Author Archives: Leona

“Chan pa he chan ho!”

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I was just musing over how incredibly annoying ads are these days… and then Heineken’s ‘The Date’ concept burst onto the scene. (Well, OK… ‘my awareness’. It’s been on ‘the scene’ for a good while already).

It’s AWESOME.

It takes some kind of bollywood-meets-bond, meets circus, meets date-movie memeplex and manages to create something immersive and engaging from it all. The joins between the borrowed ideas are seamless, and the cross-cultural slant is just a breath of fresh air. The two characters at the center of the action move the world’s tiniest story forward, from one moment to the next, and the miniature plot unfolds within the tight temporal constraints yet nothing feels squeezed at all (in fact, the shorter edits of the ad work even better). So we accept this gorgeous epic, compactified as it is in every possible dimension and yet remaining as engaging as any well-made marathon flick… Continue reading →

Exhibit – history of television

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So, when trundling along between the movator lanes at the airport (San Francisco), what do you expect to see? OK, what do you totally not expect to see? A totally awesome exhibit on the history of television, that’s what… right smack dab in the middle of the thoroughfare between the security-heads and the gate you’re supposed to wait patiently at.

What are the frigging odds? That someone has sought to entertain – scratch that - educate the pieces of captive meat traipsing back and forth… this was an ode to the beleaguered traveller, I tell you. An oasis of mental stimulation… Continue reading →

Meet the Pike Piper

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Somewhere in Pike Place Market, in downtown Seattle, there is a lady who sells handmade ceramic ocarinas. She’s The Pike Piper, and apparently it’s some close friends of hers who make the actual things, and she (the musician) sells them in the market by trilling melodiously at passer-bys that look vaguely interested in her wares.

I bought a teensy one… debating wearing it around my neck and using it as one of these warning devices women are supposed to carry about with them. It has gone into my treasure trove of musical finds from random places. Though, I oughta learn the proper fingering.

Creative nieces – part 2

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I got my youngest niece Demelza a fashion design kit thing with bits of patterned paper and shapes you can cut out to make mini outfits (with mini hangers to hang them out on!).

I was so taken by the mini hangers I immediately thought it would be great to hang the paper clothes up in some kind of toy wardrobe. (yes, the barbie genes were in overdrive. you don’t even think you have them, and then WHAM). Anyhoo. My sis is the one with the craft / construction genes and, being a priceless sort of mum she saved one of the gift boxes and actually built a wee wardrobe for her kiddie – check it out after the jump.  Continue reading →

Creative nieces – part 1

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So my niece Jasmine – who is about 13 (I think? I literally am the world’s worst aunt… I’ve been given this info like a 100 times now)… anyhow Jas got her botany on one day and painted this:

I’m not an art critic, but seriously… there’s some serious composition skills here. Not to mention colour choices. I love the abstract, carefree feel of the whole thing.

Then there’s this:

… a delicate, careful, considered penciling in of some some plant or other… I don’t even know what. Love the line quality separating the lighter part from the darker portions.

 

One rootkit to rule us all…

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It’s a good thing that the EFF has waded into the battle against Carrier IQ – the weaselly company that makes even Smeagle of LOTR fame seem upright and forthcoming.

You can catch up on carriergate here, or if you are averse to long passages of reading you can also look at a summary here: Schneier on Security… and then after all that you too can ponder on how relatively calm the people with the most to lose are being.

Update: watch vid of US Senator Al Franken quizzing an FBI pointy-haired about its use of CarrierIQ data. The answer is just… well, preciousssss. Vid after the jump: Continue reading →

Quantifying Occupy

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In the ‘Supporting Occupy Toronto‘ segment tonight, Steve Paikin grilled – as nicely as pie – the young, well-meaning pinstriped lawyer dude who spoke in support of the Occupy Toronto movement. Other than the latter’s point about demonstrating solidarity with other Occupy movements (that I get), I quickly tired of uttered generics like “the larger issues“, “dialogue“, “change“, blah blah blah. No amount of prodding would bring about any further elucidation.

And y’know, it’s this inability to consistently and categorically state its mission that is one of the perplexing things about the Occupy movement. For you see, it had a mission, but the mass media was sufficiently underwhelmed by it that it spun an entirely new mythology for the whole thing. One that even the protesters themselves might have bought into. After all, the media (and the rest of us left-leaning 99%-ers) had a vision where the Occupiers themselves did not – and a vision is how you instantiate a reality, folks… Continue reading →

That’s me in the boardroom…

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“…that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion…”

REM lyrics are appropriate, for I HAVE lost my religion. The eerily well-oiled machine that is my employer has decided that it will save a fair bit of coin by carrying out training in, get this, a virtual SECOND LIFE campus. Continue reading →

PETMAN: Terminator’s great great grandaddy

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So botjunkie have been subsumed by the IEEE and I didn’t know! Shame on me for not visiting them more often. But seriously… do you not quake in your boots when you behold this (even just a little bit?!!):

Don’t forget to check out their new automaton blog here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics