onderhond blog - onderhond.com

secret/jay chou

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:05:57 +0200

I never heard of Jay Chou before, but simply based on this film alone he seems to be quite a talent. Secret is really his film, as he acts, directs, plays the piano and serves as singer/songwriter. That's a lot for a guy not even in his 30s. It's even more impressive how he manages to weave all his talents into a solid whole, easily defining a style of his own.

The core of Secret sounds pretty cliché, with Chou playing a pretty boy starting school and falling in love with the school's outcast. The first part of the film really doesn't go much behind its premise and doesn't intend to be anything more than a simple romantic drama. Luckily Chou is helped by good performances of the entire cast and some solid cinematography, which makes it all very easy to bear.

Apart from the love story there is a big musical angle too, resulting in a few nice scenes on the piano, the most interesting one being the piano battle between Chou and the school's biggest piano talent. It brings some fresh ideas to the film which at that time is really nothing more than a solid genre piece. It's of course also a good way for Chou to demonstrate his talents on the piano. And impressive it is.

The path for the film seems fixed after the first part, but Chou knows how to surprise. Halfway through he adds a magical twists to the story elevating the film above many of its peers. While at the same time it adds to the drama and sentiment, it never crosses the border of becoming a true melodrama as the fantastic elements keep the film from turning into a simple tearjerker.

This magical twists also allows Chou to play with the visuals some more, resulting in several beautifully shot and constructed scenes. In places, the CGi is a tad too intrusive but that is easily forgotten as it is never there just for visual kicks alone. The soundtrack remains pretty active and is not what you'd call subtle, but since it is integrated so well into the whole story it never becomes bothersome and Chou hits the rights notes time after time again.

It's nice to see so many things go right in a film like this. Visually Secret is solid and often stunning, the acting is equally solid and with Anthony Wong completing the cast you really can't go wrong. While the film starts of in pretty classical manner, halfway through it really blooms and turns into a very quirky and lovable genre film creating an impressive universe of its own. Chou really shines as a director in the second part of Secret, making me curious to any new output will see of him.

It's nice to see young talent like this thriving. As a whole, the films feels a tad poppy and maybe a bit too flimsy, apart from that it's one big solid romance with a pretty cool twist and a magnificent ending leaving you pretty fulfilled after the film has finished. 4.0*/5.0*

Interested, check out the trailer.

aquatopia/fun with fish

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:09:31 +0200

On the 21st of July, we celebrate the birth of our nation. This means most people get a day off and you can't do jack because most of the cool places to visit are closed. Luckily, there are a few exceptions, so we took the chance to visit one of the biggest city fishtanks in Europe (or so I've been told). Aquatopia is a nice place if you like to goggle at fish and related sea specimen.

Rather than talk about fish (and honestly, it's not that I can tell you interesting stuff about them, I just love the variety of forms and colors really), I'll share some of the pictures I've taken there. Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist in your own city. Enjoy!

a colorful bunch

fish train

exploring the corals

droopy-faced fish are cute

taking in too much air

as proud as a peacock

look like a horse, act like a monkey

emo-fish discovered

stealth mode on

sharks and other impressive fish

It's a fun place if you're visiting Antwerp and you've got an hour or two to spare. Entrance tickets are not exactly cheap but if you can afford it be sure to hop in sometime if you get the chance.

(h)onder(d)hond.com/100 posts jubilee

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:49:30 +0200

It's probably not smart making Dutch puns on a site which has an international audience, but I just couldn't resist. After 245 days of blogging, I finally added my 100th post. A nice milestone that deserves a little attention and reflection. It's also a good time to tell you something more about the whole Onderhond deal I guess.

I remember pretty well that right before starting my blog I read an article that mentioned half of the bloggers quit after the first 4 months. It actually frightened me a bit as I had really no idea what I was getting myself into. Luckily I survived those first 4 months (although I can understand why so many quit) and I'm still here to celebrate my 100th post.

Looking back at my articles I might not really be a true blogger either, as I do my best to write articles instead of blog posts. I've been thinking about removing the word "blog" from my site completely, but the alternatives I came up with never really related as much to the continuity of fresh content as the word "blog" does. I guess I'll just leave it be for now.

As for the whole Onderhond monicker thing, I know it was a strange decision to take a Dutch language url/monicker for a site with an international audience, but it's a nick that served me well on the net for over 8 years now. It's always and everywhere available too, and it's really too closely connected to my persona to simply neglect it. For those who are curious, onderhond is actually a Dutch transliteration of the word underdog (under = onder, dog = hond). And for the pun in the title, honderd = hundred. So nobody can complain about feeling left out.

Guess that's it for now, on to the next 100 posts! Though I'll probably reach my 1 year celebration before that. For me it's been worthwhile so far, hope it been the same for you.

css type selectors/designing the semantic web

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:43:39 +0200

html and css are closely connected, no doubt about that. When we style a web document we do it through the mark-up of the document. It's one of the pillars of modern web design and we all take it for granted. But take a closer look and you'll find that this way of working isn't always as logical as it sounds. This article will focus on the way html and css coexist and the effect this should have on the way we write our css.

avoiding inconsistencies

When people start off writing css the results are often pretty chaotic. Starters focus on making things work, which leaves css files badly structured and littered with inconsistencies. It was like that for me too. But the more I learned about css, the more I saw the need to avoid these inconsistencies and to optimize my way of writing css.

Of course, there is no one way to write css, so from time to time I had to decide which choices would be most beneficial in the long run. One particular problem had me puzzled for quite some time and it wasn't until recently that I found some good arguments to base my decision on.


		/* css selector with type selector */
		ol.breadcrumb
		/* css selector without type selector */

		.breadcrumb

When looking into the way I composed my css selectors I asked myself whether it would be useful to include the type selector to a class selector. The little piece of code above illustrates the decision I was trying to make. The choice is easy when a class selector can appear on multiple html elements, but what if the class was unique to one html element?

coming up with arguments

There are things to be said about both ways of working. For one, if you leave the type selector off it will decrease the length of your selector which improves the readability of your css file, especially when many selectors are stringed together. Less scrolling sideways is a good thing. On the other hand, adding the type selector does give you extra information on the class and might make it easier to recognize elements as you got the html element to help you out.

A more important argument popped up when I was revising our deliverables (our company only does front-end, so we deliver templates to be implemented by partners). Adding the type selector locks the css to the html code. By doing this, you create an extra checkpoint for people to implement the templates you deliver. If, for example, they used an <ul> element to mark up the breadcrumb it wouldn't be styled and they would know there was something wrong with the implementation. The argument was good enough for me and I started to include the type selector.

flexibility, the magic word

This went well for a while, but soon I also started to notice the drawbacks of locking css to html. I become more aware of the semantic meaning of some html elements and as I read through several discussions I saw the need to change a few things. One of those things was the breadcrumb, which I changed from an <ul> to an <ol>. When I did that, all the css styling dropped off even though the component itself hadn't really changed. Not a good thing.

It may not seem very likely for things like this to pop up often, but with html5 and xhtml2 in the pipeline I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few html implementations will change over time. And when that happens, it would be nice to simply change the html templates without having to touch the css. So flexibility became my key argument for leaving the type selector off, but something still didn't feel quite right.

the theory

If you really think about applying css to html on a very basic level, it doesn't make too much sense. html might be is a semantic language, but at the same time it's very generic. Of course we can add styles and layout to a paragraph, but most mark-up elements are too generic to really tell us anything about the actual component we're styling (think of everything marked up with a <div>).

Going back to our breadcrumb, you'll see that I've used a list to implement it. But a breadcrumb is pretty specific implementation of a list, which is in itself a very generic term. As a matter of fact, the most important semantic information in this case comes from the class we added on the list (the microformats principal). The reason why we use the list element is because we don't have any better, more semantic ways to implement our component.

Whenever this is the case, I believe it is safe to omit the type selector, as the added information is too generic for the component we're styling, and could be prone to change. In the case of our breadcrumb, the <ol> could be changed to <nl> (navigation list) over time, but even that would still be a generic definition. So from now on, I simply omit the type selectors whenever I'm styling a component that hasn't the exact same semantic meaning as the html element (I still use the ul selector to style plain bulleted lists for example).

concluding

The interesting part here is that many consider it logical to apply css to general semantic elements, while it is definitely not. When we are writing css we are styling components, and these components should be addressed only through their adequate html equivalents. In most cases, this means leaving the type selector off as it is simply too generic to be of any value.

An argument I'm pretty content with, and allows for more flexible css. Double gain.

island etudedd/ddhuai-en chen

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:25:12 +0200

When Huai-en Chen, famed for the cinematography of several Hsiao-hsien Hou films, made his movie the world of film took notice. Island Etude got the attention it craved until Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" claimed the spotlights. Island Etude turned out to be Oscar nominee for Taiwan but by then the film had seemingly lost its momentum and is destined to fade into obscurity.

Huai-en Chen worked as a cinematographer on Hou's "Good Men, Good Women" and "Goodbye South, Goodbye". And even though I didn't know this when I started watching Island Etude, by the time I had finished the film somehow reminded me of older Hou films. Though in the end it is mostly the differences that struck me as interesting.

Island Etude is an extremely laid back film, avoiding dramatic events and any form of clear climax. The basic premise is simple, with a young student making a round trip of Taiwan by bike in seven days. His character is given as little background as necessary, his motivations for making the trip remain sketchy throughout. This never becomes an issue as the main characters is nothing more than a straw man for showing us something about modern day Taiwan.

More important are the places he visits and the people he meets. In that sense, this film is a typical road movie. The film is structured in 7 segments, each segment representing one day in the boy's travels. Apart from the beginning (which cuts in halfway the first day) and the ending (starting the first day) the film is also pretty classical in structure, so no surprises there.

Chen grants us a look into the world that is modern day Taiwan, which is were his film mostly differs from Hou's earlier work. There is time for tradition and history in Island Etude, but the film is also filled with modern technological and cultural references. The people met on the trip are diverse and all have something different and unique to bring to the picture. In between, Chen also has plenty of time to show off the better side of Taiwan with some very nice nature photography.

Visually, the film is excellent, which is to be expected. Chen knows how to frame his shots and makes sure to transfer the laid back feeling to his images without slowing the film down too much. The editor is a tad too eager at times but besides that the rhythm of the film is almost perfect. Sadly, the choice of music is not too daring but apart from one rather loud and obnoxious song fits the film well. I guess Chen could've done more in this department, as the music falls short in enforcing the same laid back feeling oozing from other elements within the film.

Island Etude walks the fragile edge of fake-doc, road movie and promo video but the balance never tilts to the wrong side. The people met on the journey are strangely realistic (and are often non-professional actors) and even though there's little drama and the back alley of Taiwan is nicely avoided the film never comes off as too pretentious or too pushy to actually be bothered by it.

Island Etude is a nice little film bearing little to no weak points, but never really excelling either. It does calm you down while watching and is able to keep the laid back feeling throughout the movie without ever becoming boring. A nice drama and fun to see a less historical view of Taiwan for a change. 4.0*/5.0*

As always, a trailer tells much more than any review can, so check it out.