The Nokia 6800 (phonescoop) looks like a neat device, but it doesn’t seem to have any Bluetooth? I just can’t understand how that thought process works. Also, seem to only to be available from Cingular presently.

I haven’t written much about Matrix Reloaded. Perhaps a rather funny thing considering I dedicated a skin to it. But, w/ everyone having their own reviews, here’s mine: I had fun watching it, and I can’t wait for the ending this fall, but there was a slight tinge of disappointment at missed opportunities. Unfortunately on the road to sequeldom, Reloaded ends up losing so many of the elements that made the original so refreshing; the sense of style and deftness, darkness, and danger instead gets replaced by sprawl, hamminess, and pure spectacle (and a beyond cheezy Zion). Probably most objectionable for me, however, was the disjointed nature of the film on almost every level. What was so amazing about the original film was how organic and unified it was. The visual and thematic elements blended perfectly and the plot twists and philosophy didn’t come in globby exposition but unfolded fluidly, expressed and supported by the action.

I have no idea if this is properly expressing what I’m thinking. Part of me wants to write paragraphs about how great the dojo scene or the original Smith showdowns were at viscerally expressing and tying together the story’s themes. Having given some thought to it, that in fact seems to be perhaps a more revolutionary and the true triumphant achievement of the movie.

Anyway, at the very least, the philosophy bits in the second was interesting. (see: some thoughts on the original movie)

• The New Yorker: The Unreal Thing – an interesting review, with some contextual analysis
• Village Voice: Use Your Illusions – I like some of the points brought up
• Corporote Mofo Reloads The Matrix – while I don’t buy all of it, there’s some very interesting analysis bits

Hmm, so, basically Simon proves jwz right; CSS is too fuckin’ hard.

Wow, now this put a smile on my face. Some friends are doing a art/music/poetry thing in town this weekend. Well, reading through the bios, turns out one of my old classmates, Corey Jackson, is actually now Art Lead @ Ludicorp. What a small frickin’ world.

(Be sure to check out Corey’s MFA statement of purpose and his sketchbooks [check out how he’s progressed over the years]).

Boo-urns. Feeling slightly under the weather (ok, feels like a frog in my throat, but it could be worse).

Gave a friend the P2P social software spiel, he brought up a good point about data scraping, lack of double blind transactions—which is true, that’s a whole different issue…

Also, been looking into mobile devices after learning that when using GPRS (more info), voice calls are shunted directly to Voice Mail if data is being sent or received. It looks like right now, using Sprint’s 1xRTT is a pretty much the same, allowing incoming data while dormant. Sometime this year Sprint may be aiming for the ability to suspend active data to receive incoming voice.

Frankly, I’m rather surprised by this VM behavior, and I think that 90% of people aren’t aware that by transferring data they have a good chance of missing calls. What’s the point of having data services if it means that people can’t reach you when they need to?

Random thought: when are the PowerBooks with transflective screens coming? Ironicaly, it seems the latest generations of PDAs are more usable than laptops now because you can actually see them in the sun. The Panasonic ToughBooks are the only consumer laptops I know of right now that have transflective screens…

Matrix Reloaded, the first major motion picture to accurately portray a hack. See pics at Insecure.org. Trinity uses an SSHv1 exploit to get #. Cool! Timeline discussion:

Not only is it important for
the coolness factor, but we can learn how Nmap
looks in the future by studying that output!
Maybe not.
In the first movie, the Matrix world is in 1999.
Morpheus mentions how since Neo became the One, they
have "freed more minds in the past six months than the
past six years".
So Trinity is actually using an exploit discovered in
2001, in a simulated world that can be no later than
June 2000.
So how can she do this? Possibilities.
* Trinity is one of the best hackers on the planet.
She could have discovered the flaw herself, or perhaps
some other Zion-based hacker did.
* In the real world, they do have some technology from
earlier eras. Perhaps Trinity came across some old
mailing lists on a CDROM. Say hi to her next time you
post.

Ashley faring much better in the wide-angle than I:

Definitely need to take some better photos.

Passed the 1000 mark this morning on the EOS. Still not bored. Wait until I get some more lenses. More pics up soon. 🙂

Put up some of the E3 pictures I took yesterday. A few keepers. Most were shot w/ the EOS-10D at 1600+ ISO.