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Tag: Apps

  • Week 28.24

    Week 28.24

    My weekly ‘Going to the Apple Store’ streak continued on Monday when I accompanied my dad for his demo of the Vision Pro. Rather than use my unit with an imprecise fit, I thought it’d be better for him to get the proper experience, and sure enough, he had completely different strap and light seal sizes from mine. He’s had some experience with immersive headsets, mainly from flying his FPV drone and other vehicles, but in terms of interacting with spatial UIs and XR objects this was a first. He came away very impressed, apart from the usual complaints (weight, price). He wasn’t planning to buy one going in, but I wonder if he’s thinking about it now.

    Aside: One hobby I’ve been meaning to play around with in the Vision Pro is sculpture, which is much more intuitive (read: idiot friendly) to do in 3D space with your hands than on an iPad with a Pencil. There’s just not a great app for it that I’ve found yet, although it’s possible at a blobby sort of level in AirDraw — Finger Paint, so I’m starting there.

    If Apple still made their AirPort wireless networking hubs (many smart people still say to this day that discontinuing them was a strategic error), I might have had cause to visit a store again next week. Since they don’t, I bought a set of TP-Link WiFi mesh routers instead and set them up over the weekend. One of the power adapters was faulty out of the box, but fortunately our old system’s were compatible, so that’s sorted.

    Aside: There was a tense moment on Friday night when a ‘pop’ was heard just before the power cut out in one section of the home. It turned out a wall-connected USB charging hub had burnt out, fortunately without damaging anything. It was a Lencent brand 65W GaN thing that I bought off Amazon Prime last October, with a 4.6-star rating. I was complacent to attribute trust based on its Amazon profile rather than my own knowledge — I’d never heard of Lencent and haven’t since — and won’t be making that mistake again. It’s only slightly more reputable Chinese brands from here on out!

    FWIW I’ve had mixed experiences with Anker, but they’re probably the best/safest from a brand equity perspective. I’ve also seen a lot of people using Ugreen products. I have a charger and a couple of cables from them, but their website has typos like you’d find in a phishing email.

    Our old pre-COVID system was WiFi 5, and we had nearly 30 internet-enabled devices on it, which I think might have contributed to recent connectivity issues. I have bored Kim to tears with explanations and theories all week, so I’ll spare you. In short, I spent $400 I hadn’t budgeted for to upgrade us to a WiFi 6E mesh that claims to have self-learning AI and support for 200 devices. The app is miles better than our old Netgear Orbi’s, letting you configure nearly everything from your phone — it’s bizarro world over at TP-Link because the web-based admin panel has nearly no settings. Anyway, we’re future ready and could move up to 2Gbps internet when our current contract expires.

    ===

    • 🎮 I’m still checking into Zenless Zone Zero daily to claim log-in rewards and farm materials. I’m observing that this routine is actually a barrier to getting more stuck into proper games. Devious.
    • 🎮 Nevertheless, started on a charming and well-written visual novel about the afterlife called Ghostpia: Season 1, on the Nintendo Switch. I saw launch ads for it during our last trip to Japan and bought the global release late last year, but I’m only starting it now. I think it’s pronounced Ghost-o-pia in Japan, and the name implies “ghost town”, like the Latin topos for place, as in utopia. It’s the rare visual novel that doesn’t ever feel like it’s wasting time or insulting your intelligence.
    • 📺 Started watching Sunny, Apple TV+’s new show starring Rashida Jones and a robot that kinda looks like a Pepper 2.0. It’s an A24 production, set in a surreal other-universe Japan that feels like a variant of the world in Severance. Such an odd vibe, which I suppose adds to the “nothing is what it seems” mystery here. She’s an American expat whose Japanese engineer husband and son supposedly died in an accident, leaving her an advanced AI robot to figure things out with.
    • 📺 Absolutely thrilled that Jinny’s Kitchen has returned for a second season on Amazon Prime Video, sending Korean celebrities to run a restaurant in Iceland this time. Like before, each episode is essentially a two-hour movie, and there’s something about this formula that makes even the most mundane moments (restocking a fridge, taking orders, dicing vegetables) so watchable. Other reality shows can only dream of including this much detail on a weekly basis without losing an audience.
    • 🎬 Saw In the Realm of the Senses (1976) on MUBI despite warnings from Nic not to watch it. Is it uncomfortably, unbelievably graphic? Yes. It’s also a very powerful and competently made film based on a bananas true story. 3.5 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Heroes of the East (1978) next, a classic Shaw Brothers kungfu flick by Lau Kar-Leung starring Gordon Liu, both in top form. It’s actually a cross-cultural martial arts romcom, with action scenes so good I don’t think we know how to do them anymore. One of the best I’ve seen, up there with Dirty Ho (1979). 4.5 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Friends and Strangers (2021), a very enjoyable indie Australian film. Gorgeous photography, care evident in every shot. The story meanders and discharges detail wherever it feels like it, leaving so much off screen, and the result is “dreamy”? Aside from the Australian identity crises, I was surprised it felt a bit like Singapore, where everyone knows someone you know, and nobody has figured out what life’s about. I much preferred the first half with Emma Diaz in it; the second felt like a portrait of bumbling male incompetence that no one needs to see more of, really. 4 stars.
    • 🎬 Saw Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) and wasn’t as disappointed as I expected to be! It took a little warming up to, but Eddie Murphy looks like he’s having fun again and that’s enough for me. 3 stars.
    • 🎬 If you’re in the mood for a mellow drama shot entirely on an actual luxury cruise ship on an actual voyage, Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk (2020) has got you. Meryl Streep, Gemma Chan, Candice Bergen! Oh it’s about a writer trying to write a sequel to her best work, and catching up with two old friends she hasn’t seen in decades. 3.5 stars.
    • 🎬 I also really enjoyed Upgraded (2024), an Amazon Prime Video original romcom about the art world starring Camila Mendes, Marisa Tomei, and Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Anthony Head). It’s derivative AND fun! 3.5 stars.
    • 🎧 Tons of new music this week but I haven’t had time to hear Eminem, Cigarettes After Sex, Tori Amos, or Travis yet. I’ve heard Griff’s debut album, Vertigo (polished pop from Sigrid’s side of the aisle), and Clairo’s Charm (a lush, beautiful vintage sound).
  • Week 26.24

    Week 26.24

    The week seemed to slip by with not too much to show for it until Friday, as I waited for the delivery of my Apple Vision Pro. I watched a couple of films, subscribed to the New York Times again, and made some plans for a personal creative project.

    In the meantime, I also made some memes for Instagram.

    I also resumed wearing contact lenses daily after years of relying on glasses, because I didn’t want the Zeiss lens inserts for Vison Pro. It will take a little adjustment; I definitely don’t miss the end-of-day dryness and irritation.

    Okay, so!

    The unboxing experience for this high-end device is suitably premium, despite being made from predominantly recyclable paper materials. You lift the cover — it releases with the usual deliberate, satisfying motion — and there it is, positioned as if on display in a museum, supported by a molded rest. All the accessories are neatly organized in a compartment underneath. There is an indulgent amount of unused space in this box; no squashing of the Vision Pro into egg carton cutouts like with some Sony products!

    A nice Quick Start book instead of the leaflet you get with iPhones

    Side note: I think I may have gotten measured for the wrong size of light seal (21W) as the sides feel narrower and less comfortable than 33W for me. I have an appointment at the Apple Store next week to hopefully get it swapped.

    First encounters

    I’ve already mentioned the magical and immersive experience of using it. Knowing that, it was still a shock when I ran the pre-installed Encounter Dinosaurs app (directed by Jon Favreau) for the first time.

    Some U.S. reviewers reported actually feeling the virtual butterfly land on their outstretched fingers at the start of the experience, to which I thought, “no way”. And yet when it happened to me, I swear I felt four distinct little pricks on my skin as its little legs shifted. That unfortunately primed me to feel what happened next even more acutely. The dinosaurs appeared on screen, with a fluidity and resolution that was greater than I expected, making the PS5 look like “video games”. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say they were lifelike.

    You are warned at the start that the animals can “see you” and will react to your actions. As the largest dinosaur stepped out of its frame and stalked towards me, towered over my seated body, then stared me in the face while exhaling through its nostrils, I felt my body go into a fight-or-flight mode. No joke. I started to sweat. I avoided making eye contact, and turned my head away hoping it would back off. The presence you feel is unbelievably tangible, and I know I will NOT be attempting any horror games in the future.

    Art of the future

    A much calmer experience I can recommend is Museas, which is a completely free journey through art history made by a single person (Miguel Garcia Gonzalez, who calls himself “a supply chain professional by day and spatial computing engineer by night”). You can see landmark artworks at phenomenal scale right in your home, or in “immersive environments”. These suddenly float your body in massive virtual spaces, surrounded by complementary imagery, with the original artwork in front of you. Think of them as frames, just 360º ones. For example, when viewing Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, you see a florid Japanese garden scene all around, while a narrator explains the artwork.

    I suspect they’ve used generative AI to create these descriptions of the artworks’ history and meaning, the voice that reads them (it sounds to me like the actor Jared Harris, who plays Hari Seldon in Foundation), as well as the 360º immersive scenes. If so, the technology has clearly allowed a single person to achieve something that feels professional beyond their means. The voice is natural and doesn’t feel off to me at all. The immersive environments aren’t perfect, but they’re for your peripheral vision — you’re meant to focus on the original art. The wall text is accurate as far as I can tell. Was this labor that could have paid the salaries of a few more people? In theory, but it’s more likely this project wouldn’t have gotten made at all without AI.

    When I think about you I shush myself

    Apart from these new experiences that weren’t possible before, I think the primary application of the Vision Pro for me will be a personal cinema hall. I sat down with the Theater app to watch Adam Lisagor’s 3D recording of John Gruber interviewing Apple executives Joz, Craig, and J.G. at WWDC (regular 2D recording here), and for nearly two hours I was immersed and focused in its virtual space, surrounded by faintly illuminated empty seats and aisles. I felt notifications come in on my wrist, my phone was across the room, and I ignored all of it the same way I would watching a film in a real theater.

    I think the Vision Pro is the antidote to the iPhone that some thought the Apple Watch would be. Turns out the answer to destroyed attention spans, multi-screening, and screen addiction wasn’t to make it easier to leave your phone in your pocket by redirecting things to a watch, it was the skeuomorphic recreation of a giant screen in a dark room. I think this is the ideal way to watch Important Films. And as nice as our new TV is, I don’t think it compares in visceral terms. Tradeoff: focus and immersion vs. comfort and the ability to drink beverages.

    Media activity

    • Finished watching Constellations starring Noomi Rapace on Apple TV+. Mild spoiler: I complained on Threads about the way it handled a plot device thusly: “Sci-fi shows where science-literate people find themselves trapped in parallel universes, and literally don’t know the words “parallel universe” to explain to other people what’s happening, please gtfo”
    • Season 3 of The Bear is out this weekend and like most people (I did a poll on Instagram), we’re getting through it. That first episode? Wow, really special television.
    • Saw Aloners (2021), a film that tackles modern nowhere lives built around go-nowhere jobs, where even if you meet people worth connecting with, your social muscles may already have atrophied too far. Starts strong but doesn’t land the character development at the end for me. Also: is this a chaotic opposite world version of Perfect Days? I said on Letterboxd: “Say less” is the unofficial motto of Korean arthouse cinema. 3/5 stars.
    • Saw Zero Fucks Given (2021). It follows a young woman escaping grief and complexity by going headfirst into the soul-sucking worker bee life of a budget airline attendant, taking each day as it comes, never looking a day ahead as much as she can help it. Lovely work, and Adele Exarchopoulos is a talent. 3.5 stars.
    • Saw Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Oast Lives (2010) through MUBI’s visionOS app, and I chose to watch it on the dark side of the moon. It was incredible to look up and see stars, look around and see a desolate rocky surface, and then at a giant floating screen ahead of me. The movie was also strange, unreal, and disorienting like being on the moon — it won a Palme d’Or when it came out, cynically I think because a Thai film like this was exotique. I enjoyed its atmosphere and ideas a lot, just not the stilted acting. 3.5 stars.
    • I don’t know where else to mention that I fulfilled a personal goal by minting a McDonalds Singapore NFT after Jose alerted me (with two hours to spare) that they were releasing a new Chicken McNuggets series. Their first release last year was of Grimace, and holders enjoy a stream of special perks. Interestingly, they are ‘soulbound’ NFTs, meaning they cannot be sold or transferred from the initial wallet that received them. Don’t ask me why McDonald’s Singapore is doing this (I doubt they do either), but I want it and I got it.
    • I’ve been long Camila Cabello since 2019 when I called her “possibly the most competent pop star and the new Rihanna”, but I have to admit I was nervous about her new album C,XOXO after recent racism accusations and piggybacking on Charli XCX’s party girl image and Brat aesthetic on social media. Thankfully, I’m on my third listen and it’s an enjoyable record apart from Drake appearing on two tracks (putting on his Jamaican accent, for chrissakes). She’s a big Drake defender, but even if she wanted to cut him after recent events, the album is only 32 minutes long and wouldn’t have survived it.
  • Week 24.24

    Week 24.24

    ✅ Saw Seinfeld live

    His 2024 tour had just one Asian stop, here, before heading to several Australian cities. We decided to splurge on S$300 tickets late last year for the one-night-only show on June 14. After all, when are you ever going to see Jerry Seinfeld again? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime, bucket list opportunity.

    And he was pretty good! I can’t believe he’s 70 and still working the circuit. Although the face says he’s aged, the material suggests he’s still the same unserious, childish complainer we love. Some bits on modern subjects like AI and smartphone addiction screamed ‘boomer!’, but his timeless takes on marriage, the lack of innovation at the Sun-Maid Raisin Company, and putting old dish sponges out of their misery, were solid gold.

    ===

    I attended an inspiring memorial service for my uncle, who passed away a few weeks ago. It was a large and well-attended affair, on account of him having been a prominent member of the local medical community.

    Relatives are usually these distant figures we only see during Chinese New Year reunions. But under the surface, there’s a lifetime of stories we never hear, and it’s a pity. If not for the history lesson and stories that his son shared, I would never have known about how he was born in China 90 years ago, arrived in Singapore at the age of 10, suffered tragedy at the hands of the Japanese, and became an award-winning multihyphenate equally accomplished in matters of art and science. That generation really was built different; the risks they took seem unreal when compared to our modern lives (but tbh they couldn’t handle a zillion social notifications destroying their mental health either).

    ===

    It was WWDC week and while I don’t have to comment on Apple stuff, I kinda always do, so let’s keep traditions alive. They unveiled a slew of software features coming to every platform, and I was most excited to see that Journal, Notes, and Freeform are still being improved and haven’t become forgotten hobbies. As a word-centric computer user, they’re the ones I rely on most — the Math Notes demo on iPad was super cool but I couldn’t begin to use it.

    I’m not convinced the Photos app redesign was necessary or an improvement for most users. Its single-page design seems like a conceptual simplification that might add more complexity in real-life use. I haven’t lived with it yet, so I hope I’m wrong.

    I’m convinced Messages will continue to absorb all popular chat features until it eventually catches up to where Telegram was about four years ago. And that’s all it needs to do, really.

    They announced that Apple Vision Pro will finally be sold outside the US, with Singapore as one of the first countries to get it, alongside Japan and China. Wow, that’s a hell of an upgrade to our starting lineup position. Back in Week 5, I correctly predicted that the global rollout would start in June, but I also said that the product would see annual updates — the consensus on tech Twitter now is that there won’t be a new model until 2026. Which… makes me think that I could get one after all? Getting two years of use out of a S$5,500 device is a lot more palatable than getting just one. Once you add the cost of AppleCare+ (S$749), a travel case (S$299), and prescription inserts/contact lenses though. Hmm.

    On Apple Intelligence: I was happy to see them begin by laying out their design principles (we do this on a lot of my projects, but they are rarely communicated to the public), which are critical for this particularly suspicious and misunderstood technology, for which Apple needs to differentiate their approach and model. Some, like Google, already have access to your data but can’t be trusted not to monetize it with ad targeting. Others, like OpenAI, may only have what data you choose to share but can’t be trusted not to train their models on it. Apple is unique in that it doesn’t seem to want to do either.

    Finally, we’re getting a smarter Siri that’s an actual agent, i.e. able to string together various tasks in pursuit of a goal, and take action on behalf of users. So much for the Rabbit and all that bullshit. Doing as much locally as possible is the only responsible way to do AI agents. And Apple’s private cloud compute solution, which looks to be yet another privacy engineering breakthrough, is probably the second-best way.

    The image generation stuff was probably the most contentious part. I’ve seen upset takes from artists but no one can put this stuff back in the bottle. The only way to stop AI art is a full-scale public revolt, and that requires everyone getting a good look at it first. It’s the four packs of cigarettes your dad forces you to smoke after he catches you sneaking one. When we’re all tired of seeing gross AI styles, human-created art might be appropriately valued.

    But I don’t think Apple is on this exact mission, so I was surprised at the examples they chose to showcase. The Genmoji of a surfing dinosaur looked terribly similar to Meta’s own AI chat stickers in style and quality (cheap). But being able to create Genmojis and illustration-style images for documents all across the OS, for free, is no doubt a big deal. I think many people will generate their first AI images with Apple Intelligence.

    ===

    Media activity:

    • I just finished R.F. Kuang’s Babel and loved every page. If you’re into university-set adventures, deep dives into language and literature, the aftershocks of British colonialism, and tales of the Chinese diaspora, this one’s for you. I had no idea that she also wrote Yellowface, which I’ve heard many people rave about. Props to Kuang, she gets a lot more out of being Chinese than me. 5/5 stars.
    • Bought Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name for S$31 on PlayStation’s summer sale, and immediately started playing it. I thought I’d had enough of this series for awhile, but I’m six hours in and having so much more fun than in the preceding game. Part of it is even set in the same Yokohama map as Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but running around here is so much better without the annoying turn-based combat. Recommended if you like absurd storylines played with the straightest of faces.
    • Started watching Constellations on Apple TV+, which has sadly been canceled after one season. The first two episodes lean into a space horror vibe which had me seriously tense, but it’s lightened up a bit now in episode three. Recommended for fans of Noomi Rapace, Dead Space, sci-fi mysteries.
    • Watched A Quiet Place Part II and was let down because I remember enjoying the first one, but this sequel is a much lesser use of mostly the same ingredients. Plus that annoying post-apocalyptic trope about how the human survivors are worse than the monsters. PUHLEASE. 1.5/5 stars.
    • Watched Hit Man on Netflix, the first Richard Linklater film I’ve caught in years. It kept me guessing (and I had a lot of wrong guesses where it was heading), and has a lot of fun with the concept. Glen Powell is going to be a huge star, isn’t he? 4/5 stars.
    • Alex Garland’s Civil War was like most of his films: plenty to look at, not much to say. It shows what a civil war in the US might look like, but doesn’t care to fill anything in, mirroring the photojournalists it follows. Early on, Kirsten Dunst says “we just shoot the pictures, others can ask why”, or something to that effect. Well, isn’t that convenient for you, Alex Garland. 2.5/5 stars.
    • Discovered the band Fantastic Cat after seeing a vertical video somewhere of them inviting Adam Duritz of Counting Crows to be on their new song. It may have been a clip of the video for the song, actually. Following that I checked out Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat and really enjoy its pre-my-birth country rock sound. A quick internet search revealed that they’re a supergroup of four singer-songwriters that I unfortunately have never heard of.
    • Am listening to Charli XCX’s very popular new album, BRAT, and it might be her best work yet. I’m also listening to A.G. Cook’s new Britpop album and since he produced half of her album, it can get confusing.
    • Have also been following the drama of Taylor Swift allegedly releasing numerous editions of her albums on the eve of other female artists’ album releases to block them from the top spot on charts. She apparently tried it with Billie Eilish’s album, and now she’s done it to Charli with a UK-only release of two new editions of The Tortured Poets Department, each with different demos or live versions tacked on. She’s free to defend the throne but there are apparently 34 different versions of that album out now. Even The Guardian has weighed in and declared Charli the winner on artistic grounds. This releasing of multiple variants to milk fans feels gross to me. Back in my day, musicians just released one version of an album (okay, plus maybe a Japan-only one with bonus tracks) and it had to fend for itself on the charts for years!
  • Week 23.24: Chilling with Sony’s Reon Pocket 5, New Camera Apps, and a Playlist

    Week 23.24: Chilling with Sony’s Reon Pocket 5, New Camera Apps, and a Playlist

    Sony Reon Pocket 5

    I discovered the existence of a cool new device this week when a Sony catalog wound up in my trad-mail inbox. After some online research, I visited the nearest Sony store for a demo of the Reon Pocket 5 device and ended up buying one for S$249. Okay, what is a “Reon Pocket” and why is this the fifth version? The four previous iterations were only sold in Japan, but the tech is now mature enough that Sony is launching it in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand this year.

    It’s best described as a wearable gadget for helping you feel more comfortable by fooling suggesting to your body that the temperature is more bearable than it thinks. It does that by cooling or heating a small metal plate pressed against your skin (in this case, at the base of your neck), which contrasts with the environment and changes your perception of it. Surprisingly, it works with just a difference of a few degrees.

    I first learnt about this effect a decade ago from a Wired article about an MIT prototype and have been eagerly awaiting a commercial product ever since. I had no idea until after buying the Sony version that the researchers mentioned in that article have actually shipped their own wrist-worn product called the Embr Wave. It resembles a smartwatch and is more discreet than the bulkier Reon Pocket 5 which sticks out from beneath your shirt collar like some kind of life support system. However, since I already wear an Apple Watch, I don’t know if I’d wear an Embr Wave too.

    In some ways, I seriously see this device as a “life support” technology. I think I’ve struggled with heat regulation all my life — always feeling warmer and sweatier than everyone else; most days you can hold your hand over my head and feel the heat radiating off it. I read that our bodies’ core temperature doesn’t actually change much (when it does, that’s hypothermia or heatstroke), so how comfortable we feel is all down to skin temperature, which this sort of thing hacks.

    After a couple days of testing, I’ve found the Reon Pocket 5 doesn’t perform miracles but offers a different sort of relief than a handheld fan (though one could use both). But it’s like constantly holding a cool can of soda against your neck in hot weather, which is welcome! It’s a glass of ice water for someone in hell. Even when the temperature isn’t that high but it’s stuffy and humid, this takes the edge off. If you’re the sort who’s always feeling cold in Singapore’s air-conditioned spaces, it also heats up and offers the opposite effect.

    There’s a lot I could say about the app, and how it’s another example of Sony’s generally poor UX design, but once you figure out what settings you like, you can lock them in and operate the device without it. It also comes with a separate “tag” that you can attach elsewhere on your body, which monitors the external temperature and humidity so the device can automatically switch modes, but I haven’t bothered to take it out of the box at all. All they needed to do was put a button on the thing to switch between hot and cold, just like the Embr Wave does.

    Building a separate piece of hardware instead… reminds me of how Sony headphones try to “intelligently” adjust noise cancellation levels by guessing whether you’re commuting, or working, or lazing about, by using GPS location and accelerometer data from the smartphone app — an absolutely mental and roundabout solution to replace the user pressing a button. Incidentally, Apple’s Adaptive Audio mode on AirPods Pro is a much better take: they dynamically adjust the balance between noise canceling and transparency based on environmental noise, letting you be aware but not annoyed.

    The battery, if you’re wondering, should last an entire day out. At Level 1 cooling power it’s rated at 17 hours; at Level 3, 10 hours; and at Level 5, 4 hours. Operating on Smart Cool mode, it switches between them as necessary. There’s also a “wave” feature that I recommend turning on, which follows the same core principle as Embr’s device where cooling power fluctuates so you don’t become desensitized to it. If you need even longer performance, you can plug it into a power bank and it will work on direct power without charging. Imagine using it at the same time as Apple Vision Pro, with two power banks in your back pockets. That’s living in the future, baby.

    In conclusion, wearing the Reon Pocket 5 around your neck makes you look dorky or hooked up to some medical device, but when it’s over 30ºC in the shade, who gives a damn?!

    ===

    New camera apps

    I’ve been using two new camera apps: Kino, from Lux Optics who also make the Halide app, and Leica LUX (no relation).

    Kino is a logical move. Halide was a “pro” app focused on bringing intuitive manual controls for still photography. Kino does the same for video. Unlike Halide, it’s a one-time purchase ($20 USD) and a big part of its functionality is the ability to apply different looks (color grading via LUTs). I’ve always wished Halide would do something similar, to help lazy shooters get the most out of RAW captures. I hardly shoot any video but I thought Kino was worth buying, especially since I’ve let my Halide subscription lapse for lack of use.

    One of the best things Kino does is allow the system to shoot in Apple LOG but write the files in HEVC format instead of ProRes, which saves a lot of space but still conveys some of the benefits. You can also shoot in LOG, apply a color grade preset in real time, and save the baked file in HEVC. That’s awesome.

    Leica LUX is not so logical and I’ve been puzzling over why a company with their luxury brand equity would take a risk like this. On the page linked above, they’re saying the app “lets you capture the iconic Leica Look with your iPhone” using their “deep color science” and digital simulations of “legendary lenses”, like the Noctilux-M 50mm f/1.2 ($7,895 USD), and claiming it “reproduces” its “signature aesthetic bokeh”.

    I present two exhibits. The first (below) is what you see when selecting the “Leica Standard” profile: a statement that it handles color the same way as their cameras that cost upwards of $6,000 USD do, using your iPhone’s sensor. Whether it’s true or not is beside the point; Leica is saying you can enter their world with a free app and the phone you already own. To my eyes, it’s not far off from the iPhone’s default color handling, and looks like some gentle H/S/L shifts. The other Leica Looks are a mixed bag: I like the Leica Natural one, but some others are heavy and feel like “filters”. I’d hoped these would be more like Fuji’s in-camera film simulations, which are more like “color profiles”.

    The secret sauce is leaking out!

    The second shows how their implementation of a depth effect is inferior to Apple’s own Portrait Mode, with rough edge artifacts, despite the hyperbolic claims of giving your iPhone the “unique aesthetic of Leica’s legendary M-lenses” with their “distinctive look and beautiful bokeh”. If it did, that dark shot of my Misery Men mug would look like it came from a 28mm Summilux f/1.4 lens, and I can assure you it does not. Moreover, their digital depth effect only adds background blur, not foreground blur, which makes for a less realistic result that Apple’s own Portrait Mode which your iPhone already does for free.

    LUX’s App Store description
    See how the digital replica handles the mug’s edges

    One nice feature is the photo library viewer they’ve built into it, which lets you switch between seeing All photos and Leica photos only, including ones taken with your Leica cameras. And photos taken with this app sit alongside them as equals! In the field where the camera model is specified, it simply shows “Leica LUX”.

    What are they getting out of this brand dilution? Well, the app is subscription-based and asks for S$99.98/yr to unlock more Leica Looks and lenses. They claim new ones will be added monthly. I think perhaps anyone who owns or intends to own a physical Leica camera will not bother with this, and it’s a move to grab all the aspirational customers who want to touch the brand — including a bit of overlap with the market they tried to target with their Huawei and Xiaomi smartphone collaborations. The question is whether this will do any significant reputational damage, and so far all the comments I’ve seen on Leica blogs and communities have been negative. Could they stand to make more on app subscriptions than they’d lose from upset camera buyers? Maybe! Is that capitalization model the right way to run a company? Maybe not?

    I’m still optimistic because I’m not emotionally or financially invested enough in the brand to care how they destroy themselves, and will wait to see if they update the app to improve edge detection and add some better Leica Looks. If it ever gets good enough to be my primary iPhone camera app, a hundred bucks a year is steep but not out of the question.

    Before: iPhone defaults. After: Custom Photographic Style

    Meanwhile, I’ve found the following settings get me calmer and more natural photos out of the default iPhone camera app. First, go to Settings > Camera and make sure you turn on “Exposure Adjustment” under the “Preserve Settings” section. Then in the camera app, set exposure to -0.3ev, and using one of the Photographic Styles as a base, change its values to -20 Tone and +5 Warmth. Note: If you have a 14 Pro, the only way you’re getting less crispy shots is to use an app like Zerocam or Halide and disabling smart processing.

    ===

    Media activity

    • Started playing Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5. It feels just like the first game I played on the PS4 years ago and I can’t say I’m getting next-gen from this, but it’s good fun.
    • Finally got Balatro on the Switch, the highly acclaimed indie poker roguelike game. It reminds me so much of Solitairica, the indie solitaire roguelike game on iOS. That’s a good thing. It’s the kind of game you can play for a few minutes, or hours on end.
    • Started watching season 2 of Link Click, a Chinese-made “anime” series with a cool ‘catch a serial killer through time’ kinda story. I saw season 1 a couple of years ago and was impressed by how well executed it was.
    • Saw Still of the Night (1982), starring a young Meryl Streep and Roy Scheider. It’s a Hitchcock-inspired psychological thriller with Fatal Attraction vibes. 3/5
    • Saw The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a Guy Ritchie WWII joint that feels like if Inglourious Basterds was a Jason Statham vehicle. Except he’s not in this, Henry Cavill is, as well as Alan Ritchson (of Reacher fame) who plays a gay Dane (Swede?) who loves killing Nazis almost a little too much. Quite a bit of fun. 3/5
    • Saw The Fall Guy, a movie I’ve been anticipating for a long time on the strength of its trailer and what little I’d assumed about its story. I didn’t know it was based on an old TV show. But it was a messy, empty disappointment of a blockbuster that even Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt couldn’t save. 2/5
    • Saw Carnival of Souls (1962), a cult classic surrealist quasi-horror film on Kanopy, a video streaming service that’s free if you connect your library account. It’s got Ed Wood B-movie vibes and special effects, a lot of rough edges, but still manages to be a compelling work that I’ll probably remember for a long time. 3.5/5
    • Saw To Have and Have Not (1944) in which Lauren Bacall plays a character who is stated as being 22 years old, to which I thought “she’s gotta be a lot older than that”. I looked it up and she was probably 19 💀. So that’s proof that people really used to look older, and you’d be forgiven for assuming it was the copious smoking (on display in this film). It’s a weird one, almost a musical showcase for Hoagy Carmichael who shows up as the hotel bar’s piano man. Doesn’t quite have that Casablanca magic yet. 3/5
    • Saw Dream Scenario in which Nicolas Cage convincingly plays a loser who suddenly becomes famous due to an unexplained phenomenon (he starts appearing in people’s dreams). Towards the end, it pivots from uneasy mystery to comical cultural commentary. That’s not a complaint though. 3/5

    A playlist for you

    As reward for making it this far, here’s the next installment in my Blixtape playlist series, covering music I listened to from January to May this year. Hope you find something to like.

    Add BLixTape #4 on Apple Music

    The tracklist:

  • Week 20.24

    Week 20.24

    It’s been a full week since I fell ill but this virus seems to have booked a late checkout, so we have no choice but to wait. Once they’re gone, housekeeping can get to clearing out the sinuses and emptying the phlegm bins. Even worse, it’s now Kim’s turn on the back of some work travel to Bangkok, so maybe I’m headed for Round 2. Is/was it Covid? A test said no, but anything’s possible. The news is reporting a doubling of local cases last week, at a rather alarming 26,000 cases.

    Fortunately, I haven’t had much occasion to leave the house. I did go out to the nearby supermarket once to get some supplies, but despite leaving Kim a message that I’d gone grocery shopping, she also dropped by on her own way home and bought some. So now we have about 29 eggs knocking about the house. 😑

    The awards show shortlisting is going well and has become a regular afternoon activity, but there’s so much of it to do. I don’t know how anyone with a full-time job is managing this without giving up a weekend or two. Looking forward to sharing some of the more impressive work I’ve seen when this is over.

    Speaking of the industry, I saw an ad for Merge Mansion (a Candy Crush sorta mobile game) starring Pedro Pascal a few months back and downloaded the game, but forgot all about it without even playing. Well, I did this week and now I’m bloody hooked. It’s monetized on a timer and energy-based system, meaning you run out of moves and have to wait for more (or pay), so I’m constantly hitting that wall and checking the app several times a day to make a little progress. Games like these are cruelly designed to exploit those with a lot of free time throughout the day: children, homemakers, the jobless, me.

    Another gaming loose end is Lost Judgment , which I bought for the PS4 the last time I was on sabbatical but then I ran out of time and never started. The purchase included the PS5 version, so when I got the console last week I decided it would be my first game. After some 20+ hours, I’ve completed the main story and don’t feel excited enough to play through the DLC or remaining side quests. It might be because it repeats much of what was in Judgment, its predecessor, or because I’m anxious to get on with the rest of the ‘Like a Dragon’ series in my backlog (of which the Judgment games are a part).

    For reference, I’m planning to play

    • Yakuza: Like a Dragon (#7)
    • Like a Dragon Ishin! (a spin-off set in about the same era as the recent Shogun TV series)
    • Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (#7.5)
    • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (#8).
    • And that’s skipping Yakuza 0, Yakuza 2 Kiwami, and the remastered fourth and fifth games! Those might have to wait for the next time.

    As if that wasn’t enough, I’m also committed to finishing Astral Chain on the Switch, which plays fine but looks like an Xbox 360 game in visual terms, and really can’t compare to the current generation. I don’t think it maintains 30fps and the characters’ faces don’t even move during in-game cutscenes. I need to play all these ancient action games before I get spoiled by the likes of Stellar Blade on the PS5, where every surface gleams in ray-traced splendor.

    If I had to describe the Switch’s value proposition in light of now owning a PS5, it’s a fantastic portable console better suited for indie games (and Nintendo exclusives, of course), especially 2D platformers and puzzlers. For example Animal Well, which just came out to overwhelmingly positive reviews; and the poker roguelike everyone says is digital crack, Balatro. Oh, and visual novels too. I powered through and finally completed an awful one this week that I’ve been “playing” for the last couple of months, which has prevented me from doing anything else on the Switch. I’m glad it’s finally over, and no, I don’t recommend it (Our World is Ended – 59% on Metacritic).

    ===

    Side note: OpenAI showed off an impressive demo of a new GPT-4 model that is omni-modal, smarter, and works in nearly real time. I’m also pleased that these features will supposedly be coming to free users too, along with the use of custom GPTs like the ones I’ve been making. I recently canceled my ChatGPT Plus subscription since I don’t have any regular jobs for it to do at this time, apart from helping me edit this blog, but now I may even be able to keep doing that.

    ===

    Media Activity:

    • Started on two episodes of Sugar on Apple TV+, and I’m locked into its modern LA noir mystery. There’s something weird going on beneath the surface with its meta-Hollywood thing, but what I immediately loved was how visually fresh and uninhibited it is.
    • After languishing unfinished for what feels like a year, we recently picked up season 1 of Acapulco again and can’t recall why we ever stopped. Just like its setting, it’s sunny, breezy, and takes your mind off everything — perfect end-of-day TV. The best part is there are two more seasons just waiting now.
    • I started watching the anime movie Blue Giant on Saturday and was halfway through before realizing I wasn’t in the right mood and should save it for later in the week. It’s based on a manga about an earnest guy who moves to Tokyo to be a jazz musician, and is just steeped in the jazz culture there with the kissas and live houses. I saw a bunch of promotional art for it in Tower Records a whole year ago when we were there, and I’ve been wanting to watch it since. It’s just that I’d read something about it not having a huge budget, and so wasn’t expecting too much from the animation. But it turned out well and sounds amazing!

    There’s so much new music out this weekend that I have to break the format.

    Let’s start with an album I enjoyed back in the day and have just rediscovered through Michael’s weeknotes, Tourist by St Germain. I didn’t even know it received a digital remastering and Deluxe Version re-release in 2012, but it sure sounds great. This could come out today and make waves, apart from having some light Cafe del Mar vibes.

    Billie Eilish’s new album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is out now. I played it once through in the background and plan to give it some closer listening, but it’s already surpassed my expectations. I was afraid she’d settled into consistently making very samey music, but sonically this sounds fresh and does some interesting things.

    Apple Music is doing a list of their “100 Best Albums” (of all time), and I was happy/disappointed to see Portishead’s Dummy land at #67. There’s no overstating the impact of that band on my tastes, and Beth Gibbons’ voice is a huge part of that. So I’m really afraid to put her new (second) solo album on. Even the title, Lives Outgrown, gives me goosebumps of nervous anticipation.

    There’s also a new Kamasi Washington album, Fearless Movement! A new Andra Day album, CASSANDRA (cherith)! A new A.G. Cook TRIPLE album, Britpop! A new reworking of a 2020 Childish Gambino album that I never heard, Atavista! And a Deluxe version of the last self-titled Bleachers album that I didn’t like that much!

  • Week 18.24

    Week 18.24

    Last week marked the 200th installment of a blogging rhythm I wasn’t sure I could keep up for a year, let alone nearly four. I thank any readers I have, the makers of iA Writer, WordPress, and of course, my wife for graciously giving me space on Sunday mornings to engage in this act of reflection and blabbering.

    Except I’m not writing this on Sunday, no it’s currently Thursday and I’m getting a head start with some structure because we’ll be in Hong Kong for the weekend. It was a last-minute idea, driven by a primal craving for Chinese roast goose, a desire to escape the summer heatwave currently roasting all of SE Asia, and the realization that we won’t have a pocket of clear calendar space like this again for several months.

    I haven’t been back in the territory since May 2019, and so much has obviously happened since. Did you know that this very site was once blocked by the great Chinese firewall? I have no idea why, but I hope I don’t find myself unwelcome upon arrival. Anecdotally, I’ve heard the city doesn’t quite feel the same these days, and we’ve seen the numerous ChannelNewsAsia documentary features about people looking for fresh starts, emigrating to the UK and so on. But as an infrequent visitor with only superficial interactions to speak of, I don’t expect to sense any changes at all.

    What’s changed is that while I used to be excited about Hong Kong’s lack of sales tax and abundance of electronics and camera emporiums, not to mention official Apple Stores, those things are less interesting these days. I’ve got nothing on my shopping list (plus I’m in low-cost mode — see previous entries), I’m content with snapping photos on my iPhone and Ricoh GR III, and Singapore has so many Apple Stores these days I’ve started taking them for granted.

    (CW: some camera nerdery ahead)

    I am looking forward to photographing the city a little with Dmitri Novikov’s new camera app, Zerocam (in beta). The concept is an extremely simplified camera with one button; there’s not even a way to quickly look at the last photo you took. When you hit the shutter, a RAW image is captured with as little of the iPhone’s intelligent processing as possible, plus some specific settings that Novikov prefers (-0.5ev and some very light touch color grading, as far as I can tell), and then saved directly to a HEIF file.

    Unfortunately it only gives you photos at 12mp size, probably because third-party apps don’t have the option of 24mp and 24mp is a result of the computational photography processes that Zerocam avoids anyway. And while you can use Halide to capture similarly unprocessed photos (turn off “Enable Smartest Processing” in its settings), you can’t make it remember a lowered exposure setting between sessions.

    The intermediate solution I’ve landed on to retain 24mp files while getting better everyday photos is to set Apple’s stock camera app to remember a -0.7ev exposure, and tune Photographic Styles to -20 Tone and -7 Warmth. I really like the look of this “recipe” on iPhone 15, and it’s kinda like shooting with Highlight Priority exposure and the Negative Film effect on a Ricoh GR III (which I’ll also be doing).

    Actually in HK now:

    We’ve chosen a wet and gloomy weekend to stop by. Our flight was delayed by 2.5 hours, I suspect because of turbulent conditions at HK International Airport around our original arrival time. Just two days earlier, some Cathay Pacific passengers were tossed around and couldn’t land for six hours, with the descriptions of a vomit and scream-filled cabin in the news fulfilling the conditions of a personal nightmare.

    I take back a little of what I said — things do feel somewhat different. The city is grubbier than I remember; prices are higher and some people must be struggling to get by (well, HK isn’t alone in this); and there’s a hint of economic decline in the many empty shop units with ‘For Lease’ signs up.

    One tool that’s been super helpful all week has been the Arc Search app on iOS, which added a voice mode that you can assign to the Action Button on iPhone 15 Pros. When the app launched with an AI feature that summarizes search queries on custom-generated webpages, I was wary of this “browser that browses for you” concept, which gives users few reasons to visit the underlying pages being mined (thereby ruining the web), but maybe they’ve made some changes since. It’s easier to click through to the sources.

    I’ve been using it to answer questions like “what interesting art exhibitions are on in HK right now?” and it performs some light research, and I do end up visiting the linked websites for further details like location and pricing. It’s effectively a better way to present search results (albeit with the same bias and ranking concerns as search results). I hope iOS 18’s AI overhaul will see similar utility coming to Siri and Safari. Perhaps this is where the rumored Gemini partnership with Google comes in.

    ===

    Media activity:

    • I started on a new Jack Reacher book: Night School. It’s what I do when I can’t decide what to read next.
    • I’ve been watching the new-ish MF Ghost anime, which is a sort of sequel to Initial D. Some people seem to think it’s an insult to the original show, but I wouldn’t know — I might watch it after this? It’s got a funny premise: in a future Japan, electric vehicles are the norm and gas-powered cars are only allowed in a special racing tournament called MFG. But drifting has become a lost art! Enter Kanata Rivington, a hafu born in England who trained under a master who I presume is the main protagonist of Initial D, returning to Japan for the first time to find his lost father and school a nation on how to burn rubber while chucking a uey.
    • The Japanese saxophonist Sadao Watanabe is back with a new album at the insane age of 91. It’s called Peace, and I’m digging it. Speaking of, I first heard him as a child digging through my dad’s music collection.
    • I’m also loving Tigers Blood, by Waxahatchee, which I discovered on Pitchfork’s list of The Best Music of 2024 So Far. I’m aware that Anna Wintour fired a bunch of people from Pitchfork and it’s supposedly not the site it used to be, but this is a great pick. They say: “Recommended if you like — Indie-country; Sheryl Crow; Gillian Welch; that Brad Cook Sound; MJ Lenderman showing up; catchin’ skinks down by the creek; ice cream stand off the highway; letting your legs dangle off a pier”.
    • What a week in rap battle history! The beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been giving us explosive drama and incredible diss tracks, sometimes more than one a day, and Kendrick’s the winner in my book but honestly I’m afraid just watching it unfold. It feels like someone’s going to get shot or jailed as a result of this.

    Oh one more thing! The Cannes Lions Festival announced the shortlisting juries for 2024’s awards, and I’m pleased to share that I’m on the panel for the Brand Experience & Activation Lions. That should keep me occupied for the next few weeks.

  • Week 13.24

    Week 13.24

    During a chat on Good Friday — a public holiday here that I’d always assumed was less common than Easter Monday, but it turns out that’s not the case! — I realized Michael was in the middle of his workday in Tokyo and I was probably being a distraction. Our conversation started with him asking what I knew about Ethereum these days, and ended with how scaling leadership and quality in large organizations is hard, which might be related topics when you think about it. When a blockchain becomes too costly and congested, the solution is to spin off nimble L2 side-chains, just like how companies try to establish secret skunkworks teams that operate outside the rules. Both of these are an admission that we’re really bad at handling complexity.

    I put the long weekend to good use by sitting down to do some adulting with a semi-thorough look at finances, lifestyle, and possible futures. The process that works best for me is one I only realized later in life (and often forget and have to rediscover again): thinking aloud in writing. It looks like a long bullet list, occasional paragraphs, and maybe a table in Apple Notes.

    As I formed a loose decision-making framework, I asked ChatGPT to think it through with me and find any gaps in my logic or assumptions. It justified its monthly fee by calling out things I had failed to consider on more than one occasion. By the time a picture emerged, I was in disbelief. When did I start spending (or expecting to spend) so much? What idiot signed up for so many monthly subscriptions? Shockingly, ChatGPT did not suggest that I cancel it.

    It was at this point that my daily Co—Star notification popped up with an enigmatic line: “Shatter your old intellectual loops.” Hmm! What could that mean? “What you do with your money is your choice,” the detailed horoscope reassured me. While I don’t believe in this stuff, I respect how it can add randomness to one’s internal monologues. Harder still to do is read from the other perspective and see if it still says what you want to hear. It seemed to pass the sniff test this time.

    >> Sidenote: I’ve found myself using ChatGPT less lately because Perplexity is so damned convenient. It beats ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot (née Bing) for combining AI and search to answer questions. Arc Search is alright if you have a “web research” kinda job to be done, but if I just want to ask “What is X?”, Perplexity is fast and offers sources and links for further reading. A big part of this convenience is the availability of widgets and Lock Screen complications on iOS. Yes, I do know this shit is destroying the web and I hope somebody stops/solves it soon. Still, I need answers!

    After making some progress, I went out for a walk that felt great despite the insane heat and humidity we’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks. It’s impossible to step out and not immediately be sweaty; in fact you’ve probably been sweating indoors already. Strangely, at one point, with nothing nearby except water on one side of me and a forested patch on the other, I felt waves of cool air blowing past me, close to the ground. This continued for several good minutes, and it felt like when someone leaves the door to an air-conditioned room open and it flows out. Perhaps it was so hot above that even air just 1ºC cooler coming off the river felt remarkable? I thought to myself, “Am I injured and bleeding out? How is it cold?”

    Speaking of sudden shifts in temperature and bleeding, are we really ‘still early’ when more than one person in a week starts a conversation about crypto? I had drink plans the evening before Good Friday, which made for a Pleasant Thursday, and a lot of the chat was about NFTs and memecoins. I have shifted my stance on the latter from ‘not touching that nonsense’ to ‘everybody needs a little casino time’, and so currently own some “Jeo Boden” coin, a little “Dog Wif Hat”, and as of yesterday, some “Costco Hot Dog”. The last one is funny and so might do very well: you know how their hot dogs are famously pegged at $1.50 no matter what the economy does? Well the coin is about 9 cents now, and the idea is that it’ll pump to hit $1.50, because it must! (Disclaimer: I’m in for insignificant amounts of money, please don’t go nuts.)

    My overall outlook on web3 has moderated a little since the last cycle and can probably be summed up like this: We know Computing is good, we’re quite sure Decentralization is good, and we’ve seen interesting ideas around Tokenization, but all the “crypto” solutions built on those three ideas today have got something wonky and unstable about them. It’s hard to see most alts having any lasting value.

    ===

    Media activity:

    • We’re halfway through Season 2 of Below Deck Down Under (SPOILER) and the infamous sexual assault incident that was kinda viral on Twitter when it happened has now happened. Awful stuff, and I think Laura’s reaction afterwards was just as bad. I’m glad that was taken care of. Captain Jason is the goat.
    • I’ve been watching a little Jujutsu Kaisen after seeing an incredible fight scene clip online. This was a shonen show I’d long ago decided I didn’t care for, like Demon Slayer and all that shit, but seeing the quality of animation in that clip changed my mind. Sadly, I think it was actually from the movie, and the regular TV show hasn’t gone that hard yet. I think I’m up to episode 10 and I’ll keep at it.
    • I started Netflix’s adaptation of Three Body Problem while Kim was out for a couple of nights. It’s much better than I’ve come to expect from Netflix, and it’s moving fast from my vague recollection of the first book (the only one of the series I read). I can see myself finishing it over the next few weeks.
    • I came across Adrianne Lenker’s new album, Bright Future, in my Apple Music recommendations and decided to hear it even though I couldn’t recall her name at all. It was really good, and if I had to say, it’s indie folk rock? Emotionally, although not so much musically, it reminded me of Gillian Welch’s Americana alt-country. Then Perplexity informed me that Lenker has a band called Big Thief, which sounded kinda familiar? Did I dismiss them out of hand at some point because I didn’t like the name? I put their debut album, Masterpiece, on during my aforementioned walk and was blown away.
    • It turns out I heard Big Thief’s latest album, the annoyingly named Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, back in 2022 but never went back to it. It’s a title you could use as a password.
  • Week 12.24

    Week 12.24

    If you’re reading this on the web, you might notice that this site is now running WordPress’s new ‘Twenty Twenty Four’ theme, with a more traditional blog-like homepage (it has a sidebar) linking to single-column post pages. Navigation remains unchanged, but typography and minor details are improved.

    I’m happier with this than I was with the blocky grid of last year’s ‘Twenty Twenty Three’ theme, because this comes with the freedom to put up shorter posts without Titles or Featured Images. Over the years I’ve gone back and forth on microblogging here, or having all tweets mirrored here, but it’s never stuck. But at least I have the option again, especially since I haven’t properly posted on Twitter in a year and most people I want to follow are still scattered across Threads, Bluesky, Nostr, and Mastodon.

    ===

    We celebrated a little life milestone this week with a nature walk, a “Gold Class” viewing of Dune Part Two, a nice bottle of French Malbec, and a perfect Canadian pork chop with a side of the butteriest mashed potatoes. A mix of simple and simpler pleasures.

    I’ll expand: We were recently in New Zealand, and took a couple of walks in nature reserves. I’ve never bothered to attempt the same in Singapore because it’s ridiculously hot, but visiting the Rifle Range Nature Park in West Singapore was interesting for the stark contrast offered versus our recent experiences. Every step on its paths is sure footed by design; suspended walkways take you through the forest without trampling plants, and they’re so convenient all the monkeys we saw were using them as well, rather than walking in the dirt. You get the sense that everything is regularly inspected and all dangers have been scrubbed. It reflects the usual criticism of Singapore being a theme park, which is only a problem because living in a safe environment breeds complacency. At several points on the easiest routes at Te Mata Park in New Zealand, slipping off a path and tumbling into a ravine was a genuine possibility. I wonder what other metaphorical tumbles Singaporean life has not prepared me for.

    The new Dune is as superb as all reviews have indicated, and I could not imagine rating it any less than 5 stars in Letterboxd. The art direction and photography are flawless, and it looks twice as expensive as it is. Never once while watching did my brain check out and think, “oh, that’s CGI”. The only change I would dare suggest is Austin Butler’s casting, as he’s not anywhere as menacing as the movie treats him. His character is already a nepo baby who just enjoys killing defenseless slaves and servants, and Butler didn’t bring the presence to suggest he’s also one of the most dangerous people in a universe full of freaks.

    Another 5-star film for us this week was Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days (2023), which won a Best Actor award at Cannes last year for Koji Yakusho’s nearly wordless performance. I enjoyed it tremendously as a loving tribute to the city of Tokyo and its toilets (really), a meditation on repetition and routine, an ode to proud and purposeful work, and a parable about how avoiding the messiness of life might obscure living itself. The soundtrack is a Gen X dream. Visually, it’s filled with beautiful everyday moments so mundane as to be overlooked by most of us going about our daily busyness. The way all its themes and music choices come together in the film’s final minutes is worth half a star alone.

    Continuing the theme of Japanese films about appreciating life, we watched Living (2022), the transposed-to-England remake of Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952). I’ve never seen the original, but it’s now high on my list. Bill Nighy is fantastic in the role of a civil servant who learns he’s dying and wonders what it’s all about, and plays his deconstruction with impressive vulnerability. I looked at the trailer for Ikiru afterwards, and while Takashi Shimura’s performance in the same role is regarded as iconic, it was a little theatrical and may not have aged as well.

    Anyhow, the message in both these films is timeless: stop working so hard at meaningless things, smell the roses (or watch the shadows cast by leaves — ‘komorebi’ in Japanese, as the end credits of Perfect Days tells us), and make a difference to another human being’s life.

    Take a little forest bathing break with this video I captured.

    ===

    Additional media activity:

    • We finished Season 1 of Below Deck Down Under at last, and I was glad to learn that Captain Jason and Chief Stew Aesha return for Season 2, which we now must see. The leadership and teamwork these two have put Captain Lee and Kate of the mainline series to bottomless shame.
    • The new Call of Duty mobile version of Warzone has finally come out, after being delayed for about a year. As a somewhat devoted player of the original Call of Duty Mobile title, I’ve been waiting with very high expectations for this. Unfortunately, the launch has been a bit of a dud, with many complaints from the worldwide community. For one, Android devices seem incapable of running it well. On my iPhone 15 Pro Max, it runs at peak performance and the graphics are truly console quality; I was running around maps that I knew instinctively, but my brain was exploding from how different and detailed everything looked. Sadly, the phone runs hot and it drained the better part of my battery in maybe an hour. I’ll wait to see if they improve anything before calling it quits.
    • The new Kacey Musgraves album, Deeper Well, is not bad at all. It even has a song called Anime Eyes which drops a line about a “Miyazaki sky”. Very weird times we live in.
    • I started using a new social app that tries to be a Letterboxd for music: Musicboard. Unfortunately, it doesn’t automatically log/scrobble your listening activity, so rating music and broadcasting your taste is a manual affair. You also can’t start playing an album directly in Apple Music from within the app — it only supports Spotify at the moment.