Last night, I went to see A Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey Jr. What’s unique about this movie is that it uses rotoscoping. The movie is first shot as a normal movie would be but then graphics artists paint over EVERY FRAME using Photoshop to make it look like animation. The result is that the you recognize the actors even though they look animated. One negative to rotoscoping that I saw, was that at times, the characters and cars looked like they were floating and not actually walking/sitting/rolling. It distracted me a couple of times but wasn’t much of a bother.

So, coming to the story of the movie. It is set in the near future - like 7 years down the line - and is about an undercover cop after a group of individuals who are abusing a drug, known as substance D. But while doing so, he himself starts using the drug and his brain begins to spin out of control. He can no longer distinguish what is real and what is not real. It leaves him in a terrible state by the end of the film and the audience is then told what really goes on behind the scenes in a world where substance D is causing an epidemic. I won’t ruin the end but if you follow the story carefully, you will come to the right conclusion before the movie tells you what it is. If you don’t follow the story, then you will be surprised by the end of it.

The movie is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, A Scanner Darkly. In the past, other works by Philip Dick have been made into movies - Bladerunner by Ridley Scott and Minority Report by Steven Spielberg were terrific movies when they came out. Richard Linklater doesn’t disappoint with this one and I think reading the book will make the movie even more enjoyable. The movie is relatively short at 100 minutes but it tells its story effectively. Keanu Reeves is perfect for this role - he has always (or should I say only?) excelled in roles that require him to act dazed and confused. Robert Downey Jr. however provides a terrific performance and Winona Ryder does her job well. If you are a Radiohead fan, then the good news is that the movie’s soundtrack features Radiohead and Thom Yorke songs. The bad news is that they only have 3 Radiohead and 1 Thom Yorke song. But whatever, it was a good movie.

Sure, it would seem that the only thing these two scientists have in common is that both introduced revolutionary ideas in their respective fields. Darwin put forth the Theory of Evolution while Einstein gave us the Theory of Relativity. But recently, both scientists have been featured in the news for different reasons.

Einstein was a hot topic a few days back after it was revealed that he’d had 6 lovers while he was married. A series of letters exposed this little secret that had been hidden so far. On the other hand, Darwin is in the news for all the good reasons. The famous finches he studied, are helping confirm his ideas by showing evolution. Yes, you got that right intelligent design advocates! The FINCHES ARE EVOLVING!!!

The evolutionary change has been the reduction in beak size to take advantage of smaller seeds. This just 20 years after the arrival of a larger rival for its food source. I wonder what ID advocates will have to say now. Maybe they’ll finally say that they’ve been trying to preach religion all this time. Or maybe they’ll say, God - oops sorry, the “intelligent designer” - gave the finches smaller beaks since He or She loves them so much. Or that the designer put a little device in them that told them to change their beaks after 20 years.

I’m eagerly waiting for the response that ID supporters will have to offer once they read this news. And who said physicists don’t get to have fun?
LINKS:

Einstein

Darwin

I’m back to doing what I do best - playing FPSes. OK, so I was exaggerating. But rest assured, what you are about to read is no exaggeration and every word of it indeed true. Go on, try it. I ain’t lying.

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So, they finally gave me the AC room I had asked for.  Just moved all my stuff in today - I won’t bore you guys with how much of a pain this was since I already ranted about it 23 days ago.  The room’s nice and the AC is awesome!  As temperatures are starting to creep up, this move has come at just the right time.  While nothing compared to North India, it does get kinda hot here in the summer.  From what I gather (weather.com: where else), the temperatures will range between 30-35 degrees C with the occassional spike up to 38-40.  This is also the start of the hurricane season with the first storm, Alberto, coming in a few days back.  Maybe the hurricanes will bring rain and cool weather.

Research is going along fine.  We’re currently testing out our vacuum pumps.  The first pump worked well and now we’re testing the second one which takes us down to Ultra-High Vacuum.  Things were kinda stagnating so we decided to heat the damn vacuum chamber in an attempt to bring down the pressure.  It seems to have worked since I checked on it today and it was lower than on Friday evening.  Hopefully, it will fall further by the time we return to work on Monday morning.  Also working on some stuff for the imaging system.  Hopefully, by the end of the July, we should have a simple atom-trap going.  That reminds me, I gotta start planning for my Thesis pretty soon.

I’m thinking about the future of this website.  I might go ahead and stick with Dreamhost but I might wanna share half the webspace/bandwidth with someone.  Heck, I might even start a joint website with a friend.  Still have about a month to work things out.  Hopefully, this website will stay as it is or survive in some form or the other.  Countdown to Fall 2006 stands at 68 days.  If I can move in to my room earlier than that, then, well, the countdown would probably stand at 64 or something.

Weekends are boring.  During the week I got lots of stuff to do.  Even meet some of my friends who’re working/taking classes during the summer.  But come the weekend, and I’m suddenly without anything to do.  Maybe I should go out to the city one of these weekends.  Hey, I did make $30 today tutoring Physics.  I’ll probably make the same amount tomorrow as well when the student returns.  Hopefully, Wal-Mart will deliver my fridge by Tuesday.  I can then finally get some better food - kinda getting bored of simple rice and pasta.  Need to go to Patel Brothers once the fridge is here.  Will get some frozen Indian food.  Hell Yeah!!

Now SCRAM!!! I gotta go make my bed.  Still have some unpacking to do.  Screw it.  I’ll do it tomorrow.  Wait.  Brazil play tomorrow.  Damn.  Oh well.  Hopefully the Australians don’t have any more surprises left.

So I went to see Pearl Jam yesterday. This happens to be my first concert experience in the US and boy did it blow me away.  Pearl Jam are amazingly good with their live performances and they played almost all of the songs I wanted them to play! They even played “Once” which is undoubtedly my favorite.

My Morning Jacket was the opening band and they were prompt - started playing at exactly 7:30pm and went on for about 45 minutes.  They’re a good band and worth checking out - especially the songs “Wordless Chorus” and “The Way He Sings.”  Then there was a bit of a break to get PJ’s stuff setup.  Right before they came on, the intro music to Once started playing.  Me and my friend thought, OMG!!  They’re starting with Once.  Unfortunately that was just an intro.  They actually started off with Severed Hand from the new album and some funky laser stuff.  The crowd was pretty vocal with everyone singing along and clapping.  Other songs they played included World Wide Suicide, Even Flow, Jeremy, Dissident, Not For You, Army Reserve, etc.

They went off and then came back for the first encore.  They started it with slow songs but then broke away into Once which happens to be one of the 3 songs they first wrote as a band.  Man that was freakin’ awesome!  And then they followed it up with Alive which had the entire audience swaying and singing and clapping.  They came back for a second encore which was also great and they wrapped up the concert with Indifference.

A lot of times, they were playing songs where everyone seemed to know the lyrics and we were standing there trying to figure out which song it was.  At the midway point of Even Flow, Mike McCready took his guitar, put it behind his head and was playing it with armsbehind his head.  Later on, Eddie Vedder took his guitar and reflected light onto the crowd.  He went around the entire arena - it was great!  He was drinking wine all the time and was pretty drunk by the end of the concert but this is what he does all the time - it certainly has no negative impact on the songs.  I think the wine helps him keep up at this age and stay energetic throughout the concert.  They are a high-energy act even after 15 years.

All in all, it was a terrific experience.  They played for almost 2.5 hours and add to that the time My Morning Jacket was on and you have a 3 hour concert.  Although, it could’ve been Tool whose concert would’ve been my first, PJ were an amazing first concert.  I still hope I can get Tool tickets when they come back for the second leg of the tour.  Until then, PJ is the best concert I’ve ever been to.