Vague Art Discussion #1: Rhythm

Now that I will be able to focus on arts (drawing and 3D modeling), I decided to start a series of blog posts in which I write my thoughts about what I learn in drawing and modeling. I'll call this series "Vague Art Discussion" because art discussions feel vague to me most of the time.

Rhythm
Last year, while my sketch group was working on our doujin artbook, I tried reading the book Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators by Michael D. Mattesi, but I could not understand it at all. Recently, the book was recommended for reading by Dom, one of our life drawing instructors. So I am trying to read the book again now, with an additional motivation to make sense of what it says. I still don't understand most of what the book says; it uses many terms that I just cannot understand: "directional force", "applied force", and "rhythm".
(This only reinforces my opinion that art discussions are vague most of the time.)

I didn't pay much attention to the word "rhythm" when reading. It started to seem important in the next life drawing class, when Dom (casually) mentioned the word while demonstrating drawing a series of sketches to depict an action. It made me want to understand this concept.

Before proceeding, let me make it clear that what I write below are my attempt to understand what rhythm means in drawing. I could very well be completely wrong.

I personally interpret rhythm as the regular beat in music. It suggests the need for time. The best way I can define rhythm is "something similar that happens more-or-less regularly".

• "Something similar" because sometimes beat sound changes, yet I can still understand that rhythm continues.
• "Happens more-or-less regularly" because, again, sometimes the duration between 2 beats changes, yet I can still understand that the rhythm continues.

As I re-read the paragraphs about rhythm for the third time or so, suddenly it hit me that there is a time dimension in drawing.

• When drawing, I start from a position, go to another position, etc, with a pencil/charcoal. I know that I have a certain kind of speed when drawing a line; so I need a certain amount of time to draw a length of a line. Thus, drawing similar length of line takes me similar duration. This may explain the "more-or-less regular" part of rhythm description.
• Now I only need to draw something similar "more-or-less regularly" and perhaps I will have my rhythm!

The example given in the book is about drawing zigzag lines, with skiing downhill as analogy (on hindsight, perhaps my finding above should be straightforward after all), so it seems like I'm getting closer to understanding rhythm.

However, this is life; obviously the next wall comes hitting me in the face very soon after that: the moment I hold a pencil and tried to apply my understanding of rhythm when drawing. The examples given in the book were drawn by people who understand rhythm, so it is easy to see rhythm in these drawings. In life drawing class, however, I see a real life model. Suddenly I realize that I need to find rhythm as an imaginary overlay from a real model. Some poses make it easier to see rhythm than others; most of the time, though, I just cannot see a rhythm on a pose. So that's something I need to be working on, I guess.

NB: Anyone reading who understand rhythm, please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

Hierarchy

Recently, I see the concept hierarchy everywhere. I am attending a 3D modeling class, which includes a life drawing class; and at work I am coding an editor for a web application.

In life drawing, Andrew, one of my instructors, says "Go for the large shape first". I think it's easy to imagine that the same advice applies in 3D modeling. After all, both drawing and modeling are about defining shapes.

In programming, it is more difficult to see how Andrew's advice applies. Perhaps it helps to put programming activity in the context of a development project. A project has goals and time limit. Thus, it is sensible to go for the large items first. "Large" in this case I interpret as "essential" or "must have". Then, I progressively go for smaller and smaller items to refine the system's behavior as close to the ideal behavior as possible. I interpret "smaller items" as "non-essential goals" or "nice-to-have items" and "non-essential bug fixing".

I was uncomfortable with "non-essential bug fixing" at first because, as item#5 in the Joel Test suggests, fixing bugs should have higher priority than writing new code. However, in the tight deadlines I was in, it simply felt right that non-essential bugs should wait. Re-reading what Joel wrote, I think what's important is not a rigid "fix bugs first then write new codes" rule; but finding a compromise between implementing new items and fixing bugs in items already implemented.

Anyway, I thought it's interesting to see a parallel between drawing and programming process. Perhaps I see it only now because the life drawing classes forces me to draw in a very limited time (3-minute poses, 1-minute hands, 10-minute faces, etc).

People List

On a whim, I decided to compile this list of people who change my life for the better but I never meet in person.

Reading

• Isaac Asimov: for writing I, Robot (my gateway drug to s.f.), The Bicentennial Man, The Gods Themselves, Nightfall.
• David Brin: for writing Kiln People (my other gateway drug to s.f.), Earth, Glory Season, Otherness, The River of Time, & for coming up with the awesome story title Thor Meets Captain America.
• Kurt Busiek: for writing Superman: Secret Identity
  
• Orson Scott Card: for writing Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead.
  
• Arthur C. Clarke: for writing Rendezvous with Rama, 3001, Childhood's End.
• Thomas L. Friedman: for writing The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
• Joe Haldeman: for writing The Forever War.
  
• Robert A. Heinlein: for writing Starship Troopers.
• Frank Herbert: for writing Dune (which got me interested in s.f.).
  
• Shimoku Kio: for writing & drawing Genshiken.
• Scott McCloud: for writing Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
• Frank Miller: for writing Batman: Year One.
• Terry Pratchett: for writing Discworld novels.

Programming

• Joel Spolsky: for writing Joel on Software (both the blog & the book, my gateway drug to self-improvement as a programmer).

Music

• Andrew Aversa (a.k.a. zircon): for hosting VGDJ; remixing Ragol Weather.
• Daniel Baranowsky: for remixing Knuckleduster.
  
• Patrick Burns: for remixing Revisiting The Ruins.
• Diggi Dis: for remixing And He Returned Home.
• David W. Lloyd (a.k.a. djpretzel): for starting OverClocked Remix, remixing Love Hurts & Twoson Hits the Road.
  
• wingless: for hosting VGDJ.
  

Anime fandom

• Zac Bertschy: for hosting ANNCast.
• Clarissa Graffeo: for hosting Anime World Order podcast.
• Gerald Rathkolb: for hosting Anime World Order podcast.
• Frederik Schodt: for writing The Astro Boy Essays (my gateway drug into reading about the anime/manga history in Japan & America), Dreamland Japan.
• Justin Sevakis: for hosting ANNCast & writing a travel blog when he visited Singapore for Anime Festival Asia 2009.
• Daryl Surat: for hosting Anime World Order podcast.

I will update this list from time to time.
(Last updated on 2 April 2011.)

Some Thoughts on Drawing

I like to look at drawings, paintings, and sketches. Then I found out that I seemed to be better than my peers in drawing things on paper and I became interested in drawing, painting, and sketching. Soon, this interest started to make me feel the need to learn from other people who I think are better than I am.

However, I often cannot understand what (people who call themselves or are called) artists mean when they describe their work and their working process. For example, it was only recently that I found out that "organic look" means something in the line of "non-geometric look". Before that, I never understood what "organic look" meant whenever I read or heard this term.

As I continue drawing, painting and sketching, I found a lot of fuzzy concepts that I learned from going back and forth between practice and reading books on drawing and painting. Examples of such concepts are (1) the reason behind squinting eyes when painting and (2) the difference between drawing lines and painting strokes. I realize I need labels/words/terms/vocabulary to describe these things and organize them in my mind (I personally believe that organizing what I know helps in learning things that I do not yet know). It is at this point that I started to understand why artists usually use words that I did/do not understand. They try to describe fuzzy concepts that they know exist (because they use these concepts when creating things) but people in general are not familiar with. (I wonder if this is a universal problem because of specialization.)

I felt the need to write this article because of my recent experience collaborating with a friend from my drawing group. She shares similar interests in drawing, painting, and sketching (let's put "visual arts" label to this set of things), but her background and experience are very different from mine. There were times that I realized we were having difficulty to communicate (to describe what look that we want to achieve, for example). I wondered why this difficulty was there at all. As I pondered on it, my train of thought helped me to formulate the cause as I wrote in previous paragraphs. We both tried to explain what we meant using inexact words either because there were no exact words or because we did not fully understand what we wanted to describe.
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Related to this experience, there is another fuzzy concept that I started to see. I'd like to attempt to describe it here.

I find myself often using the words "high level" and "low level" to categorize things. The things can be concepts related to visual arts, programming, or anything in general; but let's to stick to visual arts concepts. A high level concept is not necessarily better/greater/more advanced than low level ones. A high level concept is built on top of a number of low level concepts (perhaps the metaphorical "top" is the reason for the term "high level"?). For example, walking is a high level concept while swinging arms, shifting body weight, moving a leg forward, and so on are low level concepts needed for walking. Low level concepts are more concrete than high level concepts. The fuzzy concepts I mentioned earlier above are high level concepts I learned from practicing low level concepts many times.

Now, an artist has his own knowledge, which is a set of high level concepts. As he practices, he learns more concepts.

• On the one hand, people are naturally interested in new things, so usually they want to learn new things.
• On the other, learning is a personal experience; thus learning what you are interested in means that you are likely to care about the topic deeply. Most of the time your care is deep enough to make you tie your self-worth to what you know.

I think this is why people are likely to be defensive/argumentative when discussing the concept they are currently learning. At least I often catch myself being so.

Artists with less experience care more about low level concepts, such as drawing the correct proportions, smoothing line curves, tightening up & cleaning up sketches, or even minute details of character (e.g. exact number of spikes in the case of anime hair). At some point, all these would sink to the background. The artist still thinks about all these, but they are in a background process that do not need much attention. It is at this point that he can learn new concepts because his conscious mind is free from all these. It is at this point that he starts building high level concepts using the low level concepts that now runs in the background process.

I think it is also at this point that he starts to use words people don't understand :)

Reality is no doubt much more complex than this; but, hey, that's what I can formulate in words for now.

Tobe Gundam

Recently, I found that it is possible to get overwhelming nostalgia from things I am not too familiar with. I got it from listening Tobe Gundam in Operation British. I have listened to Tobe Gundam before this, but I thought it was ridiculous and I did not like it. It was listen-once-and-forget-about-it. After a while, though, I happened to hear the song and found it nostalgic. I still think it sounds outdated, but now I can enjoy the song and sometimes (when I'm in the appropriate mood) get teary eyed a little.

I also had a similar experience with the song Shine in the Storm (also in Operation British), but it is less surprising because I watched Gundam 08th MS Team, the series that has the song as opening.

Still, I think there is something about the musical style in Tobe Gundam that reminds me of my childhood (when anime was still infinitely cool).

Why, Mr Wachowski? Why?

I just watched The Matrix Revolutions yesterday; so in some way, this post is a sequel to previous post. I started by interpreting the film as an anime story, but I found this approach not so successful this time. Maybe I'm getting less imaginative.

On the other hand, I did get some new understanding of the film on this rewatch. I didn't understand where the revolution is in Revolutions. I thought the film ended with just another cycle starting. But yesterday I thought maybe Neo did do things differently from previous Ones. Maybe in previous iterations Smith didn't get free. Maybe Neo (and everyone else) is actually tricked by the Oracle just to make some changes to the Matrix (the next to final scene suggests that there are some changes that the Architect is not happy about). However, I don't agree that the change is a revolution, though. To me it is simply a change. Perhaps my understanding of the word "revolution" is warped?
Anyway, the film further downgraded my impression of Neo as a figure. I thought he was the center of the Matrix storyline. I think the Oracle is actually the central figure. Neo is just an actor in her plan.

All in all, I think Revolutions fails as a film because it fails to convey so many things essential to understanding the story.

The biggest thing it fails to convey is the "revolutions" to the Matrix in the end. It could have shown people who want to be free actually get freed. Or a short scene of the freed people restarted human community in the real world. Perhaps even communication between friends, some of whom want to be free and others choose to stay in the Matrix?

Another big thing it fails to convey is the Smiths as an unstoppable threat to the Matrix and, therefore, the machines. So what if he infects everyone in the Matrix? What can the Smiths do to actually crash the Matrix? Divide by zero?

And perhaps what happens to Neo at the end adds to my questioning Revolutions' quality as a film. So the trilogy hooks us to this main character, Neo, and you cannot give him a satisfying end? Why?

On hindsight, perhaps Revolutions was one of the films that made me cynical about films with good-looking visual effects.

Reloading Neo & Trinity

I just re-watched The Matrix Reloaded a few days ago. I was curious how I would find the film on the N-th rewatch. This time I think I could finally reconcile my expectation of the film as a successor of The Matrix (one of my favourite films) and what I saw on screen.

As a starter, I was surprised to find the dialogs not as intelligent as I thought it was. I think Reloaded's trick is to portray the characters as if they have personal thoughts not revealed to the audience. For example, both the Oracle and the Architect present Neo with options and the dialog makes it as if Neo knows what he will choose. One particular line (the Oracle's) that stuck with me is "We are all here to do what we are all here to do." I used to find this kind of circular dialog interesting; now I see it as a trick a story-teller uses to avoid giving explanation (which is not necessarily a bad thing).

Next is the visual. I watched the film in the cinema when Reloaded was out. Then, I was not informed about special effects techniques (later on, I took a fun module related to special effects in university) but I could see that certain effect shots are computer-generated (e.g. Neo "doing his Superman thing", Neo spinning during the burly brawl, Neo saving Morpheus & the Key Maker from truck collision). With such a high expectation on its shoulder, Reloaded did quite badly. For some reason, I could accept this only now. Maybe because I love The Matrix too damn much.

(I wonder if anyone gets the reference in that last sentence. I couldn't believe that Neo actually say this line in the emotional climax of the film.)

A related factor is the fighting scenes. In The Matrix, the fight scenes are tightly edited. The longest fighting scene I could remember is perhaps the dojo fight between Morpheus & Neo. In Reloaded, the fighting scenes are just too long. I don't know if they are long to show that Neo actually enjoys being a God in the Matrix or whether it's simply having too long fighting scenes. And as cool Keanu Reeves is, he just does not look convincing in fighting scenes.

Next is influence. I read a lot of articles and books about how anime influences The Matrix. I like anime and I've watched a reasonable number of anime titles; but I could never see concrete manifestation of anime influence in The Matrix. Well, one particular scene in Reloaded that hit me was a close up to Neo's hand gripping his chair holder as he flew in the Matrix to save Trinity. I think it is a common visual cue used in manga & anime.

This is just a small, trivial manifestation; but it convinced me to think of the characters in a different light. I've always thought of them as American action film characters. To me, such characters always seem to know what to do next. They usually know their surroundings well enough to grab an object to get them out of any situation. They never seem to have to stop and think (even if there were indeed a number of scenes in which Neo actually ponders on his dream in Reloaded).

Anyway, I started to think of Neo as an anime character. I tried to match the anime tropes I know of with his actions in Reloaded. The result was surprising to me. I've always thought Neo is like Batman: sure he has personal problems, but he is tough enough to ignore all his personal problems to safe others. But maybe Neo is like... Kira Yamato in Gundam Seed. The reason that he saves people from the Matrix is not because he is tough or because he is a good person. The reason is an opportunity to once again escape reality and get into the Matrix because he is a God in the Matrix. Perhaps Neo defines himself as his ablity in the Matrix, which is in conflict with his love for Trinity because Trinity is always in danger when they are in the Matrix.

And that finally brings me to another realization about Trinity. Again, I started to interpret her as an anime character. I used to think that her character is strong and independent. Sure she admires and loves Neo; but if Neo dies, she will perhaps grieve and then carried on with her life. I saw her as a woman brought up in American culture (I don't know how to describe this well; I just know that there definitely a trend in personality difference between people growing up in Asia, America, and Europe; what follows below may explain what I mean better).

Seeing her as an anime character opens some possibilities. For example, it is possible that her decision to go into the Matrix (despite her promising Neo not to) is partly motivated by her valuing herself less than Neo. It's a kind of partial selflessness. I find this trope used very often (if not always) in tragic Chinese love stories; but surprisingly rare in American films. With this interpretation in mind, I can see that scene on the rooftop (where it climaxed with Neo massaging Trinity's heart) could have been made with much heavier melodrama if Reloaded were a tragic Chinese love film.
(Imagine this: Trinity teary and smiling with a mortal wound, saying that she is happy that she could safe Neo's life and that she has no regrets. Then she stops breathing, complete with her head turning to the side. Neo will then start crying and calling her name loudly multiple times before finally, with tears streaking down his face, he shook his head, saying that he could not accept this. She's his one love and she must live! Only then did we get to the heart-massaging-in-code scene. I'm not saying that this alternative is better; I'm just saying that I suddenly could see this alternative and all the cultural assumptions behind such a scene.)

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Anyway, I just found this little song by Chiaki Ishikawa called Uninstall. Never mind the weird title, it is very addictive. I found myself humming "uninstall, uninstall..."

Youth Rebellion++

I just read Solanin and To Terra volume 1. On the surface, they are completely different:

• Solanin (2005-2006) is a slice-of-life story. The story ingredients are "normal:" boyfriend, parents, bands, music, the city, work...
  
• To Terra (1977-1980) is a sci-fi story. The story ingredients are fantastic: space travel, space cadets, telepathy, super computers, closely controlled society...
  

Yet, at the core, they touch one thing in common: youth rebellion. (To Terra is a long manga, so this applies only to the first 2 parts of volume 1, I think.)

I thought what was the chance for me picking 2 random manga titles from the library that share a similar theme packaged in 2 very different genres? But perhaps it's quite likely because at my current age, I tend to gravitate towards this kind of stories.

And perhaps "youth rebellion" is not what I meant. It's one step after that. What happens to people after the rebellious phase? As Solanin puts it, they can either accept what life they have or they can fight their life to the end.

These are 2 abstract choices inevitably interpreted differently by different people, but I think there's truth to them. I think they are not mutually exclusive. We can pick one choice for one aspect in life and pick the other in another aspect. (Perhaps this is what hobbies are for? To experiment with the other choice we didn't pick the first time?)

I think that happiness is related to what we choose between the two. It interesting to note that a character in Solanin explicitly asks the question "Are you happy?" and "Am I happy?". To Terra, on the other hand, uses the word "sadness". Of course these words are the product of translation from Japanese to English; perhaps the actual Japanese words have some different connotation/meaning. But still, it's funny to see how some themes are universal (across genres and time).

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On another note, I recently read the novel and then watched the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was blown away when I checked the year of the film on the back of the DVD case. 1969! It made me re-think my credits to films like Star Wars (1977) that I thought pioneered special effects for space films. Star Wars deserves a big credit, after all the 3 films shaped my generation's imagination. However, 2001 shaped the imagination of the generation that worked on Star Wars! The realization was amazing.

Even now, I'm still re-evaluating 2001's influence. I can't help noticing that the space stations in To Terra look very similar to those in 2001 (they look like wheels). Some space ships have segments that is reminiscent to the space ship Discovery One in 2001.

(It's interesting that To Terra started running in the same year as the first Star Wars film came out. Is this just coincidence? Or was the boom in space travel stories caused by 2001?)

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Yet another topic is the drawing style in To Terra. I can't help noticing that it is very similar to that in Candy Candy. The way they depict emotion and gags are very similar. Perhaps it's no wonder because they ran in more-or-less the same years. But it made me wonder if this is because of Osamu Tezuka's influence.

I used to think of Tezuka simply as "Astro Boy author." Then I found out that he also drew Kimba the White Lion (the original title was Jungle Emperor). I thought, okay, so he also drew some serious stories, but it still looks like some cute stuff.

Next, I found out that he also drew Black Jack. I thought, okay, so he also drew some dark stories, but some Black Jack stories are plain ridiculous.

Then, I found Anime World Order podcast and finally found out why Tezuka was called the god of manga. His works are like 2001 (the film) in the sense that 2001 looks outdated but I can still be blown away that it looks that good despite its age.

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Let's close this post by coming back to the theme of youth rebellion. When I first read David Brin's article, I was amazed that every generation rebelled. It's human nature. It left the nagging question "so why things change gradually?" I think the answer is because it is also human nature to resist change. As I grow older, I realize that every generation actually walks more or less the same path as the previous generation did. Sensibility, taste, fashion, appearance, etc change. But the general trend is the same.

In my personal experience, it was scary/loathsome to realize that I am following the steps of the very people I tried to be different from/rebel against. And then I realized that perhaps this was because we found the "best way;" I just agreed with what people before me found. That's not something to be unhappy about.

Cast Off! K-On!

Just a few days ago I realized dreadfully that I was getting shallow. Recent show I watched are painfully light and perhaps shallow, but I found them very entertaining for multiple reasons.

First, I watch Kamen Rider Kabuto. To me, recent Kamen Rider titles are fun because of their gimmicks: costume design, fighting choreography (usually for climactic moments), and the Rider powers (cheap special effects that are fun to watch). With Kamen Rider Kabuto, I enjoyed Kabuto design. I also love the concept of "Cast Off", where a Rider takes off his heavy armor to reveal a slimmer form, and "Clock Up", essentially a mode in which the Riders and the monsters move very fast. I think I accepted that Kamen Rider is half comedy while watching Kabuto.

I was disappointed by the later part of the series, though. I usually enjoy the powered-up form a series introduce mid-way. But Kabuto's "Hyper Form" is just too powerful and poorly executed. It could have turned the series even more fun, but it didn't (it turned the series worse, in my opinion).

Still, I love that voice, "Cast Off! Change Beetle."

Next, I watched K-On! It's very light-hearted and, as Anime World Order may put it, nothing really happened. But it reminded me of high school days. With that weird (to me) notion of friendship.
I personally keep only a few friends I am (relatively) close with and hang out with them often. The way things worked, one way or another people move on and these friends keep changing. That is to say, friend who used to be close usually drift further and I accept this a fact of life.
So, the notion of making really close friends in high school, which I guess what I did, only reminds me of the next thing awaiting in the corner: U-U-U-University. Where people are very likely to go on their separate ways. It was when transitioning to university that I realized that in real life, people prioritize on what they want to do, not friendship. It sounds terrible, but that's fast of life for me. Maybe that's why I don't keep very close friends anymore.

Anyway, watching K-On! was a so-happy-and-nostalgic-that-it-hurts-a-little for me.

But these on their own did not trigger the said realization above. It was when I started watching Baccano! that I realized I was having trouble watching somewhat complex story. I remembered I used to look for this kind of stories in anime. Compare it to the kind of shows that I watch now. Maybe I'm too comfortable in my comfort zone?

Anyway, I'm still continuing inside my comfort zone with Kamen Ride D-D-D-Decade!

That Heightened State

Today I had a deadline. It isn't important what the deadline was for; what's important is that I could not run away from it and it was important to me.

The thing that is different about this deadline is that I had so many things to do before it came that I knew it was impossible to finish them all. I have not had this kind of deadline for a long time. I think the last time I had it was back in university (5 years ago?). It gave me that heightened state of body and mind in which I don't care about anything else other than finishing things before the deadline.
At the same time, I experienced despair because I knew I could not finish all these things. This aspect made me frantic, then emotional, then exhausted. It made me appreciate the opportunity to rest on the bus on my way to a final touch ups before submission. Surprisingly, it helped me to think what is important and what is not. Was it really important to finish all the things I listed down? Or was it more important to made enough changes until my team mate & I were satisfied? After submission, I felt tired and somewhat empty, which I also experienced with similar bad deadlines.

The new things this time, tough, are these:

• I strangely feel ready for the next thing. In my previous experience with bad deadlines, I felt too exhausted to do anything.
• The thought about what is important and what is not made it easier for me to accept a personal rejection. I was dreading that I would be even more down after the deadline passed.

I wish I could slow down to think about this more, but there are more things to do before this year ends (somehow all things are concentrated at year's end), so I thought I'd write this down so I can revisit it someday.

Batman Begins as API

One of the lines I remember from the film Batman Begins is "it's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me". I thought it was a cheesy film line until I connected it with API design.

The goal of an API (Application Programming Interface) is to provide functionalities to a programmer so he can do things without needing to worry about how to implement/achieve those things. It is not what is implemented underneath but what it does that defines an API. In other words, Batman (who stole the line from Rachel) referred to himself as an API. (My mind blew at this point.)

In conclusion, this realization is an obvious candidate for a gag comic for programmers; I just don't have time yet to draw it. (See? It's not what I do when drawing but what I draw that defines a comic. Holy API Batman!)

I Remember Love

After listening to Anime World Order's review of Macross Do You Remember Love (DYRL), I decided to watch the film (the review is practically a love letter to the film). Before watching, my memory of Macross is Hikaru/Rick in his cockpit, taking off (I think the scene is in Robotech intro). I also vaguely remember that it is about humanity's hopeless battle for survival against an overwhelmingly more advanced alien force (the Zentradi).

I think DYRL is meant to be a film for Macross fans who had watched the whole series to reminiscent about what they like from the series. As a stand alone film, it's not great. Things just happen and there is not much explanation. I could barely follow because I know the basic premise of Macross. Still, I can understand why Mr Surat (of Anime World Order) described this film as everything he remembered about 80s anime. Watching it gave me a kind of nostalgia and the main theme song, Ai Obote Imasu Ka (Do You Remember Love?) reminded me of 80s love songs I used to (involuntarily) listen to in my childhood.

My opinion is that DYRL is the film to watch if you want to know what started the whole Macross franchise without going through a long anime (36 episodes). The downside is that the film does not have time to elaborate the things that make Macross so wonderful.

Related to that, I finished watching Macross Frontier a few weeks back. It's a crappy show that looks good, IMO. The backgrounds are pretty, the characters are good looking; but the battles are messy (I don't remember any battle scene that managed to grip me) and the story is practically non-existent. The one thing that's great about the anime is the music.

Finally, I just noticed that Minmay has a drill hair. Wow. So we had drill hair even back then in 1984?

Please Set My Attribute

I just found out (probably a few years later than everyone else) that Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) does not seem to implement the functions getAttribute() and setAttribute() correctly. I was not too upset, though, because there is a quick work around: using the functions getAttributeNode() & setAttributeNode() instead.

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Another thing I just found out is this neat thing called "Itano Circus". It is a style to present a battle scene in a dramatic manner using patterns formed by lines. A line can be a it missile trail, a bullet trail, or even energy trail. Apparently, the style was pioneered by Ichiro Itano. Here is a video to describe how it looks.

I personally think it is a generalized form of Macross Missile Massacre.

Only Tourism

Only today I watched Only Yesterday and I already made up my mind to tell people tomorrow that I watched Only Yesterday only yesterday.

So yeah, I just watched Only Yesterday (Omoide Poro Poro). I think I like the film/anime because I am one of those people who work in an office setting where they do the same thing everyday and wish for something different.
The one thing I found interesting is that the film touched this particular topic. The city person in me thinks that farming life in the village is idyllic, nice, beautiful, etc. I come to this conclusion because I go to such village setting for holidays (which means limited period of stay, no need to earn a living, probably I'll eat the best food all the time, and novelty factor is still in effect). If I try to use a different mind set, say I live in the village permanently and need to make a living out of farming (which means unlimited period of stay, a must to work, eating not-so-nice food to minimize spending, and basically doing the same things everyday), HEY! Suddenly farming life is not so attractive.

This thought came to me when I visited Tomi and went to his hometown. It's interesting that since then I kept encountering this thought in different versions; Only Yesterday was one such encounters.

Oh, the film also made me think how to think of dividing with fraction (for example, 1/3 : 1/4) intuitively. I could not come with a direct way; my indirect way is to think of "dividing by 4" as "multiplying with 1/4", thus "dividing by 1/4" is like "multiplying by 4". Do you see the pattern, Taeko-san?
(Yes, this film also has mathematics! And drama! And sports! Even downhill driving!!! (Though admittedly there was no drifting nor tofu...) Oh, it also has pineapple. That's ananas in Finnish! (Okay, I should stop typing random things now.))

A Message from the Past

Hi, my name is FreakedOutProgrammer009 and I come from the past to warn you about the future. Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) actually has 4 rendering modes, not just 2 as you might believe. Please refer to this article, Activating Browser Modes with Doctype, and scroll down to the section "IE8 Complications".

Time is running out and I have to go now. Please remember this message...

Fitting Gundam names in a sentence

It started with an ad I saw while walking to work. It was an ad for watches; the upper half has a picture of a lady hugging a huge rabbit, while the lower half has a picture of another lady hugging a wolf. Each half has a text, they are:

• "Waiting for a lifetime for [something I don't remember]?"
• "Taking the moment to [do something I don't remember]?"

Those sentences made me think, "On impluse..." which at the time seemed to me to be between the 2 extremes the ad had. And, as I think of the word "impulse", which is a Gundam, I completed the sentence with more Gundam references, "I strike for freedom".

So, I arrived at the question, "How many Gundam names can I fit in one sentence without making it sound unnatural?"

I spent the next 5 minutes thinking of such a sentence, but I failed to come up with anything good. But, hey, I reached work by then.

A New Finding

I've been listening to Anime World Order podcast. They are very informative. For example, I just know that Patlabor stands for "Patrol(ing) Labor". After 20 years, I finally know!

Another Summer

The last 2 films I watched happened to be adaptations of 80s(?) cartoons. It thus feels natural to compare them.
(Spoiler warning if you haven't seen these films.)

The first film is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (I'm sure everyone noticed that the acronym of the title sounds like Transformers: Rolling on the Floor, possibly laughing). I did not expect coherent story; I was quite ready to overlook stupidities and just enjoy the visual.

I did enjoy the visual.

• The opening part was cool. They managed to capture the different fighting styles between the Arcee team (smaller in size so they rely on speed and coordination) and Optimus (more bulky, but delivers decisive blows).
• The puma-like Decepticon is cool. I love the shot in which it ran out of the sea and onto a beach.
• I love the fight scene between Optimus and the Decepticons (I remember Megatron, Starscream, and some other disposable robot to be owned by Optimus).
• I looked forward to the combining robots, which turned out to be Devastator (or was it?). I enjoyed that scene too.

Somehow, despite all the nice visuals and my attempt to overlook the stupidities, the film still left some bitterness in my mind. All my disappointments with the film can perhaps be traced to the fact that the film did not spend any time to tell us more about the robot characters.

• Who is Optimus Prime? Why is he so keen on hunting down the Decepticons (other than because "Decepticons are evil")?
• Who are the Autobots? Are they really good robots? Why are they willing to come to earth? What are their stories? What do they do on when they are not fighting Decepticons?
• Similarly, what do the Decepticons do off-screen?
• I also find myself asking why The Fallen made it to the title of the film. Even though he is supposed to be the big bad, he does not feel like on at all (and he ultimately got trashed in few seconds).
• The robots are tweaked to be stronger/weaker so much that the outcome of fight scenes feel random. For example, Megatron feels much weaker in this film (he was much more menacing in the first film) while Optimus and Bumblebee are much stronger. It is ironic that Megatron still said "You are so weak!" to Optimus.
• The supposedly climactic battle felt overdrawn (and boring) for me. Had it been edited more tightly, I think the film could have been around 2 hours long.

In short, the film does not feel like a Transformers film to me. It felt like a generic good-robots-fighting-evil-robots film. Compare this with how well Spider-man films adapted Spider-man comics.

The second film is G.I. Joe. I did not plan to watch it; I decided to watch it because a friend invited me to. So, I probably had no expectation and no idea what I can expect from the film (though I thought the accelerator suits were potentially cool when watching the trailers). My friend and I did agree that probably the visual would be inferior compared to Transformers; we hoped that the film had some other means to compensate.

I found the film entertaining even though there are many joke attempts and scenes that I found lame. (Strong spoiler warning.)

• Scarlett reading a book while running on treadmill is simply ridiculous.
• Duke is supposed to be the main character, I think. But I found myself tolerating him instead of rooting for him. (Why couldn't he face Baroness after her brother was killed? To me, that does not feel like "a real American hero" at all.)
• I didn't really understand why Snake Eyes took his vow of silence. And why did the master favor him over Storm Shadow?
• How Baroness ended up at the end of the film is weird and disappointing. I was hoping that there would be an irreversible twist between her and Duke, but nothing happened. It was simply a good ending for her :\
• How the 2 big bads (are they Cobra Commander & Destro?) ended up is also lame. They finally announced their real identity as the big bads in a dramatic manner; then they were captured.

There are other things I don't like, but I guess they are nit-picking.

On the good side, the visual is good enough not to distract from the film. More importantly, I feel that the film is more faithful to the original material than Transformers.

• I liked how the film sneaked in references, like "knowing is half the battle" and "he is a real American hero". I also like the line "when all fail, we don't" (because it is easy to sneak in real life conversations).
• Accelerator suit scenes are good. (I remembered thinking, "They should have something like this in Starship Troopers film.")
• Baroness is hot :3 (probably the greatest redeeming value in this film?)
  
• Snake Eyes is cool. The film did a good job on this one because I thought it's quite easy to slip and make his character pretentious or "trying too hard to be cool".

Probably I won't remember this film for long, but it was entertaining.

After these films, I'm somewhat numb with action-oriented summer films. But summer has not ended yet. I'm planning to watch Up! next week. I hope it will be good.

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to Manage Paths

In other words, using other people's code instead of implementing path management from scratch.

I needed to add a JavaScript function to resolve paths. Resolving paths can mean 2 things; in my case, I want a function that accepts a path (which is potentially a relative path) and outputs an absolute path. The catch is that the function is implemented in JavaScript.

After 2 days of search, my colleagues found js-uri, a small JavaScript library that does exactly what I need. So far, it performs beautifully.

To test the function, I use the test cases given in RFC 1808 section 5.

I hope someone will find this useful when he/she needs to resolve paths in JavaScript :)

Using link to trigger click event

I just spent almost a full day (not mentioning past frustrations) to find the cause of yet another strange IE6 behaviour. Here is what happened.

The web application I was debugging uses this:

<a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="SomeJsFunction();">Call SomeJsFunction</a>

SomeJsFunction shows an iframe that continuously fetches images from a remote source. The link works fine for IE7, Firefox 2, and Firefox 3. Yet with IE6 somehow the iframe does not fetch any image at all. Why? That was the question that causes much debugging frustration.

Thanks to this particular post at dbug, I found out that the cause is that using "javascript" as a pseudo-protocol is apparently a bad thing. An alternative is to use "#". It ends my problem.

However, if you want to go further and be good, this topic at StackOverflow suggests many other, better alternatives.