Some people were asking, so I finally got around to making a short video of how I cut a bell pepper. I haven’t been able to find anything on the web illustrating this, but I haven’t actually looked very hard.
[Update: Okay, yes, it's a stupid minor thing, but I made this in response to the proliferation of instructions like this.]
Tags: bell pepper, knife skills, cutting, kitchen, pepper
Warner Bros., one of the big dual-format holdouts in HD video, announced yesterday that they’re switching to Blu-ray only as of May 2008, abandoning HD DVD. The format war isn’t quite “over” yet, but this is a significant victory for Blu-ray.
This leaves Paramount as the only major studio still backing HD DVD [update: oops, Universal too.].
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=803
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1700383,00.html
“Picture an incident that throws a group of Romulans back in time. Picture that group of Romulans figuring out where they are in the timeline, then deciding to take advantage of the accident to kill someone’s father, to erase them from the timeline before they exist, thereby changing all of the TREK universe as a result. Who would you erase? Whose erasure would leave the biggest hole in the TREK universe is the question you should be asking.
Who else, of course, but James T. Kirk?”
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33832
Although I don’t think it would work as a standalone movie, I’m still waiting for the followup series they hinted at the end of TNG - the continual use of warp drive is found to be definitively unraveling the fabric of space-time. How do you deal with that? What does that do to interplanetary politics? How do you develop alternate forms of travel that don’t use warp technology? How do you stop everyone from using warp drive, and how do you police that? How do you impose that restriction on hostile entities? Nothing like a good galactic environmental crisis to bring Star Trek back into relevance.
(Of course, in TNG, the answer obviously lies in Wesley Crusher’s newly acquired godlike Traveler capabilities, but I think there are a lot of people who would find that objectionable.)
Tags: star trek, jj abrams, romulans, time travel
Apparently, Sony dropped including the PS2 hardware in the 80GB model, and the last version that includes it is the now discontinued, recently price-cut $499 60GB model. If you care about playing older PS2 games and are thinking about getting a PS3, you probably want to get that one, before it disappears. It should also be noted that the HD is user-replaceable, so there’s actually very little tradeoff there.
http://astore.amazon.com/buyadam-20/detail/B0009VXAM0/105-0381338-1255632
The new model includes a software emulator, but a fairly large number of the older games have at least some problems.
I’ve really been pretty blown away by how much fun the PS3 is, both for the newer games (which are huge and gorgeous) and for how much better it makes the PS2 experience - all games that support it can play in widescreen, everything’s faster, using the hard drive instead of memory cards is both more convenient and MUCH faster, and the analog sticks are more precise. I think dropping the hardware emulator is an unfortunate cost-saving move that will probably diminish the experience, if you care about that.
Also interesting - I found this list of current and upcoming PS3 exclusives, including PSN (downloadable) games:
http://www.psu.com/PlayStation-3-Exclusives-List-Feature–a1079-p0.php
I think the PS3 has only shown a mere fraction of its power, and Sony didn’t do even a passable job of promoting it properly at launch, but the slate of games on the list for the next six months and beyond has me very excited.
Tags: ps3, ps2, sony, software emulation, exclusives, playstation
Crappy DRM company says the DMCA forces you to buy their technology instead of building your own because not buying their technology is a circumvention of an effective copyright tool.
The thing is, I think they’re right. I mean, it’s stupid, but then so is the DMCA.
There are some other provisions (which seem to not apply), but the crux of it is:
“No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that–
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title;”
It explicitly does NOT say “copy the work”, it says “circumvent the technology”. “Circumvent” is not the word they were looking for.
In fact, now that I think about it, convincing someone that DRM is bad is also a violation, as that may be interpreted as offering a service that is primarily design for the purpose of circumventing technological protection. Crap.
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2007/05/10/afx3708595.html
(via boingboing.)
I used to get a Cadbury Creme Egg a year about the same time I had my annual McRib. Since I’ve realized over the course of the past few years that you’re only supposed to eat food, I didn’t know that Cadbury reduced the size of the Creme Egg this year. And then they lied about it! And they blamed it on the increasing size of their consumers (possibly from eating too many Creme Eggs)! And then they got busted on National TV! At least they could have had the dignity to release the “New Creme Egg”, and then release the “Creme Egg Classic” in the smaller form factor when people complained about the new formula.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/cadbury/cadbury-our-eggs-arent-smaller-you-are-bigger-250559.php
They took the best of the magic wand, color range selection, magnetic lasso, and channel selection, and rolled it all up into a new kind of brush - the quick selection tool.
You paint with the brush for broad strokes to define your selection, then you have a dialog box to refine the edge with radius, contrast, smoothing, feathering, and contrast selectors, with 5 kinds of masked preview. (Also, it appears that the Refine Edges dialog is also available on all of the other selection tools.)
This alone is worth the price of the upgrade.
Documentation is non-existent in the beta, but I found this tutorial:
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs3/qs.htm
Tags: adobe, photoshop, cs3, quick selection tool
The iTunes store is about to start selling the entire EMI catalog DRM-free. It’s slightly more expensive, but also higher quality.
This completely destroys the rationale behind having any DRM at all. It can’t be because they’re afraid of the higher quality recordings getting out, because those are the ones they’re releasing without DRM. All that remains is shafting the customer, which is of course all that DRM is actually good for.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/02/itunes_store_will_se.html
Apparently, “anonymized” clickstream data (the urls of which websites you visited and in what order) is available for sale directly from many ISPs. There is no way that this is sufficiently anonymized. It is readily obvious from reading my clickstream who I am - urls for MANY online services contain usernames, and anyone who uses any sort of online service is almost certainly visiting their own presence far more than anything else. All it takes is one of those usernames to be tied to a real name, and your entire clickstream becomes un-anonymized, irreversibly and forever.
I’ve talked about the dangers of breaking anonymization with leaking keys before:
Short answer: It is not enough to say that a piece of data is not “personally identifiable” if it is unique and exists with a piece of personally identifiable data somewhere else. More importantly, it doesn’t even have to be unique or completely personally identifiable - whether or not you can guess who a person is from a piece of data is not a black and white distinction, and simply being able to guess who a person might be can leak some information that might confirm their identity when combined with something else.
This is also completely setting aside the fact that you have very little direct control over much of your clickstream, since there are all sorts of ways for a site you visit to get your browser to load things - popups, javascript includes, and images being the most prevalent.
Preserving anonymity is hard. This is an egregious breach of privacy. Expect lawsuits if this is true.
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/29449
Tags: isps, clickstreams, privacy violation, seekingalpha
Interesting post about the Penny Gap. I think this is directly related to a similar concept which might be called the Unlimited Chasm.
http://redeye.firstround.com/2007/03/the_first_penny.html
The Penny Gap says that if your service is actually free, it will have a much greater uptake than one that is merely very very cheap. Rather than being a smooth curve up the value chain, there’s a quantum shift between “free” and “costs anything”. I think this is largely due to the implicit value factoring of the “cost” (in effort) of the transaction. If you could just wave your hand and pay a penny for something without getting out your credit card number or typing in your password, it seems like this gap would largely disappear.
There’s a similar effect at play when dealing with “unlimited” services. If you have to pay for usage, it takes a lot of mental effort to add up everything you’re paying and make sure you’re not over a certain amount. If you don’t, and have an unlimited plan, that mental effort goes away. Even if the unlimited service is more expensive than you’d pay with metered service, there’s less hesitation to use it because you never have to worry about keeping track of it. I feel like this effect is less prominent on services that give you constant feedback about how much you’ve used. Presumably the extra security of insurance of not ever going above a certain limit has some value to it as well.
Free and unlimited are obviously closely related, mentally and emotionally. I’ll have to think about this some more.
Tags: free, unlimited, unlimited chasm, penny gap
I haven’t run Vista. I have no intention of doing so. Here’s my “review” anyway:
SCANNER COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS?!? What year is it?!?
What a total embarassment.
Tags: windows, vista, goodfuckingluck
I’ve been continually unhappy with all of the ultraportable tripods I’ve bought. They’re too heavy, not flexible enough, take too long to set up, and the smaller ones won’t support my big camera. The gorillapod fixes all of that. It’s incredibly light, totally portable, and even sufficiently adjustable to wrap around small objects (benches, railings, bike frame, etc…). It is, in short, the best portable tripod I’ve ever seen.
It comes in three sizes:
I got the DSLR-Zoom for my big camera (which holds up to 6 lbs.) and the regular size for my little pocket cam (which is more portable). I’m a big fan of Canon’s wireless flash system, so this also seems like a great way to mount a remote flash in an inconspicious location.
Regular (digicams and flashes):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EVSLRO/002-0315298-6861671?ie=UTF8&tag=buyadam-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000EVSLRO
DSLR (no zoom):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HAVVFG/002-0315298-6861671?ie=UTF8&tag=buyadam-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000HAVVFG
Tags: tripod, gorillapod, camera, photo
Robert Anton Wilson is dead.
http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/2007/01/raw-essence.html
I can’t say enough about the importance of his writing to our national culture of weirdness. He will be missed.
Tags: robertantonwilson, raw, illuminatus
Cisco owns the trademark on “iPhone”. Apple was apparently in negotiations to license the term, but had not actually completed doing so prior to the product announcement. Negotations would not seem to be going well, as Cisco has filed a suit against Apple for trademark infringment:
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2007/corp_011007.html
Tags: apple, iphone, cisco, lawsuit, trademark infringement
The non-obvious side of Google’s purchase of YouTube: Google now has access to the hit logs of every page that a YouTube video appears on, including LOTS of pages that were probably previously inaccessible to them. MySpace pages were probably going to get Google ads anyway, because of the big deal that happened there, but many others weren’t.
Add this to AdSense, the Google Web Accelerator, Google Web Analytics, and Google Maps, and that’s a lot of data being collected about browsing habits, and the number of sites you can browse without sending some data to Google has just dropped significantly.
Previously:
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2006/01/30/flickr-pictures-web-beacons-and-a-modest-proposal/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2006/01/29/whats-the-big-fuss-about-ip-addresses/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2006/01/27/google-does-keep-cookie-and-ip-correlated-logs/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2006/01/26/does-google-keep-logs-of-personal-data/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/11/21/google-really-wants-your-logs/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/2005/05/05/google-wants-your-logs/
http://www.aquick.org/blog/index.php?s=google&submit=Search
Tags: google, tracking, logs, surveillance
It’s a beautiful thing. I downloaded the ACR 3.6 update (still beta, but seems stable), and the output on the 400D shots is very very good.
As predicted, with a decent RAW converter, the evident noise is strongly diminished, and the noise that remains is very very fine and can be easily removed with Noise Ninja.
Here’s a shot I took at ISO 800 with no flash:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fields/262621826/
Get the update here:
Camera RAW 3.5 doesnt support it. Camera RAW 3.6 will be out “soon”. My results with the Canon DPP processor have been pretty dismal. Lightroom Beta 4 is out, which does support it, but I haven’t really played with it yet, as it got a bit choked up (but hasn’t crashed yet) when I threw my 30,000+ photos into its library.
Some comments from Thomas Knoll (the man):
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.3bb6a869.3bc1b01e/0
Tags: adobe, camera raw, acd, lightroom, canon, 400d, rebel xti, xti
One of the projects I’m working on is GOOD Magazine. We have some incredible things planned for their site in the next few months, and there will be future updates about that. In the meantime, the magazine itself is pretty good. The first issue has come out, and it’s an interesting read. These guys are genuinely interested in the phenomenon of doing good, and they’ve uncovered some great stories.
For a $20 subscription, you get a year’s subscription (six issues), and 100% of your subscription fee goes to your choice of 12 partner organizations.
I was going to write something about this, but Cory beat me to it.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/15/amazon_unbox_to_cust.html
Amazon Unbox has the worst terms of service I’ve seen in a long time. Like Cory, I’m a longtime Amazon supporter, and I think their customer service is outstanding, and this is a travesty. Way to fuck over the people who won’t actually read the terms because they just want to download a movie.
I only really have one thing to add with respect to the “if it has value then we have a right to charge money for it” proposition. Does the MPAA reserve the right to charge more retroactively if you enjoy a movie more than you expected to? That’s hidden value, right? This madness has to stop.
Mr. Bezos, you should be ashamed of yourself, and also whoever you put in charge of this.
Tags: amazon, unbox, drm, travesty, unfair terms of service
Interesting article by David Brin from Salon today on the lack of an educational consensus on what constitutes “the learning language”, or indeed >any< learning language at all.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic/index.html
It used to be BASIC - textbooks of other subjects had BASIC programs in them to try out, and it was installed everywhere. Even my Intellivision, one of the early game consoles, had a BASIC module.
Sure, it’s not good for teaching you about any modern programming concepts, but that’s less important in the beginning than understanding how computers fundamentally work.
There’s been a lot of ranting recently about how kids these days can’t program because all they learn is Java and they never get near the guts of the computer itself (because why should they learn something they’re never going to use?), but I think I agree with Brin’s point - it’s deeper than that. The prevailing opinion is that languages that force you to understand what they’re doing are not only useless but obsolete. The analogy to eating your seed corn is apt - we’re cutting off an entire generation from the hacker tools they need in order to learn how to do interesting stuff with technology instead of just put other people’s pieces together (and people who have never learned the basics are far more likely to be stumped when something doesn’t behave as they expect).
I’m not sure what the answer to this is, really, but it’s definitely worth discussing.
Tags: programming, basic, david brin, salon, educational, instructional
I’ve often said that terrorism is an auto-immune disease afflicting civilization. Bruce Schneier has a great article up about how responding to terrorism by locking things down is, in fact, exactly what the terrorists want.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/what_the_terror.html
Tags: terrorism, play into their hands, auto-immune disease, schneier, security
Britt pointed me at this piece about how Lieberman still has very strong support:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009461.php
There’s an important lesson in here. When you hang principles on a single race, and then lose, the principle goes with the race and suffers a horrible blow. This >WAS< the Dean mistake - it represented the internet way, and everybody fled when he lost, and how long has it taken that approach to recover its reputation?
When Lieberman wins, the ENTIRE “unseat the incumbents” approach dies a horrible death, in one single event.
How to dissociate the principles from the individual race?
Meg says it’s too expensive to shop locally:
http://www.megnut.com/2006/06/the-expense-of-eating-local
I have some responses to this.
1) The Union Square greenmarket is, in my experience, significantly more expensive than the other satellite markets throughout the city. There are a few possible reasons for this - it might draw the more expensive farms which sell different but slightly more expensive varietals of the same produce, the thriving restaurant business in the area could be a factor, or it could just be fame. What I do know is that everyone I know who shops at the USGM says “hey, this stuff is really expensive” far more than the people who don’t. I’d suggest doing some comparison shopping at other markets.
2) There are regional variations in the growing season and only the most prime produce will be at better prices. The berry season has barely started here in NY, so they’re more expensive. But lettuce, greens, beans, and cucumbers are all MUCH cheaper at my green market than the supermarket, and much higher quality. You’ve got to pick your battles. One exception I’ve found to this has been tomatoes. Local tomatoes are outrageously expensive compared to shipped tomatoes. But on the other hand, they’re incomparable, because tomatoes were not meant to be shipped. They are completely different beasts. $3/lb for local tomatoes is an indulgence I’ll gladly pay to consume what I consider to be among the most pleasurable culinary experiences we have available to us. The depth of flavor and delicate texture in a local tomato is simply something you can’t get for any price nonlocally, because what it must go through to survive shipping destroys its unique characteristics. I feel the same way about Ronnybrook Farms milk. It’s pretty expensive compared to other milks, but that’s only if you assume that because they have the same name that they’re somehow the same product. They’re not.
3) There’s a lot to be said about the freshness and fridge life of fruits and vegetables purchased locally. If you’re actually going to eat it in a day or two, the quality will likely be unmatched by anything you can find even at Whole Foods. On top of that, a head of lettuce purchased at Whole Foods will last maybe 3-5 days in the fridge before it starts to wilt, but I’ve eaten lettuce purchased two weeks prior from the farmer’s market, and it’s always still crisp and green.
Tags: megnut, shopping, local, food, expensive, prices, union square, greenmarket
I noticed that sometime recently, Thunderbird added a new item to the View menu - Group By Sort. (If you don’t see it, it’s time to upgrade. If it’s greyed out, you need to choose a different sort key.)
This is really cool!
If you’re sorted by date, the mailbox displays as groups characteristic of the message date - Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Two Weeks Ago, Old Mail.
If you’re sorted by sender, you get a group for each sender.
Now, we only need the ability to sort the groups separately…
Tags: thunderbird, sort, grouping
Pandora is a music recommendation network.
It’s extremely easy to use.
You tell it a song or artist you like, and it builds you a customized “station” based on songs that are like that. At each song, you tell it whether you like it or not, and it learns. Alternately, you can branch off a new station based on any song playing.
I have not yet signed up or reviewed the privacy policy, but this seems intensely cool.
Also, it’s integrated with the Squeezebox, which I’ve recently obtained, and about which I’ll be writing a full review.
Tags: music, recommendation, pandora, squeezebox
I’m a huge fan of Opera; I’ve been using it on an off since around version 2. It got really good at version 5, and became my primary browser of choice until I switched to Firefox because version 7 was crap. But version 8 was great again, and now 9 is a big improvement over that. It’s fast, it’s smooth, standards support is better, they made some usability fixes, and it’s pleasant. I haven’t really delved into widgets yet, but those seem well-suited to being in the browser instead of in some standalone app.
Also, the development team is blogging. They’ve been releasing weekly snapshots, most of which have been great, leading up to this release. They’ll continue doing so going forward.
Congratulations, guys!
Fascinating movie about the process of making Marlon Brando speak new lines for Superman Returns.
Remember when you first realized that everything you saw in a photo could be faked and you couldn’t tell the difference? It’s here for video too.
http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/supermanreturns/jor_el/jor_el_large.mov
Tags: superman, superman returns, jor-el, marlon brando, brando, video, editing, sfx, special effects
I think it’s simultaneously good that Google is turning a watchful eye on the government, but also somewhat creepy that they’re putting themselves in the position of proxying people’s access to potentially sensitive information. I do NOT think that the Google privacy policy is sufficient to cover this situation.
As many have predicted, this is also likely to expose some interesting accidentally unprotected things at some point in the future.
http://www.google.com/ig/usgov
Tags: search, privacy, google, us government