playing in the uncanny valley

This article is a few days old, but I haven't had the time/mental coherence to address it.

But IMHO it's absolutely right - those hyper-real graphics look great on something like, say Buckbeak from the latest Harry Potter, but if not creepy then just downright wrong when they try to create humans!

While the eerieness could be used to great effect, it almost never is - the trailer for "The Polar Express", (in which the character voiced by Tom Hanks looks exactly like him) seems to me to be just a vehicle for animator's wet dreams, because it certainly would have looked better if they'd used real people.

Exception: it worked ok in the Shrek movies, if only because the people were so cartoon-like to begin with.

biohazard!

( I always thought of myself as a stomach virus - slow burn before you start retching )

And no, the quiz isn't a reflection of a bad day, it's actually going rather well, apart from email with a dramatic case of the slows :P

Tonight I'm going to try and give a call to a friend who is as email-phobic as I am phone-phobic. Might also try to do a pedicure. I'm still in this continuing "mellow" mood and I figure it's probably best to do these social/personal "maintenance" things before something else devours my attention!