Anxiety healing

By the same author as the book below, here is an excellent article on stress and anxiety.

Contest, win an e-book!

I consider EmoTrance to be surely the most important spiritual breakthrough this millennium so far.
If you are already aware of the older technology EFT (emofree.com), then EmoTrance is the next step.
It is not so much a therapy as it is a whole, workable philosophy about how to handle the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) energies surrounding us and our bodies, which have huge impact on our emotions and lives. The philosophy has changed my life in a few weeks.
So I have contacted Silvia Hartmann, the inventor and the author, and purchased twenty licences to distribute her book Oceans of Energy in e-book form, a 40-dollar value, to selected readers.
What you have to do to enter the draw is write in an email a couple sentences on what you like best in this blog (to give me feedback for future developments), and answer this question in one sentence: What is EmoTrance? (to make sure the winners are people who will actually read the book).
The winners get notice directly. Deadline is June 30.

King Kong

If nothing else proves an ecclectic taste, this will: a rave review of Dangerous Liaisons, followed by a rave review of King Kong!

Once is a while I get to say it: Fantastic visuals, and a gripping story.

I am not done with the film yet, but the sequence where Kong fights the T-rexes for WhazFace was just so astonishing I had to blog something. Seriously. I can't begin to fathom the kind of work going into making something like that.

I only saw it now because I can't sit three hours in a cinema these days. And further delayed by the film being in great demand at my online DVD rental service. So I finally just broke down and bought it.

Update: I am watching the extensive making-of documentaries on the second disc, and it is certainly not less impressive. The miniature they made of the ship Venture, for instance, is fantastic. And they recorded around 50,000 different sound effects for the movie!

"Dangerous Liaisons", movie review

Dangerous Liaisons

I am not often very interested in stories taking place in pre-industrial times. I like technology too much, and I find that human interactions without even a telephone are just too limited. But there are exceptions, for instance Dangerous Liaisons, which is just a wonderful story.

It is based on a novel of the same title written and taking place in France before the revolution, in the highly decadent upper class society. The same story was filmed at the same time in another very good movie, Valmont.

Apart from beautiful cinematography and great acting, the story is gripping and has wonderful characters, particularly the two main characters (played by Glenn Close and John Malkovich) who are perhaps the best nasty characters in any story ever. They are just really slimy. And yet they they can feel love and regret, which of course are weaknesses in really nasty people, and this leads to their downfall.

Having Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman as some of their innocent victims does not hurt either. (Warning, if you don't like the prospect of Uma Thurman topless, don't watch this one.)

It was many years since I saw it in the cinema, I was curious if it held up. It did. Warmly recommended.

A cup?

When I go to Google today, there is mention, very prominently, of some "World Cup". Apparently I am supposed to know what that is.

Film review: The Goblet of Fire

Okay, I just watched Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire.

--SPOILERS--

Like I have said about a great many films by now:
wonderful visuals, but...

I am afraid I just found it unrealistic. While I have no trouble believing in dragons and transformation spells, several things just rubbed me the wrong way. The main one is the big contest itself. Apparently we are to believe that the leaders of a great school, supposedly responsible and good people, will host a contest, a glorified sports event, where teenage students are in imminent mortal danger, and do in fact die?

Not only that, but they will kidnap innocent kids at fourteen, who have NOT signed up for it, and bind them with chains deep under a lake, only to survive if the "champions" are skillful and lucky enough? (Two of them actually only survived because Harry was willing to give his own life if needed.)

And not only that, but after a student finally dies, not one student, not one parent, stands up and says: "enough, you have maliciously or recklessly killed this boy. This is not the kind of school I signed up for, we are leaving. Expect our last cheque to bounce."

Not only that, the school board knows that Harry did not sign himself up for the contest, and yet they force him to go through with it, even though he is not ready or old enough by a long stretch, and is highly likely to die.

I say pooh. Either the filmmakers botched it up bad and left out some sorely needed explanations, or Rowling wrote a pretty bad book there.

A Zeiss lens?

Carl Zeiss lenses have a well-deserved reputation for being some of the very, very best lenses in the world.

So when I saw that the highly interesting new digital SLR from Sony has several lenses from Zeiss, I got a bit excited. I am a sucker for quality.

Then came the disappointment: I am informed that for years, many lenses branded Zeiss are in fact not made by Zeiss. In fact they are not even designed by Zeiss. They just licenced the name.

Many people will doubtless inform me that this kind of thing goes on all the time, and has been always. And I have probably been aware that it does, in some areas I have not cared about.

But in my mind, this is simply a swindle. If Zeiss did not design the lens, did not build it, does not supervise it, how in the world can it be sold as a "Zeiss lens"? Seriously.

People see it, they think Carl Zeiss in Germany built it, this gives them confidence to buy the lens. But the Zeiss factory and engineers in Germany have never seen the lens. This is a swindle. I don't care how common it is, it is not honest.

Update:
This practice has been going on in the photo industry for decades, even with these high-end names. Do you remember the compact rangefinder put out in the late 70s by "Leica?" It was actually manufactured by Minolta. As I recall from a test report at the time, it had typical Japanese-quality workmanship for the time, using plastic parts where genuine Leicas had metal, and a black "professional" finish that easily rubbed off.

I'm reminded of an anecdote about Abrahan Lincoln who asked the question of someone, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" When given the abswer, "Five," he replied , "No, the dog still has only four legs; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

Cheers, Tedski

Perfectionism

... I am trying to become not a perfectionist... because that is such a flaw...
Can you be perfect if you're a perfectionist?
Can you be perfect if you know you are?

Anyway, that's just a bit of fun. I believe that perfection is way overrated. What matters is the presence of qualities, not the absence of flaws.

My first pamphlet

I just found a copy of the first pamphlet I made for myself as a painter, almost twenty years ago. This was the cover, which I am still very happy with.

Adam Engst on Copyright

I have long been a proponent of a laid-back attitude to copyright. I think to tight-fisted an approach to it stops the healthy flow of culture, and worse, it does not even do much for the finances of the owner.

So I am pleased to see that the excellent tech/Mac writer Adam Engst of TidBITS has written a nice article about a very interesting book on the subject: Darknet.

The Royal Arms Freehouse

This is the pub conveniently located right at the end (both ends) of the track we walked in the woods.

Silhouette and Ducks

Ducks and Sunset by James Ryan.

Green Silhouette by yours truly.

I am ashamed I overlooked the ducks, but on the other hand I am really pleased with the Green Silhouette picture. I like the composition.