Lavish animation

I've been watching a decent amount of anime recently thanks to Kelvin's finds online. One of the superior series I've seen completely is "Last Exile". It's an extravagant, well-told fantasy set in a world where two countries of warring humans are separated by a raging storm called The Grand Stream. The two protagonists are young air couriers whose ambition is to find a passage through the Grand Stream, duplicating the feat of their parents who were lost in the attempt. The two couriers get swept up in the ongoing war between the Disith and Anatore which, they later discover, has been manipuated by the overriding power of the "The Guild", who hold the keys to flight for both countries. The animation is excellent and the story pacing is one of the best I've seen throughout a long series (26 episodes!). The animation is notable for its exciting flying sequences and air ship designs. Now I notice in the local Georgia Straight that volume one of the official Pioneer DVD set is available for order. The prices are extreme, however. I wouldn't have seen this series if it hadn't been available through the fansub community. This page has a lot of screenshots from the series.

The Guardian has a feature article on the growth of geek / nerd culture as obviously symbolized by the enormous popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies, gaming, the use of the Internet and the stature of uber-nerds like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The Guardian argues that we are now all nerds.

In previous days the family of noted segregationist Strom Thurmond has accepted the claim of the half-black woman Essie Mae Washington that she is the child of the late senator and a maid. Today, she held a press conference describing her relationship with the man who championed the division of blacks and whites in American society for much of his career.

The Washington Post has shed light on New Line's plans to develop another fantasy trilogy, the little known His Dark Materials adolescent fantasy by Philip Pullman. As for my plans to see the last of the Rings trilogy, I will definitely try and squeeze into a theatre this week.

It can only be attributable to human error.

The United States is going through a big debate now about the security of voting machines. After the 2000 election hung on a few hundred 'hanging chads' there has been a big push to install computerized voting machines, touch screen or otherwise that will take people's choices and tabulate them. However, many critics charge that the companies developing these machines are unwilling to 'open' them up to scrutiny citing patents and the ownership of the biggest companies are biased toward the Republicans. In not a few local and state elections various discrepancies and mysterious results have cropped up that have made many suspicious of tampering. The central issue behind these machines is that there is no paper trail. All the counts are in the computer. If the computer is doubted, there is no secondary ledger to check the votes against. You just have to trust that the program is working correctly and that no one, either an insider or a hacker, has manipulated the count. The New York Times has an article about the backlash against voting machines here. PBS argues that perhaps the best technology may be no technology at all (i.e. the Canadian system). If you are looking for critical information on voting machines, visit BlackboxVoting.org. By the way, I have worked as an election worker.

This is really qutie a wonderful feature story by the Washington Post about Essie Mae Washington, a woman who was rumoured for a long time to be the illegitimate mixed race daughter of the late Storm Thurmond, for decades the symbol of the segregationist southerner. Thurmond died this year and now Washington, who for years had denied being his daughter, now confirms that she was the child of Thurmond. Her mother was a 16-year old maid in the Thurmond family home when she was born. The story covers the decades of Washington's complicated relationship with Thurmond. Click here >>

This is an excellent site showing the changes that have transformed Vancouver visually. You get a landscape photo, click a button, and watch the same view fade between 1978 to 2003. When you view them, don't forget to scroll horizontally as the gifs are much wider than most monitors. Click here >>

crime scene in miniature

This is the website of an artist who works in miniature tableau. Some Other Place explores more ambiguous undefined scenes of suspense: empty park hillsides, bikes abandoned near barren forests, thick cattails on the edge of a deserted marsh. Nix's tableau views are not those of a distantiated documentarian but rather possess the psychological intensity of one who has seen life as more surreal than fairy tales. Some striking images here. Like movie captures of a rural crime story. My favourite is the one with the body floating in the reeds. Figures. See more here >>