Spence most kinely points out that a Seattle Public Library card entitles the bearer to free online access to certain tech books. Sweet!
WIUX
A hearty quack of welcome to WIUX. Wakka wakka wakka!
FWIW, I just had one of those sublime Apple experiences that constitute the technology world’s crack equivalent: I stumbled across our Airport Express for the first time since unlimbering our reciever/amplifer and thought, what the hell, might as well plug it in to see what happens. The led on the plug turned green, and I fired up iTunes with a stream from, as it happens, my parents’ classical station, the North Carolina-based WCPE, flipped the amp over to aux, and was rewarded with the magnolia-toned accent of the announcer welcoming a station in Bay City, Michigan. Easiest post-move technology experience yet.
Let’s hope the printer sharing is as sweet.
Balls!
Tom Harpel has posted a plea for assistance in the lifting of my wife’s bowling ball. We’ll be glad to help, as long as it involves a tasty dinner at Cactus. Viv is sick, though, and would like to wait until she is not.
Point
Last night at the Paramount’s silent movie, a 1915 adaptation of Carmen directed by Cecil B. DeMille, I was amused to note what appeared to me to be the profile of the cliff known as Dana Point prominently featured in the center of the screen during the opening sequence, a picturesque scene of smugglers landing goods in in a longboat.
Geordie or Cylon?
MyVu personal media viewer, on show at MacWorld SF and slated to ship in March. For your video iPod.
Much more attractive, although these things are relative, than the single-eye version from a Seattle manufacturer I mocked earlier this month.
Hikikomori
Shutting Themselves In – New York Times. Young Japanese men retreat to bedrooms for years a time.
I can relate. Mom! Can I have some more ramen?
Vlasov and Paulus
Speaking of bedtime reading, I am relieved to – it seems nearly a year later – finally return to Vollmann’s now plaudited Europe Central.
I just completed a fugue-like pair of chapters relating the sorry histories of General Vlasov and Field Marshal Paulus, sympathetic yet ironically distanced recountings of war’s toll on (in these chapters) those who would be great men. Deliciously constructed and arch in tone Vollmann still manages to gain our sympathies for these characters, one a turncoat Russian, the other a German general who was promoted to the highest Wermacht rank by Hitler on the day before his capture by the Russians, who had encircled his unsupplied remnant of an army at Stalingrad.
Vollmann’s point seems to be something along the lines of ‘war is bad,’ but as ever, his apparent simplicity and insistent naivete are suspect: there’s more going on here than meets the eye. What it is, I’m not yet sure.
the pain
Tom has apparently conclusively established as fact what”s long been suspected: exercise is bad for you. Be sure to let us know what hospital you end up in, Tom!
Skepticism
Unsanity.org provides some shielding against the effects of the reality distortion field (via Manuel). Some valuable skepticism, but aslo some silly carping about New Things such as the built-in iSight and the remote. The writer’s analysis concludes that the new intelMacs were likely rushed into production and chalks up some of the downgraded features on the new machines to that. Sounds about right to me. I’m still considering flipping the current axe for one of the new machines. Better list on eBay soon, though. 😉
For review
The Last iPod Video Guide You’ll Ever Need, at Plastic Bugs, via BrainLog.
UPDATE: Geez, that’s a pretty intimidating page for a non-technical user. Apple (or someone) could make a killing by releasing a conversion app that really truly doesn’t require a whit of oversight. Let’s see, how would it work?
My theoretical user would presumably understand using an iPod as a music playback device. Therefore the video usage procedure should be entirely analogous. My user inserts a video source such as a DVD or locates a video source such as a downloaded rip of the Daily Show. Then, the user drags the source to “Library” in iTunes, and the material is added. iTunes should broker any conversion, if neccessary, and the conversion settings should be tweakable in the iTunes preferences panes.
I would guess that a conversion dialog might be presented at the time the user drags the content over, asking if the conversion should take place as fast as possible or run more slowly, in the background, since ripping video is so timeconsuming on this generation of hardware.
Additionally, if the video source is a DVD, if possible, the raw DVD video should be copied in entirety to the local drive, allowing the user to eject the disc more rapidly than if the conversion process were to be based directly on the data stored on the optical disc.