Quite a long weekend.

It culminated on Sunday with the lecture given by the Dalai Lama at my alma mater, Rutgers.

I also attended a wedding the same night; quite a spectrum of events to absorb in one day.

I would like to preface by stating that I am an atheist.  I am attracted to Buddhism not for the spiritual/religious aspect of it, but rather the philosophical/moral aspect and the message of the Dalai Lama, one of peace, compassion, acceptance, and altruism without exception.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from this lecture; I wasn't sure why I plopped down $30 for the tickets.  I was first formally introduced to Buddhism in my Chinese Civ. class by a Dr. Peter Li (who, in retrospect, reminds me a lot of the Dalai Lama in mannerisms, speech, and approach).  As I mentioned, I'm an atheist and thus, Buddhism, to me, is not so much a religion as it is a philosophy of living.

Having been removed from that academic environment, I've been slacking in terms of my continued studies of Buddhism.  To that effect, I wasn't sure that there would be any purpose or value in going to this event.  Was it just to satisfy my ego?  Bragging rights?  I don't know, but I felt that I had to go, being that this might be a <cliché>once in a lifetime chance</cliché>.

The day began early for us as we took the scenic route to Rutgers (really scenic).  As we waited in the stadium, I found that I was quite surprised at the number of people that showed up (I'm not quite sure why, as I knew that the lecture was sold out).  It's an awesome sight to see so many people congregate in one place for a non-sporting event.  What struck Sandy and I the most was the incredible diversity of the group that was present.  In our day to day lives, I think that most people rarely deal with such a diverse population (be it your classroom or you workplace).

Aside: The population of Rutgers, and New Jersey in general, is incredibly diverse.  I recall sitting outside, waiting for my classes to start and watching as people of all races, cultural backgrounds, and religious beliefs passed by.  What's amazing is the level of acceptance demonstrated by everyone.  I mean, yeah, we had our share of bad apples (I recall some anti-semetic graffiti), but for the most part, the Rutgers student body is bountiful in its cultural and racial differences.

It was simply amazing to witness the event; as 10:40 arrived, the entire crowd of thousands of people sat in silence, focused completely on the presence of a single man.  The Dalai Lama himself is a simple man of simple words and simple ways.  He began by addressing the crowd in Tiebetan and had a translator translate his greeting.

For the remainder of the lecture, the Dalai Lama addressed us in English, only turning to his translator for a few terms here and there.  The lecture had a very informal feel to it.  In speech and mannerisms, we, his audience, were just as "old acquaintances".  I half expected a much more formal, more serious tone to his lecture.  Okay, actually, I fully expected it to be a very stale lecture.  To my surprise, the entire stadium would occasionally erupt with warm laughter as the Dalai Lama made small jokes throughout his speech.

The subject of the lecture itself contained nothing earth shattering (I won't bore you with a transcript of what was said, you can catch that from the videos); nothing that you or I haven't thought of before.  In fact, when Igor asked me what I had learned from the lecture, I struggled to figure out what exactly moved me so much? Why should it matter that these views were being conveyed to us by this man?  I thought deeply about this after the lecture and today as well and I think the reason it was such a moving speech (yes, I teared up at one point) was the absolute conviction with which he delivered his message; one full of compassion, understanding, acceptance, and altruism.  The very embodiment of the Buddhist philosophy.  Yes, I found myself moved to tears as I sat there listening to his views, in complete silence, along with 40,000 of my brothers and sisters.

What made the entire experience even more enriching is that you can only truly realize how down-to-earth and "everyman" the Dalai Lama is if you see him, observe his mannerisms, and listen to his speech.  He made it plain and clear that he is just like everyone of us and no different.  He has his moments when he suffers from afflictive emotions such as anger and jealousy.  He doesn't claim to know all of the answers; in fact, he states the opposite quite frankly.  When asked about this thoughts about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he offered his views, but added a footnote that since his history of the region and the background of the two groups was insufficient, he was incapable of providing us with The Answer. 

The appeal of his message, and of Buddhism as a whole, I think, is the idea that there is hope for humanity.  No, there is hope for all sentient beings to live in peace and contentment.  And the solution lies not in some mystical god who works in mysterious ways, not in some relic, not in some religion, but in each of us.  The fate of this Earth lies in our own hands and we can only truly achieve peace through education, self cultivation (be it spiritual or otherwise),  compassion, and shedding our ignorance inherent in perception (as opposed to reality).

Igor asked whether I felt that this was a religious experience or an intellectual experience.  In reality, it was neither.  It was a humanistic experience that occurs but rarely in our lifetimes.

I highly recommend watching the video recap of the lecture (linked off of the Rutgers site above).  And if you should ever get the chance to see him in person, even if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Black, Caucasian, Americn Indian, or Martian , I can only advise that you do not miss the chance as he is truly an extraordinary human being, whether he thinks so or not.

Over the weekend, I was looking for some nice .Net based, open source web based photo gallery applications.

There are only a small handful of such products, including nGallery and Community Server (which uses nGallery).

On the other hand, one of the slickest and most feature rich web based photo management apps, Alex King's Photos 4.1, is built on PHP and MySQL.  While Alex mentions that it's not a gallery app, it's simple to imagine that it could be with only a few small modifications.

In general, the entire .Net culture of create-and-profit is disheartening, considering the wide open community built around alternative technologies like PHP, MySQL, Perl, and so on.  Part of this is Microsoft's fault for not releasing free, full featured tools necessary to build the applications.  Yes, you could build ASP.Net web apps using only the SDK and command line tools, but then you increase the barrier of entry by relegating the technology to only the diehard nerds.

My hope is that, with the release of the Express line of tools and new development frameworks (like Atlas), we will see more open source tools that don't suck in the next .Net generation.

I'm currently debating on whether it's worth my time creating a web based photo management/gallery application (that doesn't suck) using .Net 2.0 and Atlas or WPF/E, which would limit the availability.  Any votes?

On a related note, this month's Wired mag contains an interview with Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly publishing fame).  As summarized by Stephen Levy, the "new Net" is built upon "a philosophy of participation and sharing and a sense that collective action will inevitabley accrue to the greater good." 

When asked to identify his passion with only three words, O'Reilly responded: "Harnessing collective intelligence."  I like to think that Microsoft is catching on and will truly lead us into the pack rather than away from the pack like the lone wolf that is sure to struggle without the support of his pack.  The vision that I see coming out of Redmond with this new generation of technologies is very promising in that respect.  And for that, we should be greatful and excited.  I hope that many of the incredibly talented developers out there who've traditionally shunned Microsoft technologies will give them a shot this time around.  There's just some really incredible free tools on the horizon that will enable developers to create the next generation of web based tools.

I've been in a rather long debate with my co-worker, Igor, about the American public education system. 

Igor, being the father of a 9 year old and me, being the husband of a fourth grade school teacher.  This is not to mention the fact that I'm only 6 years removed from high school.  So we both have very strong feelings on this subject and justifications for what we believe.

While Igor and I agree that the American public educational system is not working the way it should and that the American public, in general, undervalues the importance of education ("it is not a first class occupation"), we have a few disagreements on certain areas.  One contention that Igor has is that he sees the trend of integration of all levels of students into one classroom as being a negative one.  He offers that kids should be broken out into different classes based on their proven academic performance.  In other words, they should be tested, prodded, and sorted until we have a clear representation of who's the smartest and who has no hope. 

He proposed the idea that what we are really dealing with is a linear programming problem.  Given that you only have n amount of resources and given a model (a set of equations) for the amount of returns you would get by investing in given class (x₁, x₂, x₃,...x_n), you should obviously invest the most in the students that give the highest returns.  Certainly, as a public educational system, we can't deny the lower level students.  But in Igor's view, new books should go to the best students.  The best teachers should be allotted to the highest level students.  To the rest, we hold their hands and help them through high school and just hand them a piece of paper if they should make it.

A parallel debate that we've had is whether it is okay to sacrifice a few for the greater good of the whole.  In discussing the Three Gorges Dam in China, Igor said that it was unacceptable to force the farmers and villagers at the site of dam (and upstream of the dam) to move from their homes.  According to Wikipedia, up to as many as 1.9 million people will eventually be displaced.  Igor is one of those guys that invoke's Hitler any time you try to have a discussion with him His argument being that Hitler had convinced the German people that the sacrifice of the Jews was acceptable for the greater good of the Aryan race (or something like that).  His view is that you can never accept sacrificing the rights of the few for the whole.

In the case of China, I don't think Igor's analogy is very good.  To begin with, to my knowledge, people are not being killed by the millions if they refuse to evacuate.  In addition, there is a tangible benefit to everyone, mainly better flood control (which causes billions of dollars of damage to property and crops, thousands of lost lives, and millions of displaced people anyways), an abundant source of clean, cheap electricity (necessary for a developing nation),  and you can even consider tourism to the region to be a source of income for the otherwise rural population.  All this for the sacrifice of displacing (not murdering or exterminating) a mere .01% of the population.  But to me, this is a necessary sacrifice for a population that is nearly 800 times (1.5 billion) the displaced population.  China needs the cheap, clean electricity.  China needs to have control over that fertile land around the river for the sake of improving industry and agriculture.  Certainly, there are unanswered questions regarding the long term viability of the dam including the effects of soot build up, but to me, the benefits far outweigh the negatives and justifies the government's right of the displacement of those people.

(I could spend forever writing on the topic of above, including how emminent domain helped build our transportation network that was essential to the growth of the United States as a nation.  However, that is a post for another day.)

So you see, Igor counters that integration, in the hopes of giving all students a chance to succeed in the same environment, sacrifices the good of a few, the brightest students, for the better of the whole, all of the other students.  He feels that the best teachers and the best materials should go to the smartest kids, namely his.

Of course it's a totally ridiculous statement.  It's like saying that, given 10 obese children, eight of which are dangerously so, a weight loss counselor should focus most of her efforts on the two that are not dangerously obese.  Instead of working with them simultaneously so that the somewhat obese children can help the dangerously obese children in coping and developing good eating habits, we should seperate them and create a counseling group for the somewhat obese kids and one for the dangerously obese kids.  Then we assign our best diet and weight loss counselor to the somewhat obese kids.  Since these kids have the best chance of attaining a normal weight, we'll also put our best chefs on their meal staff so they get the best tasting, low fat, ultra-healthy meals.  In addition, we'll apportion most of the time in the exercise room, of which we only have one, to these kids since if they get enough exercise, they'll have a better chance of attaining a normal weight.  On the other hand, since most of our finite resources are going towards the slightly obese children, there aren't enough for the majority of the kids, the dangerously obese kids, the kids that need the most help.  Instead, we assign a mediocre counselor to the dangerously obese kids and underfund her as well.  Since our best/most skilled chefs are preparing courses for the slightly obese children, our most obese children end up with a menu that's not so appetizing, which in turn, causes them to regress and try to sneak in Twinkies.  Since the exercise room is scheduled for the slighly obese kids most of the time, the dangerously obese kids don't get to spend enough time exercising.  Of course this is an absolutely ludicrous idea; it's clear that the most help should go into the dangerously obese kids in this situation and that having both types of kids in the same group can have a positive effect.  Why should it be any different with our school system?

What Igor doesn't see is how this is, in reality, the sacrifice of many for the good of a few, which, in my opinion, is even more unacceptable than sacrificing a few for the greater good of the whole.

To further aggrevate the situation, the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment showed that people are easily absorbed into the roles and labels with which they are assigned.  After the experiment was ended abruptly, as both "prisoners" and "gaurds" groups were falling too deeply into their assigned roles, it was concluded that:

"the results of the experiment are said to support situational attributions of behavior rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed to entail that the situation caused the participants' behavior rather than anything inherent in their individual personalities"

In addition to this, it is important to note that:

"The group was divided in half at random into an equal group of 'prisoners' and 'guards'.  Interestingly, prisoners later said they thought the guards had been chosen for their larger physical size, but in reality they had been picked by a fair coin toss and there was no objective difference in stature between the two groups."

What does this mean?  If you segregate kids into honors and regular course levels, you are inherently and implicitly labeling them as being either "smart" or "stupid".  I bolded the last sentence because it shows that people have the tendency, then, to develop an inferiority complex (or rather project superiority upon another group), even if the decision on who goes to the "smart" and "stupid" groups is a completely arbitrary one.

I've been following a program on one of the public broadcasting channels in our area titled The College Track.  You can see it right on in the subtitle of this series: "America's Sorting Machine"; this is what our current educational system is.  Whether Igor likes it or not, this country is made of people of all walks of life, all races, all different types of cultural backgrounds, and all types of values.   As we move forward, to succeed as a country, we need to improve the educational level of everyone.  The proposal that we dedicate our best resources to the few that we think can acheive great academic feats is a proposal to essentially sacrifice the chances of those we think are inferior, academically.

In looking back at my own life, I can see how this panned out.  Igor likes to rag on me about my 1400 SAT score (650v/750m; 90^th and 98^th percentile, respectively) whereas his "hopeless" daughter got a 1460.  He rags on me because, according to my demographics, I should have gotten much higher.  I like to inform him that my sister did indeed get a 1580 (combined highest) and attended Wharton (not that I seriously place a lot of value in this school as it was academically worthless in my opinion, but Igor is one of those guys that believes in names and prestige).

This morning, as I was discussing this with my wife, I finally realized one major factor in why, given that both my sister and I are of roughly equal intelligence levels, I would do so "poorly" on the SATs.  At this point, I need to preface this with the fact that I think the SAT is worthless as a method of measuring a student's capabilities, but that's a matter for another post.

In any case, when we first moved to East Brunswick from Bogota (New Jersey, not Colombia), I was in the 8^th grade and she was in the 6^th.  Because the East Brunswick school system had no idea how I would perform in their curriculum, even though my grades from Bogota were all excellent, I was placed in average level courses as a process of the sorting system.  At the grade school level, where my sister started, this has less of an effect as the kids are essentially all in the same class anyways.  Essentially, she had a chance to use the sorting machine to her advantage by virtue of a longer sorting process.

On the other hand, I can recall my first day of high school chem.  Regular chem.  By all accounts, I did not feel that I belonged in regular chem.  I looked at our textbooks and at the stack of brand new books that were being allotted to the honors chem class and a fire just burned inside of me.  I felt that I deserved those books as much as those other kids.  (Eventually, I did convince the administration to put me into chem. honors).

When you first sign up at Amazon, Amazon has no idea of what type of music you're interested in.  But as time passes and you buy more CDs, their software analyzes your purchases and the purchases of others that purchased the same items that you did and uses this data to build a prediction model of what you'll probably like.  It takes time for this process to work.  If your first CD is a Britney Spears CD for your 12 y/o sister (fictional), then Amazon's algorithm assumes that you'll have similar tastes to other 12 y/o females and recommend music along the lines of Mrs. Spears-Federline (luckily, you can uncheck what you don't want to use for generating recommendations ).  However, given enough time and purchases, the model becomes increasingly more accurate and actually mirrors your taste in music.  You'll log on and find that Amazon will recommend many of the CDs that you already own and artists that you're interested in.  The key is that it takes time for the process of sorting to work.  And the pivotal time in the process, in regards to education, is the time before high school as students become more annonymous and harder to sort properly in a large population.

Whereas my sister had a window of three years, I only had a window of one.  Thus I initially ended up in the "normal" classes for a few years and had to have my mom intervene with my guidance counselors to get me to the higher level classes (at the beginning at least).  I had a shorter window to claw my way through the machinery and prove to the system that I was capable (by the time I graduated, I had taken three AP courses and received a total of 12 college credits for successfully passing the exams and I was A/B+ student).

In the Han Fei Tzu, the Prince of Han writes:

"There is not one naturally straight arrow or naturally round piece of wood in a hundred generations, and yet in every generation, people ride carriages and shoot birds.  Why?  Because of the application of the methods of straightening and bending.  Although there is a naturally straight arrow or a naturally round piece of wood [once in a hundred generations] which does not depend on any straightening or bending, the skilled workman does not value it.  Why?  Because it is not just one person who wishes to ride and not just one shot that the archer wishes to shoot.  Similarly, the enlightened ruler does not value people who are naturally good and who do not depend on reward and punishment.  Why?  Because the laws of the state must not be neglected and the government is not for only one man.  Therefore, the ruler who has the technique does not follow the good that happens by chance, but practices the way of necessity."^*

As we move towards a future that will increasingly depend on a skilled, highly educated population, it is becoming more and more unacceptable to create this type of class rift and leave behind the many for the few.  Why?  Because it is not only a few jobs that will require highly skilled, highly educated workers; most jobs in the coming decades will require education beyond the high school level as we see our manufacturing jobs offshored.  There are only a few students that are naturally talented and require little assistance to succeed.  But to allot more of the public's resources to the few while relegating the rest to an "average" experience, we are placing value on the naturally round piece of wood instead of honing our ability to shape wood so that all may benefit.

^* Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963, p.253

"Kojima: - I'm not a game producer because I want to make money - I just want to MAKE something. There weren't any good producers at the time I was looking for one, so I did it myself. I live and breathe for gaming, and if my job was just to lead a company meeting or something, I would never ever do it."

I am often asked, when I go in for interviews, what my goals are for the next 5, next 10 years. I think what these interviewers are really looking for is a reply like:

"Well, I hope to work on some certifications, continue my education as a developer, and work on project management at some point, blah, blah..."

Oddly, working as a project manager has never crossed my mind as a serious possibility. I can't even fathom the idea (at least at this point in my career) that I'd move away from the code, away from the act of creation.

My mother always asks why I'm crazy and don't go to/stick with big companies like JPMorganChase or Merrill Lynch, where I can make almost double what I'm making now. I think part of that is because I like to create things. When you go to companies like that, you don't create so much as do things. Yeah, I guess I could always satisfy my Lego-maniac side on my own time, but when you work in NYC, the commute really eats into your free time.

As Robin James Adams once wrote in his excellent blog post/essay:

"Programming is, above all, a creation act. In this sense, writing a good program is not so very different from designing a usable interface, or producing an aesthetic work of art, or writing a clearly articulated essay, or any of the other myriad creation acts humans delight in...For the programmer essentially works with concepts alone, he builds abstractions that have no real basis in reality."

And that is truly what I enjoy about programming and software development: the idea that I am creating some piece of code that someone finds useful. It is for this reason that I find that it is not nearly as satsifying working in the product space (i.e. working with SharePoint, Plumtree Portal, etc.).

"Kojima: - The technological development is also going so fast now. If you keep away from the development team for a period of time, you can't just pop back in. You just don't know what they're talking about. That's why I can never leave the development phase of games."

When I first arrived here at Immedient, I had a talk with one of my then co-workers, Kent Brown, about his design philosophy and his approach to software. It had arisen out of a discussion about Rockford Lhotka's CSLA framework, which he chose to build upon for a project that I was shadowing on. Kent explained to me that he had chosen this framework to build from because Rocky seemed like he was very close to the code; Rocky had an understanding of the real problems and challenges that developers face when building applications. I had just come from my horrible experience at Factiva where I had to deal with a so-called "architect" who was, to me, no more than a one time developer who now focused more on the business than on the technology, essentially, a manager. It was refreshing to hear Kent's perspective, though, on the subject of being an architect.

His sentiment mirrored the words of Mr. Kojima: you must always be deep in the code and the technologies with which you choose to build your creations with. Otherwise, you risk losing touch with the act of building, the act of creation and all of the difficulties and joy that go along with it. Kent also emphasized that he felt that one could not be a successful architect without knowing the technology inside and out since then there would be no base from which to design; any design born of such circumstances is doomed to failure. Such was the case with John, the self proclaimed "architect" at Factiva who had never in his days developed a single ASP.Net application and somehow ended up as our architect on this project, responsible for making technical design decisions regarding a technology with which he had no foundation in apart from a few introductory classes.

In The Pragmatic Programmer, Hunt and Thomas offer this as tip #8:

"Invest Regularly in Your Knowledge Portfolio"

Extrapolating on this, they add that, as developers, we should always try to:

• Learn at least one new language every year.
• Read a technical book each quarter.
• Read nontechnical books, too.
• Take classes.
• ...
• Stay current.
• Get wired.

ASP.Net is not even 4 years old yet and we are on the verge of an entirely new paradigm in developing web based applications with ASP.Net 2.0 (re:Atlas; okay, not entirely new, but just incredibly painstaking and difficult before). Just as Kojima points out in the game development space, in the web/desktop applications space, the technologies change so rapidly nowadays that, as developers, we really have to keep our nose to the grindestones and hold close to ourselves the passion for creation and self improvement.

I think Kojima's words and my recent work with the beta bits of .Net 2.0 and VS2005 have helped reinforce in my mind that it's okay to not want to head towards a management career path

Via Gaming-Age Forums:

"What non-gimmick games would benefit from the Revolution controller?"

Classic reply:

"Baseball - you'll get to see how much you suck at baseball

First person quarterback - you'll get to see how much you suck at football

Fighting game - you'll get to see how much you suck at fighting

Grand Theft Auto... now you can actually perform the shanking motion when you kill people before jacking their cars

Pancake/skillet/burger flipping simulation - a job training sim for many gamers

Sweeping/farming/window washing simulation - it becomes a job training game for other gamers

(mature) shuffle board

casino games

(mature) sex trainer"

I'm not a big fan of what I would call mainstream music (top 40's, stuff on the radio or MTV). The last mainstream CD that I purchased was probably Life for Rent by Dido (she's got a great voice). And perhaps my least favorite music genre is mainstream rap/hip-hop. I mean, how many times can you rap about shooting people, bling-bling, dubs, hos, and your homeboys before it just gets tiring?

The scary thing is that when I try to apply any logic to this, it seems like the current fad will never die. I mean, how long have people been writing songs and poetry about love?

Anyways, so as I was flipping through the channels this morning while eating my oatmeal (yeah, I know, I sound like such an old man), I came across the video for Gold Digger by Kanye West (the site keeps talking to me, which is kinda annoying). I must say, the song and the lyrics are very catchy and, while it is still on the topic of bling-bling and hos, it takes a seemingly different angle than what I typically try to tune out. Besides that, who knew that Jamie Foxx could actually sing? Hard to believe but he has this deep, scratchy voice that adds a very nice blues flavor to the mix.

But perhaps what intrigued me more was the video itself. It was a visually stunning video. Stunning in it's simplicity and the way it brought out the beauty of the female subjects. It was sexual, but I didn't find it overtly so. Yeah, yeah, some of you will say that it was just a bunch of women scantily clad in lingerie dancing around and posing, but it was very tastefully done, at least in my opinion. Director Hype Williams does a great job of recalling the pinups of decades past with the excellent set and costume designs.

So for those of you who don't normally listen to rap/hip-hop, this is one video that might be worth checking out (it's linked off of the front page of Kanye's site).

Stumbling across news of JetBlue flight 292, I found it difficult to contain my emotions. It's simply mindboggling to imagine what those passenger were going through in those moments. I started tearing up just reading the article.

Luckily, everyone made it out unscathed thanks in part to the excellent skills of the pilot who makes a beautiful and otherwise uneventful landing (if you can ignore the sparks and flames shooting out from the front wheel landig gear).

Perhaps the most interesting part of this whole ordeal was that many (if not all) of the passengers aboard were watching their own fate via DirectTV satellite feeds (which they shut off 10 minutes before touchdown).

It's quite interesting as it underscores the pervasiveness of information that exists today; not only were they watching their own potential demise, the passengers were texting their relatives and calling their friends. Much like with the firsthand cameraphone accounts of the London tube bombings, we move ever closer to the collective mind of the Borg

Amazing times that we live in.

I came across a link this morning (via Ars) to a forum where Chris Kohler of Wired News does an impromptu Q&A on his exeprience with the Revolution controller at TGS.

Kohler echoes some of the same sentiments that I had when I first read about this.

"The Revolution controller, much like the DS touch screen, takes away a barrier between people and machines. People loved to post that Minority Report screen as a joke, but that's pretty damn close to at least the thought pattern behind the controller -- you just reach out with your hand and start manipulating things on-screen.

For some people, a DualShock controller is just that sort of extension of their person. But it takes a lot -- some would say a lifetime -- of practice to get there."

There are some memorable posts in this thread; this one being perhaps one of the top 10 funniest I've read all year:

"Let me say this again.

I took the controller and pointed it at the screen. This moved a cursor around wherever I pointed my hand.

AND FUCK ALL IF I KNOW HOW IT WORKS.

Nintendo could have engineered a little tiny hamster that runs inside a ball that tilts around when you spin the thing, for all I know. When you press the A button he gets an electric shock and pees."

I also like this one from Ars:

"A friend of mine told me a few years ago that he didn't expect video games to get any better in the future. Everything's been done, and only the graphics improve now. I told him then that the reason for this was the level of precision in control. You simply cannot control a ninja with 10 buttons and feel like you're *really* a ninja.

The revolution controller, if it is precise and fast, provides a quantum leap in the level of control you can have over games. In my book, Nintendo will win the next-gen console wars, because the Revolution is the only next-gen console being made."

On a related note, I just got my copy of We (Love) Katamari last night (via the bestest wife in the whole wide world) and I can't help but think how awesome this type of controller would be with a game like Katamari. When my wife first started playing it, it was quite humorous watching her shift her whole body around as if it would help her roll the Katamari in a different direction.

While the game doesn't break any new ground like it's predecessor, it is, nonetheless, a cute, quirky, and entertaining game.

I only have a few gripes about this version:

• The new soundtrack isn't as solid as the one from the first. It seems more electronic...not really my style.
• There are now, somewhat craftily disguised, loading screens during the middle of a level as a new area is opened up. This was somewhat annoying as this was non-existent in the first version.
• The "storyline" isn't quite as quirky and WTF-inducing as the first one. Although it's cute that you bump into some of the characters from the first one once in a while.
• Royal Rainbow is not nearly as badass as the original.

On the plus side:

• You can now select your background music for each level, which is cool.
• I haven't tried, but I think you can play as any of the cousins.
• You can accessorize the Prince with multiple presents now.
• There's tons more new stuff to pick up and new environments.
• The gameplay mechanics are improved slightly, especially the camera.

For $30, it's not a bad pickup. The original gets a 9.5/10. This one gets an 8/10. This one just doesn't quite floor you like the first one did, but it's still a fun and enjoyable way to kick back and unwind at the end of the day.

Katamari only serves to reinforce the point that games need not be graphically/visually extravagent or realistic to be enjoyable. In fact, part of the charm of Katamari is the quirky, colorful, blocky character design. To this end, I think Nintendo has chosen the right path. Of course, the Revolution will offer superior graphics to say Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube, but the point is that this won't be it's only selling point.

A couple of weeks back, I stumbled upon a transcript of a conversation between Roger Ebert and Werner Herzog.

To this point, I've read several of Ebert's reviews on Herzog's work (several of his movies are on my to-watch list).

But after reading this transcript, I'm more fascinated by the man and what he's trying to accomplish through film. 

I think what really intrigues me about Herzog is the great extent he is willing to sacrifice himself to create imagery that no other filmmaker today is willing to attempt; his drive and purpose are not monetary.

"It was disgusting actually because at that time 20th Century Fox was interested to produce a film and we had a very brief conversation of about five sentences because it was clear their position was, “You have to do it with a miniature boat.” From there on it was clear no one in the industry would ever support something like that. It was really risky, and I knew, at that moment, I was alone with it."

Ebert makes a very interesting observation about Herzog in his review of The White Diamond:

"In 'La Soufriere,' a 1977 documentary released on DVD last month, he journeys to an island evacuated because of an impending volcanic eruption, to ask the only man who stayed behind why he did not leave. What he is really asking, what he is always asking, is why he had to go there to ask the question."

I finished watching Spellbound this past weekend with the wife.

It's quite amazing watching some of these kids, as young as 9, prepare for the Scripps Natiaonal Spelling Bee with such intensity and focus.

However, I'm mixed on the significance of memorizing large numbers of words.  On one hand, it does excercise the capacity of the still maturing brain, it does help kids understand the process of memorizing information, it does help develop a strong work ethic.  On the other hand, I don't know if it has any intellectual value.  To memorize formulas for physics is one thing.  To understand the formulas is a different story. 

Despite all that spekticism, I really liked the point that Rajesh Kadakia, one of the speller's father makes:

"I'll be the first to admit that it's hard.  But what is valuable in life that is easy to achieve?"

But in any case, perhaps the more important aspect of the film that I took away from my viewing is what America symbolizes to the rest of the world.  Now don't get the wrong idea, I'm not some chest thumping, flag waving, patriot.  In fact, I'm probably middle of the road in what I think of this country as a whole (or at least where we are currently), but I was really re-awakened to the fact that America is land of dreams by two segments in the film (it's one of those things that you probably think about once in a while, but when you hear it again, you're reaction is always along the lines of "Wow, that's soooo true", even though you've come to the same conclusion at some previous point in time).

As the spellers are introduced to us, one by one, we are also introduced to the different cultural backgrounds of each family.  It's truly amazing to see how the parents, family, and teachers in each vignette run the gamut of skin color, attitudes towards education, and their approach to supporting their kids.

Perhaps the best soundbites to come out of these subjects is from Mr. Kadakia.

"I'm so indebeted...to this country, which will accept a stranger [to] come in and give them this opportunity.  America is just great."

A little later, as Rajesh is showing us around his second home, he says:

"There is no way that you can fail in this country.  That is one guarantee in this country: if you work hard, you will make it.  And that's not existent in the rest of the world."

This struck me again the other night as I was talking to my wife about how badass my mom is when I think about it.  When we first moved here from Taiwan, she was a single mother, taking care of two kids, attending grad school full time, and working part-time to pay for it!  We used to live in a tiny little 1 bedroom apartment and literally posessed only junk (my mom loved garage sales).  Thinking back, it's truly amazing how determined my mother is.  You would never be able to tell by the packaging (my mom is a somewhat tiny woman), but my mother is just exploding with determination to do whatever she sets her mind to.

I'm tempted to think that this is a largely immigrant way of thinking.  Of her second trip to the spelling bee after being eliminated in an early round the previous year, one of the young spellers, Nupur Lala, says:

"You don't get any second chances in India the way you do in America."

It's true.  And I think that most people take this for granted.  The immigrant mind feeds off of this second chance in life and utilizes it to excel.  Perhaps Angela Arenivar's story (the first speller we are introduced to) symbolizes this more so than any of the other spellers in the documentary (her father being an illegal Mexican immigrant who doesn't speak English).

At this point, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this but there was one other statement that caught my attention:

"I'm always thrilled to see any child come in who is from India because I know they are gonna have a good work ethic and the are gonna be good students."

Being the spouse of a teacher, I can tell you that this is a general attitude (be it good or bad) that teachers have towards Asian students in general.  My wife expects Asian kids to do well without the goading and prodding that most kids require; she's excited when she sees an Asian name on her class list in the summer.  Now, being Asian myself, and having met Asians of all walks, I can tell you that there are stupid Asians as well (maybe I'm one of them ), and I consistently point this out to people who make the point to me that Asians are statistically smarter than other races.

Seeing as how I can't seem to string my thoughts together today, I think I'll just end this post here.  It is the immigrant working class, driven by The American Dream, that has built America to what it is today.  As we move forward, we need to keep sight of this ideal and realize that The American Dream is not a right owed to any of us, but a privilege for which we must continually strive to attain.

If nothing else, this movie serves as a reminder that our situations are never as dire as we think them to be. America is truly the land of opportunity, be it financial or academic; however, one must always be prepared to work hard to achieve success.

Sidenote: If you search around the web, you can find various tid-bits about the spellers.  Some of them even have blogs. It's intersting to see their perspective and find out how the film affected their lives.