Van Santos

Ah, yes… the world is a twit about twitter.  It’s on CNN, people who’ve never used technology are talking about it, and I’ve heard stories that some teachers are using it to assign homework to their class.  Well, I think that Twitter has jumped the shark.  You know, that time when something becomes so at odds logic and reason.

Why do I say that?

I give you Celebwitter, a website that follows Celebrities who are on Twitter.  I’m not knocking them, they have a great idea. Pull everything together so others don’t have to sign up to each celeb, but still…it just goes to show (for me) that Twitter has jumped the shark.

Movie: Public Enemies
Director: Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale

Story

Public Enemies is a window into two worlds during the “golden age” of bank robbery. On one side we see how John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, has a softer side to himself – such as a man who is in love. The second point of view is how desperate the Federal Government is to stop and catch Dillinger and the bank robbers of the time. The focus falls on Melvin Purvis, portrayed by Christian Bale, as the man who is willing to do anything in order to stop Dillinger and his fellow robbers.

While an interesting view into the two worlds, the story seemed to draw out and, at times, have a loss of focus. It didn’t seem as “tight” at it could have been. A few times, it felt as if the movie was dragging on. The story telling that haunted Mann with the Miami Vice movie seemed to semi-bleed into Public Enemies.

Points: 1/2

Sound

Well, my initial thoughts were “Come on, it’s Michael Mann!” but there is one problem with the sound design. It seemed that, at times, it was difficult to hear the actors. Maybe the problem was with the theater but the volume appeared to fluctuate. T

The gun scenes were AMAZING. Mann’s movie “Heat” set the bar for what gun battles in modern cinema should be like. The magic carried forward into Public Enemies. A number of times I was sitting there saying “Wow”

Points: 1.5/2

Acting

Depp captivates the audience. You believe you are actually watching Dillinger, and feeling his emotions – both positive and negative – as the movie unfolds. Bale does not have a chance to shine as he does not have an overwhelming amount of screen time. When he does, however; one gets the feeling that he is a conflicted law officer who begins to compromise his values in order to gain the ultimate goal of catching a criminal.

Another worthwhile performance is Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover. Outstanding!

Points: 2/2

Cinematography

Again, my initial action was “It’s Mann!” but I do have two complaints. It seemed as if the free floating camera – the “in the scene” view – lead to a rather jerky viewing experience at times. And it also got old. The second complain, and I never thought I would say this, but the digital cameras and filming has lead to a viewing experience that is almost too real. Not to sound old fashion here but I like my movies to… well.. feel like movies and not as if I’m watching a play except on the big screen. I don’t need to see every detail, every pore, on the actors face. Nor do I need to see every bit of dust on the bank counter.

To take the other side of the argument, there were to small but cool shots that did stand out to me. The first is during a night scene when agents are chasing Dillinger through a forest. The fog coming off of the hillside looked so.. vivid, so “alive” it was amazing. The second was watching the last breath come out of a man who just died. Very unique, very visual and helped bring home the point that he died.

Points: 1.25/2

Personal Enjoyment

The movie felt long and wondering at points but when it was on it amazing. While I wouldn’t say that it is a movie masterpiece, it did push the limits in terms of visual recreation of the period and trying new techniques in story telling. I enjoyed but wasn’t blown over.

Points: 1.5/2

Total Points: 7.25/10

When hearing the news about the Yemenia Airways Airbus that crashed into the Indian Ocean I thought, well, we have another Air France situation - a plane that goes down/breaks up over water.  The Yemenia situation was different in that emergency crews knew of the location and were able to respond to the situation in a matter of hours, not spending days looking for the plane and debris.

The Yemenia Airways crash is also different in that there was one survivor – Bahai Bakari – a 13 year old girl that was thrown from the plane.  Her father, Kassim Bakari, gives an account of her story:

“She could hear people talking, but in the middle of the night she couldn’t see a thing. She managed to hold on to a piece of something,” said Bakari, whose wife was also on board the doomed flight and is presumed to be among the 152 victims.

“She said she was ejected from the plane,” Bakari said.

“When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said, ‘Daddy, I don’t know what happened, but the plane fell into the water and I found myself in the water … surrounded by darkness. I could not see anyone,’” Bakari said.

When I think about a plane crashing, let alone a plane crashing into the water, I usually don’t think of the best possible outcome.  I find the fact that she survived to be nothing short of astonishing.

With the soon-to-be passing of The Pirate Bay, I thought it may make sense to look at the alternatives available for torrent tracking.  While no one will be able to capture the hearts and minds of the Torrent community like TPB did, there are a number of sites that are worth looking at.

Isohunt

isohunt calls itself the most comprehensive BitTorrent search engine available and points users to stats page (which I don’t know to make of) to make its case. Isohunt has long provided torrents unavailable elsewhere and is a top notch search engine. My experience with the service always found what I was searching for on a consistant basis - from the latest Desktop Ubuntu ISOs to Server and transformation packs.  Never let me down.

btjunkie

Again, another site claiming to be largest and most advanced BitTorrent search engine that utilizes private and public trackers.  I once ran a search on their service but, for whatever reason, the results always seem to point back to The Pirate Bay trackers.  While others will call this their new home, I simply can’t.  Good luck to you and your searching!

Demonoid

My favorite tracker site is, by far, is Demonoid.  They are a closed community that fosters the growth of the community over trying to obtain countless, and often times useless trackers.  If you can get it, you’ll be a happy little guy or gal.  Really, I think you can find just about anything there. Not only that, they seed items that are only and specific to the Demonoid community.

1337x.org

1337x is service that does not take adds and marketing into play.  They opt for user donations in order to pay for their business model. The concept is you help us, we help you. Haven’t put much research into the search solution thet offfer but it look promising. And they seem to be willing to communicate with others

Honorable mention #1

bt.etree.org

One of the largest live show trackers known to the the community  The music is purely live and its a gift to the community. More like this should exist.

Honorable mention #2

BakaBT Seemingly the  best place to go for Anime and Manga.  Good group of people and you should have no problem finding your needs.

Finally, something to mention

mininova (aka – Suprnova) was run by The Pirate Bay for the about the last two years.  I’ve been unable to find news as to what will happen to mininova after the acquisition.

So, are there aother trackers out that the world should now be cocusing on? Some that I misssed - be if giant trackers or genre specific (music or anime) please let me know.

The Pirate Bay sold for $6.7M US, goes legit.

This is a big surprise to me.

The Pirate Bay, the worlds largest BitTorrent tracker and a top 100 website, is in the process of selling itself to a software company. Maybe the constant legal battles have caused the founders to throw in the towel, or maybe it is the fact that they will end up going to jail shortly due to a major legal loss, but this sale comes as a major surprise.

One thing The Pirate Bay has consistently preached was independence. With the purchase by Global Gaming Factory X, and the implementation of a “new business model”, it seems that all The Pirate Bay once stood for is long since gone. Before you know it, The Pirate Bay will be synonymous with Napster as they fade into Internet history.

Remember that North Korean Ship the U.S. was tracking?

Sometime within the last two weeks the U.S. started tracking a North Korean ship suspected of carry weapons banned by the U.N. anti-proliferation resolution. I feel this was a sign to North Korea that the U.S. wasn’t going to sit around as they continued to flaunt laws in the face of the U.N, as well as a test to see just how committed China was to dealing with North Korea.

Well, the Kang Nam – the ship the U.S. was tracking – has turned around, leaving the world questioning where is the ship going and what is the next step in the game of Maritime chess.  The shit has been at sea for nearly two weeks at this point, eventually it will need to refuel.  When that time comes where will it find safe harbor and will the U.S. find a way to board it at that time?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says political overthrow has failed

Since the massive and bloody riots at Baharestan Square, very little news has come out of Iran regarding the uprising.  From what I can tell – reading the Twitter, Facebook and blog posts of those in in Iran – the revolution has all but come to an end.

Today Mahmood Ahmadinejad stated the overthrow driven by “political enemies of Iran” has failed:

“The enemies were not able to reach their objectives for the soft overthrow of the system,” he said, according to the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA. “The enemy is pursuing the objective of undermining the nation’s capabilities after the 85% turnout at the polls.”

And so, life goes on… sad from my perspective. Not because of a specific outcome but because the people of Iran have, apparently, been robbed of their ability to determine their future.

After a day of family fun on Sunday I come home to find out Honduras, the democratic republic in Central America, has collapsed due to a military coup that lead to President Manuel Zelaya seeking political asylum in Costa Rica.

From the initial news publications I’ve read it appears this coup may be due to constitutional changes Mr. Manuel Zelaya was attempting to make in order to keep in power longer than his one-term limit. As there is (well, as  of this writing) no acting president in office, congressional leader Roberto Micheletti was taking over the position until Mr. Zelaya’s official term comes to an end.   What I have been unable to determine, however; is who was behind the coup and how is started. Even though the congressional leader is from the same party as the ousted President, all signs in the press seem to point to his behind the action.

The rest of the Americas appear to be reacting negatively to the action.  The U.S., Venezuelan and Ecuadorean presidents all issued statements – from threats of military action to restore Zelaya to office (Hugo Chavez) to strong disapproval related to the ignoring of the democratic process (Barack Obama) – it is apparent this action is causing concern.

All this being said, I again ask the question what  is the motivation for this coup.  If Roberto Micheletti is behind the action, as it appears to be, it would be foolish for him to believe the would will accept him as the leader of Honduras.  He skirted the democratic process.  He would also be highly aware that Mr. Zelaya is on good terms with the leftists Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (who, ironically failed at a coup attempt during the early 90’s).  So what is his goal?

Good chess players often think out many moves – if not play entire games in their head – before a game is played out.  While I’m not saying Roberto Micheletti is a master chess player, I hope that he has some goal – some plan – in place in anticipation of events to come.  If not, it can turn out very poorly for himself and the 7.5M people who live in Honduras could become victims to his actions.

But according to this video, it looks like Roberto Micheletti may not be the next president:

After reaching out to a friend of mine for more info, it sounds likePresident Manuel Zelaya broke the law and wanted to modify the constitution his own way, by his own rules, imitating Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, in hopes of being able to say within office for one term. What happened after this point is still up in the air.

In honor of the pitchman who taught the world how to sell oxiclean on TV.

I’m not a fan of tennis, hell, I don’t even remember the fundamentals of the game any longer BUT I am a fan of  a  good underdog story.

Melanie Oudin, a 17 year old tennis player, just finished her biggest match at Wimbledon by beating Jelena Jankovic.  So, what does that mean? Well, Melanie Oudin was ranked 124th in the world… Jelena Jankovic was 6th seated.  Basically, Melanie wasn’t expected to rollover and die as Jelena Jankovic continued her push toward the finals.

Didn’t happen.

What I find most impressive about the situation was the quote Melanie gave after her performance.

“I was just thinking that she was any other player,” Oudin said, “and this was any other match, and I was at any other tournament — not like on the biggest stage at Wimbledon. I think I handled it really well.”

It’s no big deal, it’s just another day and another match.  That is the mentality to have.  Helena Jankovic, however; wasn’t as down to earth about the situation:

“From what I have seen, she can play if you let her play,” said Serbian Jankovic.

“But she cannot hurt you with anything. She doesn’t have any weapons, from what I’ve seen.

“She’s a consistent and quite solid player. She doesn’t make so many mistakes. But she doesn’t do anything either, so it’s like she’s depending kind of on you.”

By that very logic, Jelena, either you let her win or YOU really sucked when playing her.

While I’m sure Melanie is excited about the event, and we may never hear of her again after today – I don’t know, remember, I don’t follow tennis – the humility she showed and story surrounding the whole situation is enjoyable to watch.

I know nothing about the climate-change bill that just passed the house this past Friday. Life in general kept my focus on other events, so I have absolutely no working knowledge – what it hopes to accomplish, what taxes may be included or how the bill may impact the “everyday” person – all I know this this: the manner in which the bill was passed is akin to strong arming an unwilling participant into taking some action they oppose.

But didn’t the bill narrowly pass, 219 to 212, so how can that be “strong arming”?

While the political process has always included last second maneuvers or grandstanding aimed at obtaining a desired outcome, say a large amount of pork barrel spending included countless pages of seemingly mundane text, the climate change legislation that just passed takes this to a new level.  At roughly 3AM Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman tacked on another 300 pages of to a bill that was already 1,200 pages in length. Thankfully Minority leader John Boehner exposed exactly what was taking place and the amendment was dropped.

It’s obvious politicians only read the bullet points to said bills, they don’t pay attention to what every single detail.  With the volume of law that is being pushed these days, I can understand where that would be the case, however; adding 300 pages of unread, un-vetted, text to an already monster bill is not only political strong arming, it’s disingenuous and is in no way helping the general public in the United States as such acts remove the ability for people to contact their representatives in order to voice their feelings.

There was a time when politicians actually worked for the best of the nation.  The special interest groups and big business did not have the control we are currently witnessing. But that was supposed to change.  Recently, promises were also made by politicians that bills would be viewable for 5 days in an attempt to create a new era of openness within the government, a level of transparency and accountability that would usher in a new era of government, and provide constituents the understanding of what is taking place.

Obviously, on a majority, that is not the case any longer.

As with most thing these days, this isn’t about Republican or Democrats, no, this is about power.  It’s about checks and balances.  It’s about the blatant disregard of the wishes of the many for the special interests of the few.  In the end, this isn’t about the Energy Bill, this is about how politics are practiced in the United States. We will continue to witness politicians taking advantage of the system in order to move their agenda forward and as the balance of power between the two political parties swings in favor of one over the other, the questionable activities will only become more extreme leaving the American public at the whim of those in power.

With the video of Neda becoming a major focus of the Iranian protests it seemed as if a lot of people – myself included – forgot to ask the question “What about the others in the video?”

No, they did not suffer in the same as Neda. The world did not watch the life drain from their eyes, but they were all impacted one way or another. That sad, what about the others in the video? How has life changed for them?

I’ve been unable to find specific information regarding her music teacher but I did find this bit about Dr. Arash Hejazi, the man who came to her aid.

Hejazi, 38, said he fled from Iran when the video footage sped around the world on websites because he feared his own life might be in danger as he could be seen with Soltan.

Before trying to leave, he said he emailed a friend in Britain to say he hoped to join his family in the university city of Oxford where he was studying: “If something happens to me, please take care of (my wife and son).”

A man who went to Iran on business had to leave the country for fear of his life. Will he ever be able to travel back without feeling as if he is a target? Who knows? Will the memories of the event ever leave him? No.

Bottom line: while Dr. Hejazi didn’t lose his life, some small part of him died that day as well – he gets to live with that event haunting him emotionally or physically for the rest of his life.