It's hard to keep track of these guys, they keep moving around a lot. Let's see, Superman has just Returned to Metropolis, Batman has Begun in Gotham and last we heard from Spiderman he's in college somewhere in New York.

Batman Begins is by far the best of those movies. Christian Bale is awesome because... he has no charm. So he doesn't have to try to not be himself when he's serious, he's perfect for these intense characters. Although the title is stupid... "begins".... begins what? Sounds like it could be called Batman's First Day In School. His gadgets are great though, the suit, the wheels, everything. One thing is very disturbing, however. There is no Robin. And they completely forgot about the Batman theme. The soundtrack is by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, and as such, excellent, but nowhere does the classic Batman theme come into the picture.

For those who didn't know, Batman trains as a ninja :/ before he finds his calling at the bottom of a well he fell into when he was a kid. He's the son of super wealthy industrialist parents, who were very charitable and built a free monorail for the city. His childhood friend Rachel becomes a D.A. at the tender age of ~25 and prosecutes the baddest baddies in town, but she only loves the pre-Batman Bruce Wayne, not the superhero he's become. Ooh, deep. :D

Superman Returns is sort of a mockery of everything Superman stands for. I mean Brandon Routh has to be the least charismatic superhero ever. Then there's Lois Lane, who's supposed to be a dazzling woman, but she's just a totally ordinary person. Lex Luthor is played by Kevin Spacey, so you'd expect him to be the best character, but it's a very pale performance by Spacey. Perry White, the charismatic editor of Daily Planet, the great chief, the one who inspires and leads by example, the visionary, is just an old man. Jimmy is supposed to be this street smart kid, but they made him a total geek. Do the people who made this movie even like Superman?

Spiderman, the timid high school geek no one even knows exists. He's in love with this chick who doesn't know about it, and he's too shy to tell her. One day he discovers he has special powers.. Please stop me when it gets so cliché you can't take it anymore. You'll have to excuse me for not knowing what happened in the sequel, it's a miracle I didn't walk out of the first one. What's there to say here? Well, it's really boring. The villain is a big yawn and the story as a whole is too.

Which superhero did you grow up with? I wasn't really that big on them, but I guess Batman was on tv the most, so I'm kinda glad they didn't totally botch that movie. :D In terms of comic books, I used to read The Phantom though.

• popular opinion: It's magnificent.
• my opinion: It's kinda lame.

• them: It's heaven on earth.
• me: It's rainy in February.

• them: The city is so beautiful, Gaudi masterpieces on every corner.
• me: It's a congested city, with very little architecture of interest, and Gaudi is extremely overrated.

• them: Gaudi was a genius.
• me: He was a great engineer, but a lame artist. As an architect he doesn't hold a candle to Calatrava.

• them: Barcelona is the greatest city in Europe.
• me: Valencia is a lot more beautiful and interesting, Barcelona has few avenues and streets to see.

• them: Camp Nou is a-w-e-s-o-m-e.
• me: It's nothing too special if you only take the tour, Stade de France is a lot more impressive.

• them: The weather is delightful.
• me: Winter in Barcelona is roughly the same as winter in Norway.

• them: I would gladly see Barcelona and then die.
• me: The hype is ridiculous and the city is a big disappointment.

• art lovers: Joan Miró is exquisite.
• me: Very gifted for a six year old, why did he retire so young?

How do you like the stupid pun? :P

Seriously though, I'm in awe of Moby. His gift for making feel good music is seemingly unmatched. And the music is so simple too, I tend to be a sucker for complicated, but his basic compositions really appeal to me. The instruments obviously play a big part in it, Moby loves strings and so do I. But the arrangement is such that it brings out a different set of emotions than just about any other music.

Like this song from the "Miami Vice" soundtrack. The musical "canvas" isn't at all cluttered with elements, he's keeping it simple and meaningful. And lots of repetition. But repetition is only bad when you're repeating something nasty. Then there's Patti LaBelle's excellent voice to top it off. It's a winner. :star:

I know it's a strange question to ask. Technology is *meant* to be complicated, it solves complicated problems after all. But I wonder if there isn't a point where we feel it's becoming too complex to be manageable. I say "technology" when I really mean "software", because from a user's point of view, I think it's "technology" they feel they're dealing with.

Now, when I say "too complex" that needs to be qualified. It will always be possible to solve problems, but the more complex they are, the more time it takes. And if it gets to a point where it takes so much time that it's not worth it, well then that's going to be a dilemma.

It's probably fair to say that users are pretty comfortable with software on their computer. It's a familiar environment, and while there are failures sometimes, those problems can be solved by you or "your geeky friend". Everything you need to fix the problem is found in your Emergency Kit, your DVD repository of software, fully legal software if you run open source. In the worst case, reinstall the OS and you're golden.

But since the advent of the internet, we have taken this one step further. "Technology" is all about hiding the complexities of the systems behind OK/Cancel dialog boxes. It's about making complicated things appear simple. And that's a wonderful achievement. The "early internet" *was* simple. Web and email are both remarkably simple technologies, there isn't a whole lot that can go wrong. And I think that to a common user, web and email are transparent enough to understand when it does fail. "Server not found, hm is my internet connection working? Is my network cable plugged in? Is the little light on my DSL modem lit?"

Yes, it does take some basic internet literacy, but we can handle it. But that was then. Right now we have firewalls and NAT adding a new, and highly frustrating, layer of complexity to our experience. When people ask me "how come I can't connect to the forum from home but it works from work?", you can never rule out an evil firewall. When you want to play online games, transfer files over instant messaging, use peer to peer or VoIP (skype) and so on, sooner or later you have to figure out how to route NAT and how to manage your firewall.

The present internet isn't as simple as the "early internet". Web and email are still around, but we also use a lot of other things. Among them - bittorrent. Now, bittorrent is somewhat of a wonder, it's a phenomenally functional technology. It "always" works. It's slower if your network setup is suboptimal, but it works well enough to keep us happy. And so bittorrent has achieved something very precious. It has successfully covered the complexity of the system behind a simple interface. Yes, bittorrent is complicated, noone would deny that. But do you even care? No, because you don't have to.

Contrast that with other technologies you use. Like.. skype. Keep in mind, skype is known to be a *successful* case in this context. But in my experience, it has basically *never* functioned on any of my computers as advertised. At best, I get mediocre sound quality with occasional transmission delays. At worst, it's completely unusable. And I even know how to set up my network.

So, the trend is to masquerade increasingly more complicated technology as "simple". Joel Spolsky calls this leaky abstractions, when something "simple" does not work, and fixing it tosses you into the deep end. There is a point where users are no longer able to help themselves. In the old days, cars were quite simple, so a lot of people would fix their own cars if the problem wasn't too serious. That happens less now, because cars are loaded with fancy technology, and even opening the sealed cover of an electronic steering system would void your warranty.

We want to do more sophisticated things on the internet, so we create technology that is increasingly complicated. When it fails, we're out of luck. Instant messaging is made to appear incredibly simple, but it's not. When you're trying to transfer a file to the person you're chatting with, there is a long chain of conditions that must be satisfied so that the transfer will work. Voice and video chat is more complicated. Video-on-demand-over-bittorrent (rumored to come in the near future) more complicated still.

Right now, it's quite difficult to debug problems for other people over instant messaging. It takes a lot of time and effort, there are many sources of failure. Some problems are never solved at all. I'm still able to debug my own problems, though, but with more and more layers added to every service, I wonder if there will be a time when I won't be able to do that either.

"Alright, how about we meet again here, tomorrow at 10am?"

"How about 10:30?"

"10:30 it is." *hammer falls*

These meetings just make you feel good. There's no pressure, no stress, it's just chatting. Not a lot gets done, it's mostly discussing the workload, dividing it up, making decisions that have to be made in the group. Then you mix it in with cracks about the teacher, about the assignment, it's fun.

Once you get home that's when the real work starts. Research, writing, designing.. But it's project work, there's freedom, room for improv. You get feedback, but no one is bsing you about not following some arbitrary rule that makes no sense. Not until the teacher is assessing the work.