George Orwell called it. Eric Blair, you’re a prophet. Penguin anniversary edition cover design by gray318.
It was fitting that as the 40th anniversary of the declaration of martial law drew near, the hot topic on social networks, blogs and traditional media in the Philippines was the end of freedom of expression.
Read The Cybercrime Law: The Return of the Thought Police, our column at InterAksyon.com.
Our column Emotional Weather Report, Pet Life edition appears in the Philippine Star most Saturdays.
“You’ll be back…with my Friskies. How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t like Whiskas. Friskies! Friskies!”
At Google’s mysterious X laboratory, known to us as Larry and Sergei’s world domination headquarters, scientists connected 16,000 computer processors to try and simulate a human brain.
A minuscule portion of it, the researchers pointed out, as the human brain has a million times more connections—than their network. Repeat: your brain has more synapses and neurons than a network with one billion connections. Essentially, scientists are using vast computer networks to figure out what goes on inside a single human brain. (You really are an underachiever.)
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Mike Alcazaren wrote a letter to the management of SM IMAX and posted it on their FB wall. They have not responded and they took down the post on their wall.
The Management
SM Cinema
Greetings. I just finished watching the event movie Dark Knight Rises at SM MOA Imax this afternoon with my family. The purchase of 4 movie tickets cost us PHP 1,800. A cost I did not mind paying because of the advertised “total cinematic experience” that IMAX and your cinemas promise on your website. However, this was far from the experience we had watching the movie.
In your website, the IMAX projection system is advertised as delivering “crystal clear images with a level of quality that is above ordinary projection standards…”. For the entire movie, the projection was dim, especially in the regular formatted scenes (non-IMAX). I have watched far better movie projection at regular, “ordinary” cinemas. It certainly was not “above ordinary projection standards” as we ended up having headaches after viewing the movie.
Sound, also was not as advertised. In your website, the IMAX audio experience promises a “powerful audio system” that “delivers laser-aligned digital sound that envelops you.”. Unfortunately for the moviegoers none of the qualities promised were delivered. The sound was poor, weak and definitely did not “envelop” us. In fact, the audio system did not even sound stereophonic, appearing to emanate only from the center.
The movie was 90% action and we did not see, hear or feel any of the crispness and detail promised by the 400 peso ticket prise that was charged. Even my Home Theater system sounds better and it is not even high-end.
I certainly hope that you shall look into the equipment that you have and double check if you indeed have the proper system that promises what you advertise. I am an avid moviegoer and look forward to these cinematic events which I willingly shell out extra because of the promise of the new technology you sell to us. I do hope you will not rob other moviegoers of that chance of the true “IMAX” experience by fixing your system. I have forwarded this letter also to the IMAX main offices.
Paying customer,
Miguel G. Alcazaren
While writing Sunday’s column we looked up some facts about Roger Federer’s career and found this bit in his Wikipedia entry.
Controversy
Due to his extremely consistent playing style and seeming indefatigablility, some commentators have accused Federer of being an extremely advanced Swiss robot.[41] Swiss ingenuity is well known, as evidenced by the superiority of Swiss Army Knives and Swiss clocks. Swiss patent documents recovered from the effects of Albert Einstein reveal a 1904 application for a mechanical tennis partner that was later abandoned. [42]. Engineers studying the attached drawings believe the design to be decades ahead of its time, and have concluded that it is entirely possible that in the intervening decades, the Swiss were able to perfect the technology, the end result being Roger Federer.
When confronted with this evidence in the winter of 2006, Federer denied the allegations, stating they were “preposterous” and that to his knowledge “such technology does not exist, even in Japan.” Federer then dispensed hot chocolate from a cavity in his chest and flew away, powered by rockets located in the soles of his feet.
Hah!
Adastra on Manila Bay. Photo by Butch Perez.
The trimaran Adastra was docked on Manila Bay for a few days. It looks like a spacecraft, something the X-Men would ride. Which was probably the designers’ intention: ad astra means “to the stars”.
Robot beats humans at rock-paper-scissors every time.
When the human player in the video above tries to change his shape at the last minute, it still can’t fool the robot at the game, which is called janken in Japan. Its timing is so precise that it never shows its hand too early, and it wins 100 per cent of the time.
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