I’m not posting about the 1997 sci-fi-ish action thriller John Woo movie with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage (which was titled Face/Off). As much as I like John Woo films, parts of that movie really bother me, so I have mixed feelings.
No, today’s post is about an obscure Vietnamese comedy-action series of movies (up to six now, as far as I can tell). It’s so obscure that Wikipedia has never heard of the films or the director. Even IMDb doesn’t have much detail on these.
Which is a shame, because they’re delightful fun, and of the three I’ve seen so far, they’ve gotten better each time. The third one was really touching and memorable.
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7 Comments | tags: A Chinese Odyssey, comedy, Ly Hai, Netflix, The Great Magician, Tony Leung, Vietnamese Movies | posted in Movies
Friday Notes are fun and fairly easy. (None of the science or technological rabbit holes I love so much — my underground lair?) But I can’t seem to break the habit of posting articles explaining stuff. I guess that’s part of who I am.
As I’ve mentioned, lots of preachers and teachers in my family tree. Number of authors, too, so I suppose there’s no escaping it. And I do put considerable value on the experience of trying to explain something. It really does push you into knowing it better.
But today is Friday (thank God), and I have notes…
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8 Comments | tags: Amazon Music, Amazon Prime, Hulu, internet, interweb, irrational numbers, Netflix, offended, punctuation | posted in Friday Notes, Music, Writing
This is one of those geeky posts more a “Dear Diary” (or “Dear Lab Notebook”) entry than a post I expect anyone anywhere will get anything out of. This — in part — is about how we define numbers using set theory, so it’s pretty niche and rarified. Tuning out is understandable; this is extra-credit reading.
This is also about having a double-lightbulb moment. I finally get why what always seemed an overly complicated approach is actually perfect. A smaller lightbulb involves easily solving a programming problem that confounded me previously.
Fun for me, but your mileage may vary.
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3 Comments | tags: computer code, math theory, natural numbers, set theory | posted in Brain Bubble, Math
Or do I mean Logic Square? Because it works either way. The Logic Square (or Square Logic) in question is a logic game created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and introduced in his 1896 book Symbolic Logic Part I (a second part was published posthumously).
Dodgson was a capable mathematician, but most probably know him by his penname, Lewis Carroll, under which he wrote poetic fantasy fiction about a girl who goes on wild adventures.
But this is about his logic game. It’s like a square Venn diagram with game pieces.
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5 Comments | tags: boolean logic, four-square, Lewis Carroll, logic, logic games, Venn diagram | posted in Basics, Math
I was going through old files I’ve kept around for too long and found a collection of images a friend sent me years ago. We met in college and have been friends since. She ended up working in advertising, plus her husband had a graphic design business, so she was pretty attuned to and interested in the world of visual arts and advertising.
And she had a great sense of humor. The images in the post are all (as far as we know) actual ads from a bygone era. An era that had its features, but which I think most are pretty glad is bygone.
Caveat lector: In my case, these led to tears of laughter, but for some they could lead to gnashing of the teeth. Try to see it as a sign of how much we’ve grown.
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13 Comments | tags: funny images, humor, laugh | posted in From My Collection, Life, Society
Most of the remnants of “the gang” went to see Peter Gabriel at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul last night. As they say, a (very) good time was had by all. It was the sort of enjoyable (and energetic) night that keeps you smiling to yourself for days. I do so love live music.
And, wow, does Gabriel (at 73!) put on a show worth seeing and hearing. Some rockers haven’t aged well, but Gabriel continues to find new visual and musical expression. Last night was as memorable as any of his previous shows.
I don’t have a lot to say — still basking in the afterglow — but I do have pictures.
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18 Comments | tags: Peter Gabriel | posted in Life, Music
Whatever you think about Tom Cruise the person, it’s hard to dispute that Tom Cruise the actor has turned out a lot of very worthwhile films. It’s hard to find many duds in his filmography but easy to spot noteworthy titles. Ever since Risky Business (1983) and Top Gun (1986), Tom Cruise has starred in movies so memorable that they became part of our cultural lingo.
More importantly for this Sci-Fi Saturday post, Tom Cruise has appeared in a perhaps surprising number of science fiction movies. Even more importantly, nearly all of them are good science fiction movies. Some of them are even really good.
Unfortunately, one of his rare duds is among them.
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10 Comments | tags: Edge of Tomorrow, Humphrey Bogart, Minority Report, science fiction, science fiction movies, SF, SF Movies, Tom Cruise | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
It occurred to me that, to some extent, I’d like my most of my blog posts to be like these Friday Notes posts: extemporaneous ramblings and the setting free of any notes recently captured. And some old stories (and maybe a few pictures).
It’s not that I want to stop ‘splaining stuff, my inner teacher is strong. (Is it man-splaining if you’re a teacher?) It’s been one of my things since grade school. Spead knowledge!
But the rambling sure is easy. And fun!
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5 Comments | tags: autumnal equinox, dragons, equinox, lava, wasps | posted in Friday Notes
It’s been a while, but the two previous posts in this series (this one and this one) explored the mechanism behind partial differential equations that equate the time derivative (the rate of change), with the second spatial derivative (the field curvature). The result pulls exceptions to the average back to the average in proportion to how exceptional they are.
Such equalities appear in many classical physics equations where they have clear physical meaning. Heat diffusion (explored in the previous posts) is a good example.
In quantum mechanics, they also appear in the Schrödinger Equation.
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6 Comments | tags: QM101, quantum mechanics, Schrödinger Equation, wave-function | posted in Math, Physics
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Stay resistive, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
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2 Comments | tags: hot resistor, sun sign | posted in Life
Logos con carne 