Sunday, November 1, 2015

Landscape 1 - 10

#note.//

There are 10 pieces/works. All are the same size. They reminds me of the Google Street pictures at Artistic Google. Probably because both ARE representative landscape and there's only so many ways you can abstract and deconstruct the composition.


 #object.//

Untitled (1967)

#note.//

It's a very small piece. Probably Gerhard was just messing around.

It's solvent on printed paper, probably a newspaper. The solvent dissolves the ink from the newspaper and he transforms it into two movement blocks. The top block is vertical streaks while bottom is
horizontal

#object.//
N/A

Target with Four Faces (1968)

#note.//
I took a long look at this picture. The one I saw is nothing like the one below, which I found online.

The work I saw was made with graphite, charcoal, pastel over screen on cream wove paper.

I saw from my Google search that there are many version of this subject.

In the work I saw, he has further hidden the meaning of the faces. Is he trying to make them ambiguous? The targets themselves are not the faces, and unlike the picture below, the work I saw only printed out the word FACE, but it's backwards. The four backward printed words say face: e c a f.

The screen has newspaper lettering but once we are in the target, there is only similar sized dots that remind us of letters. Have letters blurred into dots? Meaning into monotone Morse code?

The pastel give coloration and define vertical movement.

I think the stick of charcoal, on its side was gently scraped across the paper, and the natural bumps of the paper captured black dots in the same size as the printed font.

The circles of the target is only given in outline. A strong line defines the outer ring, while dashes -- the inner ones. But really the only thing that gives the "circle" identity is the highlighting scribble. Graphite scribbles provide volume and define the circles of the target. Indeed, if you look at the work from a sharp angle, the light will reflect off the graphite and give an uber highlight!

The color palette is much more muted than the picture shown below. In the work I saw, everything is darker, older, more the tone of old people's clothing, dirtied with living.


#object.//

Train Station (Hanover) 1967

#note.//
This is an offset photolithograph on off white wove paper.

Another offset work! The blur of the offset results in a ghostly image, hinting at a skull. Our ingrain brain wiring sees faces. You can't really see the skull and little ghost people in this Intersweb picture I found with Google. You have to go see the piece at the Harvard Museum! It's a small picture in real life.


#object.//

Pop Art Redefined (1971)

#note.//
I took a long look at this color screen print. It's one of Andy Warhol's classic Marilyn Monroe four color screen print on cartridge paper. I initial thought since it said "four color" screen that he used four colors. The four strong colors and the black "newspaper-like" print.

The closest picture I could find on the Intersweb is shown below, but it is nothing like the one I actually saw. Harvard has an "accident" offset print!

What I mean by this is that the blocks of each color do not sync perfectly with the black print. Unlike the picture below, the print a Harvard Museum shows blocks of pink and brown that don't line up exactly with the black print of Marilyn.

I initially thought there were four colors-- two pinks, a yellow, and a brown. These blocks of color obviously don't line up. The way the offsets occur suggests that this was done for a purpose. As with watercolor, the accidents delineate artist from amateur.

The brown hair is offset up relative to black, but the widows peak still matches. Strange, no? Or is it just me imagining things? (Don't look a the picture below. You have to go see this actual print)

The dark pink is the background. The hot pink are the lips and eyelid shadow, with the pink lips offset up from black reference. The eye-circle are in brown, unlike the picture below and are also offset up into the hot pink eyelid shadow to create a sleeping hot pink brown eye! Andy must have thought this funny.

The signature mole is also off set using the darker background pink.

There is probably four different pinks:
1. Background pink, which changes to a lighter shade
2. in a streak at the upper right.
3. Hot pink used for her lips and a collar of a nonexistent blouse? (the picture below has this)\
4. Finally the pink of the mole.

Oh. Hot pink is used for her ear rings!

You'll have to go and see a version of Marilyn and count the pinks! Enjoy.

#object.//




Albuquerque, New Mexico (1972)

#note.//

He was doing in 1972 what we are all doing now. Vertical lamp poles to segment, and half hidden living creatures. Everyone and their dystopic Mom are taking cityscape pictures like this, and even more complex ones in color.

#object.//

Indianapolis (1955-56)

#note.//
20151031.
I was at the Harvard Museum. It's free for me! I took a tour of the Pop Art exhibit. The main artist is Corita Kent but they put other works by contemporaries to show context.

Here's a Robert Frank's black/white photo called Indianapolis. It was dated 1955-56. This photo I found on the the Intersweb because I did NOT take a photo of a photo in the museum. That's usually a no, no, although I don't know why. The movement is perfect --from eyes to lips, while everything else suggest stasis.

#object.//

Monday, August 17, 2015

Hellboy

#note.//
Watched it again, this time with Lil on Netflix.

I couldn't even remember that there was a girl.love interest! It that bad?! The movie came out in 2004 and I must have watched it somewhere on Netflix?!? Did I rent it on DVD or watched it on one of my vacation movie binge?

#actor.//
Ron Perlman as Hellboy. He was also the Beast in the TV show Beauty and the Beast!

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

#note.//
Watched at the theater with Lil @Red Rock Casino/Theater - Las Vegas

This was a Guy Ritchie.director movie-- fun and stylish. I loved the split screen, multi-panel action sequences. It had the same feel as Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrel.<link> The required torture scene was uncomfortable for me because it was probably historically real, but the movie quickly adds some dark humor to bring us back into fantasy spy land again! Well done.
 
Pacing was excellent.
Dollops of semi-naked girl and well-dressed spies was vintage.
There was no ultra-violence and minimal blood.
Nothing complicated here, but enjoyable to watch.

A good wholesome, fairy-tale family movie about WWII and the Cold war!

I don't really have time to read reviews by the "critics" so here's my reaction to the short Google blurps of some reviews:

Though I strive to set aside all prejudices when the lights go down, I had a hunch that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would be excruciating. Well, it turns out to be absolutely delightful.
David Edelstein·Vulture
CORRECT. It was enjoyable for JoJo Brand.

Note to millennials: No one stops to text or take a selfie. You've been warned.
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
INCORRECT. Blurp is too hip for me to understand. Rolling Stone is quickly becoming irrelevantly hip.

Though the pic is solidly made, its elegant vintage flavor simply doesn't feel modern enough to cut through the tough summer competition.
Peter Debruge·Variety
INCORRECT. It's near perfect combination of vintage feel, beautiful people, innocent flirtatious sexual tension, well-done basic action sequences, and mainstream stylized violence will cut through the typical summer competition.

CONCLUSION: If I were to generalize base on a very small sample size, I would say the the older magazine reviews are out of touch with JoJo Brand.

#actor.//
I didn't recognize any of the stars, but that is typical these days when I try not to remember unless they pop up in another context.

Who are: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander?!?

Saturday, August 1, 2015

I Robot

#note.//
The only thing of note is that the movie takes a radically different view on future robots. Asimov always viewed them differently<link>. We've changed them into killers.

 #actor.//
Will Smith as ...oh I don't remember, the usual action character he plays. Now he gets to fight and destroy cool looking robots from Terminator... no, more like the liquid robots from Terminator 2<link>


Terminator

#note.//
A classic where Arnold is still bad but good.  How many times have we watched this movie?

#actor.//
Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator.
Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connors

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

#note.//
Tongue-in-cheek fun flick. Very good stylized violence on top of classic movie memes.
The super-spy.
Killing the dog, relative, or twin brother to pass the test.


 #actor.//

Legally Blond

#note.//
For want it is, it does an excellent job. I liked it, and just as Joe T. would say Billy Madison<link> is a classic movie, I would say Legally Blond is a classic movie

#actor.//
Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods a smart, SoCal blond going to Harvard to get her man, but finds a career and the-other-man instead. She hopes to eventually marry that man, and have the quintessential modern woman's life.

Ex Machina

#note.//
Not much really new Sci-Fi, but has a beautiful killer robot. It's basically a killer robot movie with some nice acting, sets, special effects, and wanting to explore the many possible outcomes of Turing's thoughts on AI, but we end up with basically a killer robot movie.

It reminds me of how we've changed Asimov's benevolent robots<link> into a Will Smith killer ones in-- I, Robot<link>.

 #actor.//

Tig

#note.//
A Netflix documentary on the still ongoing life of Tig Notaro. She lost a Mom a freak accident, got cancer, did "legendary" standup routine just after losing her Mom and being diagnosed with cancer, fought and so far beat cancer, and has now a hot red-headed girlfriend who reminds me of her Mom.


Lucy

#note.//
Faulty science and neuroscience but OK movie. We actually use 100% of our brain. It makes no sense to say we only use 10% of our brain. What does the rest of the brain do then?!

If only drugs or artificial hormones could turn you into a demigod. What was stopping her from destroying the world on a whim?

The same problem as, The Survivors.Star Trek: The Next Generation.e3.<link>
Kevin is an immortal Douwd.

The movie had no tense once she became demi-god Lucy. A superwoman with no fault, no kryptonite.


#actor.//
Scarlett Johansson as Lucy.

Mad Max: Fury Road

#note.//
I watched it at movie theater with C. One of the most action dense movie I've seen in a long time. The magic is it is so well paced. I didn't get bored, and I didn't get overloaded. Just enough narrative to understand and motivate, but not too much to slow down the movie.



#actor.//
Charlize Theron as hero

The Princess Bride

#note.//
A classic! Mike F. would be watching this in our house at UCLA.

How many times did Tom R. and I watch it at our house in Brentwood?

So many meme quotes:

Have fun storming the castle!
You think it'll work?
It'd take a miracle.

No more rhymes, I mean it.
Anybody want a peanut.

Inconceivable!

My name is Inigo Montoya, prepare to die!

Marwage.

Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears.

#actor.//
oh you know them all by now.




30 Rock

#note.//
The classic TV series which I've watched mostly. I'm sure I've watched the first 3-4 seasons in their entirety and the finale. C. and J. would have this playing as background noise on their laptoptv. There's a wealth of short meme quotes there!

I would watch this rather than Friends.

#actor.//
Tina Fey as Liz Lemon
Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

#note.//
Mentioned in The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver. I'm pretty sure I've read it, but I've read several of the random is king book and they use many of the same examples so I can't remember if I've specifically read this book.

I guess I'll have to go reread it!

Other books I've probably  read!
A Random Walk Down Walkstreet <create>
Yes, you can time the market <create>


Utraviolet

#note.//
Another dystopic future. I watched it because it promised Milla in tight outfits and stylized violence, both of which was delivered. I can't really remember the plot now, and I get it confused with old MTV.Liquid Television Aeon Flux animation shorts. I'm not sure if I've seen Aeon Flux.movie with Charlize Theron.

OK. Just pulled up a trailer and yes, I've seen the movie. As you can tell it wasn't that memorable, but I chose to use up some of my life space.time.force watching it along with Ultraviolet.

#actor.//
Milla Jovovich as Violet Song

Underworld - Evolution

#note.//
Kate Beckinsale is still Selene. This one wasn't as interesting as the first, even though it has sex scene with Selene.


Underworld

#note.//
Dark and stylized, which is why I watched it. That, and Kate with her tight outfits.

#actor.//
Kate Beckinsale as Selene a vampire deathdealer. She is the clan's killer of werewolves.

MUD

#note.//

I would consider this a coming of age.boy story.

Doesn't it immediately bring to mind the movie, Stand by Me (1986)<create>
Rural Arkansas vs rural Oregon and just teen boys discovering something dangerous in the woods.


#actor.//
Matthew McConaughey as MUD in troubled waters, or maybe just MUDdy waters.

Tye Sheridan as Ellis the boy coming of girls, girls, girls. I don't think he'll have any problems with women when he.character gets older.

Jacob Lofland as Neckbone the sidekick.

Der Vorleser - The Reader

#note.//
Hanna is the protagonist. I feel like her sometimes--caught up in the events, economy, and political structures that moves us along history. Eventually, society puts me on trial for crimes we did.

This is different than the Hannah.movie who is given powers to break the course of events. Powers mostly to kill people.

My niece use to watch a lot of Hanna Montana.TV. Now they're both so different people.

Unbreakable

#Published.2000

#note.//
I think I've seen this movie before. I must have!!! It came out in 2000, involves comic books, a vigilante, and super powers!

I wonder what the director, M. Night Shyamalan has been doing? I definitely saw The Six Sense (1999)<create>
Since then he's directed a bunch of movies you'd think I would have seen!  But NO:
no.Signs (2002)
no.The Village (2004)
no.Lady in the Water (2006)
no.The Happening (2008)
yes.unforutnately.The Last Airbender (2010) <create>
no.After Earth (2013).

#actor.//
Bruce Willis as hero
Samuel Jackson as villain

Hanna

Published.2011

#note.//20150724
It also makes me try to find a connection in the noise:
Hanna was also the women for Der Vorleser.
Interlacing.movie with book.

#note.//20150724
Typical Hollywood-ish, young boy fantasy, comic book girl assassin movie.

These super assassin-soldier character obviously can't exist in real life. What is the mechanism of control after creation? Historical ninja and extant Special Forces all exist within a Military Brand. This Brand is usually tightly linked with the Government Brand. Both are hierarchical and fairly rigid. They have systematic methods of indoctrination. We must become an acolyte in the believe system in order to be taught the special methods.rituals practice by the Brand!

There has to be a differentiation process, changing the pluripotent citizen into the highly specialized unit within efficient Brand belief system.

Oh. The movie. It start interestingly with a standard snowy, isolated training site, but after she comes back to our Community, which happens to be a seedy looking Berlin. The movies tries to make the city a little darker, but it really doesn't work. Berlin is too clean these days.

#actor.//
Saoirse Ronanas Hannah the girl assassin.

Cate Blanchett as Marissa Wiegler the nemesis. I didn't even noticed it was her, the elf queen, but those eyes did look familiar.

#backpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Jason Bourne.Bourne Identity.Supremcy<create>.Ultimatum<create>.Legacy
Ah Jong.The Killer
Gon.No Tears for the Dead
Léon.The Professional


Saturday, July 18, 2015

What Happened, Miss Simone

#note.//
An excellent documentary!  I've enjoyed her music since my twenties ~!1995ish?!

She was bipolar.
Drug for treating her conditions were/are such crude instruments! We really don't know what they do to the brain long-term

Work Song <link>
Strange Fruit <link>


Friday, July 17, 2015

We Others: New and Selected Stories

#author.Steven Millhauser
bought thru Kindle.20140517
FINISHED.current

#note.//

I compared the short story, The Invasion from Outer Space with the bamboo concept presented in Soft Apocalypse.20150717

The short story, The Visit has a memorable quote. When asked why he hadn't contacted our protagonist in nine years, the answer was that he didn't have anything to show our protagonist until now -- a delapidated house out in nowhere, living with a frog wife.

Friday, June 26, 2015

The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction

#author.Nate Silver
checkout local library thru Kindle.
FINISHED.20150715

#note.//Thanks Kindle!

We need to stop, and admit it: we have a prediction problem. We love to predict things—and we aren’t very good at it.
Read more at location 381
Note: 1297 highlights as of 20150625. It's not something I would quote.

...suppose instead that there is some common factor that ties the fate of these homeowners together. For instance: there is a massive housing bubble that has caused home prices to rise by 80 percent without any tangible improvement in the fundamentals. Now you’ve got trouble: if one borrower defaults, the rest might succumb to the same problems.
Read more at location 603
Note: the common factor is a global recession or depression  

passage attributed to the Greek poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Read more at location 1018    
Note: fox clan. 1285 highlights as of 2015.06.30  

Foxes, Tetlock found, are considerably better at forecasting than hedgehogs.
Read more at location 1026    
 
“They look at this probabilistic information and they’ve got to translate that into a decision. A go, no-go. A yes-or-no decision.
Read more at location 2418    
Note: But in an emergency, you need an alpha leader to make go, no-go decision for the group. It's a trade off. Leaders are usually hedgehog and make poor predictions but in a crisis they don't get confused analyzing. They make executive decisions. GO LEFT!

What happens in systems with noisy data and underdeveloped theory—like earthquake prediction and parts of economics and political science—is a two-step process. First, people start to mistake the noise for a signal. Second, this noise pollutes journals, blogs, and news accounts with false alarms, undermining good science and setting back our ability to understand how the system really works.
Read more at location 2788
 
I give you three locks to practice on—a red one, a black one, and a blue one.
Read more at location 2795
Note: This is an example of Overfittng that I should remember. I wrote a poem about it.
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1266402/mangoman/


To borrow the title of another book, they play into our tendency to be fooled by randomness.
Read more at location 2846    
Note: I've read it. Is it on my stream?  

the theory suggests that very simple things can behave in strange and mysterious ways when they interact with one another.
Read more at location 2909    
Note: I'm fairly simple and so is JoJoBrand3! How we three simpleton interact might be very complex. Theory of complexity with Per Bak.  

Bak’s favorite example was that of a sandpile on a beach.
Read more at location 2910    
 
The more fundamental problem is that we have a demand for experts in our society but we don’t actually have that much of a demand for accurate forecasts.”
Read more at location 3371    
Note: Robin Hansen at George Mason Univ.  

crucial to develop a better understanding of ourselves, and the way we distort and interpret the signals we receive, if we want to make better predictions.
Read more at location 3866
 
Scottish philosopher David Hume, who argued that since we could not be certain that the sun would rise again, a prediction that it would was inherently no more rational than one that it wouldn’t.26 The Bayesian viewpoint, instead, regards rationality as a probabilistic matter.
Read more at location 4049    
 
Healthy skepticism needs to proceed from this basis. It needs to weigh the strength of new evidence against the overall strength of the theory, rather than rummaging through fact and theory alike for argumentative and ideological convenience,
Read more at location 6168    
 
Armstrong and Green critique of model complexity thus looks pretty good here. But the success of the more basic forecasting methods suggests that Armstrong’s critique may have won the battle but not the war.
Read more at location 6567
 
since the simple methods correctly predicted a temperature increase in line with the rise in CO2, they are also evidence in favor of the greenhouse-effect hypothesis.
Read more at location 6570
 
we’re wasting our time debating a proposition that is very much accepted within the scientific community, when we could be having a good-faith discussion about the uncertainties that do exist.”Read more at location 6667    
Note: Michael Mann at Penn State Univ.  

But at least this flawed type of thinking would have involved some thinking. If we had gone through the thought process, perhaps we could have recognized how loose our assumptions were.
Read more at location 6827
 
When a possibility is unfamiliar to us, we do not even think about it. Instead we develop a sort of mind-blindness to it. In medicine this is called anosognosia:
Read more at location 6829    
 
Aaron Clauset, a professor at the University of Colorado with a background in physics and computer science, has published papers on the mathematics of everything from the evolution of whales42 to the network dynamics of multiplayer role-playing games.
Read more at location 6948    
 
Clauset’s insight, however, is actually quite simple—or at least it seems that way with the benefit of hindsight. What his work found is that the mathematics of terrorism resemble those of another domain discussed in this book: earthquakes.
Read more at location 6955
 
Clauset’s method gives us reason to believe that attacks that might kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are a possibility to contemplate as well. The mechanism for such an attack is unpleasant but easy enough to identify. It would most likely involve weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.
Read more at location 7019
 
world in which there are dangerous terrorist groups, vulnerable nuclear materials at many places around the world, and a lack of focus on the problem from U.S. policy makers.
Read more at location 7035
Note: Obama team again has correct policy, esp with recent diplomacy with Iran~20150714  

Allison’s concern stems primarily from two nuclear states: Russia and Pakistan.
Read more at location 7057    
 
We must always accept a certain amount of risk from terrorism when we want to live in a free society, whether or not we want to admit it.
Read more at location 7176    
 
In many walks of life, expressions of uncertainty are mistaken for admissions of weakness.
Read more at location 7277

Soft Apocalypse

#author.Will McIntosh
#publication-date.20110401
#setting.near-future-date.2023

checkout local library thru Kindle.
FINISHED.20150716


#note.//
The interesting SciFi is Doctor Happy virus and enforced homogeneity!

The bamboo is interesting, but biologically improbably, like The Invasion from Outer Space from We Others by Steven Millhauser


Homogeneity of a community probably correlates with and is causation for less member-on-member violence within the community circle.

It makes me think along this line of thought.

The Military's goal is to eliminate people outside the circle (outside our tribe). We want to engage, escalate, and then use our superior force and mobility to neutralize (kill) people outside the circle.

The Police's goal is to protect members from other members within the community circle. Therefore, when we engage, we should deescalate the situation by using our superior force and mobility so that we don't have to neutralize people within our circle, who are by definition, us.

Just two memorable quotes (thanks Kindle):
I missed them to my bones. I had no proof now, that I had a past, that I’d once been a child. I never would have guessed it would hurt so much to lose them.
Read more at location 1692

when the world was running down, make the best of what’s still around.
Read more at location 2168

The last quote I couldn't remember where I heard it before. Eventually, I found the memory with Google. It's a Police song.



Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Throne of the Crescent Moon

#author.Saladin Ahmed
checkout local library thru Kindle.
FINISHED.20150615

#note.//
It started off good. The big, bad guy seemed interesting, but the ending kinda fizzled. I'm not sure you could do more unless the writer wrote a longer story and fleshed out the villain more.


Thanks Kindle for saving my 4 highlighted passages, and 2 notes:

Adoulla and his friends had dispatched enough fiendish creatures over the decades to make him suspect that the old threats were starting to regain a foothold on God’s great earth.
Read more at location 260
Note: evil.dark lord returns to the Land.


Instead of a blissful marriage, he had monstrosities on his mind and a pile of “should haves” pressing down upon his soul.
Read more at location 387
Note: And what if you forsake blissful marriage to fight monsters to find none. Would you be great or fiendish enough to create your own ghuls?

I've got a good twenty years left in this world if God wills it. Thousands of days, thousands of nights. I'm not going to spend them all alone. I’m not.
Read more at location 2514

“O believer! When you meet a man on the road, know that God, who makes broken things whole, has cobbled your kindest fates together,”
Read more at location 3345

Jurassic World

#note.//
Watched at the theater with Nick & Le.
I suspended my scientific belief-system for the creation of the creatures, but just because they're herbivores doesn't mean they're not dangerous!

The big, hybrid velociraptor would have killed the little rapter. As Chris Pratt pointed out. The creature had been raised in isolation. It was just a killing machine with no recognition of sibling (which it ate).


 #actor.//
Chris Pratt as Owen, the lovable former Navy-man turned dinosaur trainer, and all-around Hero.

link.Peter Quill.Guardian of the Galaxy
link.Emmet Brickowski.The Lego Movie
link.Andy Dwyer.Parks and Recreation



Blue Ruin

#note.//
I watched last night on NetFlix.Anhtuan.
Very dark movie.  Recontextualizing a family feud into a modern movie way. It's a very old narrative. Lover's and their fighting families.
I haven't seen any other movies with Macon, or produced or written by him.


 #actor.//
Macon Blair as the lovable vagabond, Dwight.


Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

#author.Timothy Geithner
checkout local library thru Kindle.
FINISHED.20150608


#note.//
I haven't been reading enough. This is my non-fiction read. I do love these market, policy, monetary, economic, business cycle books!

Let's see what an insider see's and the do's and don'ts.

Now I'm finished!

Fascinating insights into policy making.

Here are my notes from Kindle. Thanks Amazon for keeping them!

We weren’t rich by American standards, but we were very privileged.
Read more at location 383   •
Note: that's how i feel!

My mother is from a New England family dating back to the Mayflower,
Read more at location 396   •
Note: she is White brand.main

His father was a German immigrant who settled in north Philadelphia and ran a small business as a cabinetmaker. My father went to a public high school, mostly African American,
Read more at location 404   •
Note: he is White.brand.marginal

she sent him a Valentine from her dorm room. Nine months later, they were married. And they stayed married.
Read more at location 411   •
Note: father was marginal but still white brand so had access to main.brand unlike all the hard working black youth from the same Philie public school. Black.brand.main is changing.

Somehow, I got elected president of my junior and senior classes; my main memory of that initial experience in leadership was how much I loathed public speaking.
Read more at location 452   •
Note: he doesn't like public speaking, but he is definitely NOT introvert.

My father and several other relatives had gone to Dartmouth, and I initially resisted the idea of going there—partly because I wanted to carve out my own path, partly because I felt guilty about the advantages I had applying as a legacy. I decided those were weak reasons not to go to a good school.
Read more at location 473   •
Note: he had access to White.brand.marginal.right-tail, that part of the brand the actively reinforces the main.brand.

I would join three housemates, all of them women. One of them was Carole Sonnenfeld.
Read more at location 508   •
Note: tradition male.brand. integrating with proximal female.brand. How else to nucleate a long-term, stable relationship except by physical proximity. Is there now a NEW electronic proximity? What good is it without sex?

Carole was pregnant again.
Read more at location 690   •
Note: biology of female.brand but empathy and good listener are not restrict traits of fe.brand. Many ma.brand have this trait. Does nucleation require complementary brand (probably no)? Or is it just required for long-term stability (probably yes).

I put too much of a burden on Carole, and too much of their lives happened without me.
Read more at location 714   •
Note: once nucleated into family.brand fe.or.ma must make sacrifice.

September 2005. We invited their regulators, too, including British and German authorities. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs dubbed the group “the Fourteen Families,”
Read more at location 1612   •
Note: who are the 14?

How could the Fed justify invoking emergency powers to help a nonbank that wouldn’t even help itself?
Read more at location 1963   •
Note: is it similar to Iraq? how can we send in US troops when the Iraq people don't want to fight

Citi didn't expect funding for these off-balance sheet vehicles to dry up, because of the same delusions that made risky securities seem safe to investors and rating agencies.
Read more at location 2121   •
Note: no capital example.citi group.

And Carole didn't just have reservations; she was opposed.
Read more at location 3798   •
Note: again. sacrifices by fe.brand

They didn’t have better solutions; they just didn't like ours. We were often vulnerable to that kind of attack, because we rarely had good options.
Read more at location 3844   •

AIG bonus scandal would take the media frenzy and the public anger to new levels, and I knew it would be another devastating blow to confidence in our crisis response. The next day, I called Ed Liddy, the new CEO of AIG, to say, essentially: What the fuck?
Read more at location 4904   •

I got into the habit of walking into crowded meetings in Larry’s office and joking: “Is this a real meeting or a fake meeting?” In other words, are we talking about a policy that requires a decision, or just talking?
Read more at location 5296   •
Note: aren't science meeting like this too? Or any open style meeting.

Eventually, Congress will have to make some tough choices about the mortgage market—not just how to reduce the government’s dominant role, but how to balance the trade-off between safety and accessibility.
Read more at location 6652   •

CEOs of the troubled institutions that required a majority government stake (Fannie, Freddie, AIG) or a merger with a stronger partner (Bear, WaMu, Countrywide, Merrill, Wachovia) all lost their jobs.
Read more at location 7681   •
Note: where are they.CEO now?

the central paradox of financial crises: What feels just and fair is often the opposite of what’s required for a just and fair outcome. It’s why policymakers generally tend to make crises worse, and why the politics of crisis management are always untenable.
Read more at location 7720   •
Note: Can brands nucleate crisis group who can manage policy.action? what are the movement.rituals to train in preperation? can the brand.tribe be laterall and not classically hierarchtical.

a sustained rise in private borrowing relative to GDP,
Read more at location 7775   •
Note: signs of a developing financial crisis

a sustained rise in uninsured short-term liabilities issued by the financial sector, the kind of money that can quickly run
Read more at location 7777   •
Note: signs of a developing financial crisis.

safeguards are the constraints on risk-taking that I’ve described as “shock absorbers,” starting with strict capital requirements that restrict leverage and ensure that institutions can absorb losses in a downturn. Other shock absorbers include liquidity requirements that limit financial institutions’ reliance on runnable short-term financing, deposit insurance and discount window access for depository institutions, margin requirements for derivatives and other financial instruments, and mortgage down-payment requirements that restrict leverage for ordinary borrowers.
Read more at location 7791   •
Note: measures to reduce risk.

playbook for monetary and fiscal policy is fairly simple.
Read more at location 7920   •

After a major shock that depresses demand and creates a risk of deflation, central bankers should ease monetary policy, aggressively lowering interest rates. Once the overnight rate approaches zero, they should find new ways to stay on the accelerator,
Read more at location 7921   •

fiscal side, the government should do as much as it can to reduce taxes and increase spending in order to offset the loss of wealth, the tightening of credit, and the collapse in private demand.
Read more at location 7927   •

The composition of fiscal stimulus is important, too, and should ideally combine speed and power. Tax cuts tend to be fast but weak; infrastructure investments tend to be powerful but slow; aid to low-income families is fast as well as powerful.
Read more at location 7930   •

financial rescue protocol is more complex. You want to conduct a form of triage that distinguishes between the insolvent and the merely illiquid, between firms that will never be viable and firms that just need protection from being caught in the stampede.
Read more at location 7933   •


Monday, May 25, 2015

Grace & Frankie

#note.//Another Netflix special series. I watched a few with my sisters. C enjoys them, not sure about N. I'll probably watch on/off until I finish the first season.

I'm ambivalent like I am about these shows which I've started:
American Horror Story
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt




 #actor.//
Jane Fonda as Grace
Lily Tomlin as Frankie
Sam Waterston as Sol
Martin Sheen as Robert

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

#note.//
Started watching cuz someone said it's humor was like 30 Rock.<link> . One producer is Tina Fey.

It does have the song, Pinot Noir that C and I think is funny!


 #actor.//
Ellie Kemper as Kimmy Schmidt
Tituss Burgess as  Titus Andromedon
Carol Kane as Lillian Kaushtupper
<link>.The Princess Bride

Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Imitation Game

#note.//
Alan Turing was gay. So was Walt Whitman, who looked like James Randi, of An Honest Liar.
This 2014 movie dramatizing parts of his life-- Alan's.

Is it ironic that I watched it during Memorial Weekend? How many soldiers saved? All soldiers, British, Germans, Russians, and Americans?


 #actor.//
Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Leon: The Professional

#note.//
It came out in 1994, so I must have seen it in the 90s? I didn't realize for the longest time that the little girl was Natalie Portman, later of Star Wars fame. Which reminds me, I saw La Femme Nikita, both foreign and American version!



#actor.//
Natalie Portman as Mathilda, little girl taken in my Leon
Jean Reno as Léon, the hitman with a heart.


#forwardpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Jason Bourne.Bourne Identity.2002
Gon.No Tears for the Dead.2014


#forwardpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Ah Jong.The Killer.1989

Bourne Legacy

#note.//
Watched with Paul at dad's house.20150510.Sun
It's template made and paced well. Super soldier, girlie helper, and a chase sequence. Fight with another super soldier, win, escape on fishing boat...

#actor.//
Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, super soldier from program: Outcome

Rachel Weisz as Dr. Marta Shearing, eye-candy and girlie helper

Glen Scott makes short appearance as Ezra Kramer
linked.Stick.Daredevil (Netflick series)


#backpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Jason Bourne.Bourne Identity
Ah Jong.The Killer
Gon.No Tears for the Dead


Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Adventure - Atari 2600

#note.//
I can never remember the name of the game, so I put it here.

My breakfast pictures reminds me of the dragons in this game, and I used the red dragon as my Facebook profile picture for awhile.



Monday, April 27, 2015

No Tears for the Dead

#note.//
Another action movie with an assassin/hitman that has a good heart.
He accidently kills little girl, and must atone by saving the mother from other hitmans.


 #actor.//
Dong-gun Jang as Gon the killer with a heart.



#backpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Jason Bourne.Bourne Identity
Ah Jong.The Killer
Aaron Cross.Bourne Legacy

The Killer

#note.//
A classic John Woo movie complete with doves, blind women, and lots of guns.




 #actor.//
Chow Yun-Fat as Ah Jong the assassin/hitman with a heart.





#forwardpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Jason Bourne.Bourne Identity
Gon.No Tears for the Dead
Aaron Cross.Bourne Legacy

Bourne Identity

#note.//
American assassin/hitman with a good heart that he finally remembers, ironically because of (self-induced?) amnesia.



#actor.//
Matt Damon as Jason Bourne the government trained assassin.



#forwardpropagate.//assassin with good heart narrative
Gon.No Tears for the Dead.
Aaron Cross.Bourne Legacy

Good Eats

#.note.//
Started.20150427 watching at Dad's. I used his AT&T U-verse to record

20150427.//waffles.pomegranate.popcorn.
Myth buster! Shearing doesn't really keep the moisture in, but it probably adds flavor but browning the meat first.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

From Time to Time

#note.//
A british fantasy... looks good so far.

Daredevil


#notes.//
20150411.Started watching the first few episodes. Has the right feel of darkness and violence.
20150419.Recommended on Fb.JoJo Nguyen.push.ABJ
20150421.Finished first and only season right now.

Karen Page.love interest.eye-candy
Vanessa Marianna.love interest.soon to be cripple
Claire Temple.faithful doctor
Marlene Fisk.now cripple
Doris Urich.now cripple

lots of women in hospital beds, and guys fighting.

#actors.//
Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, early victim of Kingpin and perfect eye-candy. I think I have a crush on her, Karen not Deborah. Who ever costumes her for the show knows how to make her look gooDD!



Glen Scott as Stick.
linked.Ezra Kramer.Bourne Legacy

The November Man

#note.//
I love action.spy movies, but even for me, this movie is BAD.


Dawn of the Planets of the Apes

#note.//
It's a good 2014 remake.
I still don't think smart apes can take over.
Human's are still pluripotent. We have evolve lots of ways to abstract.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

U2 - The Definitive Biography

#author.John Jobling

#notes.//
The story starts with Larry, who was looking to start a band. Then Adam came, but I got confused when they started talking about David and Paul. I was trying to read kinda fast and lots of people were being introduced. Eventually, I figured out that David played the part of the Edge and Paul played the part of Bono.

What immediate hit was how they are like every other Act that made it big. Luck. Randomness. Hard-work. Determination.

They were not really that good. Then some random event made them popular locally and they had gigs, the 10000 hours of practice that they needed, more random luck, lots of people who believed in them and worked hard to make them bigger.


#link.//10,000-Hour Rule
Outlier - The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Eon

#author.Greg Bear

#notes.//
FINISHED.20150318
PUBLISHED.1985

SPOILER ALERT!

The corridor is also named the Way, an east.asian mysticism connection to The Way/Tao/Dao.

The story has an inner-space narrative like the Matrix, with the Way being both the Matrix Space and the Hyperspace connection to other.alternative Universes.

In several realities, there is a nuclear apocalypse.

#forwardpropagate.//inner-space narrative
City Memory is like.The Matrix.movie.1999


#forwardpropagate.//copy-of-self narrative
Making copies of person.personality is like clay people.Kiln People.book.2002

Kiln People

#author.David Brin
One of my favorite sci-fi author.

#notes.//
FINISHED.2011.

I was in Germany! Probably both of us hiding in a books.Marlene

Basically, the book is a detective novel of sorts with the added twist of making copies of yourself and putting them into physical avatars: clay people -- the title, kiln people, hardening of clay to stone.


#backpropagate.//copy-of-self narrative
The idea here is basically the same as in Eon.Greg Bear

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Doctor Who

#notes.//
Binged in 2014 and watched Series 1-7.
So good!
20150314.rewatching some of Series 6, and can't remember outcome! How fun! I can keep watching it again and again without knowing the ending!


Thursday, March 12, 2015

Once Upon a Time

#notes.//
First season was in 2011
20150312.Today, I started watching the first few episodes. Emma wishes on her birthday. Ironic?
<interlace.space or normall> Looking for signs.

#actors.//
Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan, another savoir of a Community; another orphan.

Jamie Dornan as Sheriff Graham.
link.Paul Spector.The Fall



#forwardpropagate.//messiah narrative


#backpropagate.//messiah narrative
Chandler Jarrell.The Golden Child

.//orphan characterization
Sarah.Chuck

Friday, March 6, 2015

The Warrior's Way

#note.//
Another visually stylized assassin story. It has a nice look. Good job on typical story.
A derivative of Lone Wolf and Club (stream)?

Watched on the big TV at Ta Ree's.

#actor.//
Kate Bosworth as Lynne.hot red-head!

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Kick the Can

#note.//
One of the original Twilight Zone episodes that has stuck in my head.

You can watch for "free" (with Ads) at imdb.Hulu link:

They Live

note#.//
has the ID.16-26-31-34.stream.memorable line
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."
youTube quote

#actor.//
Roddy Piper as John Nada

Kindergarten Cop

#note.//
Not even sure if I watched the entire movie. I just remember the line, "it's not a toomer". This was probably around the time I was indoctrinated with many memorable quotes from my filmophilic friends.

Other quotes from that era,
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."
movie.They Live

or as my friends said "And I'm fresh out of bubblegum"

#actor.//
Arnold Schwarzenegger as John Kimble

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Seven

#notes.//
No wonder they all look so young. It was twenty years ago! (1995 to 2015)
Freeman checked his pager. It was shot like something from the 70s.

#actor.//
Morgan Freeman as detective
Brad Pitt as detective
Kevin Spacey as killer

71

notes.//The troubles in Ireland.
I saw it at the Writer's Guild Theater (Matt's Movies) with Chou & Lil.

Mr. Nobody

#note.//
Long life leads to compression of earliest memories, even if those memories with imagination.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Hobbit

#action.//
Watched the last one with Nick D and Le.
Did I watch all three movies at the movie theater?!


Edge of Tomorrow - Live Die Repeat

#note.//
20140233.watched with Be.
An action.war interpretation of one of my favorite movie:
Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. His love interest is also named Rita.

#actor.//
Tom Cruise as William Cage.reborned warrior.
Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski.previous reborned warrior

Groundhog Day

#note.//
One of my favorite movies. Watched it several times while living in Brentwood with Tom R.

#actor.//
Bill Murray as Phil Connors.reborned hero
Andie MacDowell as Rita Hanson.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Back to the Future

#note.//
The one distinct memory I have, is about when this movie came out. I didn't go see it with all my siblings. Instead, I went and saw Cocoon, just to be different. I watched Back to the Future later and had to admit to myself at that age (early teens) that I enjoyed and related to it better.

Still, I started to think about getting old and what it means. I learned what to do if you have one last shot at youthful vigor. Eventually, we all leave with the Aliens and live practically forever, until that civilization also scenesces. Everything has a lifecycle-- cells, organism, super-organism, and also structures those organisms make like town, city, world and communities.

Incorrect prediction: flying cars in 2015. The closest will be by the makers of Android and will be a self-driving car.
//