Mindhunter

Mindhunter
❝How can we get ahead of crazy if we don't know how crazy thinks?❞
There is a new series on Netflix and its gripping story, beautifully set in the late 1970s, shows how FBI crime fighters slowly learn to think like the serial killers they must face.

I was beginning to wonder about how the writers of this show were coming up with their storyline. Simple, they had some strong reality to back it up in the form of a non-fiction eponymic book.
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Hunter-Inside-Elite-Serial/dp/0671528904

If you're interested in sociology and behavioral science, then this was tailored for you, and me. I found it especially enjoyable because the illusion of being educated is stronger that the guilty pleasure, a rare thing.

Shot Caller

Shot Caller
Do you know this man?

For millions of us this was Jaime Lannister whom we last saw yesterday, but in this 2017 movie Nikolaj Coster-Waldau becomes a man who's stay in a Californian prison has hardened and changed in a cruel and irreversible way.

It is a wonderfully written and played movie which I can warmly recommend to anyone who appreciates the intricacies of a realistic drama fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Caller_(film),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaj_Coster-Waldau

Gifted - 2017

Gifted - 2017
A coincidence brought me to see this movie within days of the death of Maryam Mirzakhani. Captain America's actor in a touching role raising a 7 years old girl too gifted to be comfortable with fellows of the same age. A family movie I warmly recommend if you need a break from your typical Saturday night brain narcotizer blockbuster.

I wish they'd given a bit more importance to the mathematics, which is the girl's passion, but I guess there aren't enough mathematicians out there to pay back for the production costs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_(film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqTSKqBCdf0&feature=share

❝I want a beach body,’ I told him.

❝I want a beach body,’ I told him. ‘There are beautiful seventy-year-old girls out there, and I’d like to turn their heads.❞
❝To understand this, we must recognise that work, health and wellbeing are closely and powerfully linked
[...]
retirement is little more than an incubator for illness and health problems.
[...]
Your teenage years are in the distant past, but at sixty-five you face another period of soul-searching, experimentation and boundary testing as you get to grips with your new place in life. Retirement is responsible here.❝
Dr Charles Eugster, 1919-2017

LONDON, 27th APRIL 2017 - Dr Charles Eugster, the best-selling author and record-breaking athlete, has died in London at the age of 97. His publicist confirmed he passed away Wednesday evening from complications following heart failure.

He died the same week I finished reading the legacy book he left to the world. Charles has had an incredibly busy life until the very last days as he was readying for the World Masters Indoor Championships in South Korea.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first part of the book where he wittingly comes back over his long life, then came the many insightful advices on good aging from where the above quotes are coming. I am still too young for the last part but I might come back to it in a few decades.
http://amzn.eu/2TdcIjq

3D like it was meant to be

3D like it was meant to be
The weather was supposed to be rainy today so yesterday I booked a ticket to see the "Ghost in the Shell" movie in an IMAX 3D setting. It didn't rain, at all, but I was darn glad I took my rain coat along as I wore it during the entire play. That freaking air conditioning might have gotten me a cold while in my last days in the tropics.

After Tokyo or Hong Kong, where parts of the movie was shot, I could not think of any other better place than Singapore to see this movie. The flyover scenes at night between and from above the skycrapers are fantastic.

In comparison to my previous moviegoer 3D exposure, IMAX got it better so that the glasses do not take too much from the images away; the contrast and colors are still good. My best homage is probably that I could finally forget about those glasses and about 3d and focus on the film.

As for the movie, it is what one would expect in this day and age for a science-fiction movie built for an international audience. A story meant not to give anyone a headache and one of the vilain who ends up dying as a hero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_%282017_film%29

Metal Fatigue at the Movies?

Metal Fatigue at the Movies?
Is there a good movie with famous actors (James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich) centered around the strength of material, about the work of a scientist specialized on the theory of the elastic and plastic behavior of materials under strain applied over long period of time?

Yes, "No Highway in the Sky" is a 1951 black and white British movie which does just that, suspenseful until the last couple of minutes. Who would bet a penny on such a scenario nowadays?

This is a typical creation from that post–World War II economic expansion, witness of a time when science and technology were getting a much greater importance than religions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_(material)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Highway_in_the_Sky

Offshore Fossil Energy Update

Offshore Fossil Energy Update
Last week I watched the Deepwater Horizon movie ➊. I found it to be a worthwhile entertainment but I became quickly frustrated as unanswered questions kept piling up: What exactly were they doing? What went wrong and why did it have those specific consequences. Above all I wanted to know how close to the truth the movie was and, actually, the movie is surprisingly close for both the story ➋ and even the person's faces involved ➌.

The internet being such a great resource I quickly found all my answers and much more ➍, also a technological update where lessons from the Macondo field catastrophe were drawn ➎.

All in all it was a good reminder about what we are willing to do in terms of capital and technology investments in order to tap into that 150 million years old solar energy, stored deeply underground as hydrocarbon.

This must be right up in your alley Olivier Malinur though you probably already know most of this stuff.
┈
➡➊ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1860357 (IMDB entry)
➡➋ https://youtu.be/qnrIE8TrgSA (extended version of Mike William's interview)
➡➌ http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/deepwater-horizon/ (Real people vs. actors)
➡➍ https://youtu.be/aN2TIWomahQ (Standford's Roland Horne, Professor in the Department of Energy Resources)
➡➎ https://youtu.be/KDTeWxIRwgg (Eric van Oort, Professor of Petroleum Engineering)