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When Jason Hughes, best known as the ‘Tesla Hacker’ who first spotted the upcoming 100 kWh battery pack in the Model S’ OS, retrofitted a classic Tesla Model S P85 with an entire Autopilot hardware suite, something Tesla itself refuses to do because of the cost and complexity, we thought we just witnessed the apogee…
New York City’s subway system is probably one of the best in the world, but it’s in desperate need of a makeover. Luckily for New Yorkers who rely on the subway for their daily commutes, the city is ready to upgrade the system over the next five years. The city is ordering over 1,000 cars with advanced features…
via New York City’s subway is getting a massive makeover and it looks amazing — BGR
The Central Garden at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, May 2004.
This picture that is part of what I call the GMF Gallery, which comprised of my all-time favorite photos. I took many of these pictures before I started publishing this blog. Starting with this picture, I’m going feature some of these pictures individually or in small groups.
In the past couple of months I have been catching up on watching a few movies that I wanted watch, but that I just never got around to seeing in the theatre when they were initially released. I like watching movies on my iPad and I could not watch any for awhile because my old 1st Gen iPad only had 32GB of memory and I just plain ran out of space to store movies, even temporary rentals. That ain’t a problem while my iPad Pro and the 128GB it has. The Pro also has four speakers, opposed the one speaker the original iPad had.
Here are four films that I have rented watched recently, along with a few comments on each film and the score that gave each film on IMDb.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens VII
I saw the original Star Wars films in the theatre way back the day and I always enjoyed the films, but I never considered them great sci fi.
This is one film that I do regret not seeing on the big screen because the special effects were so outstanding. Unfortunately, I found the story somewhat disappointing because it was so unoriginal. I thought the new cast members were pretty good overall, but I’m not sure if anyone of them will breakout and become a big star.
However, there was enough done well in this film to be hopeful the parts VIII and IX will provide an exciting end to the Star Wars saga.
Score: 6/10
Spectre
The last of the Daniel Craig Bond films and it was a very solid entry in the series. I have enjoyed Craig as 007. The only actor that I would rank above Craig as Bond was Sean Connery, who really owned the role. But Craig really breathed to life in the role when he took it over in 2006 with the elegant and exciting Casino Royale. Looking back on the four Craig films I rate Casino Royale as the best of the group and Spectre as second best.
Score: 7/10
Sicario
I had high expectations for this contemporary crime drama because of the numerous positive reviews it received and I must say this film met my expectations.
The principal cast members Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro all turned in excellent performances.
Score: 8/10
The Grand Hotel Budapest
Another quirky, inventive, very funny and highly entertaining film from writer/ director Wes Anderson. I think Anderson is one the most talented filmmakers working and TGHB was a worthy addition to his overall body of work. The Life Aquatic is still my favorite Wes Anderson, but TGHB is right up there with other WA films that I think very highly of, including Moonrise Kingdom and The Royal Tenenbaums. Like those films the cast in TGHB was incredibly impressive.
Score 9/10
More to come…..
Took a short trip down route 611 today to Riegelsville, PA, which is about 9 miles south of Easton, PA. Like Easton, it is right on the Delaware river. It is the first town south of Easton that has a bridge to New Jersey.
The Riegelsville Bridge opened in 1904 and was designed by the engineering firm of John A. Roebling’s Sons Co. Roebling designed many notable bridges, including the iconic Brooklyn Bridge.
One of the buildings that I was most interested in seeing in person during my recent trips to NYC was Via 57 West, the first building in NYC designed by celebrated Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). As the name of the building implies, it located on West 57th street. To be specific, 57 West is located at 625 West 57th Street, which is all the way over on the far West Side, right on the West Side Highway.
The building’s shape is very distinctive and it really stands out from a distance because of it’s size and shape. The building is pyramid shaped and rises 35 stories. You can very clearly see the building from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. I think the building’s unique design is indeed very impressive, especially at a time when many much more conventional boxy glass lined high rises are popping up all over Manhattan.I hope the this building inspires other daring innovative designs both in and out of New York City.
I think one thing that is less than ideal about West 57 is it’s location. One of the most attractive features of the building is that many units have terraces that are designed to take advantage of spectacular views of Manhattan and the Hudson. I honestly think a better location for this building would have been Jersey City or Brooklyn or Queens, so it faced the Manhattan skyline, instead of being part of it. Some of the 750 units do face south, so the residents do look out upon Midtown West and lower Manhattan. They also face the Jersey’s Gold Coast, which isn’t a bad view, but it cannot compare to the view that Manhattan would provide from the other side of the Hudson river. If it had been built on East River, in Queens or Brooklyn, it also would have had superior views. However, this is also a very high end luxury building and the rents are quite high, with studio’s starting at $3500.00 per moth and some two/three bedroom units going north of 10k per month. The building could probably not command those kind rents in Jersey City or Queens, so in that respect I can understand why the developers would want West 57 right where it is. You have to have a Manhattan address to take advantage of the truly high end of the Manhattan Real Estate market.
I read a very interesting article on the Forbes website (link below) this morning about a guy who lived on Bitcoin for year and half while traveling around the world. I have followed Bitcoin for several years and I’m bullish on it in the long run. Bitcoin is not ready to replace conventional currencies quite yet, but this article demonstrates what great strides the cyber currency has made in recent years.
During one of my recent trips to NYC I took quick trip over to Hoboken so I could snap a few shots of Manhattan’s West Side from the Jersey side of the Hudson. I took the Path train over to NJ and took a stroll through the historic Hoboken Terminal, one of my all-time favorite train stations. It was a Saturday when I visited so the station was largely vacant because the vast majority of the NJ Transit trains it serves only run Monday to Friday.
The Beaux-Arts style Rail and Ferry Terminal buildings were built in 1907. The building was designed by architect Kenneth M Murchison. A lot of work has been put in over the course of the last decade or so to restore this building. I remember what the terminal was like back in the 80’s and 90’s and was no where near as nice as it is now.
Here are a few the pictures I took at the Terminal that day. All photos were taken with my iPhone SE.
I recently posted a few articles that I found interesting here on the gmf journal. In general, yes, if I repost or retweet an item it means that I found it interesting and worth sharing. But, I do want to make something clear, which is that just because I repost an article on this blog or retweet a comment or link on Twitter that does not necessarily mean that totally agree with content contained in the article or tweet.
I found this article very interesting and thought provoking. It may seem extreme to some to describe the U.S, as an Empire, but the author makes strong arguments in my opinion.
gmf journal 