I.N: A rating based on age
According to BBC News, UK was considering giving websites ratings as what countries would do to movies. It is to ensure that Children would be protected from content that is deemed undesirable for them. In the report, UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said that “clearer signposting” is required for the “confusing (online) world”.
The move is definitely a pertinent one. Many could see it happening in the near future. In fact, I think no one expects the internet content to go relatively unregulated for long. In fact, I am sure that many other countries are considering the same kind of measures. The only limiting factor is the implementation and its reception.
I really wonder how effective such a implementation would be. The most a site can do would be to display the rating prominently on their sites. After that, whether or not the person acknowledges the rating is a whole different matter. In fact, there may be reverse psychology invovled (as in movie ratings), where the young, seeing a rating which advices them not to enter would be more likely to enter the website.
Furthermore, it is hard for a single country to get jurisdiction on any website that is hosted in servers out of its own soil… A solution to that would be to implement a ISP level proxy filtering for sites that are not conforming to their rating systems or modify the websites by adding the ratings before serving up the pages. I am sure many would provide a leeway for this without protesting or using the old “deprivation of human choice/rights” argument against this…
I think ultimately, the best move would be develop something like a plug-in for web browsers, leaving the choice of whether to be filtered to the end users.
Movie: Twilight (2008)
It was with much anticipation that I went to watch “Twilight” in the cinemas and I left it with very mixed feelings.
Twilight Movie Poster
A little background: Based on the wildly popular book series written by Stephanie Meyer, Twilight is a tale about the forbidden romance between a mortal (Bella Swan) and a Vampire (Edward Cullen). When Bella’s mother remarries, she moves to Forks to live with her father. Attending the school there, she meets Edward and his family who have a foreboding presence and are all too gorgeous to be true. Bella finds herself wondering why he has a seemingly immediate disdain for her, and this curiosity eventually leads to her falling “unreservedly” and “irrevocably” in love with him.
In the movie: Starring Kristen Stewart (as Bella Swan) and Robert Pattinson (as Edward Cullen) doesn’t really deviate much from the book which would statisfy fans of the book series. Both Stewart and Pattinson are not new faces to the movie scene, with Stewart having starred in the “Panic Room” (2002) as Sarah Altman and Pattinson having starred in “Harry Potter” movies as Cedric Diggory.
While the overall result of the movie may satisfy extremely devoted fans, I feel disappointed in how the show played out especially when compared to the book. Though I understand the need for cuts from the book to fit into the budget and time constraints of a movie, the way this movie was set, the mood and the choice of cuts to the plot really made the it lose the appeal that the book have. Thus, the movie may do little in getting more people interested in the book.
Much of my displeasure seems to stem from the fact that the movie has been too hyped about, especially after the success of the book. Moreover, the way the book was written made the characters (like the Cullens) too perfect, which made it hard to actually get perfect real life characters. Moreover, character portrayal was somewhat inconsistent with the book, with Bella seemingly more confident than Edward (and sometimes paler than him).
Though I am displeased with this movie (and really hoping that the follow-up: “New Moon” would be better…), the local newspapers here have reported that there are some fans who actually watched the show more than once, with one girl watching it 10 times in two different countries. So, I can’t really say it was totally bad…
Overall Notes:
The good…
- Carlisle was shown as expected
- Charlie acted his part and actually gave a refreshing touch to the movie.
- James acted his part
- Alice was gorgeous
- Screenplay was good for such a small budget.
- The ending of the movie was a saving feature for the movie as it closed the first part of this Twilight series quite well, though it would be better if Bella threw as big as a fit as in the book. She seemed quite agreeable to Prom compared to the book.
and the Bad…
- Plot progression was OK at best.
- Didn’t like the lighting in certain scenes.
- hmm.. I thought Jessica Stanley has lots of question for Bella after seeing her and Edward together after Prom shopping?
- At Bella’s house, Edward seems more furious than restrained, especially at Bella’s reaction to the kiss.
- There were moments where Edward asks questions out loud which should have been answered by his mind reading.
- Edward in the sun (and in fact, any of the Cullens) was suppose to be spectacular.. But the movie was not even close. It only showed him glittering (like he had dipped himself in glitters).
- On screen chemistry between Edward and Bella wasn’t as profound as in the book. Though this point has to be overlooked somewhat as we can’t really expect a total replication of feelings from the book.
- Supporting characters like Angela and Jessica didn’t really get enough screen time, though that can be overlooked also due to movie constrains.
The above only represents my view. In fact, the only few things my friend and I could agree on was that the casting of Ashley Greene (as Alice Cullen) and Peter Facinelli (as Carlisle Cullen) was 2 things that the movie got right.
(This post was updated on 23/12/08)
Opinion: Desk Space and Time
In this age where online space and computer space are relatively easy to come by, many fail to see the need to clean up the access files. Sometimes, our habits from our virtual life “overflow” to our real, physical life, resulting in a very messy physical desk space.
I too, fall prey to such untidiness sometimes. Weirdly enough, I think my Windows desktop (screenshot) is more organized than my physical desktop (no pictures here). It’s much simpler to clear your virtual clutter compared to real life. You could just drag your unwanted files in your virtual desk space to the “Recycle Bin” (with a click of the mouse), as compared to the real world, where physical work is needed to compile, bag and dispose your stuff at a common bin somewhere outside your house. Sigh… I guess these are nothing but mere excuses. Just for the record, I do clear up my physical desk space once every two months while my virtual desktop about once to twice a month.
On that note, I wanted to highlight the following montage, which consist of photos taken from a BBC News “picture showcase” on chaotic work spaces…
Cluttered Desktop Collage (Original Images from BBC News Website)
Looking at those pictures, I really wonder how they manage to work with that kind of environment. I can honestly say that though I am not an extremely tidy freak, I definitely would not reach that degree of cluttered-ness. I would lose my sanity working through that….
Reading the write-up on each of the pictures, one common factor among all of them is the lack of “Time”. Needing more time is definitely an issue every one of us have to grapple with. In certain occasions, I do wish that I would have more time… But, its my opinion that, the act of wishing for more time is actually a sign that my time management needs more work…
What do you think?
[via BBC News]
FTI: Google Reader interface update
Google Reader Minimalist Interface
The change in interface at Google Reader came as a shock unlike the WordPress upgrade. Unlike the hype that has been built around the new wordpress interface among developers, the Google Reader interface change was somewhat a quite affair.
The new look, like WordPress 2.7, focuses on a much more cleaner and minimalistic look, and in doing so, ” make Reader act and feel more speedy and responsive”. The navigation is now customizable, taking on igoogle’s widget like behavior, allowing the user to minimize it to take up less space. Moreover, navigation is also now separated into three “widget like sections: “All items”, Friends’ shared items” and “Subscriptions”.
For those of us who subscribe to news feeds and thus have unread counts which can rocket to 1000+ just after a day, it is now possible to turn off the unread count. This is really great as I am sure it would cause less stress not to know the number of unread entries… As for me, I think that disabling unread count would prevent me from going into a fit every time I come back to my computer and Google Reader after a few days’ (and sometimes up to 10 days) hiatus from civilization and internet..
Another change which is none-interface related is the creation of RSS “bundles” which users can subscribe to. According to the Google Reader blog:
“…. Feed bundles are small sets of feeds related to a topic that you can subscribe to all at once. Historically, these were done “by hand” by the Reader team, but this just wasn’t working out. So we’ve written a program to make “bundles” for us – no more manual editing of bundles, and a much richer and interesting set of subscriptions for you to choose from….”
However, I really wonder how the program does the selection. Maybe it selects based on the number of subscriptions are maybe the PR of the feed? It’s really hard to guess.
Anyway, though the interface change definitely made the Reader easier to read, one point I felt that they should have done is to put the “Refresh” button from the subscription list back to its original prominent place rather than the current location which is in the Subscriptions options menu.
However, as with the WordPress upgrade,I am sure this layout may not go down to well with some people. I wonder if Google Reader will suffer a backlash similar to what iGoogle experience when Google implemented the canvas interface for iGoogle…
Overall, in my personl view, I think that both Google Reader and WordPress Teams have taken a step in the right direction in this update.
FTI: WordPress.com interface update
Screenshot of different WordPress Versions
Since there was an announcement 2 days ago regarding upgrade of WordPress.com blogs, there was a feeling of anticipation when I logged in to try a live roll-out of the new interface.
As with the previous major 2.5 release of WordPress, WordPress.com has rolled out the new interface before the WordPress.org release after the software. Prior to this, developers were able to run the beta release from WordPress.org.
The new layout is definitely cleaner and more pleasing to the eye. Color contrast between the background and the navigation text, something which I didn’t like in the previous layout, has thankfully been improved.
The dashboard is now customizable, with the ability to re-arrange the dashboard modules as well as hide them. The navigation is also collapsible, allowing the blogger to increase screen space when blogging.
What struck me at the dashboard was the QuickPress feature and the Recent Drafts module. Probably due to the manner which I blog, just this 2 features have already saved me quite a few clicks. That’s a god-send especially when I on most days, I am in a location (I can’t say where!) which has mutiple proxies and slower internet connections.
Another long-awaited addition worth mentioning is a file-uploader which can now be found under the “media” section. Previously, I had to go to “create a new post” in order to upload files to places like the sidebar. Having the uploader in the “media” section would save the hassle.
Its also worth mentioning that in this current iteration of wordpress, the development team has added quite a few “quick editing” features. Besides the aforementioned QuickPress feature on the dashboard, the post pages also inherited the ability to quickly edit post tags, time-stamp etc. Quite a nifty feature especially if you want to add a new tag and don’t want to load the full editor just to do it…
Other than the interface, the speed at which the admin interface loads caught my attention. The time taken for the dashboard to load definitely feels alot faster. Although I can’t back it up with real statistics here, I am quite certain on that.
Anyway, I am sure there are still many under-the-hood improvements which I haven’t seen, but I can safely say that the day-to-day blogging experience has been improved in my personal opinion. However, the changes may not have gone down well with everyone. Looking through the announcement thread, you can see a couple of people voicing their displeasure. I can only echo Matt in saying that we should give the new interface a few days and see how it goes.
As for me, I am satisfied with the improvements with the current WordPress. Thanks to the WordPress Team and Matt!
Now its just a wait for the WordPress.org version to be released so that I can continue with my web developments.
FTI: WordPress and Google Reader updates their interface
In a blink of an eye on Thursday Night, two major services which I used, underwent interface changes. The two services are: WordPress.com and Google Reader.
I took about a day (Friday) to re-orientate (for wordpress) and try out the newly designed services.
In the following 2 posts on this blog, I will be giving my personal opinion on the two updates.
Opinion: Happy People
A week ago, there was a news article published in the New York Times on the effects of television (TV) on a person’s happiness. The article mentioned that:
“… the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy… TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less”
The study acknowledges that it does not conclusively show that the watching TV is the main cause unhappiness. It only shows the negative correalation. So even if you turn off your TV, it may not neccessarily make you any happier.
After doing some thinking about TV in my life, I realize that I seem to watch more TV shows when I am unhappy or bored. Rather than TV being the source of unhappiness for me, it is actually a avenue to “cool” myself off. I wonder if there are others who would use TV to the same effect though….
At this juncture, I guess most people would tell themselves the over-used line: “balance is the key”. I doubt we can go without TV. Especially since TV has gotten more “alive” with reality shows, movies and other kinds of entertainment. Moreover, TV may be the only source of news for some people who doesn’t read the newspaper much.
It would have been more helpful if the study had shown, how much TV is too much. But I think that’s another area that is hard to come up with a conclusive judgment.
