2008 is officially over, and thus it’s time to list. And I have a particular interest in movies, so I made a list of my top ten movies. Btw, they’re in no particular order.

1. Gomorra

The film weaves together five different stories: Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a discreet middleman, responsible for paying the families of prisoners, who finds his loyalties tested as the clan leadership is threatened; Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a 13-year-old boy who falls in with a criminal gang after he hides a gun from the police; Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) is a graduate who becomes slowly disillusioned with his charismatic boss Franco (Toni Servillo) as a result of his new job in toxic waste management; Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) is a haute couture tailor who puts his life in danger when he accepts a job training Chinese competitors; and Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are two cocky wannabe gangsters who find a stash of weapons and decide to make a name for themselves.

2. WALL*E

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off? After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built
for, WALL*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when
he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet’s future,
and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile,
WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of
characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots.

3. Man on Wire

Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center and is based on Philippe Petit’s book, To Reach the Clouds.

4. Milk

After moving to San Francisco, the middle-aged New Yorker, Harvey Milk, became a Gay Rights activist and city politician. On his third attempt, he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1977, making him the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the USA. The following year, both he and the city’s mayor, George Moscone, were shot to death by former city supervisor, Dan White, who blamed his former colleagues for denying White’s attempt to rescind his resignation from the board. Mr. Milk had been the subject of several books and the Academy Award-winning documentary feature, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984); but Milk (2008) is the first fictional feature to explore private aspects of the man’s personal life and career. Milk was filmed on location in San Francisco. Many of Mr Milk’s real-life surviving friends and former associates participated in the making of this film, several appearing on camera.

5. Slumdog Millionaire

The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions. Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out. At the heart of its storytelling lies the question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love

6. Die Fälscher

The Counterfeiters is the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis in 1936. Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a mischievous life of cards, booze, and women in Berlin during the Nazi-era. Suddenly his luck runs dry when arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. Immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills there and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Bernhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. But while Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany’s allied opponents, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop Operation Bernhard’s aid to the war effort. Faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions, which could prolong the war and risk the lives of fellow prisoners, are ultimately the right ones.

7. The Wrestler

A drama centered on retired professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson as he makes his way through the independent circuit, trying to
get back in the game for one final showdown with his former rival

8. Iron Man

Tony Stark is the complete playboy who also happens to be an engineering genius. While in Afghanistan demonstrating a new missile he’s captured and wounded. His captors want him to assemble a missile for them but instead he creates an armored suit and a means to prevent his death from the shrapnel left in his chest by the attack. He uses the armored suit to escape. Back in the U.S. he announces his company will cease making weapons and he begins work on an updated armored suit only to find that Obadiah Stane, his second in command at Stark industries has been selling Stark weapons to the insurgents. He uses his new suit to return to Afghanistan to destroy the arms and then to stop Stane from misusing his research.

9. The Dark Knight

Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker.

10. Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller’s satirical look at Hollywood, Tropic Thunder concerns the production of an epic Vietnam War film that quickly derails thanks to the giant egos of everyone involved in the production. Stiller stars as Tugg Speedman, an action hero trying to segue out of that genre. Jack Black
plays Jeff Portnoy, a drug-addicted fat comic also attempting to change his image by taking on such a serious film. They star alongside Kirk
Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), one of the world’s most awarded actors, and a man who insists on immersing himself totally in a role. In this case, that means Lazarus has had his skin dyed in order to portray an African-American soldier. After their outrageous behavior lands the film’s director, Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan), in very hot water with producer Les Grossman (Tom Cruise), Cockburn takes the advice of grizzled Vietnam vet Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte); in order to gain control of his performers, Cockburn drops the actors off in the jungle, planning to film the movie guerrilla-style with hidden cameras. When the group stumbles upon a heroin production camp, the actors are unaware that they are in very real danger.

If you have some other tips or things to add, please let me know via the contact or submit forms located at the top or just place a comment.

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Not so long ago I’ve lost just about 20lbs in 8 weeks. I consider this a great result and have regained most of my confidence.

I know that most of the people who are overweight can achieve the same (or better) results. And in fact all it takes is a strong willpower (and a good amount of excersise and a good diet).

Here are some sites which are jam-packed full of information about weight-loss and health;

• Health.com
• WebMD
• Yahoo! Health
• About.com: Exercise
• WeightWatchers.co.uk
• Australian Lifestyle & Fitness

I don’t want to just leave you guys with some sites about fitness,weight-loss and health. I want to give you some tips that really helped me lose a lot of weight.

1. Don’t expect great results fast
This is one of the worst mistakes people who are on a diet make. They expect major results in the first few weeks. That won’t happen.

Don’t let this bog you down. Once you get through the first few weeks you will start to see real results. And if you stick to your diet and excersises you will also notice a consistent result.

2. Exercise
This is the other side of losing weight, it’s just as important as following a diet. Without exercise you can lose weight, but it will be a real slow process and that can put you down.

I ride my bike to school everyday, that’s 1,5 hour a day. This was enough excersise for me to get my desired results.

I highly suggest all the people in the world to atleast do half an hour of moving each day.

3. Never feel sorry for yourself
Many people cheat on their diets. I didn’t. I never felt sorry enough for myself to let me do that. Neither must you.

How to do this? Well, just keep the end result in mind and know that when you cheat you’re goal will be further out of reach. That sure helped me keep in line with my diet.

[picture by angela7dreams]

If you have some other tips or things to add, please let me know via the contact or submit forms located at the top or just place a comment.

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If you don’t live in the US of A then your stuck to waiting till the serie is aired in your country or buying it on dvd. But then you’ll have to wait for a long time.

And you don’t want to pay for something that can be viewed free somewhere else. No, it isn’t illegal. You can just watch it online, but most of those sites are shitty, these aren’t:

1. FreeTVonline
2. Freetube
3. TIOTI
4. ABC
5. TV Video
6. Choose and Watch
7. Channelking

[picture by dailyinvention]

It’s been a long time, over 12 days, since I posted. I’ve been head deep in study books for a full week, so that’s why. So after that long hard week of studying it’s time to relax. I like to play games just for the sake of doing nothing. And these days there are some great free online games site that’ll help you do that.

1. Kongregate
2. Newgrounds
3. Teagames
4. Miniclip
5. Candystand
6. Shockwave
7. Armor Games
8. Free World Group
9. Bubblebox
10. Crazy Monkey Games

[picture by helmet13]

I read Domonic O’Brien’s amazing memory book called How to Develop a Perfect Memory a year back. It’s full of practical applications of his (well actually not really ‘his’, the Greeks actually thought up of most techniques) memory techniques.

One technique he calls the Mental Diary. It basicly comes to this; you imagine a journey in a, to you, well known place i.e. your hometown. Every significant stage you give a number i.e. your house. You link a key image to a part of the stage that represents that date.

This technique relies on the brain’s amazing remembrance of places visited.

With this technique you’ll be able to know exactly what to do on what date, so you don’t need your diary anymore.

This sounds a little vague, thus I’ll walk you through it.

1. Think up a journey
This must be a journey of 30 stages (and one 31 staged journey for 2 months). Think of a well known place, to you. Your hometown is most likely the best candidate.

I’ll give a little example; start with your house, this is number 1. Now go in any direction and give each noticable feature a number, up to 31. For me number 2 will be the park just besides my house. Now continue your journey through your hometown till you reach number 31 (for a 30 day month you can stop at thirty, obviously).

Note: make your path clear and spaced, don’t clutter. Doing this will prevent confusion.

2. Link
For every item you need to fulfill on a certain date, i.e. going to the doctor, you must think up a key image. In this case it´s obvious a doctor.

But it´s important to overdo it. So imagine a doctor with a huge stethoscope hanging around his neck. Your brain is much better in remembering crazy shit:)

Link this image to the place, for instance your house. Seeing a doctor with a huge stethoscope standing infront of your door will remind you of the doctors appointment.

But the appointment is at a certain time, so you must link a time to it. I do this by imagining the time written on the object/person. So in this case I see, let’s say 12.00 on the forehead of the doctor. You can use another method, namely the peg system, but I won’t go into this, if you want more info just click this link.

A day can obviously have more than 1 important appointment (or just stuff to do). You can put it all in one location, but beware, don’t clutter it to much and keep some logic in it. Meaning, put earlier appointments first in your location.

That’s it, it may seem kind of cumbersome, but once you get the hang of it you can basicly trow away your pda/planner/diary. Just try it out for one week and see if you can remember your appointments.

[picture by wili_hybrid]

If you have some other tips or things to add, please let me know via the contact or submit forms located at the top or just place a comment.

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Well, my internet was out for a couple of days again. I didn’t fix it, it kind of fixed itself. But thinking about to solve it has giving me an idea about a post I could do about problem solving.

Their is one method that is highly effective. Pólya’s Four Principles. Using these principles you should be able to tackle any problem.

Here’s a summary of two summaries.

First principle: Unterstand the problem
This seems very obvious. But it´s often overlooked by many people. Often they can´t solve the problem because the problem is vague.

To fully understand the problem there are some questions you can ask yourself these are the steps:

• What is the unknown? What are the data? What is the condition?
• Is it possible to satisfy the condition? Is the condition sufficient to determine the unknown? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?
• Draw a figure. Introduce suitable notation.
• Separate the various parts of the condition. Can you write them down?

Second principle: Devise a plan
Now you need a plan for the problem.

• Find the connection between the data and the unknown. You may be obliged to consider auxiliary problems if an immediate connection cannot be found. You should obtain eventually a plan of the solution.
• Have you seen it before? Or have you seen the same problem in a slightly different form?
• Do you know a related problem? Do you know a theorem that could be useful?
• Look at the unknown! And try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown.
• Here is a problem related to yours and solved before. Could you use it? Could you use its result? Could you use its method? Should you introduce some auxiliary element in order to make its use possible?
• Could you restate the problem? Could you restate it still differently? Go back to definitions.
• If you cannot solve the proposed problem try to solve first some related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related problem? A more general problem? A more special problem? An analogous problem? Could you solve a part of the problem? Keep only a part of the condition, drop the other part; how far is the unknown then determined, how can it vary? Could you derive something useful from the data? Could you think of other data appropriate to determine the unknown? Could you change the unknown or data, or both if necessary, so that the new unknown and the new data are nearer to each other?
• Did you use all the data? Did you use the whole condition? Have you taken into account all essential notions involved in the problem?

Pólya mentions that there are many reasonable ways to solve problems. The skill at choosing an appropriate strategy is best learned by solving many problems. You will find choosing a strategy increasingly easy. A partial list of strategies:

• Guess and check
• Make an orderly list
• Eliminate possibilities
• Use symmetry
• Solve an equation

Third principle: Carry out the plan
This step is usually easier then actually devising the plan. In general all you need is care and patience, given that you have the necessary skills. Persist with the plan that you have chosen. If it continues not to work discard it and choose another.

• Carrying out your plan of the solution, check each step. Can you see clearly that the step is correct? Can you prove that it is correct?

Fourth principle: Review and extend
Pólya mentions that much can be gained by taking the time to reflect and look back at what you have done, what worked and what didn’t. Doing this will enable you to predict what strategy to use to solve future problems, if these relate to the original problem.

• Can you check the result? Can you check the argument?
• Can you derive the solution differently? Can you see it at a glance?
• Can you use the result, or the method, for some other problem?

While this summary may seem vague to you, and it maybe is a little when you reread it a couple of times it should be clear, atleast in my case.

This may seem like a utterly long method of solving a little problem, and it is. But using it when you are facing a big problem can really make the difference.

[picture by www.paata.ge]

If you have some other tips or things to add, please let me know via the contact or submit forms located at the top or just place a comment.

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