Notes on Acting

Please do not outlaw spam. It is full of thoughtful words like these:

Buffy Freeman writes:

>Tricia, Actors are the opposite of people

>The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it… It’s a great outlet. I’m not really sure who I am-it seems I change every day.

>{ad for viagra removed]}

>Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture.

LaShawn Milburn replies:

>Grosvenor, Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

>Move decisions out to the Cabinet and agencies. Strengthen them by moving responsibility, authority, and accountability their direction.

>{Viagra and Cialis ad removed}

>Back of every achievement is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law.

Ain’t it interesting stuff?

iChat Robot

NSLog() asks “If you could have an Eliza application in your chat app, would you use it?”

I say emphatically yes! If you don’t know Eliza is the infamous “A.I.” program that passed the Turing Test, the premise of which is, “if a human cannot distinguish the program from a human, then the program can be deemed ‘intelligent’.” Of course, the premise is flawed, but Eliza and its ilk are great fun — they are good at creating mindless small talk, not to mention being bang-up Freudian philosophers in a pinch.

Anyway, if I could have an AI program answer my chats when I was away I’d be quite pleased. Plugin for iChat, anyone?

Creating Themes for MacOSX

I’ve been checking out the Mac OSX theming scene for a while; there’s something appealing about customizing the look and feel of your computer, but it has some caveats: it’s generallly a bit difficult to develop, and it isn’t technically supported by the operating system.

When MacThemes.net announced a contest to create User Interface theme mockups (no technical expertise required), I decided to give it a go: MacThemes.net | Contest: Pencil Neck (you can go there and vote now!).

UPDATE:

So I didn’t win, but the winners (for the most part) were pretty cool. I still want to see my theme actualized…
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Spartan

Just saw Spartan, David Mamet’s new film starring Val Kilmer. It totally took me by surprise — not only the movie, but the fact it even existed. It completely flew under my radar.

I’m glad I saw it — very cerebral, Tom Clancy-esque thriller with all the usual Mamet twists and turns and double cross. Kilmer’s everyman superhero is fun to watch, to me he embues a personality that sometimes escapes Mamet leading men (like Campbell Scott in spanish prisoner — a tad wooden, don’tchathink?).

I think there were more twists in this one than Heist and Spanish Prisoner combined — practically every scene is loaded with a surprise. What’s interesting though is that the central message of the film, if there is one, isn’t the usual “You Can’t Trust Anyone” that seems to result from all the double crosses. There’s a resonating theme of the reward of loyalty and truthfulness. Valor, or Val-or. Sure, it’s undercut by the never ending cycle of backstabbers, but the few who stay true are the heroes of the film.

Go see it, wait out the first 15 minutes or so until your brain wraps around the dialogue and plot, and enjoy…

downgrade your phone now!

CK over at 3650 and a 12-inchis getting an offer to tradein his Nokia 3650 for a nokia 3200 or other phone — there’s apparently a lot of this going around, I’ve seen a bunch of people being offered an “upgrade” from their Sony Ericcson t68i, to a phone with *fewer* features.

Apparently it has something to do with AT&T changing the network frequency that their phones operate on… Which seems odd.

The only thing I can say about the Nokia 3200 is that its EDGE-capable, which is AT&T’s 2.5g high speed data network. It’s not quite broadband, but it’s MUCH better than the modem-slow speeds of GPRS. Unfortunately the 3200 doesn’t have bluetooth, which sucks, and AT&T still doesn’t have an unlimited data plan, which means that if you’re like me and you have to go two weeks without cable, you’re going to rack up quite a bill