Animator vs. Animation
it helps if you have done some flash animation.
How about somebody putting a flame UI in a commercial now?
One more round for John Galt’s motor aka the perpetuum mobile. Didn’t Tesla invent something like that?
Since everything we have accomplished is based on energy, it seems not surprising that people continue to dream up scenarios where energy would become free.
Wouldn’t it be nice?
Well, then we would need to rewrite the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Few weeks ago lots of people wrote that somebody had hacked a MacBook via Wifi.
There were never much details or example code available. But the need for the story was there, so felt the people, and everybody repeated it. It seems as if the hackers installed 3rd wireless soft- and hardware on the Macbook and then hacked this software.
Which renders the whole thing to a non issue.
Of course all computers can be hacked in theory. Including Macs. But as long it did not happen, it did not happen. I am sure lots of people read the first (non true) part of this ‘hack’ story, and will miss this conclusion. Those will argue in a year from now “Mac’s aren’t safe either” based on this misinterpreted news story.
Getting down to the truth becomes increasingly complex it seems. Much of the communication surrounding people has been made with an intention. Truth comes second. Which IS a big deal, since it invalidates the whole reason for communication. It was communication that got us of the trees. If we break it, since it seems not to matter, then we might have trouble getting back up into the trees. “Sabletooth tiger!” “Where?” “Just kidding, want to buy a coconut?”
Millimeter Magazine’s coverage of Zodiac
Including some of my own ramblings if you scroll down.
Ads on super market conveyer belts
I wonder why such stuff still gets PR. There are ads on the breakfirst egg, on the paper towel in the public bathroom. If there are blank square inches where human eyeballs come to rest, then some ‘marketing’ person will ‘invent’ a way to put an add there. What’s there to report about it?
Most of it is stupid and it folds. Those abandoned attempts just clutter our surroundings. Like the flat screens in the back seats of a cab in Boston. Outofdate rubbish starts blaring in your direction every five minutes or so. Easy to click off. But still annoying.
One of the best comments on this useless trajectory of the current society was the rsstroom reader last December.
the Yankee group predicts 44% market share for the PS3 in 2011
I would bet money on this not to be true. I think that Microsoft will sell more than 27 Million Xbox 360s and Sony will never sell more than ten Million PS3s. Ever. Come back here and comment as much as you like once they should do. Those ‘experts’ at the Yankee group see Sony push 30 million units. Amazing.
But what do you do if you have an ailing consultancy? You publish controversial statements.
And you hope that nobody finds your past prediction attempts.
Microsoft says it will not use the HD DVD add on for games
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 comes with a DVD drive. As an add on there will be a HD DVD drive. This will only be used for movies, not for game content.
Microsoft says that the 4.7GB that a standard DVD offers is enough for games. HD DVD would be 15GB.
More is better. Up to a point. Any Sony-Fanboy will be eager to point out that this Microsoft move is simply sour grapes. After all, will Bluray not feature huge amounts of data. Correct. However, all games I did see on the PS3 dev units looked nice. But none of them showed an amount of detail and scene fariation that would not fit on a 4.7GB disk.
There are two high definition DVD formats. Bluray and HD DVD. Of course you knew that. Both formats have been released. There are players. There are movies. And, nobody cares. I don’t see any discussions or reviews online. It’s one big yawn. Bluray fanboys will point to the upcoming PS3 release. That being the Ace up the sleeve of the format. Interestingly enough, PS3 fanboys ‘predict’ that it will be the Bluray format that will help selling the console. A 500 US$ Bluray player disguised as a gaming console might be a cheap Bluray player, if others cost a 1K. But in the consumers mind they have to compete with the 40 US$ DVD player that plays an awfully huge library of movies. Upscaling DVD players cost just a few hundred dollars.
The quality of these next generation formats is certainly superior to DVD. The current discs however have been partially made from sub par telecine masters I have been told. That aside, people don’t understand nor care about quality all that much.
Those two new formats have a better picture than traditional DVD. In order to see it you have to be equiped with a HD set.
Let’s have a look at the last format change. DVD replaced VHS tape. And it was better in the following ways:
- Image quality. Much more resolution. VHS was dreadful.
- Audio quality. They called that CD quality. VHS was dreadful.
- Sourround audio. Five speakers in your living room. No possible before with anything.
- non touch mechanism. VHS is an analog tape. Tape is tricky as it is. Tape and head wear and environmental impact like dust. Analog tape degrades. Every time you use it
- multi angle. yes, is a feature. Nobody used it. Almost nobody.
- multiple audio tracks. Directors commentary or alternative language tracks. Both add great value.
- menu system. Helps with branding and use.
- non linear. Jump to any location is almost instantly. Together with the menu system
- no rewind. Sounds like a stupid thing. Now that you don’t have to rewind anymore. Was major annoyance withVHS and big deal for DVD
- smaller and known form factor. “just like audio CD”
- region code and copy protection. Good for the studios. They thought.
- computer use. I have used a data tape based on S-VHS. Was 75,000 US$.
With DVD there was a format war too. The other one backed by Circuit City and Dreamworks folder almost instantly. It’s “feature” was that the movies were much cheaper, but would expire with in 48 hours. After that they wanted to charge consumers for every view. Greed. Make sure you hide it well, or you will fail like that.
DVD vs. VHS is a pretty substantial list. After a few years it was a done deal.
Bluray and HD-DVD will never build any momentum. They will fail like Super CD or UMD or Minidisc have failed.
Boeing had a system for internet on a plane. Now they shut it down. I used it allot on board of transatlantic Lufthansa flights. It worked great. About the only time when I did not mind to pay (around 25 US$) for wifi.
Nobody really knew about this system. None of the US carriers picked it up, and Lufthansa did not do a good job to communicate that you could have internet over the Atlantic.
I wonder what will happen to this. I hope that google buys it. They can afford it. And it would be great PR.
Wifi to they sky!
Both democracy and capitalism work great. As long people make decissions based on reason. If you buy the best product you push efficiency into the system. Same with democracy. The world grew more complex. And I wonder if people kept up with that. Looking at the habbits of the average AOL user I have some serious doubts about that.
Of course there is no alternative to the current system. Still it is worth pointing out, that the current implementation is broken. More than it used to be: The average skill set and education level is declining. Everywhere. In the 80s I made an apprenticementship to become a Maschinenschlosser in Germany. In three and a half years you work and learn basically how to build machines. This was the kind of job most of the male population did aspire to. It’s demands however where non trivial. You not only learned how to build machines, but also knew backgrounds why they were designed in a certain way. If you got a drawing with an error you were able to go back to the construction people and come up with a better solution together. The percentage of people being able to work on this level has declined in the last years. When the housing bubble ‘makes’ you twice as much money as forty hours of labor, why should you try to improve your skills?
When things get made in China for penny’s why should you learn how to make something? Opening boxes and putting things on shelfs, that’s a skillset in demand.