quotes

As Alexander Pope said, a little learning is a dangerous thing.

Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: “Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.” And Chaucer complained “the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”

from article Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig

Have you heard?

They found an earthlike planet! In the Gliese 581 system which is about 20.5 light years away from the solar system. And it’s the closest thing to earth the scientists have ever discovered! It supports liquid water so think of the possibilities..there could very well be intellectual life out there on that planet! This is the coolest ever!

This is an image of the earth released by NASA in Dec.1968, but imagine there’s another one of those out there in space!
Don’t believe me?? it’s in the news

First read about it at Dilbert’s blog, of course he had something funny to say.

Untitled

found here

Pics

mushroom and cheese, yum!

rose.

flower.

more flower.

a tree.

s-l-o-o-o-w-w-w-o

feeling slow/lazy these days, my foot still hurts a little though i don’t limp anymore.

The Namesake is a good movie, worth seeing.

finally finished this book called Say Uncle by Eric Shaw Quinn. bought it at a yard sale in west hollywood for two bucks, later found out that it’s autographed by the author. the book itself is ..okay. there’s very little conflicts and no hardship in the story, doesn’t seem real. like most fictions, it’s too ideal to learn anything from ..offers no real emotions/struggles that touch your heart. dialog is good, somewhat clever, some chapters are obviously trying to create a situation comedy scene where everybody falls on top of each other with cake on the face, but there’s a reason why tv does better job at it ..some stuff is only funny when it’s visual. mr Quinn is probably better off writing sit-com scripts.

300

I finally saw the movie today. Did i like it? I did actually. Some of my friends saw it and said pretty much the same thing about it - good visuals but a weak plot.

Well I am a visual person myself I could live on just the “pretty stuff” alone so a movie with good visuals is a good movie to me. They were right this movie is as visual as you can get, rich colors, dramatic lightings, characteristic looking actors, great custom design, beautiful compositions. If you’ve seen Sin City then you’d know Frank Miller and know what I’m talking about. Even though 300 is colored, they kept it very simple to fit the theme and the historical background, earthy tones, all shades of brown and gold, bronze, light and dark, all the calm mellow colors combine to creative a perfect stage for 300 flying red capes shedding enemies’ blood and the touch of blue in their eyes. Lighting was amazing! especially the scene where the boy battles the wild wolf on a snowy night with the snow falling. I thought all the actors had the right looks and body for their characters, the king, the queen’s dark long beautiful hair.. also loved the oracle girl’s dance it was beautiful. The warriors’ capes, armers, shields, women’s flowy garments simple yet elegant, the Persian king and his gurls were the best, layered with luxuries and mysteries, exotic. Pause at anytime during the movie you have yourself a perfectly shot picture with all the visual elements in a perfectly balanced composition.

So the plot was plain and straight forward, but I kinda feel that keeping it simple was a smart move for a movie with so much for the eyes. Plus it’s simple yet powerful, there’s love, bravery, hatred, loyalty, politics. What more could you ask for?

I'm typical!

When asked to pick a random number between 1 and 20, I said 17 and was called 'typical'. Though I always hated being labeled “typical” or “regular” or anything of that sort, but I guess this time I am. ..before you look, do the same thing, pick a number between 1 and 20… you ready? no cheating.. pick a number and go!

Everyone Deserves Music

Spearhead & Michael Franti sing “everyone deserves music, even our worst enemies, they deserve music, sweet music..” ..how nice of them!


Einstein & Faith
By WALTER ISAACSON, Time, Thursday, Apr. 05, 2007

Also check out Dilbert’s blog on April 10, 2007
great articles.. great minds think alike.. =P

Wow, it has been a while huh?

Since my last blog, lots happened, ..let’s see, friday I started week #9 on the schedule and ran 3 miles, but somehow I twisted my right foot and it started hurting when I walked; by saturday it got worse.

another day..

I ran 2.75miles at 5mph today.

Recently I started reading my History of Graphic Design text book from college. Art history in general fascinates me, but not art history classes. I remember sitting in the back of the lecture hall in this class tracing random type faces from this book instead of paying attention, while of course my far more talented classmates doodling the cartoon portraits of the professor. What I got out of that class was a letter grade “B” and the thought of “maybe I will read this book someday” and that someday had finally arrived.

Saw an old typewriter today when I past by this art gallery, just thought that it’s just impossible to have 'writer’s block' if you just use an old typewriter instead of a computer - it would be so much fun typing on that thing you wouldn’t wanna stop! And even better you can use the lack of back space key as an excuse to roll perfectly good paper into balls and practice 3 pointers with your trash can.