If you're friends with me on facebook, you may know that I recently bought plane tickets for a rather extensive trip. This summer, Laura and I will be traveling from the U.S. to Brazil, and then from Brazil directly to Europe. We leave on May 31st, stay in Brazil until June 28th, and then leave Europe on Aug 4th (so about a month on each continent). During that time I probably won't blog about anything but the trip, but I'm also planning on blogging about our preparations leading up to it.
Eventually, I am going to have a different site to chronicle the trip, and share any tips that Laura and I learn a long the way. However, in the meantime, this blog will be were I talk about the trip. I'm planning to share this information for a few reasons. First, because I think it might be interesting, at least to a few people out there. I know I love reading about my friends adventures on their blogs. Also, I've found that blogs have generally been an invaluable resource as I've been planning my own trip. My friend, for example, wrote this blog about his extensive trip in South America. Though it wasn't strictly a "travel blog" in the sense that it only talks about travel and tries to advise people, it is actually a great resource for finding out to do a trip down there.
I've also found that while I've been to a fair number of places, I know people who have traveled to just about every country in the world. Not only is it interesting to hear what different people have to say about different places, it's also been useful to me as I've been figuring out what to do. So, hopefully, my upcoming travel posts will be similarly useful and helpful. Next up: how Laura and I got cheap airfare for a long and complicated flight itinerary.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Alice in Movie Land
In honor of today's release of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, here are a couple of other interpretations of the same story. And, judging by the reviews that this newest version is getting, these other movies are probably better too.
First off is Woody Allen's Alice. I'm always surprised that Allen seems to have a movie for every occasion, and this is no exception. This film is far from my favorite Allen film, but that's not say much because I love much of his work. Plus, it is an entertaining and stimulating film. It's also not really much of a comedy. Rather, it's more of a magical-realist-dramedy. Still, it's well worth a watch.
I couldn't find the trailer online, but you can read a blurb by the New York Times about the movie here.
The second film is Phoebe in Wonderland. This is a truely delightful film that captures the child-like perspective that last year's Where the Wild Things Are strove desperately for, but most failed to achieve. The story follows a young girl as she struggles to live in an increasingly incomprehensible world. As she feels more and more unable to relate, she retreats into a fantasy land that is inspired by her mother's research on Alice in Wonderland.
First off is Woody Allen's Alice. I'm always surprised that Allen seems to have a movie for every occasion, and this is no exception. This film is far from my favorite Allen film, but that's not say much because I love much of his work. Plus, it is an entertaining and stimulating film. It's also not really much of a comedy. Rather, it's more of a magical-realist-dramedy. Still, it's well worth a watch.
I couldn't find the trailer online, but you can read a blurb by the New York Times about the movie here.
The second film is Phoebe in Wonderland. This is a truely delightful film that captures the child-like perspective that last year's Where the Wild Things Are strove desperately for, but most failed to achieve. The story follows a young girl as she struggles to live in an increasingly incomprehensible world. As she feels more and more unable to relate, she retreats into a fantasy land that is inspired by her mother's research on Alice in Wonderland.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Text-To-Speech Websites
For some reason, I can't see my own typos. I can read the same thing ten times, and each time miss the same mistake. This was probably a problem throughout my life, but has become particularly problematic recently as I've been writing for the Daily Herald. Sometimes I'll finish a story and read over it again and again trying to catch everything, but inevitably when I turn it in to my editor, he'll see things I missed.
If you ever suffer from a similar problem, you might be interested in these awesome Text-To-Speech websites. Using them you can get your stuff proof read. Or, if you're like one of my friends, you can put R. Kelly lyrics into them and enjoy hours of entertainment! (Seriously, it is cool.) Either way, text-to-speech websites are an underappreciated corner of the world wide web.
The best site I found was this one. Its strengths are that it works quickly, and it doesn't take you to a different page to listen to the speech. Visually, the page is kind of cluttered, but the voice was also one of the best/most natural sounding that I found, so I overlooked its weaknesses. Also, I used it yesterday to proof read some stuff I wrote for the Daily Herald and was impressed at just how advanced it was. When it read over addresses, for example, that were written out as "300 N 400 West" it actually said "north" instead of just "n." Also, when it read "$20" it said "twenty dollars," as opposed to "dollars twenty." That suprised me because it meant it was scanning ahead at least a little bit.
I also found this AT&T site. It has the advantage of being less cluttered, and it's run by a company with name recognition, but it also navigates away from the home page to read the text out loud (and uses a quicktime format for the audio).
There are many text-to-speech sites out there, but so far I haven't found any that are better than that first one. So, if you're like me and you enjoy catching writing problems and listening to funny voices read stuff, check them out.
(note: I didn't use one of these sites for this post, so it probably still has problems)
If you ever suffer from a similar problem, you might be interested in these awesome Text-To-Speech websites. Using them you can get your stuff proof read. Or, if you're like one of my friends, you can put R. Kelly lyrics into them and enjoy hours of entertainment! (Seriously, it is cool.) Either way, text-to-speech websites are an underappreciated corner of the world wide web.
The best site I found was this one. Its strengths are that it works quickly, and it doesn't take you to a different page to listen to the speech. Visually, the page is kind of cluttered, but the voice was also one of the best/most natural sounding that I found, so I overlooked its weaknesses. Also, I used it yesterday to proof read some stuff I wrote for the Daily Herald and was impressed at just how advanced it was. When it read over addresses, for example, that were written out as "300 N 400 West" it actually said "north" instead of just "n." Also, when it read "$20" it said "twenty dollars," as opposed to "dollars twenty." That suprised me because it meant it was scanning ahead at least a little bit.
I also found this AT&T site. It has the advantage of being less cluttered, and it's run by a company with name recognition, but it also navigates away from the home page to read the text out loud (and uses a quicktime format for the audio).
There are many text-to-speech sites out there, but so far I haven't found any that are better than that first one. So, if you're like me and you enjoy catching writing problems and listening to funny voices read stuff, check them out.
(note: I didn't use one of these sites for this post, so it probably still has problems)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Movie Monday: The Triplets of Belleville
I have a deep love for animation, so this Movie Monday is the French film The Triplets of Belleville. This movie came out in 2003 and is an affectionate and sometimes bizarre exploration of animation history. It's also a charming and has some great music.
I think it's also worth mentioning that it's very watchable. When I first saw the trailer for this movie I throught it was going to be a somewhat opaque, if enjoyable, musical that would be light on plot. While it does indeed have some great music and the plot requires significant suspension of disbelief, it is still very linear. In other words, I expected this film to be more art-house than it ended up being and it should subsequently appeal to both mainstream and indie audiences.
I think it's also worth mentioning that it's very watchable. When I first saw the trailer for this movie I throught it was going to be a somewhat opaque, if enjoyable, musical that would be light on plot. While it does indeed have some great music and the plot requires significant suspension of disbelief, it is still very linear. In other words, I expected this film to be more art-house than it ended up being and it should subsequently appeal to both mainstream and indie audiences.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
New Layout/Thoughts on Good Blog Aesthetics
If you've visited this blog before this week, you probably noticed that it suddenly looks different. Rest assured that it is still the same Jim/Blog as always (sometimes when blogs I enjoy change their layouts I'm temporarily unsure if I've visited the wrong site.)
Anyway, I've know since I began blogging that I needed a better layout. Up until this most recent change I had been using one of the basic layouts that blogger offers. It wasn't particularly professional looking, interesting, or even easy to read. Unfortunately, I also haven't had the time to change it. Until now.
As I considered what I wanted, I came up with this informal list of things I look for in a successful blog layout:
1. It shouldn't be overly generic looking. In my case, I wanted something that was unique and customizable enough to be distinctive.
2. It shouldn't look like a boring web magazine or tech support site.
3. It shouldn't have white text on a black background. I know many of my friends blogs have black backgrounds and white fonts — and that has kind of a cool, edgy look — but it's also really hard to read. Every time I read those blogs (especially in low lighting) my retinas feel burned.
4. It should still look professional. Again, in my case, just because I wanted to it be exciting doesn't mean I wanted it to look like a 14 year-old's myspace page.
As is probably apparent, I am still using a generic blogger template for this site. I briefly used a different template I found on a third party website (it was up for about a day), but Laura told me it looked like a blog about heavy metal, so I changed it. I disagreed, but it was nevertheless still someone else's template and I wanted something that wasn't masquerading as unique.
Instead, I've decided to try to keep the layout simple and slowly make it more distinctive over time. I made the banner at the top of the page, for example, the other night. (I'm still working on making the banner more legible). Also, I'm using a fairly ugly gray as the background. That should change as I find a good background color that is neither white nor black. Ultimately, however, I decided that I was just going to have to learn HTML to come up with exactly what I wanted. In the meantime, however, I've gone with this one.
Anyway, I've know since I began blogging that I needed a better layout. Up until this most recent change I had been using one of the basic layouts that blogger offers. It wasn't particularly professional looking, interesting, or even easy to read. Unfortunately, I also haven't had the time to change it. Until now.
As I considered what I wanted, I came up with this informal list of things I look for in a successful blog layout:
1. It shouldn't be overly generic looking. In my case, I wanted something that was unique and customizable enough to be distinctive.
2. It shouldn't look like a boring web magazine or tech support site.
3. It shouldn't have white text on a black background. I know many of my friends blogs have black backgrounds and white fonts — and that has kind of a cool, edgy look — but it's also really hard to read. Every time I read those blogs (especially in low lighting) my retinas feel burned.
4. It should still look professional. Again, in my case, just because I wanted to it be exciting doesn't mean I wanted it to look like a 14 year-old's myspace page.
As is probably apparent, I am still using a generic blogger template for this site. I briefly used a different template I found on a third party website (it was up for about a day), but Laura told me it looked like a blog about heavy metal, so I changed it. I disagreed, but it was nevertheless still someone else's template and I wanted something that wasn't masquerading as unique.
Instead, I've decided to try to keep the layout simple and slowly make it more distinctive over time. I made the banner at the top of the page, for example, the other night. (I'm still working on making the banner more legible). Also, I'm using a fairly ugly gray as the background. That should change as I find a good background color that is neither white nor black. Ultimately, however, I decided that I was just going to have to learn HTML to come up with exactly what I wanted. In the meantime, however, I've gone with this one.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday Movie
Thinking about my blog, I've decided that A) I need to have shorter posts, B) I need to post more often, and C) I need to post more things that people might be interested in.
Enter "Monday Movie."
What I hope to do is post a movie recommendation each Monday. I always appreciate getting good movie recommendations from people (especially people whose cinematic taste I trust), so I thought I'd offer more suggestions of my own.
What this won't be is an analysis or discussion of movies. I'll still do posts like that from time to time, but for "Monday Movie" I'll just throw out a recommendation and maybe include a few sentences about why I like that movie.
So, without further ado, today's recommendation is Cassandra's Dream. This film was directed by Woody Allen, but is probably the least Allen-esque film I've seen (at least in a while). It's actually quite dark (if still kind of funny at times) and doesn't really have the archetypal "Woody Allen" character in it. Still, it's a great watch.
Enter "Monday Movie."
What I hope to do is post a movie recommendation each Monday. I always appreciate getting good movie recommendations from people (especially people whose cinematic taste I trust), so I thought I'd offer more suggestions of my own.
What this won't be is an analysis or discussion of movies. I'll still do posts like that from time to time, but for "Monday Movie" I'll just throw out a recommendation and maybe include a few sentences about why I like that movie.
So, without further ado, today's recommendation is Cassandra's Dream. This film was directed by Woody Allen, but is probably the least Allen-esque film I've seen (at least in a while). It's actually quite dark (if still kind of funny at times) and doesn't really have the archetypal "Woody Allen" character in it. Still, it's a great watch.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Animals, Food, and Compounding Problems
This morning I read this New York Times OpEd, which basically argues that many animals are being subjected to cruel treatment and that that needs to stop. I agree, but was appalled at the proposed solution: genetically engineering animals so they cannot feel pain.
Initially, I couldn't believe I was reading such a shocking and idiotic idea. Surely the author's intentions (eliminating animal cruelty) are worthy, but this seems like an absurd way to go about it. Instead of actually addressing any of the current problems with animal/meat production (of which there are many), it actually suggests that all those problems can be solved (or skirted) with a quick and easy fix.
Obviously, this raises ethical questions, (is it right to eliminate animals' ability to feel pain?) but it also raises more practical ones as well. For example, wouldn't it be better to eliminate the conditions that produced the problems in the first place? Can a technological fix solve problems that are the result of technological farming in the first place? Doesn't this article itself reveal the severity of the problems? Doesn't that mean we should try to solve them at their roots (or reverse their causes), instead of simply reducing animals' sensitivity to dangerous conditions.
The proposal also fails to adequately acknowledge the dangers that current meat production techniques pose to humans. Though I'm not, as a rule, opposed to all genetic engineering, I am opposed to raising animals in ways that are both cruel to them and unhealthy to the people eating them. The article points out, for example, that some animals are suffering because they have an unnatural high-grain diet. That diet not only hurts the animals, however, but also makes the eventual meat they become far less healthy for people to consume. Altering animals to not feel pain doesn't begin to address that problem. In essence, the same things that are producing cruel situations for animals are making meat products dangerously unhealthy for humans. Genetically reducing animals' pain would allow unhealthy practices to continue, ultimately causing far more harm (to animals and humans) in the long run.
Ultimately, this article advocates a dangerous idea. It will deceive consumers into thinking that they're getting a better product when they're actually getting something that is the same, or worse, as usual. Instead of figuring out how to make animals more comfortable in horrible situations, we should be figuring out how to eliminate those situations. We could give them the proper food, space to grow properly, and a more natural environment to live in. There are serious farming-related problems out there for which we urgently need solutions, but simply reducing animal pain would mean winning one battle while ignoring a much larger war. Fighting that war might mean higher prices for consumers (and/or less meat consumption), but side-stepping it with more genetic engineering will only compound a terrible situation.
Initially, I couldn't believe I was reading such a shocking and idiotic idea. Surely the author's intentions (eliminating animal cruelty) are worthy, but this seems like an absurd way to go about it. Instead of actually addressing any of the current problems with animal/meat production (of which there are many), it actually suggests that all those problems can be solved (or skirted) with a quick and easy fix.
Obviously, this raises ethical questions, (is it right to eliminate animals' ability to feel pain?) but it also raises more practical ones as well. For example, wouldn't it be better to eliminate the conditions that produced the problems in the first place? Can a technological fix solve problems that are the result of technological farming in the first place? Doesn't this article itself reveal the severity of the problems? Doesn't that mean we should try to solve them at their roots (or reverse their causes), instead of simply reducing animals' sensitivity to dangerous conditions.
The proposal also fails to adequately acknowledge the dangers that current meat production techniques pose to humans. Though I'm not, as a rule, opposed to all genetic engineering, I am opposed to raising animals in ways that are both cruel to them and unhealthy to the people eating them. The article points out, for example, that some animals are suffering because they have an unnatural high-grain diet. That diet not only hurts the animals, however, but also makes the eventual meat they become far less healthy for people to consume. Altering animals to not feel pain doesn't begin to address that problem. In essence, the same things that are producing cruel situations for animals are making meat products dangerously unhealthy for humans. Genetically reducing animals' pain would allow unhealthy practices to continue, ultimately causing far more harm (to animals and humans) in the long run.
Ultimately, this article advocates a dangerous idea. It will deceive consumers into thinking that they're getting a better product when they're actually getting something that is the same, or worse, as usual. Instead of figuring out how to make animals more comfortable in horrible situations, we should be figuring out how to eliminate those situations. We could give them the proper food, space to grow properly, and a more natural environment to live in. There are serious farming-related problems out there for which we urgently need solutions, but simply reducing animal pain would mean winning one battle while ignoring a much larger war. Fighting that war might mean higher prices for consumers (and/or less meat consumption), but side-stepping it with more genetic engineering will only compound a terrible situation.
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