Tuesday, February 23, 2010

World Economy Dependent on China?





I've already posted this elsewhere about a week ago, so this is a little bit of old news.

China's Central Bank Hits Brake on Hot Economy. Chinese economy expanding while Western economies are failing or on the brink of sliding back into a recession....
Global Business >> NewYorkTimes



Lately, there has been much publicity on China v Google & Taiwan and threats by China to discontinue diplomatic and trade relationships with the US. Recently economists have predicted (Chinese 10% , Western 12%) that China's economical growth is for the first time in history, acting as a major engine pulling the rest of the world out of recession. "At the same time, if China brakes too hard, it risks slowing global growth overall and throwing other countries, including the United States, back into recession."

I find this disturbing as well as somewhat ironic. European, US, Canadian and other Western countries are depending on economic choices by China. What will this bode for International politics, including human rights issues currently in debate, mostly through Hillary Clinton.

The irony I have yet to mention, is the Western's criticism and seemingly threats to discontinue trade with the "Great Wall" and "Great Firewall" of China, will only tend to undermine our own economy. It would seem that now more than ever, The World is depending on Chinese exports, banking and other economic factors.

At issue here:
1. Western predictions of falling economies and nations sliding back to recession.
2. Accusations of a purposeful attempt by the Chinese government to control World Economy on it's own terms.

I don't think there's much we can do at this point but wait as China continues to move it's resources further and further into the mainland, making it very difficult to impossible for foreign nations to make requests from Chinese banks for loans.


Any thoughts?



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Wow - Christian Bale in The Machinist (2004)

Wow. What a performance!



As usual, I had an itch for a good 1080p BluRay movie. I wasn't sure what I was gonna watch. So the first thing I did, was go straight to IMDB and searched their database for "Most popular Sci-Fi" movies. I have no idea how I eventually ended up in the Mystery, Thriller genre. I must have been on one of my insomnia kicks again.

So anyway, after reading the description and viewing the trailers, I decided that "The Machinist (2004)" was exactly what I needed to watch.

First of all, I have to mention that I painstakingly suffer from agonizing insomnia. No joke, and "you laugh because you think that I'm kidding, but I'm not" (credit to Dave Barry for that quote). Reading the IMDB description, I knew the movie was gonna touch some sensitive notes. Movie completely revolves around Christian Bales character who hasn't slept in over a year, trying to find peace of mind to produce sleep. That and trying to find his way through a self-induced psychosis. That was enough to catch my attention.

I don't wanna give away too much or ramble on and on like I usually do. Suffice it to say, that Bales performance and dedication to the performing arts was astonishing. Anyone that watched "Castaway" with Tom Hanks can tell you how much dedication went into to his character development. Gained several pounds of weight, and then lost a phenomenal amount of it for detail.

Exactly what Bale did in this movie, only very much to the extreme. I've got a couple of screen shots I'm gonna share.

Click on image to view the 1920x1080 res. screenshot

    1. Healthy Bale.
    2. Emaciated Bale. Pretty shocking and almost disturbing.


Funny enough, Sam Worthington of "Terminator: Salvation", "AVATAR' and "Clash of the Titans" commented in an interview on "Rove" talk show, that Bale was a very serious and dedicated professional when it came to his characters. Very funny actually. I'm including the Youtube video of his interview where he comments this.




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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Opera Wants to Bring Its Mobile Browser to iPhone

Nothing new to some, it's Opera-Mini





I knew that Opera (through it's blogs) had been working on several ideas with it's browser (mini) but it seems that it has caught the eye of some of social-media bloggers. Most likely because Apple offers very little to no support for 3rd party software with functionality that is already provided by it. (Safari in this case)





Here's an Excerpt:
Opera Mini is a great mobile browser on most smartphones, but we didn’t really expect to see it on the iPhone. The reason for this is twofold: iPhone already sports Safari, which works really great, and second, Apple is unlikely to approve another browser, because it duplicates the functionality its app (Safari) already provides....

Read more....

J.


Follow Me On Twitter, eh. ;)



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J.

Iranian Government Bans Gmail (Update)

I'm pretty sure I just finished posting a blog entry on Iran war attack on Twitter. I even included a really nice picture I think. ;) 

Apparently, I'm a little behind the times (about a few hours anyway). In the world of "Real time" information, a few hours is a very long time. So I feel that I MUST correct a previous entry, or at least update it. Here's the latest juicy.



Iranian Government Bans Gmail

An article written by one of my favorite micro-bloggers and online journalists:
Christina Warren
AKA: @film_girl

As the Iranian authorities attempt to stifle tomorrow’s protests surrounding the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, they are going one step further: Iran is permanently suspending access to Google’s Gmail.




Read more....


J.

Follow me on Twitter



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Google's New #BUZZ


We've all heard that today is Google's first day of their latest feature. "BUZZ".
Of course it's trending all over the net, especially on Social-Media hubs such as Mashable , Twitter and such. Ben Parr of Mashable has trended much of this himself through much coverage via the micro-blogging platform.

But is there a downside? Again, as a local Tweeter/Tweep/Twitter-user , This is the kind of stuff I like to share to my small and humble audience. If you really wanna know a little more of the controversy over Google's new "BUZZ" read this article from PCWorld:

Here's just an intro:




Google Buzz Criticized for Disclosing Gmail Contacts

"At issue is a feature that compiles a list of the Gmail contacts who users most frequently e-mail or chat with. Buzz automatically starts following these people and makes the list public, meaning strangers can see who Buzz users have been in contact with."

Read more....

J.



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Iran's cyber-war on Twitter

Iran's cyber-war on Twitter
Anybody that knows me, is aware that I spend quite a bit of time of Twitter. I really like to tweet or update my audience
with the latest news, topics and trends. Here is one that I'm recently sharing. Pretty interesting.
It's a testimonial to the power of social-media.



Twitter was one of the ways protesters shared information with the outside world








Thursday 11 February 2010 is the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution and it already looks as though it is going to be a major day of protests.

Read More...


If you can, follow me on Twitter ;)





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Sam Worthington - Hilarious Interview

Hilarious as Hell interview with Sam Worthington (My AV) on a Talk show. He's so casual he went on stage in shorts, sandals & brought wine with him,
throwing the F bomb everywhere.

MUST watch. Oh, it's a #Youtube video.




J.



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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Caprica (2009) IMDB Submission


My IMDB post has FINALLY been approved:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799862/usercomments-44


Here is my content (Review) that I've submitted to IMDB through my account. It is currently pending submission, but I have no doubts that it will be declined. So here is my review contents until it is approved by IMDB for publication.


The Caprica episode (S01E01) is well done as a pilot. Really, this episode is the exact same content as the DVD pilot release. That having been said, episode 01 gives a very substantive background of the very popular "Battlestar Galactica" series (both the original and the 2007 remake). It significantly applies most to the 2007 series. As is the trending plots of sci-fi of late, this series explores "Virtual" life or environment. On top of this, we are given much background on the Adama family line as well as their relationship with the unrevealed (in the Battlestar Galactica series) creator of the Cylons. To the most part, this first episode revolves around the popular topic of "Virtual" life and (as is expected) early life of the colonies, and the birth of the Cylons.

Over all, I rather enjoyed this episode. Although, it was not new material for myself or anyone that has already seen the DVD release of the Caprica pilot, the series seems very promising. As is the case with many pilots, episode 01 leaves us with a cliff-hanger so to ensure a follow by an audience (sci-fi community). I'm definitely going to keep watching for resolve as well as development.

I give this series 8 stars







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Lost and Found: Season 6 premiere of LOST

"LOST" Season 06 premiere
(02 Feb 2010)



The season premiere of the last season of ABC's 'Lost'. "Lost and Found", is the title I'm giving this entry. A play on words really. With this last season, somehow, our friends, villains, others et. al. will somehow find there way off the island to civilization, or will remain on the island which they call home.


Tonight (02 Feb 2010 -- Tuesday), we were given a very unique experience, as far as TV series go. In a very "J.J. Abrams'", fashion, we were given quite the treat. We began our voyage with 3 hours of "Lost" entertainment. Lost Season 06E00 (the summary of season 5), Episode 01 (LAX part 1) Episode 2 (LAX part 2) were the much anticipated episodes of all Lost fans. We were not disappointed for our long wait.

"J.J. Abrams'", is a very active Tweep (Twitter member/user). He has a firm grasp of the power of social media hubs. Something that many other corporations have yet to master. He is down with the people, and talking to the people (in general mostly vs. individually). Many of "J.J. Abrams'" productions are highly intense, with a mass audience.

A summary of tonight's Season 06 atmosphere.
We (Losties as fans have come to be known) have been introduced to many concepts since season 03. Many Losties, in fact, could not keep up with the different concepts being thrown at the audience. We very quickly moved from the shows pilot of "mystery" and "fantasy" into the realm of science fiction. This was a problem for "Losties" that had no science fiction under their belts.
The shows flavor, quickly shifted from episodes seen in present tense, to episodes from 3yrs into the future with reference to the past on the island; Present tense to future tense referencing the past. You can see how this can blow your mind out of the water. The big kicker was, that the audience was never aware that the episodes were in the past, being referenced from the future, until the last two episodes of season 3. Very, very hard to keep up with for many. But most of us held true.
Season 4 brought us right into the future, 3 yrs from the rescue of Oceanic flight 815 (If you're getting 'Lost', you're not alone. You really have to be a hard-core "Lostie" to understand.)

To shorten this up, at the end of season 05, we are left with the conundrum of our main characters being in the past (in the Dharma initiative in the early 1970's), but some also being in the future.
The last we saw, was Jack attempting to implode the Swan station with a nuclear device, in the hopes that it will correct time and all of their woes and worries of being in the island, will somehow disappear through some temporal paradox of some kind. The last few minutes of Season 05 we see the juicy. The explosion that "kills" our characters in the past, and the "Jacob" we've all been hearing about for 5 years, being killed. What a way to end a season.

-- Season 06:
Finally. The fun of it all. We begin our episode 1 (LAX part 1) with all of our characters (including old and deceased ones) aboard the original Oceanic flight 815. Yes! They did it. They changed the past and prevented the catastrophes endured on the island. Everyone accounted for. That should be the end of the story of All things 'Lost'.

Of course it wasn't. We still have the rest of the season to fill. A sci-fi concept introduced to the show ( by "J.J. Abrams'" is the entire "Quantum mechanics" seen in many of our popular sci-fi shows such as the entire 'Star Trek' franchise, Stargates (all of them) etc. The idea, that time is not linear. The past, present and future are not always in that order. Further, in this sci-fi concept, two events, seeming to be mutually exclusive, actually are not.

The big question we've all been waiting for.
Q: "Did they do it?! Did the prevent Oceanic flight 815 from crash landing on the island with that HUGE explosion?"
A: Yes, and no.

Don't be so linear in thought; So 3-Dimensional. We have experienced a temporal paradox. I'm not really sure which one, as far as sci-fi standards go. Funny that eh. Causality maybe. (Look it up in Star-Trek-o-pedia or something).

We find that despite all of our main characters aboard Oceanic flight 815, that the original characters (from the future) are still trapped on the island; Seemingly 3-1/2 yrs in the future from our opening scene on Oceanic flight 815. Try to keep up. It gets really complicated in 3 hours of tying up loose ends.

Situation 1: Jacob is dead, killed by Benjamin Linus, at the order of "John". It turns out that "John" is actually the Smoke Monster. But really, just Jacob's nemesis, who found "a loop hole".

Situation 2: Our main characters, still on the island find themselves at what appears to be "The hatch" from the "Swan station". This, shortly after destroying what would've been the "Swan Station" SOB! Not to worry. We learn from a dying Juliet (who should've died in the nuclear detonation (keep up, I'm covering a lot in a very short time)) that they are actually NOT in the past where that detonation occurred, and that the "blown hatch" they found, is indeed the rubble of the nuclear detonation they made. There were no Dharma members to be found. In fact, the only thing we see, is "Jacob". Yes. The one who died an hour earlier (from the perspective of the show.) Quickly:
Jacob's orders:
1. Get to the temple to revive Sayid.
2. Give the guitar to whoever/whatever they find in the temple.
3. Tell the "Other's" (new leader now) that he (Jacob) is dead.
These orders are followed to the letter. Everybody in the temple runs and pours ashes around the inside of the temple, so as to protect themselves from "John" A.K.A. "The smoke monster".
Flare warnings are shot to warn everybody on the island.

Huge discovery here. All characters have somehow converged into the present. That is, the present in a time line as seen by the audience (3-1/2 yrs after the original crash of Oceanic flight 815. You know. The one that arrived safely at LAX 3-1/2 yrs earlier.

Still with me? Final scene in the "present", "John" A.K.A. "The smoke monster" has a score to settle with Richard. Richard is referenced as someone who wore chains at sometime. Into the jungle they both go, where nobody knows.

Situation 3: We continue to see flashes of the cast landing at LAX, safe and sound. Many things play themselves out in the order we would've expected from day 1 of the series pilot. However, there is one exception. Jack's father and coffin, still are missing.

All things seem to be where we would expected them (in a very fragmented sort of way). Let's end the show, and wait for next week. The cliff hanger we've all come to know.
Something is missing. Oh. Sayid who died at the temple, suddenly comes to life with the words, "What's happened?" My guess is that it is actually "Jacob" now. Just a poke in the dark.

I'll come back and clean up, this is my basic skeletal structure for the premiere of season 06 "Lost". Will they be or have they been found? Come back next week and read some more of the juicy.

"Lost and Found: Season 6 premiere"

"Jerry Zambrano"





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