I think this isn’t working. Is there a better system or should I just go wilder with my responses?
Posted in No Category, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 10 comments.
Review: Act of Valor
Act of Valor began as Navy only movie about seals in an attempt to show actual operations and procedures. It evolved into a Hollywood-sized production including some known actors and an actual storyline. First of all, Act of Valor includes actual Navy seals and actual seals hardware and techniques. This means two things: The acting is flat and unconvincing and feels like they are reading plaques more than actually acting. And the story is no better than your average counter-terrorism plot of a modern-day first person shooter. But, the action sequences are one of the best modern warfare scenes seen on film in, probably, ever. They are realistic, brutal and highly professional which makes my inner child’s OCD very happy. So, if you can stand the cliched plot, the almost-non-existent acting, the characters who are barely relate-able and have almost no back story, then this is one of the best modern action films available.
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
Review: Terminal Velocity
Terminal Velocityis about a not-so-stand-up skydiving instructor who takes up a strange client and ends up being involved in some Russian smuggling conspiracy. Basically, it’s a standard nineties action flick centered around high-flying escapades. The premise is very basic, the start off point is kind of silly, the acting is decent, the action is… well, nineties. But still, even 18 years after the making, it has some exciting scenes. The parts involving free falls are especially great. I mean, I can see the stunt doubles and the puppets but when you fall off a plane in a car, it’s exciting. I wouldn’t call it a must, I wouldn’t compare it to The Last Boyscout, I wouldn’t even call it a keeper. But if you’re fond of nineties action, this is one of the good ones.
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Review: Jagged Alliance – Back in Action
Honestly, I was really excited about it. It’s a Plan & Go tactical game only this time with mercenaries and real-world guns and not with aliens and phaser weapons. I mean, I love the new UFO trilogy and part of what makes it good is this awesome mechanic. So anything with that mechanic should be good, right? Wrong.I’m not sure where this game fails. Maybe it’s the many bugs and hickups not even three patches managed to fix. Maybe it’s the fucked up authority on who can aim and hit what and where. Maybe it’s the insane difficulty that ramps up as you go along. Maybe it’s strategic area of the game that makes almost no sense. And maybe it all adds up to a lot of tedium and repetitiveness that gets you nowhere and the fact that winning conditions in every single area, from mission parameters, through single shootouts up to gun statistics, seem completely arbitrary. I ended up quitting roughly half way through after the fifth time that my team of three was dying in front of one sniper they couldn’t hit, despite the fact that he was making headshot after headshot. At the end, it just seems like this game could have been really good but fell on its face due to lack of polish. And I probably won’t play the original Jagged Alliance because I can’t really get back to that style of playing right now. Which also makes me sad because I would probably also Continue Reading →
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
Review: Chronicle
Chronicle, basically, is a story of three high school students – an abused, shy guy, his do-gooder cousin and the popular class president – who find an unusual power and what they do with it. Actually, it is much more than that.In short, it is an awesome movie that never lets off and at 89 minutes, it feels much too short. It’s great. At length, I have two specific mentions: One, this is a ‘found footage’ movie but, due to some clever story tricks, it’s not shaky and has a lot of on-purpose smooth camera movement. That’s as much as can be said with out going into some spoilers. Two, probably THE thing that makes this movie great is the understandable villain. As Andrew turns bad, you can’t help but sympathise with him. His shy, introverted demeanor is something probably everyone knows and add to that a terribly sick mother and an abusive father and his rage becomes completely reasonable. Anyway, it’s cool, it’s action-y, it’s sad, it’s metaphorical. It’s an instant classic.
Posted in No Category by Eran with comments disabled.
Review: Hugo
Haven’t read the book but the movie is excellent. It’s beautiful, charming, touching and exciting. Like I said to my lovely wife, “That’s Ben Kingsley. Ben Kingsley does two types of movies: the ones that get Oscar nominations and the ones you wish you could ‘disinvent’.” This movie is of the former category. And also, it is always great to see Sacha Baron Cohen playing a serious and deep character and not one of his silly comedic types. It’s interesting all the way, sports deep and involving characters and has a touching and beautiful final sequence. If you haven’t seen it yet, put it on your list. Preferably, near the top.
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
Review: Infernal Affairs
Being the Hong Kong basis for The Departed, I expected quite a bit from Infernal Affairs. Maybe it is the cultural difference, Boston being closer to heart than Hong Kong, but I do think The Departed was better. Not saying Infernal Affairs isn’t good, it is, but it’s only about half as good as The Departed. I think it’s mostly the atmosphere. The filming, the acting, the sets… it was just better built and better conveyed in the American version. So, if you’re like me and need to know the original, watch it, you’ll like it. If you saw The Departed and that was enough, don’t feel obligated to watch this.
Posted in No Category by Eran with comments disabled.
The Most Difficult Book
On the last episode of Sword & Laser they asked “What was the most difficult book you’ve ever read?” It’s an interesting question that brings several answers to mind: Crime and Punishment – Had to read it for school at my last year. Being a good reader, I got my hands on the full version and started reading. I broke down around page 50. I tried the abridged version and didn’t last to page 30. I ended up settling for the quick synopsis. It was so boring, with a character I wish I could just shoot in the head (And I’m sure he would thank me for it) and walk away from. The Summer Tree – I took it as my only book for a school seminar. I had several days and only one book. I really did try to read it but fell apart before page 150. It started out good but dragged on and became so boring that I preferred not to read than to read that. The Lord of the Rings – This one is probably an obvious choice. It’s so long and tend to seriously drag on at a lot of parts and only a bit of it is really interesting. But this one kept my interest going all the way to the end. I would probably go back to it at one point in the future, see if my opinion has changed. Anathem – It was also mentioned. Neal Stephenson writes smart books and this Continue Reading →
Posted in Geekdom, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
יום המגבת
מתנצל בפני כולם, יום המגבת הזה יהיה דיי באנאלי כי כל היום היינו בבית חוץ מהתרוצציות לקניות ולטפל בצינור שהתפוצץ. ועכשיו אני נוסע ואני שוב אהיה בפנים כל היום. אז אני לא רואה ממש טעם להפגין את הוד מגביותה כשאני לא באמת הולך לאן שהוא. הנה הפעמים הקודמות.
Posted in Geekdom, No Category by Eran with comments disabled.
מציאות מוגברת בזירת הפשע
למי ששיחק את משחק ההרפתקה Heavy Rain, סצינה כזאת לא תראה מוזרה. לעומת זאת, בלשים אמיתיים לא באמת עובדים ככה. אין להם תצוגת מציאות מוגברת על גבי הראייה שלהם שמאפשרת להם למצוא, לסמן ולחקור נקודות מסוימות בסצינת הפשע על גבי סביבה דיגיטלית. או שאולי כן? קבוצת חוקרים באוניברסיטת דלפט בהולנד עובדים ברגעים אלו על מערכת דומה. לפי הרעיון שלהם, בלש הלובש את המערכת יקבל תצוגת מציאות מוגברת על גבי הראיה שלו ובה הוא יוכל לסמן נקודות מעניינות בזירת הפשע ולמפות אותן לתוך ייצוג תלת ממדי של הזירה בו יהיה אפשר להשתמש שוב מאוחר יותר כדי, ממש, ללכת שוב דרך הזירה הנקייה כפי שהייתה קיימת. אז כרגע המערכת שלהם עדיין בשלבי ניסוי והיא עדיין כל כך גדולה שצריך תיק גב בשביל להחזיק אותה אבל לפניכם עוד שימוש חשוב למציאות מוגברת ומשהו שאני בטוח שלא רחוק בעתיד יגיע לשלב דומה ל-ARI מהמשחק.
Posted in High-Tech, Less Interesting News by Eran with 4 comments.