I have reviewed all my events post, and I think nowadays, we need more creative technologies in our life, but at the same time, we shouldn't forget the old things. The new technologies are making our like easier, more enjoyable, more entertaining, and they are also replacing the old things. For example, we used to use film and camera to take photos, but now we we only need a digital camera. The good thing is, it's easy for us to use cameras. And the bad thing is, as less and less people use the film camera, the film company are stopping making the film. Maybe in the near future, we will lost another format of art, just like the Polaroid instant film. The new technologies give us more entertainment. In the past, we could only read the comic book and image the Iron Man's fighting scene, but now we can watch it on the big screen. I think it always good to see the new creative technologies to change our life, but the best way is the new technologies can combine the old fashioned things as it's developing, so we can enjoy both of them at the same time.
Iron Man 2
I watched Iron Man 2 on Saturday night. Before I watched the movie, I heard from others that the second one is a step below the original one. But after I have seen it, I think it was also a very good movie. Maybe the story was not perfect, like the scene of tony made a new element by using his homemade machine. But this is a super hero movie, anything could happens. Different from the original one, the second one more focused on Tony Stark's character, like his childhood and alcohol problem. I like the new character in this movie, which is the bad guy - Ivan Vanko. Ivan also had ability to make a very powerful suite, because of this, there were lots of very good fighting scenes. I enjoyed those fighting scenes, specially the one they were fighting on a F1 track, it was interesting to see two man fighting with super power. With no questions about the ending, the good guy beat the bad guy, as this is a traditional American super hero movie. There are so many American super hero movie, like Spiderman, Hulk, Superman, and my favorite one was Batman 2, I think thats the one can be called classic.
The Polaroid
Polaroid instant camera was the first instant camera in the world, and the SX-70 series was the most famous and classic series of all the instant cameras. I am a Polaroid lover, and almost of my collections are the SX-70 series cameras. The first SX-70 camera was sold in Florida in late 1972, so most of the SX-70 cameras are nearly 40 years old, but all of the cameras I have are still in perfect working condition. The SX-70 cameras are well all well designed, it can be collapsed into a box shape when not in use. The chemical materials inside the instant film makes every Polaroid photo has a special tone. This tone makes every photo become very special to other photos from different format of films, and this tone makes not only me but also lots of other people fall in love with Polaroid. In the SX-70 family, except the original model, there is a model with sonar autofocus system, which permitted returning to the plain focusing screen. In the late 1990s, Polaroid introduced the best instant camera ever, the SLR 690. It has the some design as the original SX-70, but with a sonar autofocus system and built-in flash. And this is one of the most expensive one in my collections. Unfortunately, in late 2008, Polaroid stopped producing the instant film, made all the Polaroid cameras became "useless", and it also made all the Polaroid cameras became remarkable pieces in the camera history. They are no longer cameras, they are artwork now.
From late 2009, "the impossible project" started selling their own made Polaroid instant film, but due to the small amount of productions, the price is way too high. Fuji makes their only format of instant cameras and films as well, but they are the original ones, and the Fuji cameras are not as nice as Polaroid.
In summer 2008, Polaroid released an instant photo printer, PoGo. With the new technology, this small printer can print photos directly from a cellphone or a digital camera. But the photos have lost the special tone from the Polaroid instant film.
Opening of the Virtual Reality Suite
I attended the Opening of the Virtual Reality Suite at AUT yesterday, there were several very cool 3D equipments. One of the equipments used two projectors to project the video, and with the special glasses, we could see the 3D video. And I think there is a kind of 3D projector, you only need one projector to project the 3D video. The most interesting one was a 3D TV. Normally we need a pair of special glasses to see the 3D videos, and for people who already had one pair of glasses, it's a trouble to put another pair on. But with this TV, we don't need any glasses to see the 3D video. But the problem is, you need to find a certain position to see the 3D video clearly, and I felt it was uncomfortable to watch 3D video on the TV. Hopefully the 3D TV will like a normal TV in the future, and we can see the 3D video with the glasses and watching it without making us uncomfortable any more. The 3D virtual things are becoming more and more popular, there are 3D TV programs, 3D games, even 3D Playboy magazine. Nintendo announced 3DS, which is a portable game console can produce 3D effects without the need for any special glasses. I think this is a very cool idea to put 3D effects on a portable device, and I do believe we will see more and more portable devices with 3D effects, maybe we will see iPhone 3D on next year's WWDC.
The Hurt Locker
I watched The Hurt Locker yesterday, the movie is about some American soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming bombs in Iraq. The main character William James was a bomb disposal expert, his behaves was a bit crazy, as he acted as he's indifferent to death. Every bombs disarming scenes was very real, but with no surprise, you can tell what will happen. Not like other hollywood movies, there were only few love scenes. At the end of the movie, it told me that the soldiers were all tried of war, and they need love in their life. In the movie, the US soldiers were all good guys, they were helping Iraqis. But the truth is, Americans are invading Iraq. Maybe the director was not allowed to tell the truth in the movie, so the movie was all about the hard life for US soldiers in Iraq. If we can think deeply, the Iraqis' life were even harder.
God of War
I am not a very hard core gamer, but I love the God of War series. This is an action adventure game based on Greek mythology. The God of War 1 & 2 were the first 2 games on Playstation 2 have sold a combined 8 million copies. Now God of War 3 just came out, and I spent a weekend to finish the game, I'd like to say this is what an action game should be.
Like the pervious ones, God of War 3 was also about Kratos' revenge, this time, his target was Zeus. With no mercy, Kratos killed everyone who tried to stop him. Once I started this game, I didn't want to stop until finished, because the game was good. At the end of the game, Kratos killed Zeus, then he killed himself. But I believe he haven't died yet, he will return. God of War 3 is one of the best looking game on PS3, great character models and shadows, the environments are dynamic and feel alive. But the only thing I don't like was the story, the story was not that interesting.
Rainbow's End
I went to Rainbow's End today, and this was the second time after seven years, it was still a lot of fun. Like all other theme parks, the Rainbow's End has Pirate Ship, Corkscrew Coaster, Bumper Cars...... everyone can enjoy a whole day there, no matter kids or adults.
Corkscrew Coaster was one of the very traditional one. For so many years, this is a must have equipment for a theme park, and it's always the most popular one in the park. I enjoyed every riding of the Corkscrew Coaster, but the one in the Rainbow's End is a bit short.
Invader like a advanced version of the Corkscrew Coaster, but it's more interesting. The car traveled on the track while it's spinning around, so I could feel the centrifugal force and speed at the same time. The track was ended at the both end, when the car was at the end of the track, I felt like out of the track, in the air.
Fearfall was another very interesting experience. Drop from 18 stories in about 2 seconds. The worst time was when I was at the top of the tower, because I know I was going to drop, but I don't know how soon it would happen.
I have been to many theme parks, Rainbow's End was the smallest one, but I still enjoyed.
Auckland Art Gallery
The next three pictures are from "Making Useful Useless". The artiest shredded a Toyota Corolla DX 1994 car, but it was hard to tell this artwork on the floor was a car. For the first sight, there were only "trash" on the floor, after saw the plate and parking tickets, I started to question myself "was this a car before?". There are some familiar car parts in the "trash", they were the answer of my question, it was a car before.
A very interesting artwork, it looked like a huge black cloud floating in the air. When I got closer, I can see it made of hundreds of microphones. If anyone get close to the artwork, it will start play music, the music from sky.
The artist used an airport display to tell some thing. The text on this display changes every few seconds.
After I have taken all the above photos, an art gallery staff told me I was not allowed to take photos, so I don't have the photo of my favorite. My favorite piece was "The Room with a bird", that was a room with several perches hanging from the roof. When someone walk by, perches move just like a bird jumps off it, and there is also a bird noise. When I was in this room, I felt there was a bird in the room, it made noise and jumped off the perch, but I couldn't see it.