LeEMS Bean

Self improvement, mmmm tastes like chicken

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:12:57 -0500

I talked about the living library before on the Bean and lamented that it was not available in the States. Well, now it is. Give a good idea a chance and its bound to become a rampant infection, I guess: Living library open in America (LIS news). Though currently in California, maybe we will all soon have the opportunity to challenge our own preconceptions of other people by actually talking to them! Did that sound overly sarcastic? I think this is a great idea really, and I think the people who show up to check out a book and the people who volunteer to be books for the evening are incredibly brave and self aware.

Now if only we could get a state side version of the School of Everything (Boing Boing), we could fill all our free time with some self improvement. The school of Everything is an Ebay like site for finding and providing instruction. If you have something to teach (and you live in England and Whales), then you can sign up to accept students, and if you have something you want to learn (and you live in England or Whales) you can search for teachers of your subject. This'd be a great way to find a native speaker of the language you are studying or to find a teacher for a subject not normally covered by traditional schooling, like, meditation.

Heart to heart

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:46:59 -0500

I've talked about it before, November is National Novel Writing Month and I've just realized that I only have 10 days to get to my 50,000 words! I'm not even half way there! And I had the audacity to not write last night! Can you tell I'm freaking out? I really want to get there, I do. I am going to be writing my behind off for the remaining days, except for the holiday where family is going to take away precious writing time. Ack! No, really I like family and Thanksgiving. It will all be ok.

So, lovely people. I know already, Bean readers aren't ones for a bunch of commenting or feedback, but if you were going to comment on something--which topic would it fall under anyway? I mean, what stuff to I talk about that you guys like the best?

Patterns more patterns

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:56:06 -0500

Stephen Chow

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:26:00 -0500

I promised more information on our Stephen Chow marathon, so I'm giving it to you even if you don't really want it. Richard of Doomed Moviethon will also have a full and detailed article about the whole thing after he has freed himself from NaNoWriMo.

So, was three days of Stephen Chow movies brain numbing, you ask. Why no, not at all, the greatest thing about so many of the movies starring and directed by Stephen Chow is that watching them is as easy as hanging out with a dear friend. There is, in the movies, just enough pathetic and depressing circumstances to flesh out the comedy and just enough comedy and silliness to alleviate the severity of the depressing circumstances.

A lot of the Stephen Chow movies we watched for the moviethon required a stretch of translation imagination. They proved the rule that you should only ever translate into your own language. My favorites? God of Cookery (seen in the picture), Shaolin Soccer-- both of which have the annoying "you can never love a girl until she's pretty," but whatcha gonna do, nothing 's perfect--Fight Back to School, and Tricky Brains.

I suggest getting your hands on some Stephen Chow while you're waiting to read Richard's moviethon article, but if you can't wait for some Doomed Moviethon goodness, read his blog post about Stephen Chow now. Ah, why don't you just go read it anyway, even if you can wait.

Guilt, Competition, and Goals: troubles of self teaching

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:40:21 -0500

Back in tenth grade I had a genius biology teacher. He had traveled around the world, researched and studied, knew five languages and decided to teach high-school in a Texas suburb. He was funny and really seemed to enjoy the kids he taught. I decided then that one day I wanted to know multiple languages as well. I've always been kind of obsessed with communication in all forms and knowing languages just walks along side of that. That said, I didn't learn much of other languages in school. I've constantly found Spanish to be crazy difficult (in fifth grade and in personal study), and though I find German easy to understand and study, the only class I had in two years of high-school study and two years of college study that taught me much of anything by way of the language was the first one--again in Texas. Ah, that school was so great!

I mentioned previously about my language studies and how I try to bring as much different material into my daily world as possible. So, I went out searching for music, I watch movies in subtitles not dubbed, I've made myself flashcards, I found some kids books to read (or try to read), in addition to some good old fashioned book study. Right now, I am trying my best to get better at German and learning Japanese.

And I've run into the same problem I've run into with teaching myself instruments--that is, there's no accountability. Adding input from as much media as you can and setting goals only goes so far when there's no one around to kick you in the butt when you don't do what you set out to do. After all, you are only failing yourself right? And somehow, at least for me, failing myself is a lot better than failing other people.

Enter I know!, the language learning site, still in Beta. From what I gather, it was originally designed for Native Japanese speakers who wished to learn other languages. It now has a program of study for native English speakers who wish to learn Japanese and it promises more languages are on the way. The best part of I know! is that it keeps track of your progress in shiny bar charts and makes these visible on your profile--you can of course hide them, but why? This advertisement of your study or slack off habits is, in my opinion, the hook that I know! has over other language learning socializing web sites. It is the accountability that you would otherwise get from a classroom setting.

I've only done two lessons so far in my program of study and I am really liking the way that part of the site is set up. I can't wait until more languages are added so that I can practice German with their interface as well, and perhaps, return to my poor Spanish.

I heard about I know! from the Learn Japanese POD Blog--very much recommended!

Sci Fi movie reality

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:16:18 -0500

Its time for another post on the Nostradamus that is our SciFi lit and movie world. Fresh from io9 are a couple of stories that smack of 20th century celluloid. Scientists have recently found a way to implant memories. Mad Science: utrasound can give you memories of learning things in college is almost the dream I have had about waking up knowing how to play the guitar. Yeah, I'm working on it the hard way, but I think I have a mental block where learning the instrument is concerned. Of course, this whole implanted memory thing was done in Total Recall already.

So, if scientists can make memories that would fit within the confines of the human mind, its only fitting that they can create a Computer program modeled to be a purely evil human personality in order to help them study the intricacies of human morality. My first reaction to this is that they don't need any virtual evil to study that particular subject, but oh well, if it worked for Virtuosity, then it will work for our intrepid laboratory conquistadors. Too bad the virtual evil they created doesn't look anything like Russel Crow. But let us all take a lesson from the movie and not let the Martian colony building robot ants or any future robot building bugs to get anywhere near the program.

Newsworthy as well are some ground breaking real world court rulings on virtual crime. Perhaps the Virtual Murderer jailed was convicted more on her breaking and entering and computer hacking, but, I bet, the Teens convicted of virtual theft just opened the door for more countries to follow China in taxing virtual property. The web was already alive with this possibility in the U.States two years ago: IRS taxation of online game virtual assets [was] inevitable.

previously:

What anime hath fortold

Electronic Face Masks and Animated Prophesy

I love me some futuristic architecture

Successful Arm Transplants and a Murderers Hands

Lasers in the Sky: life from the movies

I made them for you.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:33:18 -0500

I've been fiddling around with pattern making for a little, and after some unhappy moments with high humidity and cheap paper I managed to come up with a couple that look pretty good, I think--especially the green one. So I am sharing them with you and you can tile them on your desktops as much as your little heart desires, just don't make any money with them--I'm terribly greedy and relatively, constantly low on cash.

St. Trinian's

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:59:42 -0500

I had heard about the new St. Trinian's movie a year or so ago when it was released in Brittain theatres, and I waited. Then, it came out on DVD in Brittain, and France, and somewhere else across the Atlantic and still had no release date either in U.S. theatres or in U.S. media retailers. So, I stopped waiting and made one of my very rare sight-unseen purchases.

You see, I am totally hooked up with a not-to-be-advertised-as region free DVD player, and it has helped me tear down the walls of movie marketing companies and their territorial spats to the detriment of people everywhere who just want to the see the movie.

Well, St. Trinian's has already garnered critical reviews for somehow not living up to its many movie predecessors, all movies inspired by Ronald Searle's original St. Trinian's comics. For me, the movie had just enough substance and wit to hold itself together while being a completely enjoyable real life cartoon. How could I pass up buying it when it offered Rupert Everett in two roles, Colin Firth, and Stephen Fry? Not to mention a host of other recognizable and talented actors.

I suppose the biggest draw back is that the movie fell short on developing some of the key girl characters in favor of setting up the deviant but clique-ish groups of St. Trinian's. It's this lack of depth that makes it cartoonish, but like I said, completely enjoyable.

It just so happens that I ran across St. Trinian's: the Entire Apalling Business in the used book store not long before my region 2 DVD appeared in the mail. Ronald Searle's, often one cell, comics on the criminal, devious, and thoroughly reproachable girls of St. Trinian's are amazing in the way they evoke a whole story with one picture and one or two lines of dialog.

Holidays and Language Studies

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:30:44 -0500

So, I am enjoying another long weekend thanks to Veteran's Day and an impromptu vacation day request. It feels good, especially since it gives me time to catch up the writing I didn't do for NaNoWriMo over the weekend because of the Stephen Chow marathon we had (more on that later).

But before the long weekend and the moviethon kicked off I spent hours and hours searching for some one to four cell daily style comics in German and Japanese to help me study. I figure the more bits, and the more formats you can add of your foreign language of choice into your day the better, right? I found some easily in German (I'm a little farther a head here so overall its getting less of my attention)--a really awesome daily, by the way, here and here and here. I had some terrible trouble, however, finding any daily comics in Japanese. I'm probably running into the trouble because 'comic' would be translated to manga in the translator I use (I haven't fixed my computer to type in Japanese yet), and manga just brings up a whole bunch of long and involved stories. Hmm, closest I found was the Yomiuri children's weekly, which does not have an RSS feed. If anyone knows of any more, please let me know, yes?

Anyway, the end of this story is, I drew up a few comics of my own using some of the language books I had checked out of the library. I've devised a whole comics page of the website dedicated to the language comics and a couple matchbook stories I made.

Boca do Lobo

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 10:27:11 -0500

I have come upon another first in Bean history: I have been marketed to in order to market to you lovely individuals, and I am all too happy to do it since this is very shiny beautiful stuff. I have ogled Boca do Lobo previously for the inventive and yet sleek and stunning combination of design elements in furniture. Now I get to show you Boca do lobo's Limited Edition / Large Emotion collection.