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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-93194792016-07-18T22:24:50.133+03:00YehudaGaming, technology, philosophy, and lifeYehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-17894012296063622082016-07-12T21:44:00.000+03:002016-07-12T21:44:02.059+03:00Necessary Invention: Mobile Mode in Desktop BrowserMy mother, and many other elderly or non-power users, would have a much easier time browsing the internet if the web-sites on her desktop defaulted to the way they appear when you browse the web on your smartphone.

WebbIE is a browser for low-light vision or blind people, which cuts out all the pictures. And there are add-ons that let you simulate your user-agent (I couldn't get the one for Firefox set up properly). I don't think these are what I'm looking for.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-83262093730804719392016-06-27T00:28:00.000+03:002016-06-27T00:40:50.618+03:00Movie Reviews: X-Men: Apocalypse, Clouds of Sils Maria, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Finding Dory, Love and FriendshipSee my complete list of movie reviews on my movie review page.

X-Men: Apocalypse: This movie had a lot going for it until it made a monstrous stumble about midway. It nearly recovered, but in the last quarter it became simultaneously entirely ridiculous and completely boring for the rest of the movie.

The story is not much to write home about: we've seen it before. A big baddy gets buried in Egypt and then awakens in modern times (ala The Mummy). It assembles a bunch of mutants as henchmen in an attempt to destroy the non-mutant world (ala X-Men). Bad guys assemble here, good guys assemble there, and then they fight.

Some of the good guys have some backstory that nearly works. Nearly. They give a good attempt to underscore how mutants try to live normal lives but always end up getting tormented cruelly. Unfortunately, Magneto's excuse for joining the bad guys is that his family is killed - yet again - but making a Holocaust survivor become, in turn, genocidal, is a mistake (come to think of it, that was one of the problems with X2, also). The other mutants are so much stronger than normal humans that you would think they would be worshiped or imprisoned, not harassed by morons. Quicksilver and Cyclops nearly had backstories, but possibly these were cut. Quicksilver is given a nifty scene like the one he had in Days of Future Past; it's fun, but it's the same fun we had in that movie.

The monstrously bad decision is to have Magento rip down Auschwitz: it's the same kind of awful decision that basically wrecked the denouement of The Fault in Our Stars. You do not bring in The Holocaust for your entertainment, no matter how respectfully you think you're treating it: you're not treating it respectfully. It's the real, recent history and memorials of millions of starving naked men, women, and children burned, poisoned, and gassed to death or killed slowly of disease in a rotting torture hellhole that was enacted by the consent, indifference, or deafness of the world. You don't devolve that into a fictional story where your heroes face their personal pain of not getting everything that they want, or come to realize that it can all be better if we just love one another (or knock down a Holocaust memorial).

I nearly recovered from that idiocy and was ready to consider it yet another standard Marvel movie when we got to an ending that left me shouting at the screen.

Spoilers: First the ridiculous parts: How does Apocalypse learn anything from touching a TV set? It's just a 1980s TV set, not a DVD ROM with an archive of everything that was ever broadcast; he can't see what was broadcast 50 years ago on it, no matter what his powers. If Jean is in a cage where her powers are turned off, why don't the bad guys in the helicopter see her (since she can't block their minds)? Similarly, if the X-Men are in the cage where their powers are blocked, how does Professor X's telepathy reach them?

Magneto creates MASSIVE gravity waves around the world, enough to tear metal out of the buildings and bridges. I don't know much about planetary physics, but I'm pretty sure the entire world would have been destroyed by that, and pretty quickly. If the moon can cause tidal waves, he pretty much just drowned the world. What about all the airplanes and so on? What about the metal nuclear missile orbiting the Earth? Why are super-magnetic powers in movies so selective?

The movie shows Magneto only killing about several million people. And when it's over, he just walks away smiling and friends with everyone, and no one tries to bring him to justice. Wha? And why does everyone smile when Professor X returns that woman's memories to her after he tells her that he raped them out of her mind in the last movie? I would be pissed off, not grateful.

Now the boring parts: Apocalypse is entirely non-human, and his power is so destructive that there is no possible end to the movie that does not have him totally destroyed. That setup makes for a rather predictable ending. Yet, the end goes on for 40 minutes (or it felt like it). 40 minutes! I don't mind a movie with multiple finale scenes; Back to the Future had several, and they were all cool, because each one was the finale to a different problem. Same thing with Lord of the Rings. But this was the same scene, over and over, with five or six different finales. People throw things at him really quick and he expends energy disintegrating the things as fast as possible. First two guys throw everything they have at Apocalypse. He's losing, he's winning. Then a third guy. He's losing, he's winning. Then another guy. He's losing, he's winning. Then oh my god, slow motion?!?!? You've got to be kidding me. Please just end this already. NOTHING is HAPPENING. Here are a few shots of his henchmen fighting some other good guys ... but those fights are boring. And that guy who's about to crash and die in the airplane: can't he FLY?? And oh look, back to Apocalypse and another guy in slow motion. Just end this already!!! I don't care about any of the characters, anyway. Ugh. 40 minutes of this.

Clouds of Sils Maria: This is a fascinating movie in a few acts. It's major theme is an older actress struggling to come to terms with her age vs the parts she has to play. That's not an entirely new theme, but it is incredibly well done here.

The main focus is on Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), a forty year old actress who launched her career twenty years ago playing a twenty year old seductress of a forty year old woman, and her twenty year old assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart), who plays girl Friday to Maria nearly 24/7. The movie starts out with Val managing Maria's calls, Maria's social life, and Maria herself. Maria reluctantly accepts the part of the forty year old woman in a re-staging of the same play that made her famous. She spends the bulk of the movie running lines with Val, determined not to understand the motivations of the part or the talent of the young twenty year old Hollywood actress (Chloe Grace Moretz) who will be playing Maria's original role. Val spends that time having her own vocal ideas about the role, the young actress, and Maria's stubbornness, while stealing a few precious hours here and there to live her own life.

Maria and Val run dialog in ways that bleed into their real life conversations; the roles begin to affect real life. More interestingly, the real life roles that both Juliette and Stewart have played (outside of this movie) also seem to creep into the conversations, making it surreal; that had to have been intentional.

Both characters are complex and involving. Juliette is one of my favorite actresses, and Kristen is an actress who I always thought could be. Here she does a fantastic job, narrowly stealing the movie from Juliette (despite Juliette being the "main" character and being featured more prominently on the movie poster); even when Val isn't on screen, her absence is palpable. Chloe doesn't have much to do, but she does it effectively. The script is not predictable.

Probably the best thing about the movie, other than the fine actors and the odd and engaging script is the interesting cinematography: the director fades out or tracks scenes at unpredictable times and in unpredictable movements. The scenery is beautiful, but that's only part of it. The metaphor of the movie - the snake-like clouds that surround the remote house where most of the action takes place - is rather obtuse, but here goes: these cloud formations have rolled in since time immemorial. Like people, they follow a natural course. They form and perform like a thing of beauty, but then they fade and dissipate. They can't go back in time. The next day brings new clouds.

This is not a perfect movie, or a movie for everyone. It goes places that will leave you wondering what just happened, it has a few uneven spots, and it doesn't wrap up neatly. It's a rare glimpse into the life of actors and their assistants, and a fine, thoughtful movie.

Alice Through the Looking Glass: The first movie came out in 2010, but I didn't get around to seeing it until last week, since it had mixed reviews and I'm not a fan of Tim Burton's: it was fantastic. It was quirky, unpredictable, charming, wondrous, and fantastical. It didn't talk down to you and it was sweet and winning. (Its one major misstep was telegraphing that Alice was going to fight the jabberwock right from when Alice enters Underland, which made the major tension of "O! Who will fight this jabberwock for us?" a rather uninteresting one.)

This movie is just a disaster. Instead of all the unpredictability and charm, we get a story so bad that it is hard to see how this could have gotten out of development. Something uninteresting but annoying is happening in the real world to Alice (who is a sea captain of her father's ship), but she falls into the proverbial mirror. There, the Mad Hatter is sad because he thinks his family is alive, but no one believes him. Alice steals a doodad that destabilizes the entire world in order to go back in time to change the past or at least learn what happened, in order to make the Mad Hatter happy again. Really? That's your premise? Make the Mad Hatter happy again?

All of the characters you knew and loved in the old move are back in this movie without a single interesting thing to say. They wander around bumping into each other, falling down, and wringing their hands hoping that Alice will save them. The premise - that Alice will destabilize the world so that the Hatter will smile again - is so dumb, that it makes Alice the bad guy in the movie. She is chased by Time who wants the doodad back to prevent the universe from dying, and who can blame him? But that's not the big problem - the big problem is that the movie gracelessly wanders from place to place with Alice doing nothing on her foolish quest, while people bump into each other narrating what's happening on the screen ("O, Alice has to get back in time or we will all die!" "O! The clock is falling apart! I will now run around in circles and then fall over!") and that's that. Like the X-Men movie, the end is a foregone conclusion and it takes wayyyyy too much screen time to do it already.

Finding Dory: Honestly I wanted to dislike this, but I couldn't. Interspersed with flashbacks to when Dory was little, Dory sets off to find her parents with the help of Marvin and Nemo and some other helpful do-gooders, including a way too patient camouflaging octopus. All of the obstacles are environmental; they head to the coast and navigate a marine life institute to find her parents, assuming they are still there.

It's a decently funny movie; it's more intense than Finding Nemo, Ellen Degeneris gives a fantastic, heart-rending performance as Dory, and everyone else is fine. I thought perhaps that it made no sense for Dory to believe that her parents were still alive a year after the events of Finding Nemo, but it turns out that blue tangs live 10-20 years, so I guess that's okay. It was kind of ridiculous that these fish know how to find a marine institute (and what a marine institute is), understand what signs, pipes, and other human inventions are, and can even read maps, let alone read English, but whatever. The story has too many coincidences and exactly the Right Thing in the Right Place too often (those fish should be dead twenty times over), but the sequences were well crafted, so I was amused by them most of the time. It has a cool sequence that parodies a scene from Alien, which almost went over my head but then I got it.

I have one major problem with the movie: the use and misuse of memory loss as the driving plot device. Disney ignores the basic idea of what chronic illness is and presents the message: if you try hard enough you can do anything, including wish your illness away (or lessen it's effect). Well smack my hind with a melon rind and call me Nancy. Is that really the message we want to give kids with diabetes or who have no legs? A person with chronic memory short term memory loss from birth isn't going to start remembering things from her childhood just because she "tries harder" and it will move the plot forward.

Of course, this movie could not have any plot if Dory didn't remember things; how would she commit to her quest? Or remember who her friends are? Or that she has parents? But then the movie shouldn't have given her the severe prenatal condition in the first place. Watch 50 First Dates, a movie whose plot is about short term memory loss and one whose plot doesn't require the victim to regain her memory in order to work (and the only good Adam Sandler movie). This movie even makes the mistake a second time, with a shark who has lost his echolocation; the shark tried and tried, but couldn't regain it. Yet, just when the movie needs him to, he "tries harder" and wham. He has his echolocation back. And it happens yet again in the ending.

If you can ignore the above, and you don't mind a sequel that is really just another take on the first movie, it's enjoyable.

Love and Friendship: Whit Stillman crossed with Jane Austen. This movie is actually based on the novella Lady Susan, which is not one of her six major novels. In this movie, Lady Susan tries to handle her deceased husband's family and she tries to get her daughter married off and perhaps herself, as well. Susan secretly feels superior to everyone, including her daughter, but excepting one close American friend, so she manipulates everyone around her. Some of them fall for her manipulations and some see right through her. The movie is a comedy, with some hilariously stupid people, and the kind of personalities that generally populate Stillman movies.

In particular, Susan prattles endlessly with great authority about what other people are feeling and thinking and how she is in complete control, can easily manage them, and does so for their own good, which is the familiar character trait of certain main characters in Last Days of Disco and Damsels in Distress, or any movie featuring Greta Gerwig. Naturally, these self-deceiving characters must always come fact to face with some kind of thwarting of their plans and some kind of self-realization. In this movie, less of this eventually happens than in the other above-mentioned movies.

It was hard to follow the first third of the movie, and the loud classical music cues were often too prominent. Susan is certainly not sympathetic, but neither is she thoroughly dislikeable, which is good, because this allows everything to turn out okay. In contrast, Emma from the eponymous book/movie suffered from the desire to perform the same kind of manipulations and lack of self-awareness, but was thoroughly likeable and quite serious about doing good in the world; the other characters around Emma were good characters, drawn out fully. Emma provided classic scenes, lovely dialog, and excellent lessons. This movie/book has some partially drawn characters, average scenes, some nice quotes and put-downs, and covers much of the same ground already covered by Emma. So it's not really a necessary movie. Watchable.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-50282416871418436832016-06-21T23:53:00.000+03:002016-06-22T00:34:26.593+03:00What I've been up toI am down to 12 sections left unwritten out of about 300 in my book on games. Every time I sit down to write a section, I end up writing 3: the one I was going to write and 2 more that I forgot to add.

Mind you, it's just the first draft. the whole thing will have to be rewritten, expanded, reorganized, edited, and prettied up after that. I would love to share with you some of the juicy parts, but it will have to wait. In the meantime, I've had a busy few weeks ...

Thu 9: Bar Mitzvah 1 - I went to the bar mitzvah of the son of some good friends. It was out in the woods, overlooking Ein Kerem, as the afternoon turned into evening. The kids spent some time building a wall (park restoration). The other guests were all people I didn't know since we don't have overlapping friends; but they are very good friends. I posted pictures on Facebook.

Fri 10: I had friends over for shabbat dinner, including three friends from Raanana, Nadine, and another family from Jerusalem. I gave a dvar torah.

Sat 11: After shabbat was Shavuot; I ate dinner at some other friends, at which I gave the same dvar torah. Then I went to a "sermon slam" at a friend's apt, which is like a poetry slam, except everyone brings poems related to a religious theme (revelation, in honor of Shavuot). In this case, we didn't have the "slam"; we just read our poems and talked. I invited friends, and they invited friends, and we were a whole contingent that descended on my friend's apt. She had a few other mutual friends over, one of whom was my ex Rachel; both of us were warned beforehand that the other would be there, so it was fine. It's to be expected, as we were together once for reasons, one of which was that we both love bible and poetry and another of which was that we sometimes like the same kinds of people.

Sun 12: Our synagogue had a pot luck lunch. My friends from Fri and Sat nights both asked me to give the same dvar torah, again, to the synagogue, even though I told them that I was planning to give it on the synagogue's shabbaton the next weekend. So I gave it again.

Mon 13: Wedding 1 - I went to the second marriage of a friend from Raanana. The bride and groom each have four children under 10 years old. It was "small", around 225 people I guess. The guests included former acquaintances and friends from Raanana. I posted pictures on Facebook.

Tue 14: Wedding 2 - I went to the wedding of the daughter of my second cousin in a haredi neighborhood in central Israel. It was a quick ceremony, hard to see because the chuppah was crowded with photographers. The guests included my immediate family, my aunt and uncle, and some cousins. I posted pictures on Facebook.

Wed 15: Wedding 3 - I went to the wedding of the son of Jerusalem friends; this one was closer, in Ein Yael, only 2 minutes from my work. It was outside in the woods, which is always the best way to have a celebration. The bride was half Indian/half Moroccan; the groom was Ashkenazi, but the ceremony was a mix of many customs. The guests included many of my friends from my synagogue. I posted pictures om Facebook.

Fri 17: Synagogue shabbaton - We stayed at the field school in Achziv, on the beach, nearly at the top of Israel's coast. Very pretty if you like the sea (it was nice, although I prefer woods and freshwater streams). And I gave the dvar torah again. Amazingly half of the attendees hadn't already heard it, although for some of them it was the third time.

Sun 19: Writing in a cafe at First Station, having bought a book at one of the stands selling books in celebration of Israel Book Week.

Coming up Wed: Tal arrives back in Israel (she is studying abroad for a semester) for a weekend visit.

Coming up Friday: Wedding 4 - my (ex)step daughter Ariella is getting married.

Next week Poetry event 2 and Wedding 5, and a new tenant moves into one of my spare bedrooms. The following week Bar Mitzvah 2. It's hectic, but it's a good hectic.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-39641471136860263462016-05-20T18:11:00.004+03:002016-05-21T23:23:15.851+03:00Movie Reviews: Captain America: Civil War, Straight Outta Compton, Noah, Anomalisa, The ProphetCaptain America: Civil War: Another Marvel MCU movie. Yippee.

Iron Man (1) is the only MCU movie that I think stands as an actual good movie. The Toby MacGuire Spiderman movies were also good movies, but these apparently don't count as MCU movies. (Spiderman 1 and 2 were very good movies; Spiderman 3 was a good but rather silly movie: a good movie ruined with too much "Jar Jar Binks". I don't consider any of the other MCU movies to be "good"; they are entertaining, sometimes fun or funny, but their stories are puerile, characters are one-dimensional, the conflicts have no tension (since no one ever dies, and frankly we wouldn't really care if they did), and they engage nothing but a love of cinematic special effects.) Still, I enjoyed The Avengers, I kind of enjoyed The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and kind of, sort of enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy.

Add this one to the list of MCU movies that I kind of enjoyed. The central conflict is a rehash of the plot of 2000's X-Men and this year's Batman vs Superman (which just goes to show you how empty of ideas these movies are. By the way, I also consider X-Men to be a good movie, and I kind of enjoyed X2, X-Men Last Stand, and X-Men First Class, and X-Men Days of Future Past). The plot of these three movies is:

Government(s) wants to register people with special abilities. Those who have them take sides as to whether they wish to comply with the registration. Some kind of misinformation gets cooked up, people with more muscle than brains start fighting each other, but they try to avoid actually hurting each other. The setup is always far-fetched and highly unlikely. In the end, they have to combine to fight something even bigger, typically someone who was behind pushing the registration act to begin with (which was a front for some nefarious purpose).

They never really explore the actual implementation of this idea in any of these movies. Apparently, America registering superheroes is more of a theoretical problem than an actual one. What would happen if it was China or Iran that wanted to have a say about these guys? How would this impact the Israel-Palestinian conflict, for instance?

Anyhoo, this movie rises a little above the fray in that it doesn't start from a blank slate (as if the other superheroes don't exist) or end up all back where it starts, which is the case for most of the other MCU movies. So something happens. Just not enough to really matter.

I was unimpressed with yet another Spidey backstory. I was unimpressed with Black Panther; in fact, his existence diminished Captain America's specialness. Bucky seems like he could have something interesting to provide, but his screen time is wasted in action sequences.

Still, the movie is upbeat and friendly looking, unlike the recent Batman vs Superman. It remains comic. It moves from sequence to sequence without feeling like it is dragging. The acting within its limited scope is fine, and the directing and production are top notch, and usual. Go team.

Straight Outta Compton: This is perhaps the best movie of 2015, bearing in mind that a) I only watched about twenty movies from 2015 (I haven't seen The Revenant or Room), and b) I actually enjoyed some of those movies more (The Force Awakens, Brooklyn, Ex Machina, Inside Out, and The Age of Adeline). That it was only nominated for one Academy Award is a crime.

It is roughly based on true material and has no specific story arc. It follows the creation, disbandment, and near recreation of N.W.A., who are essentially the co-creators of gangsta rap or reality rap: rap music that doesn't just play around, but speaks poems of gang bravado as well as the pain, frustration, and anger about the treatment of blacks at the hands of whites. These latter themes are only now recognized in the wider community, following the ongoing publicity of apparently indefensible beatings and killings of unarmed or unhostile black residents in major American cities.

The story revolves primarily around Easy-E - it's really his story - Ice Cube, and Jerry Heller (the manager). The characters of the other band members are less defined, although Suge Kinght and Dr Dre play important roles. The acting is superb and so is the direction. Jerry the Jewish manager has a complex story arc: he is both the person who recognizes their talents, promotes and positions them for success, and defends them as best as he is able against irrational police harassment, as well as the person who ultimately drives them apart by favoring Easy over the other members (and apparently embezzling some of their money; the real Jerry is suing the movie for defamation of character, so it's hard to know exactly how much of this is true). Easy E and Ice Cube transform in believable ways.

It's entirely possible that you will hate the music and still like the movie. You may also hate the unabashed explicit language of the songs. Their lyrics are horribly misogynistic and occasionally antisemitic. Now, there is a difference between casual, cultural antisemitism and deep personal antisemitism. Casual and cultural antisemitism can be unlearned when its purveyor actually meets and listens to a Jewish person. He or she can unlearn bad habits and learn to be respectful. Deep personal antisemites never learn; they interpret every Jew they meet and every event that happens in the light of their antisemitism. It either reinforces their narrative or they see it either as an aberration or a conspiracy. I would like to think that the antisemitism of N.W.A. was casual and cultural - which is what the members have said, apparently - although that doesn't make me feel much better about it.

The sexism appears to have been pretty deep, however. (Who are the girls that show up at these parties and take off their tops and clothes? What are they hoping to achieve in life? Money and drugs?) The movie doesn't help with this. Of the two women who have any major roles in the movie (and these are not very major), one is a mother who forces her kid to get a job and the other is a girlfriend who has a single moment in the movie where she uncovers Jerry's shady accounting practises.

You may also find something oddly unsettling about the message: some of these guys really WERE gang members, dealing cocaine, carrying unlicensed firearms, and occasionally killing or threatening innocent people. The police's methods were highly ineffective, they were unnecessarily brutal and corrupt, and they harassed many innocent people, and maybe they harassed these guys for no reason on many occasions, but you can't exactly claim that you're innocent victims when you are often and demonstrably not. In one song you talk about being the biggest and most violent gang member who will blow away innocent people just for fun, and in another you complain about being harassed by the police for just being black. Well ...

Noah: This is a story that is not actually the story of Noah from the bible. It uses the semiotics of the story to tell another, parallel myth. Which is okay by me, but bothered my friend Bill a lot.

In this version, Noah wanders about trying to find safety for his family. He has some kind of vision to build the ark because the world will be destroyed; this vision is confirmed by Noah's grandfather Methusellah. He is able to built the ark because of a magically grown forest, magical troops of animals that make their way onto the ark and then fall asleep, the magical refidim - fallen angels that look a lot like treants from Lord of the Rings, and the lack of coordination to stop him by the rest of humanity, apparently led by Tubal Cain (in the bible, he is the son of Cain).

The movie introduces a number of conflicts to the story, apparently out of thin air: Shem finds an abandoned girl to marry named Ila - Emma Watson (I kept wondering how Hermione ended up on the ark, and then I remembered that she might have misused the time turner). However, she is barren until Methusella magically heals her, for some reason. Noah's other sons, Ham and Japhet, don't have wives, and Noah is determined for them not to have any. Why? Because the extent of his communication with God was just enough to know he has to build an ark and that humanity is going to be wiped out. He then makes up the idea that God intends to wipe out ALL of humanity, including his line and the line of his children; he thinks this whole ark thing is so that there will be a witness to the destruction? Who then dies out and has no one to tell about it? Huh?

And then, when Ila mysteriously gets pregnant, Noah decides to kill the baby if it is a girl to enforce his non-divine interpretation (Isn't her miraculous pregnancy a sign of something? And how would killing her baby boy stop her from getting pregnant again?). His wife tells him that if he does this she will abandon him. And Ila gives birth to two twin girls (which should also be a sign, since Noah has two unmarried boys). Noah tries to fulfill his mission of killing the babies. Does he succeed?

Meanwhile, Ham, who is upset that he couldn't bring his own girlfriend onto the ark, lets Tubal-Cain onto the ark and hides him for many days until Tubal-Cain is ready to kill Noah with Ham's assistance. Tubal-Cain is convinced that the ark is humanity's means of survival, not just a window to its destruction, and that Noah is misguided. Which makes sense. Will Tubal-Cain and Ham kill Noah?

It's a big spectacle movie, and I've left out the resolutions of these conflicts. Frankly, I'm not sure about the accuracy of the moralities displayed by the main characters. Did motherhood really work like that back then? Did wives issue ultimatums to their husbands about the possible killing of their grandchildren, especially after keeping silent about hundreds of thousands of other deaths? Where did they get all of that Crusader-looking armor and those British accents? Why is Noah more like a modern false prophet who makes up his prophecies rather than a real prophet?

The movie isn't bad, and it's rather odd - it's certainly not the bible story. It has a few things to say, but the spectacle and oddness drown out these messages in a mix of adventure, conflict, and confusion.

Anomalisa: This is a stop-motion animated movie for adults: it's sad and depressing, par for the course for a Charlie Kaufman film.

The main character is a male author traveling to a hotel to talk about one his books about sales or motivation or something. He has Fregoli delusion: everyone sounds like the same person to him. Small girls and grown men all have the same voice, even his ex-wife. To bang this home, the animation is perfectly realistic, except that everyone's face looks like a mask.

Until he finally hears the voice of a woman who sounds like a woman. There doesn't seem to be anything special about her, but it's an exciting change that lasts until ...

Well, really not much happens in the film, which takes place over the course of a single night and the next day. It's surreal and well developed, and they probably saved a bundle on the voice acting talents since they only needed three actors. It's also grim and depressing, the way small town films about people who aren't going anywhere tend to be.

It makes a great film for an student of films and animation. It makes an interesting exploration of symbolism for those who can tolerate grim films about sad people. It's not a date movie.

The Prophet: This is a cartoon story that incorporates some of the text of The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran's famous and lovely series of poems (read it online here) about love, children, work, death, and so on. Some of the book is beautiful, some is rather obscure and unspecific, which is to be expected from a work whose author called it "The Prophet".

The movie has an added plot that is not in the book: A young woman who lost her husband two years ago, and her daughter, visit The Prophet who is under house arrest for the last seven years. The girl hasn't spoke since her father died; she is a known troublemaker and thief in the small village, but she is also good-hearted and curious. The guard at the house appears to be in love with the woman. On the day of the movie, The Prophet is "freed" on condition that he immediately board a boat and leave for his country. On the way to the dock, he stops and recites several portions of the titular book to the crowds. At the dock, he is told that he can board the ship only if he signs a paper disavowing all that he has said and written; if he doesn't he will be killed the next morning.

The recited portions of the book are accompanied by beautiful animations by different artists in varying styles. Some of the more beautiful animations didn't work for me: they were too pat; some of the lesser ones, such as a dancing couple, were quite moving. Some of the poems are simply recited (by Liam Neeson, who is a fantastic voice actor). Some of them are sung, and these didn't work at all, since they cut out most of the words of the poem, it's hard to understand the words, and the melodies are unremarkable. The one exception to this was the song On Love, sung by Lisa Hannigan and Glen Hansard, beautifully sung with clearly enunciated words.

The subject matter of the book, the recitations, and the apparent death sentence would have made this a perfect film if it had been aimed solely for adults. But some of the in-between scenes of the walk to town are done in the silly, slapstick method prevalent in modern cartoons aimed at young children, which makes the entirely somewhat disconcerting. Is this for kids or for adults? Kids are going to be bored by the poetry. Adults don't need the slapstick.

Overall, it's rather prettily done, but not enough. Only a small part of the book is brought into the movie. Not enough to really make it into an epic work. The story of the girl and the mother fits thematically and adds something, but it doesn't add enough or go anywhere. The movie is a nice introduction to the topics and the ideas of the book. It makes a nice date movie. Better to just read the book.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-62344783419681582842016-05-09T16:18:00.002+03:002016-05-09T16:18:59.958+03:00Necessary Invention: Dual Call Waiting/Voice MailHas anyone ever heard: "If this is an emergency, press 1 to go to call waiting. Otherwise, leave a message at the beep"?Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-42677751549720205442016-04-28T16:18:00.002+03:002016-04-28T16:55:10.051+03:00Movie Reviews: Zootopia, Batman v Superman, The Jungle Book, The Tale of Princess Kayuga, 20 Feet From StardomZootopia: A funny and interesting addition to the Disney canon. I think I enjoyed it more because I literally knew nothing about the movie before seeing it, other than its name, promotional poster, and that it was well received by both critics and the IMDB public.

The story takes place in a world where a) everyone is an anthropomorphic hoofed, rodent, or jungle mammal: no simians or marsupials (I may have missed one); b) animals once had an uncivilized past, where predators preyed on prey, but now animals are civilized: they wear clothes, talk politely, and have human-like jobs, if their physique is suited to it. The city Zootopia is divided into climatological and size-scaled zones. Somehow this city has a single police force, made up of large, imposing prey animals with a few predators mixed in. 90% of the population is prey; 10% are predators.

The story is about a rabbit from the country who decides to be on the Zootopia police force, and somehow manages to get onto it. The large imposing captain assigns her to traffic duty, since he doesn't think a rabbit can do much actual police work. She runs into a fox who is a con artist, and together they end up looking for a missing mammal and a mysterious case of one or more predators that may have relapsed back to their vicious animal state. It's essentially a buddy cop/detective story.

Other than its humor, the movie's major goal is to teach political correctness. It features a strong and brave female protagonist without any hint of a love angle, which is a breath of fresh air for a children's cartoon. The fox is captivating, too; he's not really a criminal, he's just a con artist, buying low and selling high. Like all modern Disney movies, the visuals are spectacular. The story is coherent and entertaining. One scene with sloths working at the DMV (M = mammalian) is particularly funny. There are several denouements. There are references to other Disney movies and other movies in general (The Godfather features prominently), and one rather odd scene in a mammal "nudist" colony where the animals don't wear clothes. The female protagonist is shocked at the nudity, but when the animals bend over or spread their legs there is just a blank expanse of flat monochromatic surface.

The movie has heavy-handed tolerance, anti-stereotyping, and anti-racism messages: don't jump to conclusions about animals based on their type or history. I counted at least half a dozen cellophane-veiled translations of PC messages about stereotyping, cultural self-definition, appropriation, racial insensitivity, and so on, all within the first few minutes of bunny arriving in the city and all using the same language you will find in numerous YouTube videos about blacks, Muslims, and so on (at least it's a nice break from the "be brave" and "family/love matters" that pretty much dominates every other Disney movie). A not very deep analysis of the actual messages of the movie are more muddled. I can't discuss it without giving away the plot. but some of the PC messages seem to contradict each other and sometimes I wasn't sure if they were saying what they thought they were saying, since what they were actually saying didn't make much sense given the biology or situation on screen. Nevertheless, the context was always clear.

No reason not to bring everyone to see it: it has some good messages and it might make for some interesting discussion afterwards.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: You've probably already heard everything you need to know about this movie. Batman is upset about the collateral damage caused by Superman in his battle to save the world from Zod (in the previous Superman movie). He thinks that Superman is too powerful and too reckless. Meanwhile, Superman thinks that Batman is too much of a vigilante and not following the rule of law. Lex Luthor arranges for them to fight, for some reason, and then sics a Big Bad Boss on both of them. In this movie, Superman and Lois Lane are lovers, which, if you read Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex, you would know is impossible.

I didn't watch the previous Superman, since it looked unrelentingly grim. This movie is also unrelentingly grim, and the setup is unbelievable, so there is little to the movie other than the fights. Superman and Batman are both powerful and acting outside the law. It is ridiculous for everyone to hate on Superman when he obviously saved the world. Unlike the superior Batman trilogy, the moral quandary in the movie (whether absolute power corrupts absolutely) is cursorily raised but not really dealt with.

Plus, you know that no one important is going to get hurt, or if one does, he/she is just going to come back to life again, just like they do in the Marvel movies, so the fight is without tension, a senseless spectacle of booms and crashes. Lex Luthor is ok when he is not overly annoying, but it's hard to see why Superman doesn't put him on ice very early on. Wonder Woman is the best part of the movie, catalyzing the only humorous and/or less grim verbal exchanges, but she has little on screen presence; if she was the main protagonist, the movie would have been much, much better (she has her own movie coming soon). Amy Adams is forgettable as Lois Lane. Holly Hunter is good as a politician, but also on screen for too little time.

Watch it if you like that kind of thing. It won't be on my replay list.

The Jungle Book (2016): I fail to understand the need for reboots and reworkings that we are seeing nowadays. While this movie is ok, it is entirely unnecessary, just like last year's unnecessary new version of Cinderella. Still, it's very well executed, and some of the story is original. Neel Sethi as Mowgli is the only human on screen, and he is on screen the entire movie. Since he likely had to act the entire movie in front of a green screen, his performance is most impressive.

They reuse lines and the occasional snippet of songs from the original movie. I suppose if you never saw the original, the line reuse won't be noticeable. But the two songs taken from the first movie are halfhearted - only a verse or two without the accompanying music, and their presence makes no sense in context, given the seriousness of the movie.

The story is a combination of the original movie and the original book, filling in many of the grimmer aspects of the story. Mowgli is a human child who somehow has survived in the wild, raised by wolves and a panther. He wanders around with a bright red cloth around his waist (a) why is is still bright red? b) wouldn't it attract attention from predators? c) why does he feel the need to wear this when it doesn't protect his body from the elements?). There is little fun to be had; the exception is Bill Murray's Baloo, and his scenes are out of place given the rest of the story. Something is off with the timing of his lines. I blame either the director or the editor. Shere Khan is nasty but oddly not as frightening as the cartoon one in the original. The final battle is insane and doesn't make sense, at least to me. Mowgli has skills with axes, cutting, and ropes that even a trained boy scout would find difficult, and it's impossible to believe that he would have learned these living with the wolves.

Pass.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya: It's always good to step away from Disney once in a while to see what else is possible in the world of animation. Disney creates ever-more beautiful and realistic animation, but always in the same way; like a single art movement, without variance. There is no artistic difference between Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Zootopia; they're just on a spectrum of drawing talent. (There are a few exceptions to this: Fantasia and the original 101 Dalmatians had some distinctive animated styling.) Disney's stories, on the other hand, while they are getting better, are still mostly insipid. The best you can say is that some are touching and some are very funny. The messages are always simplistic and boring: be brave. Be true to yourself. Family is important. Don't be judgemental. La la la.

Kaguya is a stunning piece of art. Every frame is a absolutely gorgeous: pause is at any moment and you could frame it. Looks, of course, are not enough (c.f. Song of the Sea). The story is also lovely and mythical, and feels ancient: a peasant finds a miniature girl and a pile of gold when he cuts into a bamboo tree. He raises the girl and takes her to live in the city as a princess using the gold. Various suitors compete for her hand, while she pines for the ordinary life of her childhood. There is much more to the story than that, but it is complex, and yet simple enough to understand on many levels.

Admittedly, the story is sometimes slower than the frenetic pacing of a Disney movie, and may test the patience of modern children. Set in an ancient Japan, the young peasant children spend a lot of time roaming around naked (anatomically correct, although tastefully presented), which is also something you won't see in a Disney movie. I wasn't thrilled with the ending, but I can't really complain about it, as it suits the story well enough.

20 Feet From Stardom: The idea of hearing about the backup singers of famous singers is a good one. This movie is a documentary with interviews of both the famous singers and their backups, with a bit of some of their backgrounds. The cinematography is fine, and the movie is filled with good music clips, but it's nothing more than a shallow praise of a few of these singers, particularly black backup women singers.

It seems like there were a whole lot of interesting stories that could have been told but weren't. They very briefly mention that backup singers were all white until so and so came along, so there might be something interesting to say about racial barriers and so on, but the movie doesn't go there. They briefly mention that some early records with a backup singer's vocals were incorrectly attributed to the famous singers instead, so there might be a story there, too, but other than a shake of the head, the movie doesn't go there either. The movie didn't cover how they became backup singers (except cursorily), how much they are paid, what their relationship with the famous singers or with each other are like, or any other interesting questions. After 2/3 of the movie basically saying nice things about some women and going nowhere at all, I gave up.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-43249595631550354552016-04-01T16:16:00.002+03:002016-04-01T17:58:39.335+03:00UX vs Game DesignSpeaking of cloud computing (see my previous, sponsored post), I will be celebrating my birthday on Sunday by attending an all-day UX conference at UX Salon in Tel Aviv, including evening cocktails on the rooftop of Wix at Tel Aviv harbor. Ok, that's not exactly cloud computing, but my company Ex Libris is sending me, and their platforms are heavily based on cloud computing.

Learning UX is parallel to, and integrated with, being a better technical writer, as I wrote in my presentation at MegaComm.

I feel that game design and gamification are opposites but parallels to UX design: game designers want you to spend more time with the product because they want you to find it entertaining or recreational, while UX designers and technical writers want you to spend less time with the product because they know that you're using the product in order to accomplish something else. A game should be involving and engaging; figuring out how to run the game or use the controller should not be, unless that's part of the entertainment.

Both of them carefully consider presentation and how to create a better user experience. I feel, after having been a game designer and having learned gamification, and now working for many years as a technical writer and starting to learn UX, that I am filling in my knowledge on both sides of the same coin.

Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-82261025291070705112016-04-01T15:57:00.000+03:002016-04-01T15:57:03.155+03:00Understanding Cloud Based Virtual DesktopsThe following is a sponsored post:

Cloud based virtual desktops combine two powerful trends in technology – virtualization and Cloud computing. Virtualization or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) enables more efficient use of the resources of a physical machine such as a desktop or server. Similarly, cloud computing results in more efficient use of network infrastructure, servers, and expert resources; while improving accessibility, reliability, and security. Combining the two, a virtual desktop behaves like a regular windows based desktop, but lives on a server located in the Cloud and is accessible from all kinds of devices.

Among the different virtual desktop and application platforms available today, Microsoft VDIs are the favorites; based on Hyper V, these VDIs need Remote Desktop Services server role in Windows Server 2012. The Microsoft VDI platform uses Remote Desktop Gateways to support individual user PCs, individual and pooled virtual desktops, session-locked desktops as well as RemoteApp software. Across devices that run on Windows or Windows RT, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android, a Cloud Desktop is able to provide a personalized yet consistent user experience.

As for the end-users of virtual desktops, they can use any workstation/device with internet connectivity such as PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, slates, or even smartphones to access the VM over the internet – they will go through a remote display protocol which makes the virtual desktop get rendered locally. Among several other inherent benefits, virtual desktops heavily bring down the support as well as management costs. This is made possible by virtue of centralized and simplified administrative tasks; more significantly, the budgets needed to maintain and keep the individual PCs up to date is also done away with – Microsoft VDIs can even work well with thin clients or dumb terminals.

In term of technical administration, a quick rollout of Microsoft virtual desktop can be automated by configuring server roles using the Deployment Wizard. Direct/network attached or clustered/storage area network route can be used by the administrators for storing and accessing the VMs. A single console for management helps in centrally managing the server roles, the users, and the VMs as well. A Microsoft VDI implementation involves two licenses – for the virtual desktop infrastructure connection and for access to the virtual Windows Client OS. In addition, those using RDS for accessing the infrastructure would also need to procure a license for RDS client access, which would be calculated on the basis of each device or user. Users that are under the Windows Client Software Assurance (SA) will not incur any additional charges for VDI, while those who do not hold SAs will have to pay Microsoft for each device's license through Windows Virtual Desktop Access on a per year, per device model.

Tier -1 Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers like Apps4Rent simplify this whole process and offer packaged plans for Microsoft VDIs (see https://www.clouddesktoponline.com) that are made available and go live in a matter of minutes. The latest Microsoft VDIs from Apps4Rent even come with the option of Office 365 ProPlus pre-installed, making them a truly comprehensive cloud desktop solution. Users can install, connect to and use all their custom/line-of-business applications from anywhere, exactly the same way they would on a regular PC. Besides, these Apps4Rent virtual desktops also come with 24 x 7 technical support that is available over phone, live chat, and email to help the end-users resolve their issues in the quickest possible time.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-36411427742970318272016-03-16T00:03:00.004+02:002016-03-16T00:33:02.501+02:00Movie Reviews: Spotlight, Hail Caesar, Brooklyn, Mistress America, CarolSpotlight: This is a nicely done, tight movie about the Boston Globe investigation that brought to national consciousness the abuse of children by Catholic priests and the systemic attempt by the church and their sympathizers to cover it up. The story is nearly all journalism, with small bits here and there about the lives of the reporters, but not much, really.

The natural comparison is to 1976's All the President's Men, which is unfair. The earlier movie was a far better movie, not only because it came first and had Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman at their peaks, but because the story of Watergate was a completely unknown story that had to be revealed from scratch. The various pieces of the priests' abuse stories were actually known - buried on pages 27 here and there in different papers. A lot of the journalism was just putting together these stories and finding a pattern.

But still, this is a very good movie. There are no re-enactments or fights or anything, just a journalism arc and the resistance from the community and the church. Well worth a watch.

Hail Caesar!: Behind the scenes at a Hollywood studio in the 1950s, a "fix it" man has to attend to problems as they occur. I went into this movie knowing it was a Coen Brothers movie, and resigned to that fact, but it turned out to be even more so. I'm not a fan; I liked Fargo a lot, tolerated The Big Lebowski, and couldn't be bothered to finish any of the others.

This movie is basically a comedy, except it's not funny. Well, it's almost funny in a few offbeat ways. It's a "send up" of 1950's behind the scenes Hollywood. The scenes of dancing sailors that seem kind of "gay" to us now are redone by "gay" actors, which they probably were, anyway. A giant statue that is supposed to look impressive doesn't look impressive when only its bottom half is extant. The only real communist is the only non-Marxist. A British director can't get a southern guy to speak a line without sounding like a southerner. It's supposed to be funny, but I stared and yawned the entire movie, waiting to see something that impressed me. There was no drama, no tension, and no real interest in how it would end.

I can only say that the movie is undoubtedly, frame for frame, exactly what the Coen brothers intended it to be, some kind of perfectly shot directorial exercise in self-indulgent narcissism that will appeal to Coen brothers fans and just about no one else.

Brooklyn: This is a mildly flawed but otherwise beautiful dreamy movie, also about the 1950s but worlds away from the above Hail Caesar! In this movie, a young Irish woman, Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), leaves her small gossipy town, mother, sister, best friend, and not much else for work in a department store in Brooklyn, where she lives with and among many other Irish who have come to do the same. She starts off homesick, meets a lovely, uneducated, but hard working Italian man Tony (Emory Cohen (a Russian Jew?)), and then has to go back to Ireland to visit her mother where she rediscovers the beautiful country she forgot and finds opportunities that she hadn't had before she left. Will she stay in Ireland or go back to Brooklyn and her Italian fellow?

The filming is beautiful, as is the acting and directing. I loved the clothes, all of them, from the cable-knit sweaters and green overcoats of Ireland to the print dresses, skirts and bobby socks of Brooklyn. And those sunglasses! The central drama is not one we see in movies too often, and it was laid out pretty well: personal love vs love of country. The movie takes its time showing how the characters develop and, at least in Eilis' case, the development was satisfying. Actually the movie starts off fairly slowly, but I was captivated from the moment that Jessica Pare showed up, and enthralled from the moment the guy started singing at the church.

And now here be the problems and spoilers, but don't let it worry you: this kind of movie is seen for the experience of the acting and period costumes, and the heartfelt choices that have the heroine in tears for nearly half of her time on screen.

One problem is that Tony is perfect (other than being uneducated), a true gentleman so well-mannered and hard working that he is hard to believe. But the main problem is that Tony and Eilis marry before Eilis returns to Ireland. She hides this fact from everyone in Ireland. The cover up is supposed to add something to the tension, but it didn't make any sense to me. Yes, I believe that Tony would WANT to marry her before she returns for her "visit" to Ireland, in fear that she may not return. But the movie shouldn't have let it happen. If they had remained engaged, then there would have been believable tension: I could have believed that she might end the engagement to stay in Ireland. But once she was married - and she is Irish Catholic - there is no way that she is going to fall in love with an Irish guy and stay in Ireland. And it was pretty sucky of her to string an Irish guy along for five weeks and then suddenly say "Hey, I'm married! Sorry!" So the ending was forgone, although, given the screenplay, the process in getting there was as well done as could have been.

Mistress America: I'm beginning to think that Greta Gerwig isn't capable of playing more than one character: quirky and self-deluded. That's her here, to a T, just as she was in Frances Ha, basically playing the same character. She plays Brooke, and her foil is freshman in New York Tracy (Lola Kirke), her soon-to-be step-sister and straight girl to dazzle with her free-thinking, half-formed, enthusiastic and obviously doomed projects.

The group takes a trip to Connecticut to get money for a restaurant that will never happen, and they spend an hour or so in a house where odd people come in and out and motives are questioned in a Neil Simon-like manner. It is cute and diverting, in the way that Frances Ha was, and it's fun to watch, but ultimately doesn't add up to much.

Carol: This is a well-shot and acted movie about a lesbian relationship, also in the 1950's. The movie reminds us of the great difficulties that such relationships had to - and occasionally still have to - endure: sham marriages, secret encounters, charges of depravity, and threats of losing one's children.

The movie is based on an important book, one of the first to portray a lesbian relationship that might in fact end happily. Unfortunately, the story is dated; it is a somewhat insignificant story, unless one keeps in mind its significance. Our society is hardly shocked to hear about either lesbianism or the adverse reactions to it. You can try to forget that and enjoy the fine acting and filmography.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-11838110910368201172016-03-07T00:37:00.002+02:002016-03-07T14:52:02.553+02:00Don't Be a Technical Writer, Be an Interface DesignerHere is my presentation at Megacomm February 2016, slide by slide, with my accompanying talk and some notes. I don't write down what I say on the slides, nor do I have a script, so the text is an approximation of what I said.

In this presentation, I propose the following two theories.

One: technical writers are actually interface designers. A good technical writer approaches his or her work as someone who designs an interface. A good technical writer is a good interface designer. Two: Since the core competency of a technical writer is designing an interface, technical writers have the core competency required for other interface design jobs, and should a) help their company in this capacity, or b) with some additional technical knowledge, consider alternative work doing other interface design jobs.

That's it, I'm done. Any questions?

Just kidding. Actually, I want to start with an old joke, so old that some of you may not know or remember it.

Two guys are in a two-seater airplane flying in Chicago. The pilot knows Chicago like the back of his hand, but there is a pea-soup fog and he can't see more than 10 feet out the window. The plane is almost out of fuel and the passenger is getting very worried. If they could only figure out where they are, the pilot could land the plane safely. Suddenly they pass a building on the left, and a man is standing at an open window. The pilot yells "Where are we?!" The man in the building yells back "You're in an airplane!" The pilot yells "Thanks", turns left, turns right, and lands at Chicago airport. The passenger is thrilled, but confused. He says "I'm so glad we were able to land safely, but how did that man's answer help you?" The pilot replies "Well, what he told me was technically accurate but completely useless, so it had to be the IBM documentation building.

The point of this presentation is to remind you that some people forget what the job of a technical writer is, and it's not to provide technically accurate information about a product. It's not to explain procedures or describe how the product works in detail. The job of a technical writer is help someone do something with your product because they have to use your product. They don't want to use it, and they don't want to use your documentation. They would rather be at the beach; using your product, especially if the product doesn't immediately communicate its function to them and they have to use your documentation, is not what the customer wants to be doing. Your job is to design a good interface. It is to help him or her get back to the beach. Of course, sometimes you have to provide technical information to do that, but if you have to you've already lost part of the battle.

But first, I will define what an interface is.

An interface is something that helps you use something to do something. The emphasis here is on "do something". You have no interest in the tool that you have to use to do the something, you just want to do the something. If you could think it and have it happen without having to use the tool, you would do that. But you can't; you have to use the tool. The interface is how you use that tool. For example.

Here is a mountain. The interface to the mountain is the mountain's surface, which is how you "use" the mountain. If you live on one side of the mountain and you want to shop at the grocery store on the other side, you use the mountain's surface to do that. You would like the mountain's interface to be as simple and straightforward as possible, because you don't really want to use the mountain; you have to use it to get to the other side.

Of course, there are people who actually like to use a mountain's interface; people who like to climb mountains. Some people use products for recreation or for entertainment; these products are designed for their interface; these people want to use the interface. These people enjoy the interface in its own right.

This talk is not about these kinds of people or these kinds of interfaces. For most of us, who are not making recreational or entertainment products, the interface is something that HAS to be used. Even if the product has a great feature that we want to use, we would prefer to just think what we want to have happen and have it happen. Since we can't, we HAVE to use the product to achieve the result. We want the interface that is required to achieve that result be as simple and as invisible as possible.

The challenge is that companies, and R and D departments in particular, design products and documentation that is the exact opposite of that: they design IBM documentation, under the belief that people WANT to use their product or read their documentation. That people want to spend their time learning things, and defining and managing and configuring things, just because that's what the inside or back-end of the product does. R and D departments are proud of their tools and they think about the ways that things are done internally in products, and then they want to communicate this to users: how the product works. They do this not only with documentation that is uninteresting to the users, but with the interfaces, asking you define profiles, and configure internal configuration parameters, asking you to learn new languages and terminology and acronyms in order to understand how the product operates. But people don't care about your products or how it operates; they just want to do their thing and get back to the beach. They don't want to learn, they want to know already.

Your job as a technical writer, just like the job of anyone designing the interface to your product, is to not teach the user a new language or have them think hard about how to work or manage the product, as far as possible.

What makes a good interface?

A good interface is invisible; it doesn't make you think. It is, as much as possible, an extension of the user's will to just think it and have it done. The more a user is thinking about your interface, the less good your interface is (unless the interface is, itself, entertaining).

A good interface is unsurprising; features and controls are where you would expect them and work how you expect them to work. If there is a back, there is a forward. If there is a left, there is a right. If the menu is scrolled using a finger flick in this area, then the menu is scrolled using a finger flick in every area. In this iPod, the sub-menu is going to look the same no matter which menu option I select, and the same command will return to the main menu from any sub-menu.

A product may be the best product in its class, offering the most features, but if the features are hard to find and difficult or even surprising and complex to use, the interface is not good. A good interface will always provide less options for easy to understand features, hiding the complexity as required. More features may make a better product, but don't always make a better interface.

A good interface doesn't ask you to learn a new language. It doesn't replace standard words - like dogs - with brand names - like BarkBuddies - forcing you to learn the terminology before you can use the interface or read the document. Your company may send acronyms back and forth in internal emails, but of course a good interface doesn't use these acronyms, making you learn the language in order to understand what is written. Don't make the user learn; inform them and let them forget.

A good interface exposes tasks, not tools. You use the product to do something, not learn about the product. In the iPod here, it could have said "Artists", "Albums", and "Genres", but it didn't. It says "Play this artist", "Play an album", "Get help", offering you the actions you want to take. If it just said "Artists", you wouldn't know if that's a tool to add an artist or view the artists, or what have you. Yeah, you could probably figure it out in a few seconds, but the interface doesn't make you do that. Help your users get back to the beach, get over the mountain, as quickly as possible.

Lastly, a good interface makes the customer feel that the time they spent using the product to do what they really wanted to do was worth it. If your mountain's surface is too hard to use, the user is going to find another way around the mountain or another grocery store. In the end, the user has to feel that the time and money spent were worth it.

Who designs interfaces? Or who is supposed to design interfaces, anyway?

Physical products, such as doors and chairs, have designers - sometimes good and sometimes bad. Apple, of course, puts a lot of thought into the design of their interface. In most tech companies, whether they produce hardware or software products, the designer is typically a product manager. The problem with the product manager is that most of them don't know much about product design. They are skilled at talking to customers, deciding on features, making specifications and time charts and budgets and so on, but they don't understand design - even though it's one of their jobs. And they don't always know that they don't know it.

Of course, technical documentation is done by a technical writer, who is really making an interface, so there's her. And your company may have other, actual interface designers, like a UX designer or product designer. A UI designer is the one who makes pretty flash screens for your web sites, and they are supposed to be good at UX (user experience) design, but they tend to suck at it, as you can see by visiting any bank website in Israel: every one of them has a long loading flash screen that blocks the site and hover-happy menus that cover the entire page when you try to navigate. That's not thinking about the user experience, that's being in love with your programming toolbox. A UX designer does actual interface design from the user's experience, and that's what I'm talking about. A good technical writer has a good start for learning to be a UX designer, since they share the same core skills and perspective.

Why are product managers and development teams bad at design? Because they are in love with and proud of their products, which is fine. But then they want to communicate all about these products to the customers, whether by means of a fancy over-communicative interface or a ton of useless technical documentation.

As an example, here is the "K Key" story: I received a page and a half from a developer to document ("just fix the English!" he cheerfully told me). It read: when the user presses the "k" key, the key presses a spring that hits a contact, the contact sends a burst of electricity over the chipboard to a multiplexer/demultiplexer, which translates the signals into hexadecimal blah blah and so on for a page and a half until finally a "k" appears on the screen. After looking at this for a few minutes, I realized that the only thing I had to write was "Press the 'k' key to continue".

And even that was too much really, because the product should have been designed to not need this documented; in fact, it could have been designed to not need the "k" key pressed at all. It should just have continued to the next page. The only reason it didn't was because R and D had developed it to stop at that point during testing, and they figured that that's good enough for the customer.

Product creators love their products, god bless them. But what the customers need is an interface that lets them cross that mountain/get back to the beach as quickly as possible. I'm sorry it took you four months to develop a working "k" key, and I'm really happy that it works so well, but that doesn't meant that we have to make the customer aware of that process.

Product managers typically care only that the product works. So if this API uses one set of parameters and that API uses a different set of parameters, who cares? It works. How did this happen? This one was developed by Itzik and that one was developed by Galit. The product manager should care, because the customer is going to have to use both APIs and he doesn't want to learn a new set of parameters with every new API. "It works" isn't good enough.

It turns out that there is this hole in development, that in theory is filled by a product manager or developer, but in practice it isn't. It's a hole that happens to be exactly what a good technical writer does. Development has the programming skills to develop and the product manager is good at creating user stories, but they are missing the ability to design a product that is simple and invisible for the user. This is a hole that a technical writer can fill, but not if she is at the end of the development process, handed a working product and told to document it. By then it is too late.

After the design is done, a technical write can complain about the product design, but - at best - that becomes a bug to fix in some later development cycle that is at least two months away. And the problem with an interface, particularly an API, is that once it is in use it becomes very hard to change. So the fix never happens.

Technical writing should be sitting in the design review meetings. With their overall view of the product (having documented the entire product), they can ask why this feature doesn't work the same way as the other feature that was designed last month, or why this screen uses a different methodology for entering input than the other screen that was just documented. They can feel out the flow of the product, and find ways to make the experience less bumpy for the user.

To do this, you have to be a good technical writer, who thinks about interfaces. You have to have a good overview of the product's entire interface, one that the product manager(s) doesn't. And you should have some basic technical skills, enough to understand how methods and web sites work (or whatever your company is using as an interface).

Why should you do this? Because it makes a better product. It increases your value to your company, and makes you more than just a technical writer. It makes you more integrated with and more respected by the development team. And, the more you develop a general skill at designing interfaces, the more able you are to switch to a different kind of interface design job, should you eventually choose to do so.

I did a presentation on proper API design. For now, I'll just cover the basics about why a good technical writer already has many of the skills necessary to be a good interface designer, even without too much technical knowledge.

A good technical writer thinks about what the customer wants to do, not how to describe the tools. He uses action verbs. He ensures that the customer has all of the information he needs to do that task, and then considers what the customer wants to do next, until he is done. In other words, he thinks "How do I get the customer out of this documentation as soon as possible and back to the beach?"

In contrast, bad technical writers and bad designers think the customer wants to spend time learning and figuring out your wonderful site. The above slide presents a UI for using the mountain, like many bad UIs I have had to document. What is a mountain profile and why should I have to learn that? What is an MMID? How do I find it? Why do I need to define three different IDs for what I'm trying to do? In fact, why do I have to define any? Is this helping me get to the other side of the mountain? Can't all of this be created internally without my having to learn what it all means? Of course it can, and it should. What we have here is a development team in love with its programming methodology. The program uses profiles internally; that doesn't mean that the user should have input fields that match the internal descriptions one for one. The development team has been programming this for 2 years, so they know what an MMID is (they usually just enter 1234). But the customer doesn't, and doesn't need to. The acronym should be spelled out, and the term either hidden or pre-filled, or a link added to navigate to the screen that gives you your ID. As a good technical writer, you already know that.

Technical writers know to use less words, present only relevant concepts, and don't abbreviate terms. They present what is required, and no more than what is required. This same skill is necessary for any type of interface.

A good technical writer ensures that information is not ambiguous. You don't write "x may be created", because the reader doesn't know if the system might create x or the user is now allowed to create x. Similarly, the technical writer knows, without much technical skill, that an API like DogBarks is ambiguous. Does it mean that the dog is able to bark, or does it mean that the dog has just barked? Verbs indicate actions, and nouns indicate states. A good technical writer can help with the API names, as well as the parameter and value names, even with little technical skill.

A good technical writer thinks about consistency. Especially in Israel, technical writers can review the interface's field names and parameter names for spelling mistakes, and ensure that case is used consistently across the product. Why would it be inconsistent? Because Itzik programmed this API and Dalit programmed that one, and the product manager didn't care because they worked. Similarly, just like information in documentation should be presented in an easy to navigate, consistent manner, a good API uses the same parameter names to mean the same things and orders the parameters in the same ways in each command. Or displays the fields in the same way on different pages.

These are just examples; I cut out many other examples owing to time.

If you want to joint the development team, interface design is a great start, but you will be more effective with language or technological skills in the areas that your development team works. If you
want to move to another profession, like UX design, the core skill is a great start, but you still need to learn more about the other professions and what skill sets they require. The transition will be easier, because the core focus is similar in technical writing and the other profession.

To conclude: A good technical writer is a good interface designer, because that is the job of documentation. And a good interface designer can contribute his or her skills to other areas of the product, and can consider moving toward another profession that requires similar skills.

Thank you.

YehudaYehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-1545065493269083212016-03-01T11:53:00.000+02:002016-03-01T13:26:20.311+02:00The Cow that Can Be Told is not the True Cow: Reflections on a Month of VeganismMy diet during the first half of the month was insanely good: lots of dark green leafies, mixed complete proteins and whole grains, low fats, little processed food or sweets. Being a vegan makes it hard to grab a cookie or cake as a snack, since they have eggs, so a snack tends to be healthy (unless you go out of your way to surround yourself with jelly beans and the like).

By the second half of the month, the diet got worse. I didn't eat jelly beans or potato chips, etc, but I ate more carbs, including white rice and flour, since these were more readily available. I should have cooked one or two more times to avoid this. I was hungry and tended to eat more food than I do on a meat-based diet. I still ate pretty healthily - fruits, veggies, not too many pre-packaged items. I was supposed to do more exercise and eat meals at specific intervals during the day, but I didn't do either.

I gained about 2.5 kilo by the end of the month.

I didn't feel cravings for meat or cheese or eggs, but I don't feel a need to continue being a vegan. I'm not more in touch with my chakra, and I'm not more sensitive toward living creatures. I took a blood test this morning, so I will see later if my triglycerides, glucose, and/or cholesterol are any different.

It is easy to be vegan, and there are many varied and delicious vegan foods to eat. It is about as difficult to be vegan as it is to keep kosher in the US: easier, actually, since I can eat vegan food that was cooked on non-vegan cookware in a non-vegan kitchen. My friends endured my food requirements, in the way that non-kosher or non-vegetarian friends endure the kosher or vegetarian. My only slip up was a bite of a piece of hallah, where I had remembered to ask the hostess if the bread had honey but I had forgotten to ask if it had eggs.

Yesterday evening, I saw a dark bovine shadow in a fedora underneath the lamppost near my apartment complex. It tipped its hat at me and then vanished in the foggy gloom. I found a wrapped, fresh cut steak at the foot of the lamppost. It seems that I have survived my one month vegan challenge unharmed, and essentially unaltered.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-40950526983861345602016-02-14T22:47:00.000+02:002016-02-14T22:47:12.110+02:00Not Yet Down for the Cow: Heifer Way Through My 1 Month Vegan ChallengeHere's the surprise: it's easy to be vegan if a) you already don't eat milk or fish, b) you know how to cook and/or you get your lunches from work, and c) you are generally not subject to strong bouts of craving and binging. All of these are true for me.

If I had thought that being vegan meant eating raw lettuce, bare cooked grains and tofu, that's just not the case. True, I made a stir fried tofu, broccoli, and asparagus, but I have also eaten vegetarian sushi, lentil pie, humus and/or falafel meals, vegetarian patties, cholent, tehina and bread, and PB&J, as well as vegan pizza, apple pie, blueberry and banana soy smoothies, roasted potatoes and antipasti, and countless other delicious foods. Yes, sometimes when I smell sizzling meat I hanker for it a bit, but really not much, especially since I'm only doing this for a month. If anything, the hardest problem in my particular circumstance is that I'm not driven by any of the major reasons I've heard that people become vegan.

I don't have a problem killing animals for food; heck, we kill animals by the millions just plowing a field to grow grain, not to mention how many more we kill to harvest and pack it. I don't like the way we raise animals today, but for that I prefer to lobby for better regulations in the animal industry.

As for the environment, I think the animal industry could use better regulation there, too, but I think the damage done by the animal industry is dwarfed by the damage done by other industries. And it employs a lot of people.

As for health: animals are no more packed with hormones and chemicals than the fruits or vegetables we eat. And, since I never believe anything a label, corporation, or government tells me, I put no faith in the concepts of organic, free-range, environmentally friendly, or any other claims by any industry. I took a blood test on the first day of February: I discovered that my cholesterol, lipids, and glucose are high, and my vitamin D and B-12 are low. Being vegan isn't going to solve these issues. I need to take vegan-friendly supplements for omega-3, D, and B-12, and a vegan diet isn't necessarily any less fatty than a meat diet. I admit that there is a correlation between being a vegan and eating healthier, because vegans are the kind of people who are aware of and concerned with what they eat.

Positive and negative side-effects after two weeks? I admit that I feel a bit - just a bit - less tired in the morning. On the other hand, I now eat a higher quantity of food, so I feel as bloated as I felt before the diet started. Otherwise nothing; perhaps two weeks isn't enough time to tell.

Another surprise is the feeling of deja vu: being vegan in Israel is like being kosher in the US. In the US, kosher people only go to specific restaurants, they have to excuse themselves from the meals that other people eat or the dishes they serve, and they fastidiously check labels in the supermarket. Since coming to Israel, I go to nearly any restaurant (in the Jerusalem are, anyway), can eat at almost any friend's house, and can buy any product I want in the supermarket. Being vegan is exactly like being kosher was in the US.

It may be that I have avoided a heart attack because I decided to do a blood test because I decided to be a vegan for a month, and now I am addressing my high cholesterol and low vitamin D; but, if I avoid the heart attack, we'll never know.

I went to a game shabbaton this weekend Read about what I played here.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-66047300214378737492016-01-31T21:00:00.000+02:002016-01-31T21:00:07.439+02:00Far From the Madding Cow: Starting a One Month Vegan ChallengeI've decided to be vegan for the month of February. "Why?" you ask. That was clever of you to ask me just as I was writing this blog post. Good timing!

Well, I'll tell you:

I hate domesticated animals. If the entire world became vegan for any length of time, all domesticated animal species would go extinct. Think about it: farmers aren't going to raise animals if they can't make money off of them; and these animals are not going to wander off and survive in the wild. As one vegan site puts it, every vegan is responsible for consuming 100 less animals every year, which means that each vegan denies 100 animals the chance to be born every year. I want to do my part for barnyard genocide.

To be self-righteous. When I was a child living in America, I use to say, around Christmas time, "Who needs fancy presents and lights and holiday joy? I'm Jewish, so there! I'll just sit here next to this little candle and watch The Charlie Brown Christmas Special on TV. Pass me a latke." Ah, I miss that self-righteous feeling! I don't get to have that in Israel being around all of these Jews. Being vegan should do the trick.

In a similar vein, I actively look for opportunities to be masochistic. I expect to be told I'm being stupid, that what I'm doing makes isn't natural, and that I'll ruin my health. And "Wouldn't I like to eat this? Doesn't it smell great? Come on, one hamburger won't kill you." And how I can do what I want, but the normal people will be over here enjoying real food. Because I don't get enough of that simply keeping kosher in Israel.

Being vegan, as everyone knows, totally grants one superpowers and stuff.

Because I want to meet more women, and they live on Vega. Or maybe Venus. Well, chicks dig guys who have, like, conviction? and are, like, compassionate, or whatever.

February is only 28 days, right? Because if it were even one day more, I don't think I could do it. Thank god for February being only 28 days!

Gives you a warm glowy feeling, doesn't it?

I ran these reasons by a vegan friend - or ex-friend, I should say - and after yelling at me for half an hour, she put the knife down and told me I should feel great. Actually, she said I should feel pleasure. Actually, she said that I should feel a specific kind of pleasure that I self-administer. Or something like that. She managed to say it using only three words.

Veganism might be healthier in some regards, like for saturated fats. I just have to be careful about calcium, vitamin D, iron, vitamin B12, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids. And my father had anemia. I don't have to worry about anemia as an omnivore; as a vegan, I may have to take some supplements. Anyway, it's only for 30 days, and I'm aware of the various foodstuffs that I should take to minimize any problems in these areas.

My biggest concern is the ninja cows that may be out to get me because of that genocide joke. I may have attracted the attention of the bovine cow-bal. They hunt down vegans in dark alleys and attack them with fresh fruit. One of my friends told me that that would be more funny than frightening, but I'm not a-moo-sed.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-26174483671795336812016-01-25T22:42:00.001+02:002016-01-26T02:37:30.764+02:00Moriarty or Mutants: I Review the Marvel and DC TV Show Pilots, plus Shannara, Humans, and Six MoviesTV

But first, more about Supergirl - In my initial review, I said that the dialog was horrible, the action sequences senseless, and the premise that having a girl superhero movie be more about relationships than kicking ass was insulting to women. I wasn't going to watch any more, but then I did. It continues to intrigue me, a little, despite what it still does wrong. Actually it really only does a few things right.

Melissa Benoit is cute and clumsy in the right ways as Supergirl; she acts well, instead of wooden and/or eccentric like the rest of the cast. Laura Benenti and Peter Facinelli play characters who may or may not be bad guys, which is nice. These two make the show rise above the usual Moriarty or Mutants that is the staple of comic book derived TV shows. Supergirl is some of both, although it's mostly Mutants.

A Moriarty show: One bad guy of exceptional and unbelievable intelligence and power always survives, attacks or taunts the hero, performs a dastardly deed in every episode (often with unexplained motives), gets tracked down, confronted, and then narrowly escapes in every episode.

A Mutants show: In every episode, the hero has to fight yet another villain who has some mutated power - typically resulting from the same source that gave the hero his or her power. The hero is initially overpowered, but rallies to put away or kill the mutant by the end of the episode. There is always another mutant. It is never explained why all these mutants hang out in the proximity of the hero, instead of going literally anywhere else in the world/universe to do their mean things, nor why they attack one or two at a time.
Some shows like to use both of these.

Supergirl's action sequences - like the action sequences in every sci-fi and fantasy show I have seen (with the exception of Blake's Seven) - continue to bore me. No one important ever dies, superhero powers or weapons are conveniently forgotten, no one has an ounce of strategy, and no one is ever in serious trouble. What happened to the kryptonite guns and blades? Why is everyone attacking innocents in a convenient 50 mile radius of Supergirl's apartment?

In this show, unlike shows with male protagonists, the superhero requires a team of others to help her, can't manage her abilities without training, must learn that powers are not the solution to everything, and has to wear a short skirt. Instead of being bothered by these points, my reaction is: well done. The other shows should really be more like this one (I'm not talking about the short skirt, although I don't really mind it, since her legs are not the central shot when she is on screen). Supergirl is more vulnerable and not always able to come up with a solution, which makes it more than just a bunch of punching and kicking, snarling villains, and threats and intrigue all managed by a lone hero karate chopper who never gets hurt.

Short skirt aside, I enjoy women protagonists more than male ones, except when they are invulnerable karate choppers (I'm looking at you Black Widow).

Other Marvel and D.C. Shows ...

Since I realize that pilot episodes are usually the worst, I really need to see more episodes of the rest of these shows to make proper judgements. But here they are, anyway. These are listed in the order that I viewed them.

Daredevil - Not entirely bad, but also not too good. You know the basic story: he's blind, he's a lawyer, he whacks people with a stick. A Moriarty. None of the characters were interesting. Brooding and dreary.

The Flash - A Mutants show that predates Supergirl and is a bit similar, with a male protagonist who runs really fast after a weird explosion but who needs a team to help him learn his powers. Many others were also caught in the explosion. I think the problem here is that I didn't find any of the characters appealing. It's a knock off, much smaller version of X-Men. Again, none of the characters were interesting. In the last scene of the pilot, it has the tired cliche of the supposed friend who turns out to be something else by turning his head and looking malevolently at the camera. Boring.

Agent Carter - As I have a preference for female protagonists who have time to do more than kick things, I liked this one more than most. It's the continuing story of Agent Carter from Captain America and her occasional run-ins with Papa Stark and other riff-raff. I nearly considered watching additional episodes, but I was thoroughly disgusted when, in the last scene of the pilot, it had the tired cliche of the supposed friend who turns out to be something else by turning his head and looking malevolently at the camera. Please stop presenting people whose eyes glow red when no one is looking, or who secretly keep tabs on the main character by pretending to be their friend. It's bad writing and bad filming. I HATE these silly "cliffhangers" of pilot episodes; it's a totally unnecessary trope.

The acting was good but the plot was forgettable, as Marvel plots are. Only Carter has any character, although not much; on the other hand, there is hope that some of the other characters may become more interesting, given the chance. But I will probably not watch another episode unless I am bored.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - A totally forgettable Mutants show, going by the pilot. It has a group of misfit powers. My friend says that the show became something else entirely after the fifth episode, and it's one of his favorites. He says I should watch more.

Legend of Tomorrow - Very clunky pilot episode, with too many introductions and cliche characters and intrigue - which is to be expected when you introduce ten main superpower characters in 45 minutes. Good production values for the most part, except for when it wasn't (such as the opening scene). Some of the characters could become interesting, like the ones that have lived and died for 4000 years, but it's more likely that we're never going to really explore their psychology, like how they deal with living a long time while their friends die. Instead I expect to just see the occasional run-in with a past familiar face. It's a big fat Moriarty.

Unnhhhhh ..... maybe I'll watch a second episode.

Jessica Jones - Not bad, again because it's not all about butt kicking; and its no accident that this is because the protagonist is female. However, it suffers from a severe Moriarty problem. Jessica is a private eye who also happens to be a retired power, but whose path once crossed, and will now cross again, a guy who controls people's minds in nasty ways. Krysten Ritter is a fine actress, but the characters had shallow development (in the pilot, at least). Again, I may watch another episode if I am truly bored.

Arrow - I finally watched the original D.C. show and I see what the fuss is about. This show is neither Moriarty nor Mutants; Arrow's hit list of targets is a little like Mutants, but the list isn't endless and they don't have mutant powers. The story is original - well, actually, it's basically a take on Bat-Man. He returns from a shipwreck where his father died and so did the girl he was banging (his girlfriend's sister). His relationships, such as to his ex girlfriend and best friend, are well done. Some of it didn't make any sense - how did he learn all that technology when he was out of commission for so many years (and you know that computers don't work like that, right?) and it's unbelievable that he can be shot at at point blank range by dozens of machine guns and never hit by a bullet - but I gave it a pass because of the interesting plot. I will probably watch more episodes.

iZombie - This is another well done story, and rather unique. Basically, zombies exist but are not well known; being a zombie is something you can hide from your friends and family, so long as you get to work in a morgue and eat brains. And it gives you ex-machina crime-solving abilities. That means that, in future episodes, Ms brain-eater is going to get just the right flashes at just the right times, which is awfully convenient. And oh yeah: zombie may be a curable illness. I gross out easily, so I didn't like the gory parts, but the "fades from comic panel to real life action sequences" are fun and stylish. If I was into crime-dramas at all, I might watch more of this, but I'm not.

Gotham - A solid, well-acted police/detective serial. Follows the story of James Gordon's early days on the police and the boy Bruce Wayne, sprinkling in early looks at half a dozen future criminals in the meantime. Lots of mob and crooked policemen. It's Mutants, with some Moriarty thrown in. If I liked crime/detective shows with lots of violence, I would probably watch more episodes, but I don't.

Other Shows ...

The Shannara Chronicles - This is a PG fantasy series, loosely based on the Elfstones of Shannara (the second book in the series). The acting is wooden or eccentric. The plot turns a good and powerful story into a series of cute meets and irrelevant action sequences. A magic tree that holds back hordes of demons is dying; one elf has to take a seed and bathe it in some mountain fire to make a new tree. I stuck around for the first three episodes, but I got bored by the plot distractions, like arranged marriages, deaf leaders, and people running away from responsibility. These aren't inherently bad ideas, but they are done without grace. The scenes engender no empathy, nor do they create any emotional connection to the characters. The funny scenes aren't funny. The tense scenes aren't tense.

Manu Bennett as Allanon is perhaps the best thing going for the show. Possibly Ivana Baquero's or Poppy Drayto's elf women characters will become something interesting eventually. Austin Butler's Wil Ohmsford is a complete blank, so I have no hope for his character becoming anything at all.

Humans - A foreboding take on human-looking androids, as depicted by the movies A.I. and Ex Machina. Here you buy them as companions or servants, but they are obviously going to be sexually and physically abused. An interesting question would be whether this can exacerbate, or help sublimate, abusive behavior against real people, but I don't know if the series gets (got) into that question.

Instead, the story is about displacement and other kinds of social dynamics, and (having read the series synopsis) eventually the same issue explored by movies like Ex Machina and Blade Runner: whether or not androids can really be sentient, and thus granted equal rights like humans.

It's not bad, but it also didn't quite grab me. I think the human characters were just not that interesting in the pilot. It might get better after the pilot, when the characters become more familiar. I might try a few more episodes.

Movies

Suffragette - This movie is not, unfortunately, the story of the Suffragette movement. Instead, it is a series of scenes depicting the suffering undergone by some of the suffragettes. To have been the story of the movement, it would have had to have shown how the suffragettes' activities gradually came to win over the hearts and minds of the people. None of that is shown.

The movie is just a repetition of women plotting, protesting, or breaking windows, followed by the women being ignored, beaten, arrested, abused, or otherwise mistreated. That's it. Details of the unfair situation of, and the abuse and sacrifices made by, the main character, played by Carey Mulligan, are shown. I found it hard to tell the other women apart, since they had no differences in character, other than being a bit louder or weaker. The one man shown to be slightly supportive - a husband - is given almost no role and no voice. And then someone dies and the movie ends. Great cinematography, but kind of a waste for such an important topic.

Steve Jobs - Three half-hour scenes in the life of Steve Jobs, all right before product launches. For what it is, it's okay. Jobs is shown as a prick, as usual. I don't know that it adds anything to what we know about Jobs from what we already know from the previous movies. We learn a bit more about product launches, and a bit more about what it was like to be Jobs' daughter.

My main problem here was that Michael Fassbender looks nothing like Jobs, so it was hard to believe him in the role. Another problem was Jeff Daniels as John Scully; Daniels acts exactly like his character from Sorkins' The Newsroom, and the pacing and camera shots, and even some of the dialog, is lifted straight out of Sorkins' TV shows, so the movie seemed like another episode of The Newsroom. Don't talk to me like I'm other people!

The Peanuts Movie - An aberration upon humanity. I can't step away from the fact that I've seen all of the original Peanuts movies and many of the shows, and read the comics; perhaps I would see this a bit differently as a newcomer. I recognized many of the one-liners, characters, and even short set-up scenes from previous Peanuts media, but the majority of the movie was slapstick: characters getting smashed or hit, falling down, bonked on the head, jumping into a bush, screaming, or otherwise, in fast sequence after sequence. The original material barely surfaces for a few seconds before another pratfall or smack in the face. Maybe a little kid who enjoys seeing people get hit or hurt will enjoy the movie. Otherwise, it is blasphemous. There is a reason that many cartoonists don't want other people continuing their work after they're dead.

The Little Prince - An odd, but not too odd, animated movie that tells the story of The Little Prince in the first half of the movie, while simultaneously telling the story of a girl and her mother who move into a new house. The mother has the girl's entire future planned out to a ridiculous degree; the girl makes friends with her neighbor, who turns out to be the aviator of the eponymous story. The second half of the movie sees the old man going to the hospital and the girl's search for The Little Prince who is now an adult and has forgotten all of the lessons of the book.

It doesn't take a genius to know what will happen next, but kids will enjoy it, and hopefully their interest in reading the book will be aroused. Watchable as an adult.

Big Eyes - A nifty movie about Margaret and Walter Keane (Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz). In the early 1960s, Walter painted many kitchy paintings featuring kids who had big eyes. These became very popular, and Walter hobnobbed with the media, celebrities, and the art world until Margaret suddenly left him, and shortly afterwards claimed to have been the actual artist. This was demonstrated as undeniably true in a famous courtroom battle, although Walter continued to claim to be the real artist until his death. It's a movie about a woman who supports a Big Lie by her husband; I would think it would be hard to relate to by today's women. None of the women I know could or would do such a thing for so long, but maybe there are still many who would. I felt that the moment of her first willingness to go along with the lie wasn't presented sufficiently, but that may be simply because I am a man. Anyway, the rest of the movie is interesting, moves well, is acted, scripted, and directed well, and is worth watching on a small screen.

Joy - A small story starring Jennifer Lawrence as the real-life Joy Mangano, a woman from a dysfunctional, poor extended family of leeches who invented the miracle mop and marketed it on television. It's pretty grim for most of its running, even though you know it has to turn out well somehow, eventually. J-Law is fine, as usual, and the rest of the cast and directing is, too. Something is missing from the story, however. Either they told the wrong parts of the story, or the story isn't that interesting. It tries to make up for this by presenting all the weird characters that surrounded Joy, but the movie spends too much time on those characters, who are not interesting stories. It's ok for watching on an airplane ride, but I wouldn't seek it out.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-61933076758324502052016-01-18T00:01:00.001+02:002016-01-18T00:01:27.535+02:00Shabbat GamingI spent the weekend at my brother's; one of his boys had a bar-mitzvah. We got to play a few games:

High Society: First play for me and everyone else. This is a quick auction game from Knizia. You bid on cards from a 16 card deck; the auction ends after the 4th "red" card is revealed from the deck, so the game could be as short as 3 rounds or as long as 15. There are 12 yellow cards: 1 through 10, -5, and "lose a card". The four red cards are three x 2's and one x 1/2. You have a hand full of money to bid with, and the person with the most points in cards at the end wins (add the yellow cards and then apply multipliers, if any). The "lose a card" makes you lose a card you already have or the first one you acquire. For the 13 good cards, top bidder takes the card and pays his bid. For the 3 bad cards, all players pay their bid, except for the first one to pass who gets the card but keeps his money. The twist is that the person with the least money when the game ends is automatically disqualified from winning (money doesn't count among the remaining payers, so you can't bid nothing and win the game, if at least two other people acquired cards).

Ben's theory was to pay a lot of money for a x 2 and a high card (like a 9 or 10) and then sit tight. Unfortunately, he also had to pay to avoid some bad cards, and he tried to bid on a second x 2 at one point. In both of the games we played, he had the least money at the end; in the first game it was simply because the game ended only halfway through the deck. The bar mitzvah boy won the first game, and his younger brother won the second. It's a nice, quick filler (very abstract), but I worry that everyone's cash holdings are trackable; It's not hard to do, but I refused to track it exactly, because it would bog the game down and make it less fun.

La Isla: First play for me and everyone else. This is a small box Alea game from Stephan Feld. There is a board with island spaces of different terrain types (five types). Surrounded by every two, three, or four terrain spaces are animals that you can collect (five types). You get points for collecting the animals (2, 3, or 4 points, depending on how many people you need to collect them). You have five guys to move around the board. To move a guy to a place, you need two cubes of that terrain type (five types of cubes).

Each round you get three cards (from a deck of 180 cards). Each card can be used in any of three ways, and each round you must use one card in each of the three ways. One card you will add to your bonus abilities; it stays in front of you giving you a bonus ability. You only have three slots for bonus abilities, so every round you have to lose one of your previous abilities and gain the new one. One card you will use for the resource cube it gives, and then toss the card. And one card you will use to raise the value of one of the five animals, giving you points for its current value times the number of animals you have of that type (and also tossing the card). At the end of the game, everyone scores the value of the animal times the number of animals he has of that type, as well as 10 points for each complete set of animals (one of each type).

Nadine warned me that you have to guess and worry about which animal type the other players will be increasing, but I don't think the way she does, which is why she a) takes a lot longer to make her moves than I do, and b) wins these kinds of games more often than I do. I was happy to just play cards and see what happened. I didn't do too poorly, but the bar-mitzvah boy ran away with the game by collecting four animals of one type and scoring 12 and then 16 points several rounds in a row, while we were all making 2 to 5 or so. Even though he had no sets, he still won by a large margin (124 to my 77 to last place who had 61).

I enjoyed the game: it's fairly quick (medium length), plays nicely, and has some competition on the board. My only complaint is too many cards, and the cards are of poor quality (easy to bend and/or rip).

Speed ("Chinese-style") played with a young cousin. I don't really get this version of the game, and in any case she tended to cheat. :-)

Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-40437548448340498102016-01-03T23:51:00.000+02:002016-01-03T23:51:53.525+02:00The Real Reasons The Force Awakens Fails as a Star Wars MovieIn a word: development.

George Lucas had the vision and ability to unfold scenes that were slices of an epic story, not just connected pieces of one story.

In IV, consider the first scenes with Luke and his uncle and aunt. There are conversations about washing droids, cleaning up, going to town, fixing water harvesters. They talk about dreams and hopes for the future. It's not only the content; it's the pacing ... not only the pacing, it's the flow. The first Luke scenes don't seem like an integral part of one main story - though they are. They seem like the middle of another story and a typical slice of life during that story. Until the first visions of Leia in the hologram there is no feeling of being part of a "plot". From the hologram until C-3PO mentions that R2 ran away, again there is no feeling of rushing forward in a plot. When exciting things happen, it feels like worlds of different stories are intersecting and getting caught up in each other.

You get the same feeling watching Luke fight the battle ball - it's a slice of a longer time period, making you feel that much time has passed, and Luke has experienced similar events, and many more will come. When Leia is interrogated, same thing. In VII, the interrogation scene we saw was the only one that happened. In VII, every scene felt like it existed only to get to the end of the scene - okay, got it? Let's move on to the next. The process of getting there was clean and executed quickly and antiseptically. The movie needed to tell you this to move the plot forward.

VII gives us just one scene that feels like a slice of time - the scavenge scene and the cleaning of what was scavenged. It lasts about 2 minutes. Even the meeting of Rey and Finn is a sequence of bursts: a fight, then a challenge, then seconds later we're on the run. Then 40 seconds of trying to fix the ship, then a capture. Then a brief exposition by Han, and then another challenge/fight. After the scavenge scene, VII NEVER feels epic. It always feels like a rush to finish a story that is already completely scripted. Even the one scene that should have been filled with wonder - Maz and Rey and the lightsaber - was a rushed scene to get to the point, and then to the end, and then we run off to the next action sequence.

Remember V, with Luke training on Degobah? There was no rush to get to the end of it; it felt like slices of weeks of training. Remember VI, with the walks through the woods? Even in I, II, and III there were (a few) scenes of patience: they may have been terribly acted and poorly scripted, but they were scenes that gave you the sense of epic, long-haul, world-building, not just plot-driving.

That's the first reason.

The second reason is one that others have mentioned: There is nothing new in this movie, other than a female protagonist. Every Star Wars had new ships, new worlds, new creatures, new weapons, new plots, new conflicts, new robots, new costumes, new discoveries, and so on and on. What was new in VII? Takodana looks a lot like the moon from IV, as does its cantina. The Starkiller world has snow, which could have been interesting, but we didn't get to see any of it. The rest was just everything we've already seen.

Again: it was an enjoyable sci-fi movie based on the Star Wars story. The acting was great, there were good lines, it was fun to see a tough, non-sexualized capable heroine. But there was no character development, no epic story, and nothing mystical, at least not until the very last frame. Maybe, maybe, the next movie will give us something more than a very good Star Wars version of a Marvel movie.

See here for my initial review.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-30820604867513987962015-12-20T01:39:00.000+02:002016-05-28T22:34:02.066+03:00Review: Star Wars VII: The Force AwakensWhen the movie ended, I mulled over how to react. It took a lot of mulling. I could not instantly say "This was great!" I certainly couldn't say "This was bad!" Is it good? Is it great? Is it good only in the context of the Star Wars saga, or good as movie qua movie? Is it just another sci-fi movie with Star Wars nostalgia thrown in to appeal to fans? Or is it a better movie than the usual crop of sci-fi movies?

(For context, I love the original trilogy (RotJ a bit less) and I do not hate the second trilogy. I disliked the enhancements that Lucas made to the original trilogy: they didn't add anything and they really look kind of hokey, but they didn't ruin the movies for me. The second trilogy had some pitifully bad acting, midichlorians were a useless and stupid addition, and Jar Jar was annoying, enough to stress my enjoyment of the first movie. The pod race went on for too long. It was insane that none of the Jedi could see that Annakin was a complete failure as a Jedi (he was so transparently unable to control his emotions that it was criminal to let him be a Jedi), and the final fight between Annakin and Obi Wan ended really stupidly, what with the "high ground" and Obi Wan letting his friend burn to death instead of putting him out of his misery. But I didn't find the taxation and blockade plots boring. I liked Amadalia's spunk, the light saber fights was awesome, and I thought the plot hung together fairly well. Remember that Return of the Jedi had stupid Ewok battle scenes and really bad acting from Carrie Fisher (who acted fine in the first two movies). Something about the second trilogy movies were still appealing to me: that thing that made Star Wars. Which may simply be the well-choreographed lightsaber battles.)

Is it good? Yes. Is it great? Um... maybe?

It is entertaining and plotted well, even if they leave out a number of explanations to fully understand some of the plot details. However, it is missing parts of what made Star Wars unique. The first is development between the action scenes, like Luke talking to his Aunt and Uncle or looking out over the horizon, Han and Leia talking, Han and Luke talking, Obi Wan talking to Luke and training him, etc. This movie has one conversation between humans, and it is flat and forgettable. It has a few slower scenes, and they are great; but more were necessary. Another is character transformation, like Luke learning to take on responsibility, Han turning back to save the rebellion, or Darth Vader, for that matter. There are two transformation in this movie: one is early in the movie and very quick, so it hardly counts, and the other is non-mental and not really a kind that makes you feel invested in it. It just happens, and you're left wondering why. Mostly, what is missing from this movie is mysticism. No one is reaching out to a higher cause or into the unfathomable unknown. Mysticism is nearly, almost, kind of struggling to be there in the movie, but it doesn't happen until the very last frame of the movie.

The nostalgia is there, but not overwhelmingly so. We get some of the old characters on screen for a while, and they don't just stand there looking wistful. I realize that it's hard to strike the right balance. Nevertheless, it is mishandled a bit. The movie tries to copy the original trilogy too much; there really is too much New Hope in it. A planet sized weapon attacked by X-Wings and Tie fighters, plans hidden in a droid, a freakin' alien bar scene. There is even a father son conflict. We did these already, didn't we?

The cinematography is vastly better than the first or second trilogies. Ships and hovercraft move in erratic patterns with oddly tracked shots full of detail as the camera focus swirls around. Ships don't look like models or sterile backdrops; they are fully realized and lifelike. If Lucas was trying to "update" his original trilogy with enhancements to make it look more modern, this movie shows how far he failed in doing so. THIS movie looks incredibly good, so much so, that it feels un-Star Wars, which has always been a bit less complicated and a bit more hokey than the modern sterile sci-fi we are used to.

It was great to see a mad dash to save the girl only to find out that she doesn't need saving. It was nice to see diversity, but really, there is only one black dude in the galaxy, so far (unless Lando is hiding somewhere). BB-8 is really good as a WALL-E type droid, though mostly a substitute for R2-D2 who is awol for much of the movie.

The acting is universally good. Like the original movie, there is nearly no on-screen romantic dialog, a welcome change from the worst elements of episodes II and III. Newcomers Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are charismatic, and even have a bit of chemistry. On the other hand, Adam Driver as Kylo (the villain), and Oscar Isaac as Poe (a hero) are both uninteresting, flat characters.

Though the movie has plot problems, little character transformation, and little substantive dialog between characters, I still enjoyed the movie. Partly due to nostalgia. Partly that it is a decent action movie, like the better Marvel or Batman movies. Party because there are lightsabers. And partly due to the charisma of Harrison Ford, Daisy, and John. As for the latter two, we will watch your careers with great interest.

Spoilers, questions, and complaints ahead.

What happened to the clones? Since when did stormtroopers come from recruits?

Really, the Millennium Falcon works that well after not flying for a long time? And Han lost it? And Han just happened to be in the one place in space where he could drag it on board?

It took Han a long time to make the jump to hyperspace in IV. Now you're telling me it can be done by someone unfamiliar with the ship from a standing start? Speaking of traveling in hyperspace, that must be moving about a million times the speed of light, which I'm fine with. I'm not fine with relying on a human saying "now" to know when to cut the hyperdrive so that the ship lands a couple of miles above a planet instead of inside the planet: that's what computers are for. And speaking of that shield, what use is a shield that protects against things flying sub-light speed, but not above light speed? Why can't the resistance just fill a ship with bombs and send it straight into the target at above light speed? It would make a pretty explosion, I think.

Good thing the big monster didn't eat Finn right away like it did for all of the other, less important characters, giving Rey time to save him. Rey's plan was to look at security cameras and chop off the monster's limbs with a blast door? And that was the best plan?

Luke's lightsaber was just sitting in some bar basement in an unlocked box? Really? Didn't Luke's original lightsaber (the one Obi Wan gave him that was once Annakin's) fall from Cloud City on Bespin?

Rey never used a blaster before, but shoots better than people who have trained with blasters their whole life. And unless Finn is a Jedi secretly, how does he use a lightsaber competently after first picking one up against a Jedi who has trained to use it his whole life? Didn't Luke have to train a long time to use a lightsaber?

How did that random stormtrooper happen to have this ... thing that protects against lightsabers? If it's not standard issue, were they expecting a lightsaber attack? If it is, why doesn't everyone have them? Where did it come from?

I was not thrilled to see what essentially amounted to a rape scene (as Kylo entered, or tried to enter, Rey's mind repeatedly to take information out of it).

The screenwriter tried to give Kylo conflict - struggling between the light and dark sides of the force, but it was not well conveyed, neither in the script nor by the actor. As a result, what was going to happen in the scene where Han confronts Kylo was telegraphed from the moment he stepped onto the bridge. Maybe it will surprise some viewers, but it was obvious to me what was going to happen, especially when Kylo took out his lightsaber. A defter directorial hand was needed here.

How come Rey is able to take up the force so easily, with no training? Weren't Luke and Leia the last hopes? Why was Leia never trained in the force?

How come Finn said he was a janitor, when he was clearly out on a mission at the beginning of the movie?

Why are there no guards at the doors to the bases? Why was that bad guy so willing to shut off the field without a struggle?

It didn't seem necessary for Finn to die; especially with him being the only black guy in the universe; it smacks a bit too much like a trope (the black guy always dies). It wasn't necessary when they already had killed off a main character. I suppose it's possible that Finn isn't dead, but that wouldn't make sense considering the advanced medical stuff they have around him (which should detect any semblance of life).

The wordless ending with no resolution was not entirely satisfying, even though they and we know that we're going to go out and see the next movie. Also, shouldn't she be offering Luke the saber hilt first? I'm kind of pissed that Luke would let so much death and destruction go on while he runs away from some personal failure; who does he think he is, Yoda?Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-27092113711854811282015-12-02T01:30:00.002+02:002015-12-02T10:35:54.049+02:00Movie Reviews: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Spectre, Minions, Paper TownsThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2: This movie, while not as good as the first two films, is a fine action flick with some unique elements that sets it apart from other modern action movies. One is that it tackles the question of whether the resistance is really a better substitute than the existing tyranny. Another is the fine, strong and useful heroine as the central character.

The acting and directing are good and the movie is put together well. But this movie is only half a movie, and you won't understand most of it without having read the books or seen the first three movies, especially the third. If the third book would not have been split into two movies, the result would have been one much better movie.

As usual, I don't ding a movie just for leaving out parts of the book or for changing elements in the book. However, what was left out of the movie includes some of the central themes the book, and that's a pity. Perhaps the most crucial element left out of the movie is that Katniss was a selfish, spoiled, and lazy heroine who had to train in order to be able to handle herself in the field. Also left out of the movie is the brutal and permanent physical disfigurements she sports by the end of the book; she lives out the remainder of her life with half of her face burned off. J-Law's Katniss suffers no such problems in the movie, despite a scene showing her getting burned. Like in the first movie, the physical and social desperation and psychological trauma are dispensed with in favor of the kind of insensitive and careless video game violence that we come to expect from movies, where no one eats or goes to the bathroom and children can kill hundreds of people or watch hundreds of people die horrible deaths and yet suffer only a brief cry or angry outburst. Pity. Go read the books.

Still, this last movie is worthy and entertaining. We will watch Jennifer's career with great interest.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation: At least this series, like the original Bourne trilogy, but unlike the current superhero movies or the Bond franchise, gives us thrilling action sequences that appear semi-possible and even - occasionally - make you think that they may end with the main characters dead.

This MI, like the last one, is far more entertaining than it should have been. It only crashed for me in the middle during a car chase that had one too many car flips. When the occupant jumps sprightly out of the overturned car onto a motorcycle, my disbelief could no longer be suspended and the movie was ruined for me for about twenty minutes.

The end also seemed rather impossible since the plan required a bunch of people to be exactly at one spot at a specific time with certain hardware and construction that could not possibly have been obtained or constructed, but whatever. Tom Cruise manages to not crowd out everyone else in the movie, at least.

It's all still pretty dumb, but it's entertaining and occasionally clever. The whole plot is a mcguffin for the action sequences. Something about an organization taking over the world.

Spectre: Spectre completes a four part mini-arc for Daniel Craig's James Bond. It is better than the frenetic and unwatchable Quantum, and not quite as stupid as the ridiculously plotted Skyfall. I would rank it below Casino Royale, which was the most straightforward of the films.

While not quite as stupid as Skyfall, please tell me Bond's plan wasn't to walk into the lair, let himself be captured, trussed, and tortured, and, while drills are going into his head, hand his watch to his girlfriend in full view of many bad guys, have her toss the watch so that it blows up exactly the right way to knock out exactly the right people and release his electronic locks, and have all the bad guys miss him from close range, and walk to the unguarded and available helicopter, and have the lair blow up from a couple of bullet shots due to ... actually, I still don't know why it all blew up. It's like the scriptwriters are not even trying anymore. The surveillance capabilities are also presented as ridiculous; I don't put it past governments to have more surveillance than many of us know, but I feel pretty confident that they still can't capture video inside a remote house without at least having placed a video camera in the house first.

And since when can nine different governments cooperate sufficiently to put all of their surveillance into the hands of a British guy? Heck, since when can nine different government organizations in the same country even connect their computers to the same network?

The film tries to introduce an actual romantic interest, as opposed to just a sexual interest, for our hero. And it brings into question whether Bond really wants to continue being a 00. Watchable, but silly. The whole plot is a mcguffin for the action sequences. Something about an organization taking over the world.

Minions: The prequel to Despicable Me, this fluff kids movie contains many funny moments but a pretty bad plot. It is the movie equivalent of a game with a lot of tactics but not a smidgen of strategy.

Despicable Me at least had the bad guy turn into a good guy, which makes sense when the main characters all care for and love each other. This movie dispenses with any kind of character arcs or growth, has only bad guys, and hangs the movie on a quest by three walking babbling banana slugs in search of "the most evil" person to serve. This really makes no sense. The movie ridicules the idea of evil, making "the most despicable" characters into jewel thieves who steal lollipops from kids ... and not much worse. I can think of worse people who work at my bank. And no one ever gets killed or hurt for real.

The animators and director do an incredible job of carrying the movie along with almost no understandable dialog for most of it. The silent movies did it 100 years ago, and apparently these were part of the inspiration for how to achieve it in this movie.

I am uncomfortable with the whole premise, since there is no one to root for, really. If we ignore that, the movie is basically plotless, and the quest is nonsensical. Despite this, in between holding my head at the inappropriateness of the whole endeavor, I laughed out loud quite a few times. Scene after scene is thrown at you with joke after joke, and some of them are quite clever and funny. Something like The LEGO Movie (which didn't suffer from the problems that this movie has). But ... are all the minions boys? Why?

There are so many better movies with better values that I wouldn't buy it for my kids or go out of my way to see it. However cute the banana slugs are.

Paper Towns: John Green is having a few good years. After The Fault in Our Stars, he comes back with another movie based on one of his books. This one has more normal teenagers, none of whom are heading for imminent death.

Quentin (Nat Wolff) loves a neighbor girl Margo (Cara Delevingne) who has a habit of disappearing. Near the end of high school, she takes him out for a night in which she exacts her revenge on her (now) ex-boyfriend, ex-friends, and a few others and then disappears the next day. He and his friends decide to track her down based on the clues she left as to her whereabouts. Meanwhile, high school is drawing to a close and each of the friends has his or her own stories and concerns about the present or future.

Part high school romcom, part mystery (very small part), and part road trip, I started off not liking the movie because neither Quentin nor Margo initially appeared to be likeable. The disappearance to come was predictable, so I am not spoiling that for you. It is after this that the movie picks up, slowly, slowly the characters evolve and they all become likeable. The minor things in the movie are not always predictable, and even the major ones, while more predictable, are handled well.

A sweet movie with several interesting allegories that I expect (hope) are explored more thoroughly in the book.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-62743662500761298462015-11-28T20:31:00.002+02:002015-11-28T22:45:51.036+02:002015 Holiday Gift Guide

This guide includes games for young and old, for every sex, generation, temperament, and culture.

Whatever you do, and whatever you celebrate, there is no better way to spend a Christmas, Hanukkah, or what have you than together with friends, family, and neighbors with a warm cup of (fair trade) cocoa and a stack of casual board and/or card games.

Remember that the most valuable gift you can give is time. Don't just give your loved ones a game; play it with them. Find or start a local game group and join or form a community.

I hope you enjoy the guide. Remember: the holidays are not only for sharing the warmth with family and friends, but also for sharing with those who have no one else to share with them. Give to your local shelters, hospitals, and so on, because that's the gift that keeps on giving.

	Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10"

I'm starting with this unusual choice for a board game list, because tablets are perfect platforms for playing thousands of face to face games for two to four players. Because you don't need to buy the physical components, you can stack all your games in a teeny space, the games (if not the tablet) cost very little, and you don't have to cut down old trees to make them or use fossil fuels to ship them. Tablets have their own environmental impact in their making, so that's a trade off; but if you're getting one anyway, most of the games on this list are available electronically.

Nowadays, most games are also available on consoles, too.

	7 Wonders: Ages 9+, 4 to 7 players

This is a game of drafting cards and building a wondrous city. You get a hand of cards; pick one and pass the rest. Everyone reveals the card they picked and puts it into their tableaux. Repeat. Done. Score points based on the combinations of cards you have at the end of all the passing.

The graphics are fantastic, the theme not so visible. It's easy to learn, provides great choices, with depth enough to spare.

	Antike II: Ages 8+, 2 to 6 players

Risk is a long game of laying low, with player elimination and just too much in the luck department; this game (and its predecessor but very rare and expensive Antike) is the perfect evolution to, and replacement for, Risk.

It plays quicker, there's dice-less conflict, no one gets to lay low watching while others fight, and - excepting truly poor play - everyone has a chance for most of the game. There's also a lot more to the game than just conflict, but the rules are short and elegant.

Other alternatives for the Risk player are Antike Duellum (for two players) and Risk Legacy (an odd game that moves in one game affect the next).

	Backgammon: Ages 6+, 2 players

Backgammon is a classic game that can be enjoyed by children and parents alike. While there is a large amount of luck in the game, there are also many meaningful decisions, which makes this a good stepping stone to future games with more challenge, such as Checkers or Chess.

	Blokus, Blokus Trigon, Blokus Duo: Ages 8+, 4 players (Blokus), 2-4 players (Blokus Trigon), or 2 players (Blokus Duo)

Blokus, Blokus Trigon, and Blokus Duo are abstract games with very simple rules. Each round you take a piece and place it on the board such that it touches any previous pieces you have played, but only corner to corner. It can touch other players' pieces along corners or sides.

The rules are easy, the components are beautiful, and it's fun.

	Boggle: Ages 8+, 2 to 10 players

Boggle is a word game, whose simple rules - find all the words you can within three minutes - make it a game that is both fun and quick. Adults can play with kids by restricting the adults to have to find words of four or five letters.

The pictured version is a little quieter and less bulky than the old boxy version, and comes with a built-in electronic timer.

	Candle Quest: Ages 6+, 2 to 4 players

A little plug for my own game. This is a simple set-collection auction game with a Hanukkah theme. It fits in well with the other games on the list: easy to learn, quick to play, lots of replayability. The theme makes it appropriate for all ages, and there's nothing overtly Jewish about it, other than that it's a menorah, so anyone should feel comfortable playing it.

Of course, I may be biased, since I designed it. This game was published by Victory Point Games.

	Carcassonne, variants, and expansions: Ages 10+, 2 to 5 players

Carcassonne is a bit more complex than some of the other games here, but the beautiful pieces and the fun game play are worth the time to learn. Pick a piece from the pile, rotate and place it so that it fits on the board (like dominoes), and then optionally place one of your pieces on that tile. There are several ways to score, some of which occur during the game and some of which only at the end of the game.

There are some more rules than that, but not too many more. The game play is engaging enough to make you want to play it more than once in a single sitting.

There are dozens of versions to the game, and some of the versions have several expansions.

	Catan: Ages 8+, 3 to 4 players

This game, formerly known as The Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride, are the perfect adult games for beginning gamers.

All you need to do is collect ten points through building settlements and cities, connecting roads, adding developments and trading with your fellow players. A unique board that changes each time you play, constant interaction even when it's not your turn, and a great balance of luck versus strategy makes this The Game to acquire if you still think that board games are only for kids.

	Chess / Xiangqi / Shogi: Ages 6+, 2 players

These three games, Chess, XiangQi (Chinese Chess), and Shogi (Japanese Chess), are all top-tier 2-player games that can occupy a curious mind for an entire lifetime. They also have wide followings, so learning the game is learning a language that will admit you to a culture of fellow players around the world.

Board and piece prices range from inexpensive to very expensive, and Chess pieces come in many different themes.

	Chinese Checkers: Ages 6+, 2 to 6 players

Another great abstract, and a pretty one if you find one with nice marbles. The rules are simple: move or jump your pieces from one side to the other. Finding chains of jumps is a thrill for all ages.

	Carrom / Crokinole / Nok-Hockey / Air Hockey / Billiards / Foosball, etc.: Ages 6+, 2 players

Carrom is the most played tabletop game in India. Like Billiards, the object is to knock pieces off the table area, which you do by flicking wooden disks with your fingers. Crokinole is another classic finger flicking game, as is a racing game called Pitchcar. All kinetic tabletop games, from snooker to billiards to foosball, are loved by players of all ages.

	Cards: Ages 3+, 1 to any number of players

Decks of cards, whether they are the well known Western type with 52 cards in 4 suits, or special European or Asian decks, are a great starting point for any number of wonderful games, including Bridge, Hearts, Skat, Cribbage, Pinochle, Oh Hell, Bullsh*t, Durak, President, Spades, Solitaire, and many others.

Check out Pagat.com for the rules to these games and to thousands of others.

	Dixit: Ages 10+, 3-6 (12) players

Dixit is an incredible game, especially for non-gamers. It is loved as a creative exercise: pick a card and give a word, phrase, song, dance, or any other clue to describe it, but not too perfectly. The other players try to play cards that also match your clue. You only get points if some people guess which was your card and some people don't.

The fun is in the creativity of the clues, and I've yet to see a game where even the most stodgy non-gamer doesn't have fun.

This game, like many others, was inspired by Apples to Apples, another nifty game for the casual non-gamers who walk among us.

	Dominion: Ages 10+, 2-4 players

Dominion is a game based around deck building: as you play, you acquire cards which get shuffled into your deck. You need victory points to score, but too many early victory points will clog up your deck, making it harder to acquire more points.

A brilliant adaptation of a mechanic, it plays quickly and every game plays differently. The game has several expansions, all of which are good.

	Froggy Boogie: Ages 3-9, 2 to 4 players

Froggy Boogie is a brilliant game to frustrate grownups and please younger children. All you have to do is remember where the picture of the fly is, under the left eye or the right eye? The dice have only colors - no counting necessary. It's a perfect first game.

	Go / Pente: Ages 6+, 2 players

Beyond Chess, Checkers, or XiangQi is the absolute perfect game of Go (aka Weiqi); it's so popular, there are twenty-four hour television stations dedicated to it, an anime series based on it, and it's considered one of the four arts of the Chinese scholar.

It really is that good, and the rules are easy, too. Best of all, a built-in handicap system allows two people of any skill levels to enjoy a challenging game against each other.

You should play with the nicest board you can afford.

Pente, a game of getting five stones in a row, can be played on the same board. The rules are just as easy as Go, and while the game has much less depth, it is also a little less intimidating to new players.

	Jungle Speed: Ages 8+, 3 to 8 players

There are several games of speed reaction / pattern recognition on the market; I chose this one because of the components. Players flip cards in turn and grab for the totem in the middle as soon as two matching cards are revealed. Don't play with friends who have sharp nails or finger jewelry.

	Love Letter: Age 8+, 2-4 players

This game has just 16 cards, but it packs a full, replayable deduction, bluffing game into 10 minutes. It's a top seller, takes 30 seconds to learn, and is challenging to play.

It's not my type of game, but I'm in the minority.

	Magic the Gathering: Ages 8+, 2 players

After two decades, Magic is still The Bomb when it comes to collectible card games, although Yu-Gi-Oh sells more cards. These are not easy games to learn, but quick start guides can get you off the ground fairly quickly, and then you have months and years of challenging game play ahead of you.

Don't get sucked into having to buy endless amounts of boosters; to play the game outside of a tournament, you only need a few hundred common cards which can be picked up for a penny each on various sites.

	Mancala: Ages 5+, 2 players

This is widely known around the world under various names (e.g. Oware), and the national game of many African countries.

The rules are easy: pick up all the seeds in one of your bowls and place one in each bowl around the table. If you land on an empty space on your side, you win the seed and any seeds opposite.

There are a few more rules, but that's about it. It takes a few games to get up to speed; early victories tend to be lopsided. Once you get the hang of it, you can play several, quick, challenging games in succession.

	Memory: Ages 3 to 12, 2 to 5 players

This is a first game for kids and adults, and a great game for it, because kids get the hang of it very quickly and adults find it a real challenge without having to pretend. All you need are one or two decks of cards, but an infinite number of these games are sold with various different pictures and themes.

You can play with more than 5 players, but I wouldn't recommend it.

	Nefarious: Ages 8+, 2 to 6 players

This is a game of mad scientists that is great for 2 to 6 players, and doesn't sacrifice speed with more players. Each round, you select one of four actions. collect money from any neighbors who selected actions that your minions are invested in, perform your action, and then check to see if you won. The actions are: invest minions, play cards, take cards, or take money.

The cards are fun and the game is quick and replayable, because, in each game, you play with some random twists that make that game's experience unique.

	No Thanks: Ages 7+, 3 to 5 players

This is an easy to learn and addictive little card game. A card is flipped up, and you either take the card and any tokens on it or place one of your tokens on it and pass it to the next player. Cards are bad, and tokens are good. But runs of cards only penalize you for the lowest valued card.

A simple and fun game.

	Parade: Ages 7+, 3 to 5 players

Another easy to learn and addictive little card game. Add cards to the end of the "parade", taking cards from the parade into your pile based on a few simple rules. Points are bad ... usually.

	Pit: Ages 7+, 4 to 10 players

I don't know if you can play up to 10 players with the original game, but you should. This is a loud trading game. The cards are dealt out, someone says go, and everyone shouts for what they need. The first player to collect a full set wins.

Raucous and fun. The deluxe version comes with it's own bell to signal the start of trading.

	Poker: Ages 6+, 2 to any number of players

Playing for money is not a good habit, but a nice set of poker chips and some decks of cards is a great way to spend an evening. There are countless poker games, too.

	Scrabble: Ages 8+, 2 (or 2 to 4) players.

Scrabble purists will tell you that you should only play with 2 players and a Chess clock, but for casual purposes it can be played with up to four. It is The word game, and for a good reason.

My favorite way to play is to ditch the board and just play Anagrams: turn over tiles, and first to call a word gets it. A similar, recommended game is Bananagrams, where players race to create their own crossword boards.

	Set: Ages 6+, 2 to 10 players

Those who don't have it won't enjoy it. For those who do, it hits just the right spot in the brain. All you have to do is call out matches when you see them, but the matches have to match or not match in all four characteristics.

	Shadows Over Camelot: Ages 12+, 3 to 7 players

A cooperative game, this is no feel-good game of cooperation. The hordes of Saxons, Mordred, siege engines, and sinister knights are out to destroy Camelot, and you have to work together to save it. But lurking among the players is a traitor who wins if you all lose. Or is there?

Pretty components, albeit more complex than most of the games on this list. But it's easy for people to join and leave midgame.

Other recommended co-operative games that have made a splash in the last few years are Pandemic and Forbidden Island

	Stratego: Ages 6 to 15, 2 players

By the time I was in my teens, I had outgrown this, but it remains a seminal game for early players, a great introductory war game with all the basic elements: strategy, tactics, and bluffing. Avoid the electronic ones; they break and they're noisy.

	Ticket To Ride: Ages 8+, 2 to 5 players

Many of my fellow bloggers think that this, rather than Catan, is The Game. I used to disagree, but I think I have come around. New players will find this a great intro game, with lots of choices and great game play.

There are several editions of the game, and the 1910 expansion is recommended.

	Tichu: Ages 8+, 4 players

A partnership "ladder" game, similar to the game President (sometimes known by its crude name). It's similar, but the addition of a few special cards, a partnership, and passing elevate this to a perfect game for two couples. This is THE card game in gamer circles, and it's not at all complicated.

	Time's Up: Ages 8+, 4 to 10 players

This consistently ranks as the number one party game on all of my fellow bloggers' lists. It's the number one ranked party game on Board Game Geek. Which says something.

It plays a lot like the parlor game Celebrities.

	Uno: Ages 6 to 12, 2 to 8 players

This could be a child's second game, after Memory, and before moving on to real games. There's not much in the way of thinking involved, but its simple rules, portability, and quick play make it an ideal game for younger kids in almost any situation.

Just be sure to move up to better games when the kids are ready.

	Wits and Wagers / Balderdash: Ages 8+, 4+ players

These are party trivia games where knowledge of trivia is not so important. The question is asked, and each player writes down an answer. These are revealed and players then bid on the answers they think are best. The winning answer, and the winning bids, all score points.

Wits and Wagers does this in the form of a poker game setting, while Balderdash requires you to make up funny possible answers. Both have won awards and acclaim as an order of magnitude better than you-know-which famous trivia game.

	Zooloretto: Ages 8+, 2 to 5 players

Winner of dozens of awards, Zooloretto is a cute game for kids and decent game for adults. Simply take the animals as they are revealed from the deck and try to fit them into your zoo without overcrowding.

A few extra rules and some clever mechanisms makes the game enjoyable for all ages.

Enjoy,
YehudaYehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-27745154650645410632015-11-03T05:29:00.002+02:002015-11-03T18:20:37.655+02:00Reviews: Supergirl (TV pilot), Bridge of Spies, Ant-Man, Trainwreck, At MiddletonSupergirl (TV pilot): SNL did a skit that lampooned what a Black Widow Marvel superhero movie would be like, It simultaneously lamented the lack of female-centered Marvel movies and anticipated that, if Marvel were to produce one, it would be more like 27 Dresses than like Iron Man. Because, after all, women in movies must be portrayed as having to deal with relationships, romance, and sucky jobs at fashion magazines.

Astonishingly, when the trailer to the Supergirl TV show came out, the trailer looked remarkably like the SNL spoof: a female superhero show that appeared centered on a girl with a sucky job at a newspaper with love and self-identity issues (and a little action). Was it really going to be The Devil Wears Prada with a cape?

The answer is: it's not quite The Devil Wears Prada with a cape; it's about 80% like that, mixed with some of the worst writing that modern TV science fiction has to offer. Melissa Benoist is fine as the protagonist, but she has to deal with her tired cliche of a bitchy female boss (nowhere near as interesting as Perry White, or even Miranda Priestly), the tired cliche of a jealous, antagonistic sister, and the tired cliche of having to figure out how to be true to herself. Come on.

Far worse is the nonsense inflicted on us by the action (mild spoilers). One of the enemies (one of many escaped criminals, all originally from Krypton, and all therefore with the same powers as Supergirl) decides to kill as many innocent civilians as possible in the city, so he begins by driving at night on a deserted highway, in a truck, for several hours until Supergirl can conveniently catch up to him. This enemy who had proved to be stronger than Supergirl at their first encounter, is weaker in the second encounter, because why not? While struggling over an item held by the enemy, the enemy simply holds on for a minute while Supergirl overcharges it, rather than do, say, anything else. When the item explodes, while both of them are holding on to it, only the enemy is blown back by the explosion, and not Supergirl, because why not? Of course, the enemy never uses any of his other superpowers.

Supergirl's other "antagonists" are the supposed good guys who don't believe in her until she proves herself. They have kryptonite darts and kryptonite handcuffs which they only use on Supergirl instead of on the Krypton enemies, because ... plot?

It's just ridiculous, from beginning to end. Supergirl fan crushes over a guy, awkwardly tripping over her words and giggling, just like in the SNL parody. Superman does the same in his movies, but we know he's doing it on purpose. Speaking of Superman, we have the same problem with this show as we have with the Marvel movies that feature only one of the Avengers: having established that another hero exists in this world, where the heck is he when the Earth is faced with hundreds of super-criminals?

And speaking of Superman, we neither see Superman (except in blurry profile) not hear the word "Superman" during the entire pilot, despite many, many references to him. We hear "Kal El", "that guy", "my cousin", etc etc. It rapidly became very jarring. I can only surmise that there is some kind of licensing problem with both the image and the word.

I won't be watching future episodes.

Update: Okay, I lied. I watched the next episode. Wow, it is MUCH better than the first episode. The actions sequences now - sometimes - make a little sense. The plot is not - always - ridiculous. The dialog is not - always - forced and unbelievable. It has gone down from 90% annoying to only about 20% annoying.

Supergirl is setting itself up as an oddball superhero story, one in which the protagonist, while possessing superpowers, is unable to function without assistance from a myriad of human sources. It starts her off with her powers, yes, but she requires all kinds of training to be able to use them in ways that don't cause collateral damage and are effective against others of her kind. On the one hand, the fact that they did this for the one superhero show that features a woman is a bit insulting. On the other hand, it's the kind of thing that should be done a lot more often, so it's actually an intriguing idea. It's a superhero show functioning more like a Mission Impossible show.

They also used the word "Superman" several times, so there goes my theory.

Bridge of Spies: Another Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg collaboration based on a true story. Hanks plays the everyman with a perfected moral sense (he is kind of typecast this way, by now): lawyer James Donovan who acts as defense lawyer in the late 1950s for accused and actual spy Rudolph Abel and then negotiates With Russia and Germany to swap Abel for downed American spy pilot Frances Gary Powers and another hostage.

The first half of the movie is about the trial, in which Donovan succeeds in keeping Rudolph alive. The second half is about the negotiations in East Berlin around the time that the wall is first going up. Everyone does a fine job. Mark Rylance is so captivating as Abel, that it is a shame he disappears for the second half of the movie. The tension is well developed despite the paucity of things actually happening - half a movie, essentially, on a single negotiation. Other tensions - such as the effect on Donovan's family and reputation for publicly defending a spy at the height of the Cold War - are cursorily developed. The fact that the story is true (or true enough; some parts of the story, such as a third hostage and the experience of the downed pilot, were left out) adds to the enjoyment.

Watchable on the small screen.

Ant-Man: I nearly skipped this entirely, but I had time to kill as I was home alone and sick. I abandoned it about 3/5 of the way through. Marvel movies are bad enough with their cookie-cutter plots, great visuals and cool stunts, one-dimensional characters, funny quips, and important objectives of, you know, saving the world (or the universe, or whatever). This movie lacked the great visuals and important objectives. The plot was so narrowly defined and the objectives so straightforward and the plot so cookie-cut, that it felt like it had been generated by a computer. The ending was so forgone that the plot lacked tension. I was bored.

Trainwreck: Amy Schumer is funny, even hysterical, in small doses. At longer exposures you feel like she's recycling material to fill time. The jokes wear thin, and what's left to carry the movie is the plot, which is not bad but not particularly groundbreaking. Amy plays a woman who doesn't understand relationship commitment, while also playing the daughter of a sick man and the sister of a married woman. She meets Mr Right, so to speak, but it's not clear why he would be interested in her. That's actually the excuse she uses to push him away, but it's not given a satisfactory answer.

The movie isn't exactly a train wreck, but neither is it satisfying. It's disjointed. And we get yet another entry in the cliched trope of bitchy female bosses.

At Middleton: Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga play parents who meet-cute while bringing their children to visit a college. They are both married (to other people), but that doesn't stand in the way of a day-long series of romantic explorations and companionable interactions, the type you would expect to see in far better movies or with younger characters.

Garcia and Farmiga are charming, but they lack a script with any value. They visit all of the romcom cliches and speak some scant sentences that lack any depth and often appear completely out of place. Maybe three or four times it seems like they are going to have a substantive conversation, but it goes nowhere after the first sentence. The events they experience are forced upon them by the screenwriter: They play Chopsticks together. They climb a bell tower. The smoke weed and act silly (always one of my least favorite movie scenes, as it is cheap and boring to watch people giggle and dance around while pretending to be stoned, and all such scenes are always the same and a waste of screen time). They dance in a fountain. They almost kiss several times. They reveal that they are bored in their marriages. Ho hum.

Worse, the lack of discretion they exhibit is unbelievable, and the delusional movie trope that someone can be cured of acrophobia - and, apparently, the need to wear glasses - just by having spent a few fun hours with someone of the opposite sex is insulting to the intelligence. The kids also have some screen time, but their scenes are not significant.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-82469194874216591242015-10-19T18:01:00.001+03:002015-10-19T18:14:15.931+03:00New Games to me in Recent MonthsAmerigo - A big box game of island exploration. There are seven phases in five turns. Each phase you toss wooden cubes into a tower and the number and color of cubes that make it back out the bottom determine the available actions for all players in the phase. Each player can only pick one of the available actions, which is typically decided by what benefits you the most at that point. However, achieving good island positions or acquiring the better bonus ability cards lead to some strategic decisions. It's a good game, with the downside of some phases near the end of the game being very limited in available useful options. A gamer's game for 2-4 players (3-4 is better).

Among the Stars - A card drafting, civ building game ala 7 Wonders, but with square cards that you arrange into a space station. The distance you place each card from other cards (color or type) affects its cost and/or value. Played over 4 phases. Seems pretty nice, with the usual luck of planning to get certain cards and then not getting them. 2-4 players, good game.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - I played this after playing Suburbia (see below), and I think whichever game you play first is the one you like most. It's actually nearly as good as Suburbia: better because of the interesting rearrangement mechanic for the tiles each round, but worse because this rearrangement, and the oddly shaped buildings, are less elegant. Some of the rules were hard to figure out on the first play. Gamer's game for 2-4 players.

Dixit Odyssey - Dixit is an incredibly good game for non-gamers, and also enjoyed by gamers as a break from stratgeic thinking and an outlet for creativity of a different kind. This game is simplya copy of Dixit, with brand new but equally good cards, and the ability to play up to 12 people instead of 6. No better or worse than the brilliant original.

Ergo - I bought this with the assumption that I would like it after using the fixes suggested by gamers, but even with them the game seems to be unplayable as more than a teaching device. There must be some way to do something with it. Too bad.

Exploding Kittens / NSFW Deck - An exceedingly bad game. This game offers amusing pictures and stunningly bad gameplay, unfortunately like so many other games that come from non-game designers. On the other hand, after I quit the game, I heard many of the other players laughing while playing. That's because it is a straightforward "take-that" game of randomly drawing cards and playing them on other people, who have to randomly draw cards to counteract the attacks. When they do or don't, this amuses people. 3-5 player, not for serious gamers (best enjoyed with alcohol).

Five Tribes - A meaty game from Days of Wonder, this is a nearly all tactical game of moving pieces around the board and taking off sets of them to score points. It's pretty and interestingly balanced, but the long-term strategies (Djinns) don't always work as planned: you have to constantly work out how many points you are spending and receiving for each play, and how many points you're leaving over for the next guy. 2-4 players, gamer's game but suitable as a second gaming experience (after Ticket to Ride, for example).

PDQ - A light and quick word game on par with Anagrams. Flip three cards and place in order; take the cards if you call out (first) a word that used the letters in order. The official rules allow you to use the letters in either direction, but I don't find that to be necessary. I also don't know why you can't just play with Scrabble tiles. Any number of players. Fun game for those who like word games.

Suburbia - See Castles of Mad King Ludwig above. This is a nifty civ building game that seems to have been designed for a computer rather than as a board game. As a board game, you have to take care of checking the effects of each tile you place against every other tile in the game, which is not as bad as it seems, but still a bit of a hassle. Other than that, this is an excellent gamer's game of placing tiles and scoring for each. It's mostly tactical, but you can invest in certain types of tiles and hope you get first crack at them when they come up. This makes it similar to all of the other card based civ building games, like 7 Wonders and Among the Stars, as mentioned above. 2-4 players.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-66675184373446081592015-10-19T00:43:00.002+03:002015-10-19T10:12:42.652+03:00Movie Reviews: The Martian, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Intern, Two Night Stand, Kingsman: The Secret Service, AdventurelandThe Martian: Following on last year's thrilling Interstellar, about a bunch of guys making a long trip into outer space who need to use science to solve major problems in order to get back home comes this thriller about a bunch of guys who made a long trip into outer space and need to use science to solve major problems in order to get back home.

The Martian is a cross between Castaway and Interstellar, less epic, more formulaic, and actually less believable or thrilling than the latter, but more epic, more engaging, and more satisfying than the former. The Martian keeps us engaged by having the castaway find a way to communicate with home relatively early on in the movie, giving us more than just a monologue on survival and what would have been too much Matt Damon (who, like Tom Cruise, can only be tolerated when taken together with other, less egotistical actors).

The pacing and feel of this movie very Marvelesque, which is both good and bad, depending on your desire to see another Marvel movie. Lots of quips, cuts, and action, explosions and tensions, both personal and interpersonal in the expected places, and a pretty foregone conclusion about how it will end up. Still, merging the Marvel plot with a slightly slower and more rigorously scientific plot made for some fascinating screen moments.

What was most unbelievable was the fact that our castaway survived every one of the calamities that should simply have killed him, each time coming up with the long odds. And that calamities that should have happened several times only happened once and then were never seen again; what happened to all of those debilitating storms during his 45 day trek across the surface? This made his insufferable speech at the end about how, when one is faced with a catastrophe, science and hard work will help you through all the more insufferable. No, in fact, if you are faced with a series of events that each have a 95% chance of killing you, you will die. Don't encourage people to take those chances unless the alternative is an even higher percent chance of dying.

Anyhoo, it's a good movie, worth seeing on the big screen.

Far from the Madding Crowd: Also a good movie. Thomas Hardy was a writer of depressing novels where characters (especially women) make bad, unorthodox choices and suffer for them, either from random chance, or from societal rejection, or simply from karma. It is a rare thing for anyone (especially a woman) to end up happy at the end of one his books, although I guess the daughter of the Mayor of Casterbridge does (even if the mayor doesn't), and so do - at the last moments of the novel - two of the characters in this novel.

And yet, this movie, even while generally following the main plot points of the book, somehow turns the morose, hopeless feel of a Hardy novel into something no more depressing than a Jane Austen novel. The heroines and heroes have drama, make bad choices, and enter into difficult circumstances, but they seem plucky, happy, and little more than mildly distressed throughout. Possibly that is because so many of the key events happen so fast. Characters meet and propose marriage within 2 or 4 minutes of screen time and no more than 2 meetings, and we only sometimes know why.

But that's ok. The two lead characters, Bathsheba played by Carey Mulligan and Gabriel played by Matthias Schoenaerts, are handsome, winsome, and talented actors, as is the rest of the cast. The scenery is gorgeous, and it seems period enough, although not one of the cast speaks with anything passably resembling a British accent. Bathsheba is insanely feminist beyond her era, meeting only a small amount of the trouble she should have met (especially considering her impetuous behavior and imprudent choices), and Gabriel is her faithful ever tolerant servant and admirer.

In the end, it's romantic and the story and characters are usually understandable.

The Intern: A generational comedy between Sandra Bullock, a founder and struggling CEO of a clothing business, and Robert DeNiro, a septuagenarian who comes to work for her as an intern because plot. Despite the fact that obviously an older person who has worked in sales for 45 years would have decent experience to offer your'uns who have worked in sales for 2 years, even in the age of the Internet, it takes about half the movie for this discovery to be made. During this time, DeNiro's character does everything right by everyone in the entire office, a perfect and perfectly unrealistic grandpa-figure to one and all. He even starts a romance with an older masseuse on the company staff.

The second half of the movie is different, as it is about Anne facing the prospect of having to give the reins of CEO over to someone else and also deal with the fact that her husband is cheating on her. This is the classic story of a working woman who loses her man because she's not home enough to pay attention, and it can play out in any of several directions, most of which are not satisfying. In this case, it plays out somewhere in the middle, somewhat but not entirely satisfying, and in fact remains somewhat inconclusive (and just a bit - only a bit - pat).

Not a particularly great movie, certainly not a necessary movie, but not bad.

Two Night Stand: Miles Teller and Analeigh Titpton play in this narrowly focused comedy about a one night hookup where plot happens and Megan is stuck in Alec's apartment for the next day and night. This is another movie split into two parts. The first part is all about the hate, since neither particularly had a good time during the hookup and they do some relatively dull slapstick routines wandering around the apt. Somewhere in the middle of the movie they have the conversation about what went wrong with the sex and they decide to try it again (yeah, a bit of a quick shift from the hate part, but there you go and the conversation is good). Obviously along the way, feelings. Then a big revelation of a betrayal, a breakup due to mistrust (assisted by plot convenience), and then they have to find a way to get back together.

The last part was badly done, and my suspension of belief didn't, so I threw a lot of popcorn at the screen. Can't say I particularly recommend it, but the middle was good, at least.

Kingsman: The Secret Service: This is one of those movies that make you go "Huh? Where did that come from?" It's a super-stylized, funny movie with insane amounts of class and action, somewhere between Marvel, Kill Bill, and James Bond, and it works damn well; although it has too much violence and gore for my taste, I'm somewhat of a violence prude (I hated the corridor shoot up scene in The Matrix) so I'm sure most of you won't ding the movie for that.

It's funny, not exactly thrilling but charming, has a typical, ridiculous blow the world-up and only one guy dressed in fancy clothes with gadgets who can stop it Bond plot - and a lot of references to Bond, just to let you know that it knows - and some incredible A-list actors, such as Colin Firth, Michael Caine, Samuel Jackson. And you never heard of it? How did that happen?

It also has some plot holes and character inconsistencies, but whatever. It's cool.

Adventureland: Jessie Eissenberg and Kristen Stewart romantic comedy in an amusement park and not much happens, except on the romantic comedy level. It has a quirky and independent feel, which makes it interesting at least, and I've always been a fan of the three emotions (bored, amused, upset) that Kristen Stewart knows how to act, so I enjoyed it. I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but I would leave it on if it came on.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-17518099501694895722015-08-17T01:31:00.000+03:002015-08-17T08:06:12.855+03:00Vacation Day 12-18: Drinking Cappuccino in a Cafe in RomeCity

Rome is a city, and not an especially beautiful one. Why this should surprise me is, in itself, surprising. What Rome has is occasional nice building architecture from the last several hundred years, public fountains, a scattering of embedded ancient palatial buildings and ruins, and a river.

The attractions of Rome are primarily architectural - which, to the untrained eye, are no different than any of the other European cities I have visited so far (Budapest, London, Amsterdam; Dublin is a bit more modern) - historical, and iconic. I already know that I have very little interest in things that are architectural, historical and iconic, yet I keep letting others convince me that I will enjoy city X because it is "beautiful". But by "beautiful" they invariably mean architectural, historic, and iconic. I don't. It's not.

I am happy the moment I get out of a city and into the woods, the seashores, the mountains, and the small villages. The only reason I need big cities is art museums, cultural performances, easy access to cheap and/or kosher food, and a Jewish community.

So, how was my trip to Rome? It was okay. But I spent too much time in Rome.

Culture Shock

Italy was less enjoyable to us than New England, because we were more stressed. In the US I can wing everything. I can speak the language, I know how things work, and I can find things to eat anywhere. Going to Italy was like going back to the Middle Ages - not that Rome isn't a modern city, just that I couldn't get anything to operate, so we ended up living without modern day necessities. Like air conditioning. Places that accept credit cards. And SIM cards.

Life in the Dark Ages

I honestly don't know how people lived before there were smartphones, or at least cellphones. I have a vague recollection that I grew up without them. What did my mother do when we got lost on camping trips? It's bad enough to get lost on a trip in the US where you speak the language. Tal got separated from us in Rome for an hour or so, and we had no way to call her, and no one to help us. It was scary. Why didn't we have SIM cards, you ask? Because I couldn't figure out how to get them.

I researched online how to do this, and I found four companies with stores in which I could get the cards, but there were no stores of those kind at the airport or near our BnB before shabbat. On Sunday I found one of the stores, but it was closed, because everything is closed on Sunday. I found another one on Tuesday - with three days left to the vacation - but I couldn't understand what the guy wanted from me or how to do it, even though he was speaking to me in English. He said something about paying 15 EUR for the card and then 12 EUR for 300 minutes and a 1GB of internet, but I had to go to a different store to top up the minutes for 10 or 15 EUR. Did that mean I had to pay 15 + 10/15 EUR? 27 + 10/15 EUR? 27 EUR? I have no idea. He explained again and again and I never understood.

Cash Only

In any case, I couldn't buy the SIM card because, aside from major stores like supermarkets, clothing chains, and high end restaurants, everyone only takes cash. I had, by then, run out of cash. Places that take credit cards require you to have your PIN number, something I didn't need in any other country. By sheer accident, I happened to have one of the PIN numbers stashed on me and it happened to be for the one of the cards I had with me. Without that happy accident, I don't know what I would have done.

And Everything Else

Many other things work differently, which is to be expected, but there are no signs in English to help you out and I didn't have internet access to help me out. In a grocery store, you are expected to print out bar codes to stick onto every batch of fruits and vegetables before you go to the counter. I pissed off a grocery clerk on my first shopping expedition; he had to go back to the vegetable section in several trips to get stickers. To get onto a bus or subway you need tickets which you have to buy from candy or tobacco stores; you can't buy them on the bus. The tickets don't helpfully tell you whether they are used or not, so if you have a bunch in your pocket you have to try them all to figure out which ones don't work.

Every street has a pizzeria. I think the word pizzeria just means "restaurant" or "cafeteria", since some of them didn't actually serve pizza. There is a pizzeria in the Vatican. Every other store serves gelato. The elevators sometimes have both outside and inside doors that have to be closed manually for the elevator to work. The elevator won't work if the door wasn't closed properly on some other floor.

Rome has trees, but they are freaky trees with upside down bowls of green on top of the branches. There is free water (aqua) all over Rome, and most kiosk stores and pizzerias will fill up your bottle for free. But better restaurants won't give you free water. They will charge you for bottled water and for each piece of bread they put on your table. That's so obnoxious that I refused to eat in such restaurants, except once to have kosher pizza, and where I refused the water they offered us.

A popular Italian breakfast appears to be pastries, bread, minimal vegetables, and hard boiled eggs. And coffee. Lots of coffee.

Friday: Hungry

Our Alitalia flight was only 45 minutes late, instead of an hour late like the last two segments. This left us to scrounge for kosher food just as the kosher mini-mart and kosher bakery closed, which they do early on Friday. I was hoping that we could pick up prepared foods like lasagna and so on, but they best we could manage was lox, cheese, humus, bread, and some pasta we got from the bakery (Flour, which was also the pizza restaurant I mentioned above). Thankfully I brought some salami from the US and we bought some vegetables and fruit. Our shabbat meals were simple.

Our BnB La Casa di Eva was kosher, which meant that they give us a simple kosher breakfast and information about the local synagogues. I thought that I had arranged for us to stay in the historic Jewish ghetto area of Rome, which could be nice to walk around on shabbat afternoon. I was mistaken; we were actually in the other, newer Jewish area of Balogna which is boring (lots of photocopy stores and campus bookstores).

We had hoped to have meals arranged by chabad in Rome, but they were unable to find us anyone. Instead we sort of ate together (in the same dining room, provided by the BnB) with some fellow travelers: two girls traveling from Israel who befriended my kids, and a couple from the US on their one year honeymoon. As the usual Jewish coincidence goes, in the Italian synagogue (Beit El) we ran into a couple (who I don't know very well) from my synagogue in Israel. They were also there on a holiday, staying at a different BnB.

Saturday: Hot

We had some Italian breakfast, some kiddush after shul, and otherwise spent a long day staying in the BnB. The a/c was pretty much not working, though the BnB was planning to fix it during the renovations starting on Sunday. In the afternoon I got one of the girls to join Tal and me in Ticket to Ride; the girl won. Late in the evening, the couple and the girls and Tal went out to the Jewish ghetto for gelato.

Sunday: Ghetto

The BnB was closing for a few weeks for renovations (seems an odd time of the year to do that) so we had to move to another kosher BnB, Dem Guesthouse. They have four locations, and ours was only a few blocks away. The a/c worked a bit better. They don't have much in the way of breakfast, and it was often hard to get hold of them without a cellphone, but otherwise okay.

Later we took a bus to the Jewish ghetto by the river.

The ghetto was the result of a long string of insufferably nasty popes and other Roman leaders and it resulted in a long period of suffering for Jews. The area now has rows of kosher restaurants, the great synagogue, and otherwise not much to offer other than its continuum with downtown Rome. Saarya took a tour of the synagogue while Tal and I walked around, bought some souvenirs, had some coffee, and poked around Piazza Navona.

Monday: Sore Feet

Monday was spent on an all-day tour organized by Real Rome Tours. The morning was from the Colosseum to the Pantheon (the latter of which is a functioning church, so we didn't go into it) and the afternoon was the Vatican (the palace, we didn't go into St Peter's Basilica). We considered not going into the Sistine Chapel, but in the end I decided that it wasn't really a functioning church, even though the Pope gives a sermon in it a few times a year.

Our tour group was 13 people, nearly all of whom, by chance, were Jewish. Our guide was Roman Catholic, quite good but with some unusual ideas.

The Colosseum is really the Flavian Amphitheater, called the Colosseum due to a now destroyed large statue of Nero that used to stand near it.

The Colosseum was built with money robbed from the Jewish temple, using Jewish slaves, and was used to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews. As a result, I felt like I was touring Auschwitz. Saarya said the comparison is not apt, since the Holocaust was specifically antisemitic and the Colosseum was merely a result of a world without any specific regard for life. It was still hard for me, especially since, although the guide didn't hide any of the horrific things that happened, he still sounded (to me) like a Roman proud of his heritage.

Christians were never killed in the Colosseum, but that didn't stop popes from declaring it to be the sacred ground of Christian martyrs and placing crosses onto it. Nowadays, it is being restored by an athletic shoe company, and I'm sure it will someday be named for the shoe company.

The Vatican tour is insane. It's a castle with hundreds of rooms. Outside are hundreds of statues and similar art objects. Inside each room are dozens to thousands of paintings, statues, floors, walls, and ceiling tiles, murals and tapestries, maps, and objects curated from around the world. Most of it is old or new testament based, but a large number of objects are pagan.

Michaelangelo was a card. He was a sculptor who only reluctantly agreed to paint the ceiling and other items in the Sistine Chapel. Since he was pissed off, he added a lot of naked people, two men kissing in heaven, and the faces of the people who commissioned him or complained in hell. He wasn't allowed to sign his work, so he added himself in the paintings. When someone complained about the naked people, he added the guy into a painting as a lord in hell with a snake biting his penis.

All tours are funneled into a specific path through the rooms; you get to see a few dozen rooms, but with only three hours or so to see them, we literally did not stop walking. Imagine going to a museum and trying to see the art without ever stopping walking. It's insane. Thousands of beautiful pieces of art flew by me as we walked and walked with only one direction possible and thousands of other people packed around us (and it was not a particularly busy day). If you're going to tour the Vatican and you really want to see the art, plan on spending a few days.

The only moment of rest was in the very tightly controlled Sistine Chapel where you are not supposed to talk or take pictures. They tried to get me to remove my baseball cap, but one of the guards let me keep it on after I turned it around. We were supposed to have a moment to rest here, but Tal was really feeling ill so we ended up leaving after only 15 seconds or so.

Then we got separated from Tal on the way out of the building and it took an hour or so to find her. The police and the Vatican security guards wouldn't help us or look for her, nor would they let me look in the building near the entrance. They said they would only help us if she was a small girl; they wouldn't help us find an adult. Thanks.

Naked, Naked, Everywhere

Walking around Rome - and the Vatican - you can see many, many statues of naked men, with or without penises. Those without are because of popes who decided that the display of genitalia is offensive and so they had many of them broken off. There are almost no statues of women, naked or otherwise, and even the ones that are semi-naked are covered on the bottom half. I guess this is due to historically considering women to be holy and pure. (Women were also placed higher up in the Colosseum to limit their ogling of the men, although the section for the nuns (vestal virgins) was a little lower.) It's an odd contrast to today's media where women end up naked more often than men.

Tuesday: On the Edge

On Tuesday Tal stayed home. I picked up a rental car and figured out that the blue lines are for parking and how the the parking meters worked. Saarya and I drove to a small town hanging on the edge of a cliff in the middle of a forest called Calcata. It is beautiful, and presently populated with artists. We also took a small walk along a nature preserve near the river you can see when looking down from the town. We had pizza in the evening.

Wednesday: Swimming

We left our place in the morning to an AirBnB place in Tragliatella, a suburb north of Rome, out in the boonies. It was a villa with a swimming pool that was delightful, although the place also didn't have working a/c and one of the bathroom doors was missing (luckily there were two bathrooms).

Thursday: There and Back Again

We drove a bit further north to see some small towns around a lake Lago di Bracciano. We saw Anguillara Sabaziam which had an accessible place for swimming. Bracciano had some shopping and a castle Castello Orsini-Odescalchi, which we didn't go into. We headed back to civilization by spending an afternoon at the mall Parco Leonardo near the airport. Saarya and I bowled; each game was 1.50 EUR.

As usual, our Alitalia flight took off late, this time an hour and a quarter, bringing us back to Israel at 3 am.

Pictures on Facebook.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-42077756607951192772015-08-07T05:13:00.001+03:002015-08-07T05:13:08.141+03:00Vacation Day 11: No Part Left UntickledToday was a trip to the airport. We had to leave our pretty little cottage.

We stopped at the outlet stores in Freeport; L.L. Bean's outlet is next to an Old Navy outlet and several others. In L.L. Bean's outlet store are racks of clothes sorted by kind, then by size, and then by general color; I wish every department stores would do this, instead of sorting items by brand. Prices vary from item to item, but some are very good; Saarya picked up several pairs of pants for $6.50 each. There were racks of pre-monogrammed items (presumably returned or canceled after the monogramming).

We then spent a few hours on Old Orchard Beach next to an amusement park, a miniature golf park, and tons of American-style beachfront stores selling fried this and sugar that (also fried). It's most disconcerting to see stores that sell both pizza and hamburgers, items that are sold exclusively by separate stores in Israel. It was crowded and there was little shade, but we found some shade under a makeshift pier. The water was cold. The beach was soft, clean sand that went out for some ways.

It's a mistake to go to a beach on the way to the airport, since you likely won't be changing your clothes or having a shower, and you may not even have towels. We had one towel to share.

As usual, at the airport I opted out of the naked scanners. Aside from taking a few minutes to find someone to do the pat-down, all of the agents were nice. I wasn't treated suspiciously just because I opted out. The TSA pat-down was very thorough; there was no part of me untouched or untickled. It's the closest I get to having sex while I don't have a girlfriend. [1]

Logan terminal E is small and there's not much kosher aside from the usual expensive items at Hudson News. They have many power outlets and USB hubs. Wi-Fi service is hard to get into, however.

[1] Not to imply that I have sex with my girlfriends.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-9319479.post-60552241544333193042015-08-06T04:03:00.000+03:002015-08-06T04:08:20.889+03:00Vacation Day 9-10: It's Raining Wild RaspberriesAt night you need a sweater (that's a "jumper" to you folks who don't speak English in its original American). It rained sometime in the blackness of Monday night. Early Tuesday dawning there was a mist enveloping our cottage. At Wednesday tea-time, streams of rain thumped steadily against the car roof as we drove back from the lighthouse.

On Tuesday afternoon, the air sweated and the earth scent was feral and fungal as we walked through dank trees and ferns to the reed-clotted rocky coves abutting the bay. White and blue lobster traps, buoys, and boats bobbed in the sun. On Wednesday, emerald and sapphire waves turned to lime and sand and then to white-gloved tendrils that futilely grasped at the enduring banded strata of quartz and colored stone and then flowed and bubbled back to their mother's massive swirling limbs. Tuesday evening, meandering alongside the catnip and lily pad ponds by the main house, we ate wild raspberries from bushes dotted and dripping with the fuchsia fractal pods.

Late Tuesday evening we saw a tawny doe skitter from the road as we drove by. On Wednesday it was a scrambling chipmunk. Our hostess told us that, on Monday morning, she saw a 10 point buck nod to her as two blue herons danced a ballet on the pond and a porcupine nibbled her garden patch.

On Tuesday we didn't do much: just walked to the sea in various directions. Tal and I played Gin Rummy and Oh Hell. On Wednesday, we drove to the Pemaquid lighthouse and stopped to view shops along the way that sell jewelery, ceramics, beads, books, and paintings, all made locally. We found a small swimming hole and Saarya dove and swam while Tal and I dangled our feet in the water and watched for the snapping turtle who was floating nearby in the high reeds.

Tomorrow we leave. We will spend most of the day in Maine, and then head to Logan to catch our flight to Rome.Yehuda Berlingerhttps://email@example.com