Good movie, but not as good as the review. I know the history, and it's surprisingly true to the facts plot-wise while being completely unbelievable character-wise.
I think the movie held up because of the stunning artistic direction and choreography... and the brilliant performance by Lena Headey as the powerful but troubled Queen Gorgo served as a good counterpoint to the single-minded Gerard Butler as King Leonidas.
Just to give an idea of the visuals:
My god, this is a good album. Gothy synth-pop... introspective, intelligent, and raw. Somewhere between Curve and the Cure. I can't stop listening to it.
Work rut is a vicious cycle. Your job is hard and demanding. When you get home the last thing you want to do is think about work. But without the proper planning, your career never improves.
Break the cycle by making small, solid changes on a daily basis. Here are 30 digestible bits of career advice from top blogs like 4-Hour Workweek, The Simple Dollar, Freelance Switch, Zenhabits and more. Try out a tip a day for the next month and transform your career.
Becoming more productive by working less
- Don't let coworkers ramble. Don't put up with "how's it going?" when someone calls you. Force the other person to stick to the point by consistently asking them "what's
up?" Read More.
- Multi-tasking makes projects 30% late. Because your brain has to mentally reset itself which results in a loss of efficiency. Read More.
- Meetings that end without action steps. They are a waste of time. Forget notes.
Writing down concrete action steps is 95% of the battle. Read More.
- Construct the perfect email subject line. Tip: label with keywords. Keep short. Read More.
- Achieve greatness in 15 minutes. Do all your tasks in fifteen minute chunks. Use a simple kitchen timer. When you know every unpleasant task will end in fifteen minutes, there is no excuse for procrastination or distractions. Read More.
- Firewall your attention. Make ‘no’ the default answer for new project. New things should earn their way into your attention field. Read More.
- Do only big tasks with big returns. Start with tasks with the greatest positive impact. Everything else is just busy work. Read More.
- Turn Facebook into a killer app. Use its calendars and schedules to take care of both your personal and professional interactions in one place. Like it or not, many of your friends are probably also your co-workers. Read More.
Don't just tolerate your boss, outsmart him
- How to connect with a boss you hate. It’s easy to come up with a list of all the ways your boss could change to be less annoying, domineering, passive-aggressive, arrogant, etc. But fact is, you can’t change anyone but yourself. Read More.
- Earn more money by negotiating without fear. It doesn't matter how much money you make right now. The key is how much you are worth, and how much you want to make. Read More.
- Say no at work by offering an alternative. Think of other people or approaches that will allow your boss to get the job done without your involvement. Offer your boss solutions, not excuses. Read More.
- Control your next performance review. Don't be passive. Develop a game plan, be specific about your needs, and visualize your meeting in advance. Read More.
Pimp your workspace
- Is your workspace driving you crazy? Are you being driven mad at work by misplaced walls or the wrong kinds of noise? Take this quiz to see how your office measures up. Read More.
- Setting up action areas. Isolate a portion of your desk as an "action area" -- a physical inbox for things that needs doing. The concept: When you walk by, everything you see requires action. If you have a minute, take action. Read More.
- Decorate your workspace with progress. Don't throw your to-do lists away. Save them as trophies of your achievement and an inspiring monument to a job well done. Read More.
- Clean up the power cords maze. Transform your workspace with a drill, duct tape, and a monster 12 outlet power strip. Read More.
- Need a change of scene? Set up an offsite office. It can be a local café, a favorite park, a pizza place, the library, a shared office space, anywhere that you can go on a regular basis to get out of the office, but still be productive. Read More.
- Make your office look like an iPod. Divide up each project into file folders. Since you can only work on one thing at a time, only pull out the one folder you need. Read More.
Stop feeling crappy at work
- Recognize that all jobs suck. All companies are dysfunctional. The thing is, they're all dysfunctional in different ways. The secret to happiness is to pick an employer with dysfunctions that will bug you less than the others. Read More.
- Take care of yourself when working long hours. Invest in a proper ergonomic chair, exercise your eyeballs, stretch your neck and shoulders, and spend time with humans. Read More.
- How to thrive in a job you hate. When something comes up in your job that you hate, feel that. Let yourself feel whatever emotion comes over you. Don't try to hide it inside, or it will just blow out later. Read More.
How not to get fired
- Give your resume a facelift. Improve any resume by picking a better typeface (ditch Times for Georgia), removing extra indentations, making it more scannable, and applying typographic detailing. Read More.
- Stay on top of your game. With time, most of us will lose some of our thirst for knowledge. The more this happens, the more important it becomes to fuel that passion externally to keep driving yourself forward. Read More.
- When loyalty gets misinterpreted as incompetence. Working at one company for more than 15 years may actually be a red flag to corporate employers. Long-standing employees are seen as unwilling or even unable to make a move. Read More.
- 14 essential tips for meeting a deadline. You have to be serious about meeting deadlines. Make breaking a deadline a cardinal sin. Once you've done this step, the other 13 are just logistics. Read More.
- 20 signs that a pink-slip is coming. If you can answer yes to THREE or more of these questions, you may want to think about sprucing up your resume and dry-cleaning your best interview attire. Read More.
- 15 things you can do right now to help your career. To get ahead you need to start small and look at immediate steps you can take to help out your situation. Read More.
Reinvent your idea of work
- Prioritize your career as your biggest investment. Your annual investment returns are seldom as great as your annual salary. Yet many people spend more time picking stocks than planning their careers. Read More.
- Continuous 8 hour work day is an unnatural relic of the past. Productivity levels generally peak twice a day — first thing in the morning and shortly after lunch. Why not switch to a 3-4 hour workday that focuses on the productive times? Read More.
- 7 ways to bridge the talent gap. Talent has very little to do with the success of someone who’s just starting out. More important factors are your productivity, attention to detail, versatility, openness to new ideas, and attitude. Read More.
- Detailed road map to self-employment. With a well-considered plan based on some realistic assumptions and some work ethic and willpower, almost anyone can make it happen. Read More.
Of course, life isn't all about moleskine notebooks and GTD lists. Soak in this final tip from the No Impact Man and stop obsessing over the rat race:
"I try to remind myself to stop running from my insecurities and fears, to see them for what they are (illusions), and to have faith in what is. The Buddhists call it returning to the moment. The Christian’s call it trusting in God’s will. The shrinks might call it getting rid of anxiety. The Tao te Ching just says that a man who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."
Deep, dark, disturbing and melodic -- this is Interpol's latest album. Great work.
Moving up to a major label has hardly lifted Interpol's spirits. This is a good thing. Even with the twisted Wild Kingdom album cover and bassist Carlos Dengler's unexpected Wild West makeover, on its third studio album the black-clad New York quartet still sounds inflexibly menacing, grasping tighter than ever to its doomy post-punk influences and delving further into frontman Paul Banks's emotional unrest. Everything sounds a little bigger and brighter, sure, but at their core songs like "Rest My Chemistry" and "Wrecking Ball" are heroically sinister, goaded on by prickly riffs and slow-bleeding rhythms. The group briefly jumps to life on the buzzing "Heinrich Manouver" and exhibits an unexpected dash of humor on "No I in Threesome," but it's the closing "Lighthouse" that best defines the set--a late-night lament that simply steals away into the dark. --Aidin Vaziri
I was pretty skeptical of this disc. I didn't get it for several months after it's release, which is odd for me for a Nine Inch Nails disc. Trent's time was over, I thought.
I was wrong. This disc rocks. Total concept album through and through which you don't see much of anymore. Nine Nails Out Of Nine.
This record began as an experiment with noise on a laptop in a bus on tour somewhere. That sound led to a daydream about the end of the world. That daydream stuck with me and over time revealed itself to be much more. I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't. This record is the latter. Once I tuned into it, everything fell into place... as if it were meant to be. With a framework established, the songs were very easy to write. Things started happening in my "real" life that blurred the lines of what was fiction and what wasn't. The record turned out to be more than a just a record in scale, as you will see over time.
Part one is year zero. Concept record. Sixteen tracks. All written and performed by me, produced / programmed by me and Atticus Ross, mixed by Alan Moulder, mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner. Release date: April 17, 2007.
What's it about? Well, it takes place about fifteen years in the future. Things are not good. If you imagine a world where greed and power continue to run their likely course, you'll have an idea of the backdrop. The world has reached the breaking point - politically, spiritually and ecologically. Written from various perspectives of people in this world, "year zero" examines various viewpoints set against an impending moment of truth. How does it sound? You will hear for yourself soon enough, but given the point of this document is to provide information...
This record is much more of a "sound collage" than recent efforts from me.
A lot of it was improvised. It is very tedious describing your own music. It's not just music. It's probably too long, but it felt like the right thing to do to paint the complete picture. It will sound different after a few listens. You can think about it and it will reveal more than you were expecting. You can dance to a lot of it. You can f*** to a lot of it (maybe all of it depending on what you're into).
I'm so freakin' bored of these movies... This movie's climactic battle scene is a blatent rip of of Star Wars: A New Hope. Potter/Skywalker watches as Dumbledore/Obiwan fights Valdemort/Vader. Even the color of the magic lighting bolts match the colors of the light sabers used.
Yet, in the end, nothing happens. It feels like I'm watching a stretched out sitcom. Everything's resolved at the end and nothing changes, except Potter has a bit of six o'clock shadow.
Yawn.
- Thou shalt not log in as root.
Use “sudo” or “su -” for administrative tasks.- Thou shalt use the package manager when possible.
Sometimes installing from source code can’t be avoided, but when you use your distro’s package manager to install software, you can also use it to update and remove it. This is one of the main strengths of Linux.- Thou shalt be a part of the community.
Freely give what you have received for free. Offer help and advice whenever you can.- Thou shalt read documentation and man pages.
Always read the documentation. The people who wrote the software tried to anticipate your questions, and provided answers before you asked.- Thou shalt use the available support system.
Switching to Linux can be tough. It can be frustrating, but there are a lot of people out there who want to help you. Let them.- Thou shalt search.
In most cases, your question or problem has already been addressed. Try to find the answers that are already out there before asking someone to provide a new one.
- Thou shalt explore.
Linux opens a whole new world of options and possibilities. Try everything you can.- Thou shalt use the command line.
Especially when it comes to configuration, use the GUI tools to get your system working, but get to know the command line versions as well. In many cases, the command line is the only way to use some of the more advanced features.- Thou shalt not try to recreate Windows.
Linux is not meant to be a clone of Windows. It’s different. Embrace and appreciate the differences.
- Thou shalt not give up.
I tried several distributions before I found one I liked. I still try other distros from time to time. I also tried several different programs to serve one purpose before settling on what I use now (amarok, xmms, beep, exaile for music - azureus, ktorrent, deluge for bittorrents). If you don’t like the defaults, remember that you can change almost everything to suit you.
I don't know why I'm attracted to this Da Vinci code stuff. I guess it's my general interest in history and religion... but this Christian mystery stuff is getting out of hand.
Good book though. Micheal Biagent Delves deep into the Egyptian and Mesopotamian linkages with early Christianity and Judaism. The central thesis, and one pretty well put forward (without a shred of real evidence however) is that Jesus didn't die on the cross, he was married to Mary (of course) and interestingly that the raising of Lazarus from the dead wasn't a resurrection --- it was an initiation into Jesus' mystery school. If you look at both ancient Egyptian mystery school and current Masonic initiations, you see a symbolic resurrection from the dead. Very interesting and worth a read. I picked mine up because it was in the sale bin.
Very dull and routine for the most part... but when it's funny, it's beer coming out your nose funny.
In a way I'm glad Rowin Atkinson isn't making any more Bean movies. I don't think they work in movie format. If you want to watch Bean at his best, watch his old BBC stuff, like Mr. Bean to the beach.
Mind blowing. I've been a fan of Philip K. Dick for, well, forever. At least since Blade Runner came out.
I was a little hesitant seeing this movie given the hatchet job that Reeves did to William Gibson's Neromancer (Johnny Mnemonic) but I shouldn't have been. This movie is cut straight from the story, the dialog reads right from the pages. It's complex, gritty, self-referential and self-conflicted... and heavily paranoid just like Dick. The fact that it was animated over the movie images (see pic above) makes it work. Must see.
It's like someone's reading my mind:
According to a multiyear study of over 400 companies by MIT researchers Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill and David Robertson,3 IT departments tend not to be innovative leaders within organizations, but rather conservative forces, viewed by business executives as cost sinks and liabilities. In many companies, it takes the IT department one to two years to implement a new strategic initiative — hardly the agility companies are striving for. The research shows the typical IT structure is so dense and extensive that it’s often a miracle that it works at all. The researchers observe: “Legacy systems cobbled together to respond to each new business initiative create rigidity and excessive costs. Every change becomes a risky, expensive venture.”
The Proliferation of Complexity
How did this happen? James Cordata, who has written extensively about the information economy, points out that as work became more complex and specialized over the 20th century, the use of data — numbers and facts — as fodder for more and more analysis and fact-based decision making intensified. And digital technology “was perfect for this kind of world.”4 Of course, digital technology not only supported that complexity but also played a large part in actually creating it, weaving a continuous web of unending data. “More computers are better than fewer” remains a key belief of American business, Cordata says. “There are no limits to how much is good.” Management became accustomed to the idea that buying more computers and more software would continue to cut costs and improve operations.
Watched this movie with some hesitation because it sounded dull but had great names in it.
Well, it was dull. And confusing. And apathetic. An uninteresting attempt to ressurect film-noir. Perhaps the book was good, but the movie wasn't.
