I don’t watch reality television or documentaries. You might think this is some high moral standard (at least in the case of reality tv), but the truth of the matter is much simpler – my ADD makes watching these sort of shows/films agonizingly painful. I much prefer reading about history / contemporary issues / science / etc. than watching a documentary on the topic…and reality tv, well…I find it generally uninteresting.

But that didn’t keep me from watching The Ambassador, a controversial 97 minute documentary by Mads Brugger. Brugger is a journalist, comedian, filmmaker who goes undercover as a corrupt business diplomat to the Central African Republic in an attempt to start an illegal blood diamonds business. Along the way he risks his life (and, most disconcertingly to me, the lives of numerous individuals of varying levels of innocence) and discloses troubling corruption, conspiracy, and immorality among various governments.

I’d put this film alongside of Slumdog Millionaire and Hotel Rwanda for its potential to have a positive societal impact, while at the same time expressing my qualms about the methods used to make the film, especially those which placed [unaware] innocents at risk.

In the articles I read reviewing the film the greatest concern seemed to be the racism expressed by Brugger in character and the negative portrayal of the Central African Republic and its people. I understand the reviewers concern, but also felt that it was self-evident that Brunner was interacting with the criminal elements of society and that his interactions with these elements should not be taken as reflective upon the larger CAR populace. While we only see ‘regular’ CAR folks briefly, their portrayal is compassionate and inspiring – folks seem eager to work at Brunner’s match factory and are willing to better themselves and their country. One feels heartbreak at the conspiracy of factors that keep these folks in such mortal and economic danger. It seems evident to me that these individuals are just like me – but without the opportunities and privileges which I have.

From a more generic [usual categories] objectionable content perspective, there is no violence, relatively little profanity, and minimal non-sexual nudity. Profanity is almost entirely absent throughout the film (in fact, you will find more profanity in the reviews I have referenced at the end of this article than in the film itself…an interesting commentary on the state of profane language in contemporary culture [most of the publications being respectable, not simply individuals spouting thoughts without a corporation behind them]), but towards the latter end of the film several intense moments lead to some profane dialogue.

There is some very brief, non-sexual nudity, of the nature one might expect in a National Geographic documentary. While boating down the river the camera turns to the shore where groups of people are using the water for various purposes (washing, swimming) and one or two are in various states of undress.

In conclusion – I think the film asks some excellent questions, in spite of its troubling ethics – and I hope that it will spark dialogue, awareness, and activism throughout the world to end these sort of abuses. God forgive us for allowing such travesties to be committed against the unfortunate.

You can watch The Ambassador on Netflix or Amazon Video.

Bibliography

• Official Site for The Ambassador Film.
• Karina Longworth. The Ambassador Review: Mads Brugger is the Sacha Baron Cohen of Denmark. LA Weekly, Aug. 30, 2012.
• A.O. Scott. More Like An Impostor Than An Innocent Abroad. NY Times. Aug. 28, 2012.
• Aron Leaf. The Ambassador: Mads Brugger Uncovers Liberia’s Elite Corruption. African Arguments (Royal African Society). Aug. 31st, 2012.
• Michael Hogan. Mads Brugger, “The Ambassador” Director, Takes Exploitation to a Whole New Level. Huffington Post, Aug. 29, 2012.
• Eric Kohn. Does Mads Brugger’s Satiric ‘The Ambassador’ Go Too Far? IndieWire, Aug. 27, 2012.
• Leslie Felperin. The Ambassador. Variety, Nov. 21, 2011.
• Andrew O’Hehir. “The Ambassador”: A Borat-Style Quest for Blood Diamonds. Salon, Aug. 28, 2012.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Crucial.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

[Note: This post is a sponsored post. That means that I am compensated for writing this post, usually by the company the post is about. I attempt to be fair and equitable even when writing sponsored posts, but want to make the reader aware that this post has been subsidized.]

When it comes to computers there are two components I recommend upgrading first. Oftentimes when you buy computers from a store they will try and sell you on high speed CPU’s and big hard drives – but these aren’t the most important aspects of your computer. Sure, a solid CPU is important and a big hard drive is nice – but I recommend getting a mid-range CPU (not a cheap one, but not the most expensive) and spending the money you save on getting a faster hard drive and more RAM.

The hard drive is the slowest component on your computer. RAM exists in large part b/c the hard drive is so slow. It takes way too long to write data from and to the hard drive, so to expedite things data is written into RAM (which is much faster, but also more expensive) and then whatever needs to be written to the actual hard drive is written to the hard drive later (by later I mean very shortly, usually imperceptibly later).

If you are doing very simple tasks on your computer you may not need a ton of RAM – e.g., if you watch one video and don’t do anything else at the same time, browse one or two websites simultaneously using browser tabs, run a small game like solitaire, etc. But if you use your computer for heavier tasks – as I do – like massive multitasking of browser windows, development of applications, and perhaps the occasional game of significant complexity and artistic quality – you’ll find RAM an essential upgrade.

I generally recommend at least 2 GB in a computer and highly prefer 4 GB…When it comes to hard drives I won’t buy anything with a drive slower than 7200 RPMs, and my next computer will probably have a solid-state drive (SSD) – which is similar to RAM in design and thus must faster than traditional hard drives.

Crucial is a well-known company offering both high quality RAM and SSD drives. If you have a computer you want to extend the life of, you can upgrade with these components and renew the speed and responsiveness of an aging machine.

There are lots of alternative sources for buying RAM and SSD drives other than Crucial – some of them quite fine. I’m not going to pretend that I buy all of my equipment from Crucial or ever will…but they are a solid option in the field. I always recommend comparing prices across vendors. See what Crucial charges and then maybe look at MemoryX, and if you know what you are doing check out Amazon and eBay (though one can oftentimes get jipped, I have on occasion received products that claimed to be “official” oem parts, but where in fact imitations, while both provide great resolution methods for these sort of issues, it is an unwanted hassle).

Crucial is a respected company, with a handy software tool that discovers what memory is in your device, making it easy to purchase more, quick turn-around on orders, and giving away $10,000 in Apple gift cards doesn’t hurt either.

So, what are you waiting for? No purchase is necessary, and $10k in Apple gift cards is a lot of money…even if I’m not a huge fan of Apple products. 😛 But then again don’t go submit an entry…then I’ll be more likely to win, and who really needs $10k in Apple gift cards? Not you. =) (I’m joking! Go enter now at: Crucial Memory Sweepstakes !)

(This article is currently a work-in-progress)

Overview:

I’ve developed my competencies in Information Technologies over years of hands-on experience. I don’t have a degree in Computer Science nor even a Certification. My knowledge has been compiled from a wide variety of arenas and continues to compile on an almost hourly basis. It is not uncommon for someone to ask me, “How did you learn xxxxx?” or “How can I learn xxxxx?” My answer is, “With a lot of pain and tears.” Or at least that has been my answer. In this article (which I hope will be an ongoing work in progress) I intend to categorize a informal learning course for individuals desiring to learn web .NET programming. I’m not going to write the materials myself – but I will point you to a wide variety of materials available across the web that cover a variety of technologies and will attempt to offer some small tidbits of commentary along the way. Please feel free to comment with your questions, suggestions, additions, etc.

Dave Mackey,

Friday, May 21, 2010 – Midnight.

The Prerequisites:

I’m going to be blunt – so neither you nor I waste our time. You must be a native to technology if you want to be an application developer. In other words, if you don’t feel the same level of comfort sitting down behind the steering wheel of your car when you sit at your computer – you aren’t ready to begin writing applications.

Secondly, you must go beyond knowledge acquisition to analytical skills. Anyone can memorize facts – the knowledge of facts is of some use to the application developer (or technologist generally) but is not the end-all. You must learn to abstract from specifics and derive general principles. The most basic example of this is utilizing a search engine. As much as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo would like their engines to understand what we want the first time we say it – they oftentimes don’t. Type, “Microsoft” into a search engine and you’ll like get the results you want – but try something more complex like, “relationship of javascript to c#” and you might get only tangentially related results. Your analytical skills come into use as you try different related phrases to press the search engine on to better results. For example, “correlations of javascript to c#”, “origins of c#”, “history of c# and javascript”, “javascript and c# comparison”. If you aren’t able to perform this sort of abstraction, work on developing those skills first – then return to application development.

The Basics:

Assuming one has a general understanding of technology – specifically of computers, software, and the internet – one has several technologies which will form the basis of future endeavors. You don’t need an in-depth understanding of these technologies at this juncture – but you should be at least familiar with each of them: HTML, CSS, and SQL.

• W3School’s HTML Tutorial.
• W3School’s CSS Tutorial.
• W3School’s SQL Tutorial.

If you want to go above and beyond take some time with W3School‘s other tutorials – such as XML and JavaScript.

Coding Articles in Rough Order of Importance/Ease of Learning:

• Comparison Between Response.Redirect, Response.RedirectPermanent and Server.Transfer (Abhishek Sur, CodeProject).
• GridView All in One (Padmanabhan N., CodeProject).
• First Step into ASP.NET Dynamic Data (Khandakar Fazley Rabbi, CodeProject).
• Alternative: Introduction to ASP.NET Dynamic Data Part I (Amit Sunshine, CodeProject).
• Taming the FormView: Understanding how to Implement the FormView Control Effectively (Jeffrey Kent, CodeProject).
• Show / Hide GridView Columns in ASP.NET (Declan Bright, CodeProject).
• Edit Individual GridView Cells in ASP.NET (Declan Bright, CodeProject).
• ASP.NET Data Encryption / Decryption Made Easy (Dejan Bozic, CodeProject).
• Basic Database Operations in Silverlight 3.0 (Ganesan Senthilvel, CodeProject).

Conceptual/Philosophical Articles in Rough Order of Importance/Ease of Learning:

• Line-of-Business Applications with ASP.NET (Alexandr Sergeevich Ilyin, CodeProject).
• A Silverlight Introduction for Line-of-Business Applications (Xavier Spileers, CodeProject).
• ASP.NET MVC or Classic ASP.NET – What to Choose (Debiprasad Baral, CodeProject).

Security Articles in Rough Order of Importance/Ease of Learning:

• Secure Your Website, Put Bouncers at the Door Part I and Part II and Part III (Martin Jarvis, CodeProject).

Miscellaneous Non-Core But Useful Articles:

• Editable Nested DataGrid (Satya Kanithi, CodeProject).
• Comparison of Architecture Presentation Patterns – MVP SC / PV, PM, MVVM, MVC (Shivprasad Koirala, CodeProject).

Caveats:

• Articles with an * by them denote articles for which I am eager to find a replacement or for which I am hopeful the author will release an update. In case authors are interested I’ve delineated below the main reasons an article receives an *:
  • The article is too brief and lacks enough information for a beginner or enough useful information. This is not to say that an article should explain everything – but that it should provide links to other sites/articles where further explanations of topics can be found.
  • The article is too long and detailed, needing to be broken out to smaller units to make it more consumable.
  • The article is written with poor spelling or grammar which inhibits the understandability and professional of the article.
  • The article has not been updated in some time and does not reflect or may not reflect all the latest technological info.