Archive for November, 2008

12 comments

2008-11-22

 

Posted in:
other.

Schindler’s List

I recently watched Schindler’s List and it was a very intense experience. You can read the movie reviews elsewhere, so I will just share transcripts (shamelessly stolen from wikiquote) of two dialogs that I really liked:

Goeth: You know, I look at you. I watch you. You’re not a drunk. That’s, that’s real control. Control is power. That’s power.
Schindler: Is that why they fear us?
Goeth: We have the fucking power to kill, that’s why they fear us.
Schindler: They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily. A man commits a crime, he should know better. We have him killed and we feel pretty good about it. Or we kill him ourselves and we feel even better. That’s not power, though, that’s justice. That’s different than power. Power is when we have every justification to kill – and we don’t.
Goeth: You think that’s power.
Schindler: That’s what the emperors had. A man stole something, he’s brought in before the emperor, he throws himself down on the ground, he begs for mercy, he knows he’s going to die. And the emperor pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go.
Goeth: I think you are drunk.
Schindler: That’s power, Amon. That is power. [gestures toward Goeth as a merciful emperor] Amon, the Good.
Goeth: [He smiles and laughs] I pardon you.

You can watch “control is power” on youtube.

Stern: We’ve received an angry complaint from the Armaments Board. The artillery shells, tank shells, rocket casings, apparently all of them have failed quality-control tests.
Schindler: Well, that’s to be expected – start-up problems. This isn’t pots and pans. This is a precise business. I’ll write them a letter.
Stern: They’re withholding payment.
Schindler: Sure. So would I. So would you. I wouldn’t worry about it. We’ll get it right one of these days.
Stern: There’s a rumor you’ve been going around miscalibrating the machines. They could shut us down, send us back to Auschwitz.
Schindler: I’ll call around, find out where we can buy shells, pass them off as ours.
Stern: I don’t see the difference. Whether they’re made here or somewhere else.
Schindler: You don’t see a difference? I see a difference.
Stern: You’ll lose a lot of money, that’s the difference.
Schindler: Fewer shells will be made. Stern, if this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I’ll be very unhappy.

1 comment

2008-11-12

 

Posted in:
art,
programming.

Nothing is random, everything has a meaning.

Nothing is random.

Everything has a meaning.

The scene fits in under 100 lines of code (with comments! :)), so I decided to publish it here.

/**
 * Simple POV-Ray scene with reflective pillars
 *
 * @author   Vit ‘tasuki’ Brunner
 * @license  GNU GPL, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
 * @version  2.7, 2008-11-05
 */

// dark and reflective texture
#declare ShinyDark =
texture {
    pigment { rgb 0 }
    finish {
        ambient 0
        // reflection .3 // dark version
        reflection .6 // light version
        specular 3
    }
}

// create a pillar of specified height
// kind of hackish, but I can’t find a better way
#macro pillar(xx, yy, height)
    #declare counter = height * 2;

    #while (counter > -1)
        superellipsoid {
            <.3, .3>
            texture { ShinyDark }
            translate y * counter * .5
            translate x * xx * 2.2
            translate z * yy * 2.2
        }

        #declare counter = counter - 1;
    #end
#end

// just some random (random, really?) pillars
pillar(-3, 3, 2)
pillar(-1, 3, 4)
pillar( 0, 3, 3)
pillar( 2, 3, 0)
pillar( 3, 3, 2)
pillar( 0, 2, 2)
pillar( 1, 2, 1)
pillar(-1, 1, 3)
pillar(-1, 0, 2)
pillar( 0, 0, 1)
pillar( 2, 0, 3)
pillar(-2,-1, 2)
pillar(-1,-1, 3)
pillar( 1,-1, 0)
pillar( 3,-1, 2)
pillar(-1,-2, 1)
pillar( 0,-2, 2)
pillar( 2,-2, 1)
pillar( 3,-2, 0)
// there’s no such thing as random…

// the sphere everything is wrapped in
sphere {
    <0, 100, 0>, 100
    hollow
    pigment { rgb 1 }
    finish {
        ambient .6
        reflection .05
    }
}

// get light quality from clock (+K in params)
#declare qualight = clock;

// back right less bright white light
light_source {
    <30, 25, 40> rgb .5
    area_light <0, 10, 0>, <0, 0, 10>, qualight, qualight
    adaptive 1 jitter circular orient
}

// front right white light
light_source {
    <30, 20, -30> rgb .7
    area_light <0, 10, 0>, <0, 0, 10>, qualight, qualight
    adaptive 1 jitter circular orient
}

// front left blue light
light_source {
    <-15, 25, -15> rgb <.3, .7, .9>
    area_light <0, 20, 0>, <0, 0, 20>, qualight, qualight
    adaptive 1 jitter circular orient
}

camera {
    location <7, 9, -14>
    look_at  <2, 1,   0>
}

To render the picture, you should run something like:

povray +Ifilename.pov +FN +W1024 +H768 +Q9 +QR +A0.5 +AM2 +K11

Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed ^^

Oh, you actually want to see the picture? Please check it out on deviantart.

And remember: Nothing is random, everything has a meaning…

4 comments

2008-11-01

 

Posted in:
personal,
random thoughts.

How to get an extra hour a day

Imagine you could get an extra hour every day. That means 365 hours a year. 365 hours is like 45 eight-hour work days. Wow.

I’ll start with a success story. Over a month ago, I read something very interesting about how to sleep properly. I used to have problems getting out of bed at 7am. I used to have those mornings when I felt like half asleep zombie for several hours after getting up. Now I have no problems waking up at 6:45, sometimes I even wake up earlier without the alarm clock. Oh, and I also started going to bed later (usually shortly after midnight but it really depends on when I start feeling tired).

Out of the last 8 days, I went jogging in the early morning 7 times. Today I woke up at 6:42, three minutes before my alarm would go off. It’s Saturday 7:37am and I just came back from my half an hour of jogging. I had a shower and am enjoying my breakfast, while all of you are asleep. ;) These long weekends are amazing — it really is a measurable difference.

Here are the keys (more or less sorted by importance):

  • get up at a regular time (yes, that includes weekends), go to sleep when you get tired (no earlier and no later)
  • get enough sunshine and natural daylight during the day (bulbs will not cut it, you need real light)
  • every day, do at least 20 minutes of increased physical activity such as running (most effective in the morning)
  • drink a lot of pure water (it’s also generally good for your health)
  • if you feel like taking a nap after lunch, do so (limit it to 20-30 minutes), naps are good for you
  • never ever take sleeping pills (important, but rather common sense, isn’t it?), don’t drink coffee or overeat yourself before going to sleep

When I was starting with this I was called gullible. What is worse — I was called gullible by someone who believes in a three-in-one god that is supposedly omnipotent and sent his only son (who was actually one of the three) to save the mankind by dying on a cross in huge pain. Crazy stuff.