A love story coming to an end
It’s very sad to say this, since I’ve been an Ubuntu user and supporter for five years, but the truth is that in recent times Ubuntu has gotten worse with each design iteration.
Ubuntu’s new interface, so-called Unity, has been surrounded by controversy from the very beginning. With a brand new interface being developed for GNOME —the desktop environment upon which is built Ubuntu—, the Ubuntu team decided to use a custom interface —the aforementioned Unity— rather than sticking with GNOME’s new one. At that moment I personally wasn’t sure that was going to be a wise move. However, a few months later GNOME still looked a bit messy, unpolished and not particularly beautiful, whereas Unity offered a simpler, more streamlined and refined interface. So it didn’t seem such a bad decision after all.
But then the Ubuntu team started messing around with their initial design. They not only added a number of supposed improvements that were actually to the detriment of the user experience in my opinion —such as a global menu that remains hidden until you hover the mouse over the top of the screen—, but also moved Unity towards a more futuristic and allegedly impressive look, turning a reasonably sober desktop into some sort of videogame. Ubuntu’s most confusing and ridiculously cluttered interface ever had landed. Meanwhile, GNOME’s new interface showed an incredible amount of progress since its initial state and got much, much better. Nowadays it sports a clean and beautiful interface that is a wonder to use and makes managing windows and workspaces a real pleasure.
So I don’t know if I’ll stick with Ubuntu and just install GNOME Shell to replace Unity or —more probably— move to another distribution that ships with GNOME Shell by default, like Fedora, for which I’ve developed a certain sympathy lately. What I do know is that I won’t be using Unity after my next clean installation of a Linux distribution.
I hope you prove me wrong with your next iteration, Ubuntu. Because if not, I’ll probably end up saying that it was nice while it lasted.
Beauty at 5 centimeters per second
I’m no anime expert —in fact, I haven’t seen more than a few anime films in my life— but I’ve watched Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru (5 Centimeters Per Second) this weekend and found it visually overwhelming.
Every shot is carefully crafted: colors, lights, framing, camera movement… The movie mimics real cameras behavior so there’s depth of field and even lens flares, and they’re wisely utilized to create beautiful images. There are tons of details everywhere. Everything is exquisitely arranged. It’s really surprising.
Of course I’m only talking about the images here; the narrative —a bit plain and oversweetened for me— would be a different discussion. But even if one don’t find the plot especially compelling, this film is still very worth watching. Sixty minutes of visual delightfulness are guaranteed.
Facebook, privacy and security
Tuenti is a very popular Spanish social network similar to Facebook. I use the example of Tuenti in this text, but the underlying reasoning is valid in general terms and applies to another web services.
I know Facebook and Tuenti quite well. I’ve got a Facebook account that I use almost everyday and I’ve also been on Tuenti until recently. I’m the kind of user that goes through all the configuration options when joining a new service and tweaks everything to its liking. That’s why it surprises me so much when I know of people that own a Tuenti account but stay away from Facebook due to security and privacy concerns. They should know their behavior doesn’t make any sense.
The relatively widespread thought that since Tuenti is an invitation-only website, personal data is hence “more private”, better protected or more safely stored, is just wrong. Not only Facebook implements some specific security features such as secure browsing (HTTPS) or account activity logs —whereas Tuenti doesn’t—, but also a huge amount of privacy settings that let you fine-tune every aspect of how all your data is shared with others, from personal information such as name or studies to tagged photos or status updates.
Let me put one simple example that illustrates these differences between Facebook and Tuenti. Do you want to hide the pictures in which you’ve been tagged from everybody, including your friends, so you’re the only one who can see them? Well, you can do that on Facebook, but not on Tuenti: your friends will inevitably be able to look at every picture in which you have been or will be tagged, no matter what you do.
So in conclusion, Facebook is as safe as most social networks —or even safer— and offers way more control over privacy than many of them, including Tuenti. You just need to go to your account settings, take some time to read all the options and adjust them to your taste. If you’re not willing to spend half an hour doing so, perhaps you’re actually not that concerned about your privacy.
Finally, the obvious solution: if you really are that worried about privacy and security of your personal information, don’t join this kind of websites in the first place —or do it with a false name—. It’s that simple.
The kids are all right, and so is the movie
This text contains minor spoilers. Read it at your own discretion.
I didn’t have high hopes for The Kids Are All Right but —maybe because of that— it’s turned out to be a surprisingly good film. One of those nice little movies, not a masterpiece but a pleasant amusement. Funny and entertaining for the most part, it’s got the right amount of bitterness.
We’ve seen the same story many times before: a middle-aged married couple with kids that seems perfect until problems arise, which finally lead to an infidelity. However, the introduction of a gay couple gives some originality and freshness to this old idea, renewing it in a quite interesting way and allowing some unusual situations to happen.
A lot of work has been put into dialogues, which seem to have been carefully written. They sound rather natural and you can really feel the awkwardness of some situations. The remarkable performance of the actors obviously helps make the story feel real and believable, although there’s always a touch of unreality floating around: the movie definitely got an indie feeling. You know, this layer of positivism and happiness, this sense of warmth, that some people love and others hate —I’d say I kind of like it when it’s appropriately handled—.
Speaking of which, I think the film could have used a less complacent ending, but it’s all right. This is an indie-ish dramedy at the end, you can’t expect anything different in that regard.
My thoughts on Frozen River
Family, abandonment, drugs, poverty, immigration, xenophobia, smuggling, slavery, desperation, sacrifice, compassion… All these themes, issues and feelings are dealt with in Frozen River, a worldwide acclaimed independent film that was even nominated for 2 Oscars in this year’s edition.
Director and writer Courtney Hunt has managed to integrate all these elements into the film, using them as part of a rich context that is intrinsic to the story. They’re all there. In more subtle or deep ways but always present, tied to the story, constantly hitting your brain.
Not only the film shines in showing a large amount of issues with coherence, but it’s also quite entertaining. That is perhaps its major achievement, since many films involving social issues tend to fail in that regard. Frozen River is a rare and fascinating exception. One could say that it is in fact a thriller, and a rather exciting one. It keeps you expectant and interested to the end.
The final part of the film is particularly remarkable, with the main character getting into increasing trouble and finally being forced to make a really tough decision. And Melissa Leo is superb in her role. She totally transforms into her character, it’s like she’s not an actress anymore.
So, not that I’m saying this is the film of the decade, but I do think it’s a really great one overall. It’s worth giving it a try if you got some time.
It’s a fact, Linux has improved
I’m amazed at how much the Linux desktop experience has improved in recent times. The installation process is now easier than ever, applications get more user-friendly and full-featured release after release and the general appearance of the system is actually great —just look at the new style of Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution nowadays—. But equally important, there’s been a huge breakthrough when it comes to hardware support. I’ve lived it myself during the last years, but yesterday I had an experience that got me really surprised.
I finally received my Microsoft LifeCam Cinema, a cool webcam I won for signing up for the LifeCam Shorts Film Festival. It came with a drivers CD, very specific installation instructions and Microsoft Internet Explorer listed among the system requirements. Pretty scary for an Ubuntu Linux user like me. Anyway, I decided to give it a try. I plugged it in and installed Cheese, a nice application to take photos and videos with a webcam —Mac users will understand me perfectly if I say that it’s quite similar to Photo Booth—.
So I opened Cheese and to my surprise I saw myself on the computer screen. No need for weird hacks, complicated configuration or anything. I just plugged it in and I was done. Real plug-and-play. But then I realized the webcam built-in microphone wasn’t working. OK, it was too good to be true. Or not? I remembered that I also had a stand alone microphone plugged into the computer. So I clicked on the volume icon in the desktop panel to bring up a menu and clicked “Sound preferences”. A window popped up and there it was: a selectable item labeled “Microsoft LifeCam Cinema” with a nice big icon of a webcam on its left. The other microphone was also listed in this window and it was selected, so that’s why the webcam mic wasn’t working. One more click and I was finally done.
A high quality webcam with built-in microphone from Microsoft working seamlessly in Ubuntu? Five years ago it seemed impossible. Just as much as Ubuntu looking nice, but it does. Seeing is believing.
March 11th
Six years ago, I had one of the most disturbing days of my life. I remember sitting in shock in front of the TV for the whole evening. I had an exam the next day but I wasn’t able to study. I felt devastated. I had this awful feeling, even though none of my relatives got hurt. But a lot of people actually did. In my city, for no reason. And it could have been anyone, so that was enough to feel that way.
The whole thing became political later with all that controversy about government misinformation, the general election on March 14th, victims’ associations taking sides and so on. But some of us still remember how we felt that day. So forget about everything and just try to recall your feelings, cause that’s all that matters.
An extensive opinion about 3D cinema
Last week I went to see the long-awaited James Cameron’s blockbuster, Avatar, which is the first 3D movie I’ve ever seen —I actually saw some 3D stuff at an IMAX theater years ago, but not a regular movie until now—. So instead of writing about the movie itself, I’m going to tell you my thoughts about 3D cinema.
To begin with, let me explain what I think are the major flaws of 3D projection systems, based on this recent experience of mine.
Low brightness. Polarized glasses are pretty similar to sunglasses in terms of luminosity: using them involves an important loss of brightness in the images you see. Add to that the fact that projected images aren’t especially bright —even using expensive professional projectors— and you get a dark image way below a reasonable quality. This is the main problem of 3D projection systems currently being used at theaters. And it’s not only a significant problem by itself but also implies another drawbacks, which I’m pointing to in the next lines.
Distorted colors. Colors on screen look quite more pale and slightly distorted when you wear a pair of polarized glasses. A saturated red can easily become a bland pastel pink when looking through these glasses. This is an inmediate consequence of that loss of brightness I just mentioned. And it’s a serious one. Put a pair of those 3D glasses between the screen and your eyes and colors will be almost completely gone.
Blurred images. It only happens in some areas of the image or during certain shots but the truth is that the image looks quite blurred from time to time behind the 3D glasses. And it’s not a nice blur, like those objects which are intentionally taken out of focus for artistic purposes. On the contrary, this is a particularly annoying and distracting effect, especially noticeable in extreme close-ups, when an object is positioned very close to the camera.
Depth of field paradox. Out of focus objects are in fact another related issue to 3D cinema, although this is not a technical one. Cinematographers have always played with what they call ‘depth of field’, which basically implies taking objects out of focus, in order to get a feeling of depth in an obviously plane image —a well-known example of this is to take the background of a shot out of focus when two characters are having a conversation in the foreground—. The problem is that, in 3D cinema, it feels weird to see an object out of focus because now you really know where it is in terms of depth, thanks to the 3D effect. It’s like you’re getting duplicated information about depth.
It seems like I don’t feel very enthusiastic about 3D cinema, huh? Well, don’t get me wrong. I think bringing this new dimension into cinema can be really exciting —as well as challenging— since it provides filmmakers with a whole new field to explore. And I’m sure they’ll be able to take advantage of it in a lot of unimaginable ways. I’m not questioning that.
The real question here is: at what cost? Is it really worth to sacrifice brightness, color range and even clarity in order to gain some perspective of depth? I don’t think so. Perhaps this polarization-based technology is not mature enough. Moreover, I wonder if it is the right 3D technique to use in cinema. Don’t forget this is not the only but the cheapest 3D technology available right now; there are a bunch of amazing high quality 3D projection technologies out there.
I’m really looking forward for these projection systems to be improved —or maybe just better implemented at theaters— in order to finally have a proper 3D cinema experience. Until then, thanks for the offer, but I’d rather see 2D films.
Cinematographic Christmas
Are you celebrating Christmas Eve with a good film? Do you plan to say hello to the new year watching a movie? Nobody doubts that It’s a Wonderful Life is a Christmas classic and it will always be a good choice for this time of the year… but maybe you’re tired of it.
In the following lines I’m suggesting to you some nice, kind, very enjoyable films to watch on days like these, so pay attention in case you haven’t made a choice yet.
Christmas Eve night is an excelent time to watch Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, a wonderful Italian film about friendship which also pays a huge tribute to cinema. If you’ve never seen Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain and got enough time, I recommend to give it a try too; watching these two films in a row will be for sure one of the best cinematographic experiences in your entire life.
For New Year’s Eve I propose a double feature consisting of two offbeat romantic comedies. Begin the night with (500) Days of Summer, which is in my opinion one of the most unexpectedly great films of the year —and no doubt the best romantic comedy—. Although it may be a better movie than the aforementioned one, I suggest to save the indie sensation of 2007 —sadly eclipsed by Juno— In Search of a Midnight Kiss for later. It makes perfect sense since this film takes place at midnight on New Year’s Eve. So there’s no more appropiate time to watch it than right after 31st December midnight, don’t you think?
Anyway, whether you plan to watch movies during these days or not, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
All about pianists
I wanted to watch some Michael Haneke’s work since his last film, Das weiße Band (The White Ribbon), was awarded with the Palm d’Or for the best film in this year’s edition of Cannes. Then I found a curious coincidence by chance: the president of the jury was French actress Isabelle Huppert, who starred in La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), a film from 2001 directed by —guess who— Michael Haneke. This coincidence made me choose it as my introductory film to Haneke’s world.
At the same time, I remembered that I always wanted to watch The Pianist, one of the most acclaimed films by Roman Polanski, but I never found the appropiate time to do it. This movie is from 2002 —a year after La Pianiste— and its main character is a pianist too, so it seemed to be the perfect occasion to finally watch it.
Besides the facts I just mentioned, these two movies have nothing to do with each other. Polanski’s film fits into a very classical style, whereas Haneke’s work is an unusual one, quite disturbing and disconcerting. I guess La Pianiste may be extremely interesting for psychologists —as Haneke himself is— but I personally can’t get the point of the movie since I can’t deeply understand the behavior of the main character, or I should say, the motivations that push this character to behave as she does. Anyway, the film is more than correct from a technical point of view and I also have to admit that Isabelle Huppert did a fantastic job in it. She’s so convicing that you could think she’s actually disturbed.
The Pianist is a very well-known film, tons of words have been written about it, so I’m not going to give you an extensive opinion. I would like to point out an interesting detail, though. Polish cinematographer Paweł Edelman is the man responsible for the great appearance of The Pianist —there are some awesome framings in it— and he’s also the man in charge of photography in Katyń, a Polish film which has recently opened in Spain. Another reason to go to the movies.
The night I watched Shoah
Watching almost ten hours straight of a documentary film about the Holocaust is a life changing experience. So my life actually changed this last summer, at least when it comes to my cinematographic perception.
I watched Shoah with my dear friend Hunter. We watched it at night so we didn’t get a wink of sleep, literally. To cap it all off, in a not very smart move, we only had bread and whiskey for dinner. The good news —if there was something good at all— is that we had Spanish subtitles so we could read them effortlessly. I can’t imagine how much exhausting it would be to read subtitles in your second language for ten hours straight.
My general perception of things has changed since I watched this movie. Every time I attend a extremely boring class, watch a really bad movie or do something I don’t particularly enjoy for a long time, I remember the experience of watching Shoah. Because very few things are more exasperating than watching it.
I could talk about how highly overrated this movie is. I could tell you how poor made this movie is from a technical point of view, with a ridiculous editing that lacks of style and logic as its biggest flaw (but not the only one, unfortunately). I could explain how this movie could be summarized in less than two hours without losing a bit of its relevant content. I could relate how desperate I was in the last two hours of the movie, mainly because of an old man who spoke unbelievably slow and monotonous —I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean if you have seen the movie—. I could go on for hours. There are just too much details about this movie to talk about.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I tell you about it. It’s totally pointless. You’ll never get a not even near idea of the whole experience of watching this movie unless you do it. And this experience is certainly worthwhile for everybody mad about cinema all over the world.
