I went and saw Southern Belles largely on the strength of one of the producers, Zack Sanders, seeming like such a nice guy at the opening party. It turned out to be a wonderful film.
Belle and Bell are two lifelong friends in Georgia. Belle dreams of a better life and starts trying to raise enough money for her and Bell to move to Atlanta. Hopeless romantic (and Gone With the Wind fan) Bell, having ditched her loser boyfriend Hampton, is willing to go along with the plan until she falls for a local policeman by the name of Rhett Butler.
The film was a tremendous amount of fun and a great showcase for the comedic abilities of Anna Farris (who plays Belle) and Fred Weller (who plays Bell's ex-boyfriend Hampton). The real find was Laura Breckenridge, who plays Bell. Laura is definitely an actress to keep an eye on. The casting director, Jennifer McNamara deserves particular credit for putting together such a wonderful cast. Also deserving of credit is Eric Haase who shot the film beautifully on Super 16.
The script was a little uneven in parts but was overall a very warm comedy with just the right amount of odd-ball goofiness for my liking. The filmmakers should be very proud of what they have achieved. I certainly found their accomplishment inspirational for my own career.
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)
Looks like the CGI environment bug in Python 2.4 has been fixed for 2.4.1.
This bug prevented Leonardo's test server from working out of the box with Python 2.4 on Windows.
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)
After the film, I went to the Southern Belles party. Unlike the Hooligans party, the night before, this one was a lot smaller and so I got the chance to talk to most of the people there who were involved in the film. Many of them had just experienced the world premiere of their first feature film so it was a very exciting time for them. They were all extremely gracious and, although it sounds a little corny, I was really honoured to be able to share in their celebration.
I would love it if I could work with some of them on a film in the future.
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)
I've noticed recently that Amazon has started listing some significantly improbably phrases for many of their books.
About a year ago, my sister Jenni and I wrote a Python script to do something similar (although only at the word level, not phrase).
Inspired by Amazon, I've now put our script up at http://jtauber.com/2005/03/z_value.py
I'll need to think a little more how to extend it to phrases. In the meantime, have fun with the script and let me know if you have any suggestions.
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)
Previously, we introduced the concept of a set with a binary operation that takes as inputs two elements of the set and outputs an element of the set.
What about taking three inputs? After all, in the examples given of integers with the addition operation or strings with the concatenation operation, it isn't difficult to think of calculating a+b+c by applying the + operation twice. You just work out a+b and then apply the operation again to that and c.
In other words, a+b+c = (a+b)+c.
In fact, in the case of adding integers or concatenating strings, you could work from the right too and work out b+c first and then apply the operation to a and that.
In other words, a+b+c = a+(b+c)
The fact that you can work this out by successive applications of a binary operation working either from the left or right isn't true of all binary operations. For example, if our set is the integers and our operation is subtraction then we can get a different result depending on which pair we start this.
If we interpret 3-2-1 as (3-2)-1 we get 0. However, if we interpret 3-2-1 as 3-(2-1) we get 2.
Addition of integers has a property that subtraction on integers does not. This property is called associativity.
A binary operation # on a set is said to be associative if and only if (a#b)#c = a#(b#c) for all a, b and c in the set.
If a binary operation is associative, it doesn't matter which way we calculate a#b#c.
If a binary operation is non-associative, we have to decide, usually just as a convention, whether we calculate the left-most pair first or the right-most pair first. If we adopt a left-first convention, the operator is said to be left-associative and if we adopt a right-first convention, the operator is said to be right-associative.
Note that left-associative and right-associative mean that the operation is non-associative. In other words, a binary operation is either associative or not and if not, then (by convention) left-associative or right-associative.
Subtraction on the integers is left-associative by convention. 3-2-1 = 0 and not 2.
Exponentiation on the integers is taken to be right-associative. 3^3^2 = 3^(3^2) = 3^9 and not (3^3)^2 = 27^3.
UPDATE: next post
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)
To begin topology, we took a set and added some structure to it by designating certain subsets as open sets.
To begin algebra, we will start with a set and add some structure to it by defining a binary operation.
An operation is a rule that takes one or more objects from a set and results in another object. For example, the addition operation takes two numbers and results in another number.
If the result is always in the same set the inputs came from, the set is said to be closed under that operation.
If an operation takes two inputs, it is called a binary operation.
So addition is an example of a binary operation and the set of integers is closed under that operation.
String concatenation is another example where two strings are concatenated to form a third.
Note that as long as you can define the rule (if need be just by listing the result for each pair of inputs) you have an operation.
So there is nothing wrong with defining a set {A, B, C} and defining some rule # such that: A#A = A, A#B = C, A#C = B, B#A = A, B#B = B, B#C = C, C#A = A, C#B = A, C#C = A
In this example, don't try to look for any pattern. I just randomly picked some results. All we require to have a binary operation is that a result is defined for each pair of inputs.
UPDATE: next post
by : Created on March 14, 2005 : Last modified March 14, 2005 : (permalink)