December 18, 2008
Perriello Ousts Goode
There will be a little less xenophobic rhetoric in Virginia and in Congress in 2009. That guy was a loon. Glad he's out.
MacBook Fail!
Funny to hear Leo Laporte's MacBook Pro trackpad failed on him. With that and all the other problems, it should only go to verify one of the truths when it comes to Apple.
NEVER BUY A FIRST GEN APPLE PRODUCT.
Seriously though... don't.
NEVER BUY A FIRST GEN APPLE PRODUCT.
Seriously though... don't.
December 17, 2008
December 9, 2008
Second Run with Watch...
This is my second run. Same run as the first one, but I did it a little faster. This time I have mile splits too. There won't be many more of these posted, unless I have something interesting to talk about.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
December 8, 2008
First run with ForeRunner 305
Ran down to 18th and back home via Broad. Hmm... I wanted it to do mile splits, but I need to set that in the watch apparently.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Summary Data | ||
| Total Time (h:m:s) | 1:00:16 | 8:13 pace |
| Moving Time (h:m:s) | 1:00:15 | 8:13 pace |
| Distance (mi) | 7.32 | |
| Moving Speed (mi) | 7.3 avg. | 12.9 max. |
| Elevation Gain (ft) | +1,843 / -1,866 | |
| Temperature (°F) | 32°F avg. | 38°F high |
| Wind Speed (mph) | N 0.0 avg. | N 0.0 max |
December 7, 2008
Games that play themsevles can sit in the corner and play themselves
Between the dream texts, and the cut scenes... Lost Odyssey is pissing me off. I'm done with this game. Playing this is like hitting the pause/play button repeatedly on a poorly acted movie. I'd rather waste my time on something else.
December 3, 2008
Jack Black is Jesus
Who knew it would take something so unfunny like the denial of civil rights for funny or die to make something funny. Oh the Irony...
See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die
20 (More!) of the World's Weirdest Animal Species
http://webecoist.com/2008/12/02/strange-and-bizarre-endangered-animal-species/
The Glass Frog and the Coconut Crab are insane.
The Glass Frog and the Coconut Crab are insane.
December 1, 2008
The Home Theater Recommended List
Thanksgiving was pretty normal this year. Woody did the fried turkey at his place, so the whole family converged over there. Joy/Rob didn’t come, but normally we don’t really get to see Rob during the winter, coaching gets in the way. There was a lot of food though, the turkey, mac & cheese, and collard greens were right on the money. I didn’t really like the sweet potato though, and other items were on par.
Renee got to see the Popcorn Hour in action at Mom and Dad’s and was fairly impressed. It’s a device you really have to be a video pirate to appreciate, but there isn’t a better device of its kind anywhere, except for maybe the newer model that does even more codecs. It definite deserves to be in a dream home theater setup if you have Computer content you want to view on a TV. The GUI is fairly bare, but its no worse than streaming from a PS3 or 360, and supports more formats without the need of a transcoder.
The real dilemma of any home theater I think is what content do you get on it. Sure everyone wants a big screen, and big sound, but what are you actually going to enjoy? As much as I’m a fan of Media Center, honestly the costs are a bit too high. Considering that a cable DVR can do more or less the same job at $15 per month my HTPC does at $2,000, there’s no debate which is the better value. Now sure I have much more space, more tuners, and a lot more features (it does Netflix, web browsing, gaming, supports every codec on the planet, and everything else you’d expect from a computer), I can see why someone might want to go with a compartmentalized solution, and have their cable DVR (or better yet a TiVO) as one of several devices in the chain. Even if you add all the devices together, your budget will be less than have a fully speced out CableCard HTPC. So if you want all the features, at a fraction of the cost, this is what I’d go with.
Total comes out to $610 in equipment, and whatever your fee for cable/satellite and Netflix will be. Game consoles would change that. A PS3 negates the Blu-Ray player, but there are transcoding issues you’ll run into with Netflix stuff or downloaded computer stuff. Also not having any IR capability means you have to use a controller or buy an extra piece of equipment to use a regular IR remote. The 360 now does NetFlix natively, but you won’t have Blu-Ray, and the transcoding issues will still potentially be there for computer stuff. But if gaming isn’t a concern, that’s what I’d go with. I’d imagine that an Apple whore would replace the Popcorn Hour with an Apple TV, but if you aren’t trapped into their DRM scheme, I’d stay as far away from that device as human possible.
Renee got to see the Popcorn Hour in action at Mom and Dad’s and was fairly impressed. It’s a device you really have to be a video pirate to appreciate, but there isn’t a better device of its kind anywhere, except for maybe the newer model that does even more codecs. It definite deserves to be in a dream home theater setup if you have Computer content you want to view on a TV. The GUI is fairly bare, but its no worse than streaming from a PS3 or 360, and supports more formats without the need of a transcoder.
The real dilemma of any home theater I think is what content do you get on it. Sure everyone wants a big screen, and big sound, but what are you actually going to enjoy? As much as I’m a fan of Media Center, honestly the costs are a bit too high. Considering that a cable DVR can do more or less the same job at $15 per month my HTPC does at $2,000, there’s no debate which is the better value. Now sure I have much more space, more tuners, and a lot more features (it does Netflix, web browsing, gaming, supports every codec on the planet, and everything else you’d expect from a computer), I can see why someone might want to go with a compartmentalized solution, and have their cable DVR (or better yet a TiVO) as one of several devices in the chain. Even if you add all the devices together, your budget will be less than have a fully speced out CableCard HTPC. So if you want all the features, at a fraction of the cost, this is what I’d go with.
- Cable or Satellite provided DVR
- Roku NetFlix Box
- Panasonic DMP-BD35 Blu-Ray player + 1GB or more SD memory
- Popcorn Hour A-110
- Monoprice 4x1 HDMI switch (gotta connect it all)
Total comes out to $610 in equipment, and whatever your fee for cable/satellite and Netflix will be. Game consoles would change that. A PS3 negates the Blu-Ray player, but there are transcoding issues you’ll run into with Netflix stuff or downloaded computer stuff. Also not having any IR capability means you have to use a controller or buy an extra piece of equipment to use a regular IR remote. The 360 now does NetFlix natively, but you won’t have Blu-Ray, and the transcoding issues will still potentially be there for computer stuff. But if gaming isn’t a concern, that’s what I’d go with. I’d imagine that an Apple whore would replace the Popcorn Hour with an Apple TV, but if you aren’t trapped into their DRM scheme, I’d stay as far away from that device as human possible.
Elite Squad Review
RT Link here
What I like about the movie is that it isn't overly preachy. I found this movie's fast edits and shaky cam actually appropriate for this gritty crime drama. That made the movie fun and entertaining, in a way a more serious film might not have been. For that I might rate the movie higher than I should, because I didn't quite feel preached to. My main beef with the movie was the narration, which personally I kind of wish I could have seen the movie without. Narration might have been necessary to keep some focus on its plot themes, and not get lost in action. The problem is that the narrator switches between his personal story and his God’s view of what’s happening with the main characters. It probably should have been one or the other, but telling ends up with too much narration. Remove either of these elements, and I think the added subtly would make the film feel more layered and complex. But with the narration and action, it became an assault of the senses which I can see why it turned off so many critics.
If the movie adds anything to the debate, it's that it tries to link the systematic societal failures that result in drug violence to upper class individual moral behavior. The movie asks, "How many poor kids have to die for a rich kid to smoke weed?" It's a message that gets buried under a lot of on screen violence, torture, and over narration. Even asking that very question ignores the role the state has in that violence, with the creation of a paramilitary police corp and corruption among the regular police. The movie points the finger at drug gangs, the state, and the affluent classes alike, and links individual actions to systemic issues. I can't knock the movie for that.
The movie doesn't tackle urban violence as a result of poverty, and treads likely on the subject of urban violence being a result of classism. In this movie, the race/class division almost seems acceptable if only non-black/non-poor kids didn't travel to the Favela to buy drugs. Then again, other films have documented classism elsewhere, and doing so here probably would have made this movie less of a shoot-em-up, and it would have been less appealing to me. A police drama has to be about the police, and by showing a liberal sympathizing university student resorting to torture to extract information from a witness, there's more to blame than just the cop, regardless of how disturbing the cop's actions are.
What I like about the movie is that it isn't overly preachy. I found this movie's fast edits and shaky cam actually appropriate for this gritty crime drama. That made the movie fun and entertaining, in a way a more serious film might not have been. For that I might rate the movie higher than I should, because I didn't quite feel preached to. My main beef with the movie was the narration, which personally I kind of wish I could have seen the movie without. Narration might have been necessary to keep some focus on its plot themes, and not get lost in action. The problem is that the narrator switches between his personal story and his God’s view of what’s happening with the main characters. It probably should have been one or the other, but telling ends up with too much narration. Remove either of these elements, and I think the added subtly would make the film feel more layered and complex. But with the narration and action, it became an assault of the senses which I can see why it turned off so many critics.
If the movie adds anything to the debate, it's that it tries to link the systematic societal failures that result in drug violence to upper class individual moral behavior. The movie asks, "How many poor kids have to die for a rich kid to smoke weed?" It's a message that gets buried under a lot of on screen violence, torture, and over narration. Even asking that very question ignores the role the state has in that violence, with the creation of a paramilitary police corp and corruption among the regular police. The movie points the finger at drug gangs, the state, and the affluent classes alike, and links individual actions to systemic issues. I can't knock the movie for that.
The movie doesn't tackle urban violence as a result of poverty, and treads likely on the subject of urban violence being a result of classism. In this movie, the race/class division almost seems acceptable if only non-black/non-poor kids didn't travel to the Favela to buy drugs. Then again, other films have documented classism elsewhere, and doing so here probably would have made this movie less of a shoot-em-up, and it would have been less appealing to me. A police drama has to be about the police, and by showing a liberal sympathizing university student resorting to torture to extract information from a witness, there's more to blame than just the cop, regardless of how disturbing the cop's actions are.
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