ying's mumblr..

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Life after Pi - a documentary short film about creators of amazing special effects and the exploitative industry practice of Hollywood in using these talents with terrible contracts and subcontracts.

remember the VFX company that went bankrupt at almost the same time as it won two Academy Awards?  it's their story..

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past and present me juxtaposed in the same photography.

(artist: chico otsuka)

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Legography

Lego Man photographer, an iPhone photo series.  Proof that iPhone camera is good enough for anyone : )

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The Wind Rises English version trailer - quite different in contents and tone than Japanese 風立ちぬ trailer in a nice way. 

the "farewell masterpiece" theme is much more relatable as the protagonist and animator overlap naturally, so there is a simple storyline to focus on (and then maybe viewers would discover subtleties and a certain heaviness of theme once in movie theater..).

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snow at home, 2013 year end.

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Viewpoint: Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov

Death and the Penguin author on the Ukrainian situation.

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came back from my second trip to Brazil.

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1914 Revisited? by Joseph S. Nye

Among the lessons to be learned from the events of 1914 is to be wary of analysts wielding historical analogies, particularly if they have a whiff of inevitability. War is never inevitable, though the belief that it is can become one of its causes.

A sane piece on current Guns of August ish talks!

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traveling monkey of Miyajima shrine (Itsukushima).

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in all the snowflakes that fall from the sky, none is identical.  wonder if that's true..?

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Looking forward to reading this on the plane.

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song "I See Fire" from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  a cover rendition of a modern folk song rendition of Tolkienian fictional song..  still quite nice..

it was delightful going to the movies on opening night - packed IMAX theater, festive cheers at the start and end.  even though there is no real start or end for this second film in a trilogy..or, all the more festive because of that.

oh, there was a Gandalf in the crowd, too.

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Chrismassy Beacon Hill

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"All models are wrong, but some models are useful."

So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago...

A classic by now..

Want to read: The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver, who predicted 2012 presidential election outcome on NYT blog.