My Zen Arcade

Oh, yeah…

best thing about iPhone 2.0 release: “I like to think that my bricked phone gave me access to a cool new app
that helps me learn to say “emergency” in 10 different languages.”

worst thing about the iPhone 2.0 release: the 2.0 firmware.  Jeez.

I am returned!

Anyhow, a few things spring to mind before I actually start letting myself be informed about the world again (yes, I admit it, living in a box is very nice).

1. The two most under-rated bands of the 80s: Oingo Boingo, Missing Persons

2. If you hate your PC now, switch to a Mac and then try using the PC again.  You know no such hate.

3. Marvel Studios should just close their doors and give it up if they don’t bring Favreau back for Iron Man II.  Current rumor is that there’s a lot of penny pinching going on.  Favreau made them a blockbuster.  Don’t get me wrong, Downey was great, but it was Favreau’s film.  Unfortunately, there’s a class of moron that gets to make decisions about movies who really thinks that anyone can make a flick, and that the actors only matter because the public sees them.  Marvel has made mistakes before when letting money people make decisions (see Spider-Man 3…the money guys demanded Venom), and this could really kick them in the nuts.  No matter how much it costs to keep Favreau, its gotta be cheaper than making a bomb.

4. Metal Gear Solid 4 rocks.

Searchme Visual Search

This is a nice looking tool I’ll have to spend some time with.  It reminds me a bit of an idea I had for amazon a while back that would simulate browsing a bookstore more than the current site does.

Warning: catatonia and/or self-indulgent poetry may result.

WASHINGTON—Calling it the most effective tool to date in the War on Terror, the Pentagon announced Monday that it had developed a new chemical weapon called “ennui gas,” a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life and a sinking sense that everything they have ever accomplished ultimately amounts to dust.

While I do understand their point (and, personally, I like the similar feature in OSX), the attitude is very indicitive of Microsoft’s problems (not to mention certain governement officials…).

David Cross:

“The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users–I’m serious,” said Cross, speaking at the RSA Conference here Thursday. “Most users had administrator privileges on previous Windows systems and most applications needed administrator privileges to install or run.”

I can’t even imagine the size of this problem, if true

I also don’t understand the logic behind the decision that spawned this.  If going to Windows7 means buying all new software, and/or patching code so extensively as to pale the Y2K crisis (and, contrary to the post, I believe it would far exceed Y2K) why does Gates et al. think that anyone would bother staying with the MS product line?  At that point, you are faced with two choices: virtually start over from scratch, or actually start over from scratch.

I have a very hard time believing this is true, but I also have a very hard time believing Vista got released.

So, last night, we were watching American Idol.  Now, because of some weirdness we’ve yet to understand, we have to watch this on the non-HD channel, even though we are supposed to get the HD channel as well.  For whatever reason, it is shockingly unreliable.

Anyhow, we watch Idol starting 15 minutes late on our direct TV DVR (so we can skip commercials).  Right as it ends, we accidentally switch from the recording to the HD channel with Idol on it.  Surprisingly, we are actually getting the broadcast.

The difference in video quality was like a slap to the face.  We only caught the last two or three minutes of recap, but it was just stunning how much better it looked. 

You don’t usually get to see that kind of side-by-side, but never forget, the difference between standard and HD is not slight.

WOW

Oh, Man-Cow, we hardly new ye

I’m really impressed by the development team behind Internet Explorer 7.
They have completely stopped caring whether or not it works well.
I have to admire that level of zen-like detachment.

(I would KILL to know why, now that I’ve been forced to switch from Firefox to IE7 at work, my drive will just start running for, say, 15 seconds while I’m doing virtually nothing)

So, last year around this time, I bought an Aquos 52″ LCD TV. 

I want to make this abundantly clear: I love this thing.  There are people out there who talk trash about the Aquos line, but I don’t think there’s a better TV for the money (at least not a year ago).

ANYHOO, I also have a PS3 (love part II).  The Blu-Ray does look really nice EXCEPT in very dark areas where its kind of fuzzy.  I first noticed this, I think, on 300, but given the style of the movie, it was a little hard to tell if it was intentional or not.

I then started seeing it everywhere, except in animation.  I assumed that this was somehow a limitation on the media or something, but it stuck in my head.  Searching online revealed nothing until I simply searched for “blu-ray fuzzy” and saw others had the same problem, especially with the PS3.  The claims are bitrate issues (which I’m not sure you can do much about), limitations on how the movie is filmed (which I expect to be completely untrue on anything made in the last 5 years), and TV calibration. 

I’d tried calibrating the TV months ago with a free DVD that didn’t appear to do much for the picture.  But I keep running into stories of how amazing the picture looks AFTER you get the thing calibrated, how killer the blu-ray image is, practically 3D.  But I am NOT paying Best Buy 300 bucks to do this.  Actually, I don’t want to pay ANYONE 300 bucks to do this.

So I just ordered Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics on Blu-Ray.  20 bucks total to get it here tomorrow.  I’m gathering from poking around that this has been highly anticipated, so I’m pretty hopeful (in the literal sense) that it will help.