Year: 2025

Transformers One (2024)

I didn’t know anything about this movie before watching it, except that it looked colorful; my husband watched a trailer, and I got a glimpse of it. In particular, I didn’t know this was an origin story about Optimus Prime and Megatron. It took me waaaay too long to figure that out! However, I’m proud that on my own I identified the voice of Laurence Fishburne (who played Morpheus in The Matrix).

Characters
Orion Pax (a younger Optimus Prime) is curious, brave, and loyal, but I wouldn’t choose him for a friend. He has about 500% too much spontaneity for my taste. D-16 (a younger Megatron), his best friend, is sadly lacking in resilience, it turns out. Elita-1 is ambitious and hardworking, and somehow gets tangled up in Orion Pax’s drama in spite of her strong preference for doing things by the book. B-127 (a younger Bumblebee, or as he calls himself, “Badassatron”) is awkward, energetic, and irrepressibly talkative.

Setting
The story takes place on Cybertron, a whole planet of transformers. Orion Pax, D-16, and Elita-1 work in the energon mines. B-127 works sorting trash, also deep below the city. The dynamic, metallic surface of the planet is home to some robot-like animals, some ruins, some actual green plants, and a colony of outcasts. And it’s visited by aliens from another world… Why?

Premise
Cybertron was defeated in an interplanetary war, and its guardians, the primes, were all destroyed, except Sentinel Prime, who periodically leaves the city to search for the Matrix of Leadership, an important object of power that was lost in the war. Orion Pax is looking for it too, because he dreams of being a hero; he feels his potential is being wasted.

Theme
There’s a very explicit theme: a rejection of “Might makes right.” Subsidiary messages have sensible things to say about the importance of friendship, truth, and self-actualization.

Style
It’s a PG-rated animated science-fiction action/comedy with a slick, bright neon color palette that manages to suggest the 1980s.

Overall?
I hope we get more of these! I was so disappointed with the Michael Bay series (I think I only watched the first two), for their trashy tone, meh choice of lead actor, and loud chaotic action. Therefore, it pleases me that someone has, uh, transformed the source material in a manner appreciably more watchable.

Balinese wood dragon #3

Item description / significance
This is a winged dragon carved from wood, made in Indonesia. Size: Height 22 cm x Depth 19 cm x Width 12 cm. Attached paper price tag says Rp 275,000 (~US$17). No damage.

Bought where
in China on Xianyu, the Chinese second-hand marketplace app

(Want one? Novica sells Balinese wood dragons.)

Age and origin
age unknown, made in Bali, Indonesia

What I like about it
It’s a dragon! With wings! The detail is good.

Other notes
This is actually the third second-hand Balinese wooden dragon I’ve bought! I found the other two in Singapore on the second-hand marketplace app Carousell. They’re a little bigger.

» See Dave the dragon

» See Karen the dragon

See below for photos of Dave and Karen’s little sister, including photos from the Xianyu seller. Continue reading Balinese wood dragon #3

Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are by Kevin J. Mitchell

I used to work for Princeton University Press (PUP), and once in a while I go look through their list of new releases. There was a time when I read the whole printed catalog cover to cover in the course of my duties; it always made me want to get hold of the books and become more informed on topics ranging from the geology of South America to… Dining Posture in Ancient Rome.

Now, it’s no different. I see PUP books, I want to learn stuff! A while back I heard about a PUP sale, and made a list of books to be considered for purchase (as ebooks, since I’m out of range of most English-language book supply chains, and the books I can get aren’t cheap). But I don’t like forking over money for ebooks, because I don’t feel like they’re mine, I can’t see them on my shelf, and there’s a limitless supply of public domain ebooks that I can read for free. So in the end, I narrowed the shortlist down to just one book, this one. It purports to answer a compelling question, one that’s addressed to some extent in the twin studies book I read recently: What makes us who we are?

Continue reading Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are by Kevin J. Mitchell

When and Why I Read Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are

I'm reading this because the twins book made me want to learn more about inherent differences and similarities between people.

Genre: neuroscience
Date started / date finished: 27-Jan-25 to 07-Feb-25
Length: 306 pages
ISBN: B07CSHZRGN
Originally published in: 2018
Amazon link: Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are

Entwined Lives by Nancy L. Segal

My reading is about half fiction and half non-fiction; among non-fiction books, there are a lot of pop-science books; among the pop-science books, there are a lot of pop-psychology books. Some of the pop-psychology books have made interesting (but rather isolated) statements about twin studies. These statements intrigued me; surely the scientific study of twins deserved to be described in more depth. Finally, I’ve read a whole book about twin studies!

Author Nancy L. Segal is a researcher (and a twin) with an early 2000s-style website and a number of books to her name; this book, Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior, isn’t the most recent book she’s published, but seems to be the most general. It may actually be the most accessible, general book on twin studies in existence. So if the topic interests you, read on.

Continue reading Entwined Lives by Nancy L. Segal

When and Why I Read Entwined Lives

FINALLY I'm reading a book that I hope will shed more light on my understanding of the nature/nurture debate from the perspective of twin studies. Once in a while I read a sentence that suggests a surprising amount of similarity between identical twins is innate (twin brothers separated at birth both walk backwards into the sea?), but of course the reality is complex. And maybe after this I can read a book that's more recent than 1999, lol.

Genre: biology
Date started / date finished: 28-Dec-24 to 04-Feb-25
Length: 337 pages
ISBN: 0525944656
Originally published in: 1999
Amazon link: Entwined Lives

Fluorite from Wuyi

Item description / significance
This is a group of seven fluorite display objects, each on a wooden stand:

  • A mostly green polished sphere with a purple stripe (stand can rotate)
  • A smooth translucent purple lizard carving
  • A rough purple and green lizard carving with white crystals
  • A bright green translucent “kryptonite” natural crystal formation
  • A sparkly purple natural crystal formation
  • A polished slice of purple and green fluorite with white “feathers”
  • A purple three-legged “wealth toad” carving

Bought where
in Wuyi, Zhejiang Province, China, in a shop inside a residential complex

Age and origin
basically new, from Wuyi

What I like about them
There are so many kinds of fluorite… each of these pieces has unique characteristics in terms of color, texture, shape, size, and interaction with light, thus they attracted me for different reasons. The polished flat slice is the thing that struck me first, and seemed unique in the shop; the pure bright green crystal caught Siqi’s attention; the sphere has a purely symmetrical shape and smooth texture that minimizes distraction from the stone’s colors; I wanted a piece that showcases chaotic sparkly square crystals; and I wanted at least one animal carving.

Other notes
I bought two lizards even though I usually don’t buy two similar items. The logic is, if I buy two similar things, then I will probably wind up liking one more than the other, and the less-liked one will cause regret by seeming redundant. I decided that the lizards were both spectacular enough, each in its own way, and that I’d regret leaving either of them behind.

See below for more on how we found the shop where I got all this stuff, and photos of the items. In particular, the crystal on the far left really is bright green, though it doesn’t look green at all in the photo above!

Continue reading Fluorite from Wuyi

“English” on signs in Wuyi and Jinhua

Below are five funny English text samples I saw on a brief road trip with my husband Siqi and his parents to Wuyi, Zhejiang Province (a city with a population of 460,000). On our way back to Hangzhou, we passed through Jinhua, Zhejiang Province (a city with a metro area population of 1,258,000).

Continue reading “English” on signs in Wuyi and Jinhua

Wuyi Fluorite Museum

There’s a trip.com page about this place, and a couple of stilted English-language news articles that mention it, and that’s all.

Hello, Wuyi Hot Spring Fluorite Museum!

The museum was two floors of rooms, laid out like this.
“Schematic diagram of the distribution of fluorite ore resources in China” and “Distribution map of fluorite despots in Wuyi Count” (inset)
Guanyin statue outside the museum

See below for info on 4 Guinness World Records related to fluorite, and photos of the minerals on display.
Continue reading Wuyi Fluorite Museum

Trip to Wuyi, Zhejiang Province

I live in China. I’ve had the thought that while I’m here, I should look into buying minerals that are mined locally, since presumably such treasures can be had for a fraction of the price they sell for after being exported.

I had the impression that China is known globally as a source of fluorite. I did an online search, and went to a geological museum in Hangzhou, and learned that the county of Wuyi (population 462,462), which belongs to the city of Jinhua, has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum. Therefore, during the Chinese New Year Holiday, I went with my cooperative husband and in-laws to Wuyi in search of beautiful stones. I assumed, since Wuyi has fluorite mines and a fluorite museum, that it also had shops selling fluorite products. If it does, we couldn’t find them! Nevertheless, our road trip shopping quest was successful.

The trip is documented in this post and five others:

We stayed two nights (February 1 and February 2) in the Vienna International Hotel in Wuyi. There are… 26 miscellaneous photos from the trip below.

Continue reading Trip to Wuyi, Zhejiang Province