the world is a pixel
english
what I feel when I see someone using JPG when he should be using a PNG
Oct 9th
Seriously, is that hard?
To discovery which file type you have to use for your image just follow these simple instructions in following priority order:
- Have text? Use PNG.
- Is a piece of art like a draw, a painting or a webcomic? Use PNG.
- It is… moving! Use GIF.
- Is a photo? Use JPG.
- Is not exactly a photo but contains photos (like people. trees and landscapes)? Use JPG.
- Is not a photo, does not contain a photo but I remain concerned about the size of my file despite the breakthrough in telecommunication speeds. Try PNG with indexed palette and Floyd–Steinberg color dithering.
- Nah, man. Use JPG but with all lower compression or higher quality options you may find.
- It’s nothing listed above! Sir, your problem is far away from the scope of these instructions.
Thank you.
The Fall (2006), Tarsem Singh
Oct 8th
Cinema is about the ancient art of telling stories. Is about breaking the chains that hold our minds. Entertainment is good but is not good enough. We can do more and we can do better. The Fall (2006), from Tarsem Singh, is a movie that knows this. This is my kind of movie.
Roy Walker (Lee Pace) and Alexandria (Catinca Untaru)
The plot is about Alexandria, a injured girl recovering in the hospital when she meets another patient, Roy Walker, and he tells her fantasy histories. The difference of age between them creates a language gap that is very interesting and well explored in the movie as it uses a lot of symbolism. Going deeper in the language issue some dialogues between them were improvised and had an impact in the original history giving a layer of authenticity to the movie.
In terms of photography, every frame of the movie is a piece of art by itself. Here are some of them:
This is what I’m talking about
Faceless evil soldiers.
Colors and composition.
A perfectly good excuse for filming a elephant swimming.
Subtle tribute to Godfather. One of many tributes in the movie.
This scene reminded me of the Balinese monkey chant from Baraka (1992). Bonus: Avatar (2009) also did it.
A stop motion scene.
Almost every scene is breathtaking and probably was really hard to film.
Seems that they used …
… a lot of blue ink.
One of the many amazing scenes that lasted less than 1 second!
Wide shot.
In summary, it have all the ingredients to make a movie that I love:
- Amazing photography.
- A non-trivial plot. Doesn’t need to be really complex (though I like complex). In this case was a plot inside the plot.
- Language and symbolism.
- The struggle for (pick as many as you want): life, identity, purpose, love, and freedom.
- Do not underestimate the mind and the imagination,
- Good actors, good interpretation and when possible some improvisation.
- Subtle references as an icing on the cake.
Cinema!
Go see this movie.
If you liked The Fall you may also like
- I would say The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) but just saying watch everything from Terry Gilliam is more appropriate.
- Everything from Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman.
- The Cell (2006), also from Tarsem Singh.
- Cinema Paradiso (1988), Giuseppe Tornatore.
- I could say many others but if you take a look into psychological thrillers is enough.
Heroku on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)
Sep 28th
As root execute:
apt-get update apt-get install build-essential ruby rails rubygems1.8 apt-get install ruby1.8-dev libopenssl-ruby
Chance PATH at /etc/environment:
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/var/lib/gems/1.8/bin"
Update your current environment:
source /etc/environment
Install the Heroku gem:
sudo gem install heroku
Run Heroku authentication configuration:
heroku auth:login
Enter the credentials for your Heroku account.
Done!
Memory Card Zoo SD Test
Sep 14th
Adam Ulivi from Memory Card Zoo sent me a Samsung 8Gb micro SDHC class 4.
Seems like a regular SD card but they claim to be water proof, shock proof and magnet proof.
I ran a few tests using SD Tools for Android to compare it against the others cards I have around. The result:
The general raw output data collected from SD Tools:
| Write Speed (Mb/s) | Read speed (Mb/s) | |
| SanDisk Class 4, 8Gb | 4.1 | 11.7 |
| Samsung Class 4, 8Gb | 5.5 | 17.9 |
| Patriot Class 10, 16Gb | 8.1 | 20.1 |
I use the SanDisk in my Android and Patriot on my camera. It would be a good combo have a waterproof card on my waterproof camera but this sd card can not beat a class 10 card. I may change my cellphone’s memory card for this Samsung.
If you want to try to yourselft this or others models of Micro SD card visit their store. Thank you Adam!
