Pomme::TAB

This weekend, I’ve watched the film “Lost In Translation” for the second time.
I loved this film. It’s very atmospheric and subtle.

It reminded me another great film Sofia Coppola directed before: “The Virgin Suicides”

With that in mind, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by her last work “Marie Antoinette” which has coincidentally just been released (at least in France).

I’m not known for being a fan of “Period” drama,

but after having recently seen Barry Lyndon, and Doctor Who episode “The Girl In the Fireplace” I’ve gradually become interested in this genre again.

As a consequence of browsing Imdb on the above subjects, I’ve just discovered that Sophia Myles who plays Madame De Pompadour in “The Girl In The Fireplace” also stars in a recent period romance “Tristan & Isolde”.

She’s charming and acts well in Doctor Who and I’ve read that she did a brief but strong appearance in the film Underworld: this a film I wanted to see for the style and atmosphere - gothic, vampire, werewolves, but didn’t because I was afraid to waste my money on an unoriginal, insubstantial action film. I’ve been wondering If I didn’t miss a good film there.

While on the subject of werewolves, the trailer I’ve seen of Marie-Antoinette shows a costumed ball with accelerated motion.

I’ve seen such scene in the music video of the german industrial-rock band Rammstein, “Du riechst so gut” in which an aristocratic lady is being stalked by a werewolf.
I’ve read that music (leaning toward rock) is a “character” of the film Marie-Antoinette (as in all Sofia Coppola’s films so far, for my greatest delight).

I need to find out when and where I can go and watch Marie-Antoinette in London

Technorati Tags:
sofiacoppola, sophiamyles, marieantoinette, perioddrama, film, music, doctorwho, tv, bbc, rammstein, france

little red corvette

Originally uploaded by astrocruzan.

Do you remember “Wild Palms” a mini-series by Oliver Stone?
I loved it. I thought about it when I saw this photo on Flickr.
IIRC, it’s the same corvette (and color) as featured in the film.

Concrete Sphere

Originally uploaded by Ride My Pony.

This is clash between the cold geometric concrete shapes in the right and the lively colors in the left. The composition is excellent. It’s gorgeous.

No need for Doctor Who to see BBC home page evolution between 1996 and 2006.
Just hop on this flickr photoset:

http://flickr.com/photos/eyedropper/sets/72057594119272756/

Technorati Tags:
flickr, website, bbc, homepage, archive

It was notebooks announcement day today:

• Apple’s eagerly anticipated Mac Book, replacement for the aging iBook
• Sony’s laptop with Blu-Ray Disc
• Toshiba 12.1″ Centrino Duo notebook

An Ibook G3 was my first ever laptop. I’m now writing on an iBook G4 and It’s likely the MacBook will be my next computer.

It’s also likely that I’ll wait a few month before buying it. I’ve noticed for the iBook, that it’s wise not to rush on the first series and I’m just starting to feel the age of my laptop.

I can already hear some people complaining about the GMA integrated graphic card.
I’m not too concerned about that. The MacBook offers dual-display without requiring a hack. That’s good, so is the integrated iSight. The Black color is gorgeous too.

Technorati Tags:
macbook, ibook, apple, notebook, laptop, release, blu-ray

It’s all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood: “‘To avoid miscommunication, e-mailers need to look at what they write from the recipient’s perspective…One strategy: Read it aloud in the opposite way you intend, whether serious or sarcastic. If it makes sense either way, revise. Or, don’t rely so heavily on e-mail. Because e-mails can be ambiguous…’”

(Via digg.)

It’s so true emails are easily misunderstood. It’s even worse if you are used to speak by metaphors,irony and understatement and try to do that in emails!

It’s not easy to read between the lines in social context,
it becomes a “tour de force” to read between the lines in an e-mail (what? anyone doubt the expressiveness of a white pixel?)

This is where smilies help… sometimes and I disagree with people who see the use of such symbols as a lack of imagination, erudition or whatever.

They don’t always work because, first you can not map the infinite subtlety of body expression into a limited meaningful combination of a couple of characters.
Secondly smilies are undoubtedly associated with very informal speeches which is the area where misunderstanding do the least damage.

Reading aloud an e-mail is not practical at all unless you are a lonely Uber Nerd (in that case nobody understand you anyway whatever medium you choose) or a caveman (and you’re unlikely to have a computer down there).

One may think that the instant aspect of an e-mail exchange leads people to think less before sending an e-mail
I think it’s true (just see the number of headlines mentioning e-mail scandals in corporate world), but surprising given the asynchronous aspect of an e-mail exchange compared to Instant messaging or phone calls.

I don’t think it’s a tricky issue though:
Be very explicit when writing e-mails and don’t argue via e-mail: it’s easier and more efficient to regret and/or apologies in IM/telephone/direct contact, while everything said in e-mail is written in stone forever (and tends to leak …)

If one has to be PC, nothing is better than direct human contact.

Technorati Tags:
internet, communication, social, email, digg

Back from work, I’ve reloaded my flickr photo page and then …OH
the page displayed is so different from the usual photo page.

and in the logo on the upper left corner, the ‘beta’ label has been replaced by ‘gamma’

I’m looking forward to seeing a ‘first candidate’ or ‘golden master’ label, unless they plan to exhaust the greek alphabet first.

I’m not sure if I like the new layout ; may be I need some time to get acquainted to it.

The flickr blog mentions the changes.

Apparently it’s not just a layout change. That needs further exploration.

Technorati Tags:
flickr, photosharing, website, gamma, newrelease

They are diverse people researching, experimenting doing thing “alternative” out there:

• A teenager generates electricity using magnetic bacteria (in spanish on barrapunto.com, but initially reported by Wired)
• A company generates hydrogen directly from biomass (from digg.com)

Technorati Tags:
alternative, energy, experiment, biomass, bacteria, magnetic, hydrogen, company, teenager, sciencefair, corn, electricity, generate

Yellow Dust on BBC Weather

Yellow Peril on BBC news>Yellow peril on BBC news

On lunchtime news on BBC1, they were talking about “pollen cloud from Scandinavia”

Trams.

Originally uploaded by sillykitty.

This is a fantastic image, atmospheric.
It looks like a struggle between order, harmony (the curves of the rail and the motionless trams and cars) in the lower part of the picture and chaos (electric lines and buildings on the upper part of the picture