youtube boots me out

Dangit, youtube has disabled my account.
Like I complained about recently, this is too steep a step of justice, as is common on Earth. I've been given no warning, heard of no complaints, given no chance to remove any offending video...

HTC phone

My friend Amin has switched from iPhone to the HTC Incredible phone, running the Android system. He's happy.

DVD commentaries

Isn't it amazing how few DVD commentaries are at all interesting? You'd think that somebody who works in the entertainment field would have an intuitive grasp of extemporizing in front of a mixed audience and talk about things which are interesting to more than twelve people on the planet. Instead we always hear about "this we shot at 2am. Man, it was really cold", and "this was actually the very first scene we shot. Or was it the second? No, wait, the very first was deleted, so it's actually the first in that sense".

Don't they have anything to say in and about their work? While making the movie, haven't they thought about what the film means, and how it achieves that meaning, and the causes and consequences of the choices they made while struggling to achieve it?

Ratings

Killshot recommends the docu This Film Is Not Yet Rated.
Based on the trailer, it seems odd to me... Hollywood is a multi-billion-dollar business, and yet nobody knows who the actual people are who decides what can be released and what can't? Sounds odd. It would seem that quite often one of the massively rich people with colossal egos who own and run the studios would blow their stack at such over oppression, and try to do something about it, or at least find out who they are.

"Haunted"

My pal Laurie shot this video, Haunted, for Ben Montaque. Very nice song, and growing in popularity.

Here's a little unofficial version. Laurie missed his daughter's birthday due to volcanos, and Ben did him a "solid" as the kids say.

Gaga soldiers

TCGirl found this funny video of soldiers doing the Gaga Telephone video (original here). Those are some guys who are sure in their masculinity!

Alice Greczyn (updated about five times)

Just watched Sex Drive, recommended by Philocalist. It was a good, funny movie in the traditions of American Pie and Road Trip. You know, coming-of-age stories really, but with trillion sex jokes and a guy who wants to loose his virginity, and with lots of showing of legs and a little of boobs and balls.

A bonus came in the they-don't-get-any-prettier-than-that category with Alice Greczyn in a minor role. I hope to the lord she never submits to boobie implants.


Talking about boobies (still!), I guess in the R-rated version there was maybe four seconds of boobies, all of them on extras, not the main actresses. It's typical, and I wonder if the ratings authorities measure this out exactly. If they had had ten seconds of boobies, maybe they'd have gotten an X-rating, do you think?
(And if they get that, most theatres won't show the film, so they're at the mercy of the ratings authorities, is my understanding. It's weird.) Even so, why don't they cut loose in the DVD version?* It's a big draw, I mean, men will sit in smoky bars and drink ten-dollar drinks just to look at boobs. I mean, not me, I tried it once, an afternoon show in Copenhagen, but it was just... boring and embarrassing. But I will gladly watch them movies, if the movie is not too bad.

Actually that's interesting: it does take more than that. This is the reason I don't have video on Domai: I never found any nude-girl videos which I didn't think were boring. Girls lounging about, or walking leisurely in the surf, rubbing their flanks sensuously, it's... just boring after a minute or two. And fake. It's fake because nobody ever moves like that when there's not a video camera pointing at them. It's a bit odd.


* Update: maybe they do. I thought the R-rated version was the more adult version, but it seems that "creamy", describing the other version, does not stand for softer, but for, whatever, and that one is unrated, a bit more boobs.
(I was a bit cynical after paying many years ago for an all-git-out uncensored version of American Pie, supposedly, and I couldn't tell the difference.)

They actually over-done it a little (to stay in the Southern vernacular), for the "irony" I suppose. They have inserted a long close-up shot of what we're supposed to think are Katrina Bowden's tits but which are never seen in the same room as Clark Kent, I mean, her face, and are too large anyway. And perhaps most silly, in several shots, a naked young woman just walks in front of the camera, over the dialogue and everything, pauses, and walks on! The actors never notice her. It seems to have been done later by green-screen. I hope the irony thing works out for them, because otherwise it's looking like lack of respect for the audience.
... Aha, turns out they did put in a big, silly disclaimer in the beginning of the Unrated Version, stating that it has a lot more gratuitous stuff, and sucks. And a more serious disclaimer that the real film is better than this silly for-fans-only version. Which is true, when it's done like this.

Oh, by the way, another gripe: when films *do* put in a nude girl or two, it's usually those horrible porn industry girls with their pneumatic breasts. I don't get how anybody looks at that and think "breast". An exception in this film is two amish girls who flash their tits at a rock concert, those are very cute and natural girls, and way more interesting than the inserted porn stars wandering about. (A friend of mine tells me that the girls start to look like that, all of them, after a year or two in the strip/porn business. All the falsity gets stacked on top of them, one layer at a time. What a frigging shame.)

But anyway, it at least proves that you can have nudity with an unrated DVD, which means you could make good ones too. Not as easy as one might think, though, I suspect.

Machine guns

In Apple's app store you can buy an app which fires realistic machine guns, with the actual sound of each model. You can fire it off at max volume at your friends, and imagine it were real and your friends were short brown people in some hot country which doesn't have democracy to protect them against people like yourself.

But lord forbid you see a single nipple in the Apple store, that might give people ideas! (Heck, I think even bikini girls are barred.)

A coupplea good vids

TCGirl found this good fun video/ad about a rabid Adobe fan.

Tommy found this Honda personal walker. Despite a March 31 publishing date, I think it's real, or at least could be built.

He also found this SF movie short. It's an excellent science fiction idea, and well executed. I haven't found it in HD, and it does not seem to be a promotion for any film or game.

And then there's the Jacko Final Fan(tasy):

Hackers, magicians

Geek Power: Steven Levy Revisits Tech Titans, Hackers, Idealists, article.

Many years ago, I read Levy's book Hackers. Both the book and its subjects have turned out to be much more influential than anybody expected.

iPad 3G on the loose

So the iPad 3G is now released in the US. That's the one which can use the cell phone net.

Still, I'd consider getting the regular one, and a Mifi device. One more thing struck me about the Mifi device: It can work as a back-up Net connection also. This can be a life-saver in mission-critical situations. A solution which would work even if the power goes, if you have your laptop charged.
(Remember my note: if you've had your laptop continually plugged in for months, the battery may be empty. It may even be dead.)

Art contest done

The Domai "simple nudes" Art Contest 2 is done, see results here, very nice art in many many styles.



Update: thanks for the many highly positive comments about the exhibition I've received, both here and over email. It's difficult to judge a competition with many good entries, but in the end I was very happy with what we have.

iPad stands

Thanks to Mary for finding this super-economical pad stand.

There is also a sturdier one, made as a book stand by Fellowes. Good quality and folds up.

Here is a very sturdy wooden one, for a very reasonable price. Korean hand-made. Almost too nice not to buy.


Finally, this one seems interesting.

Notes on notebooks

BTW, have you noticed that manufacturers are not calling them "laptops" anymore? Since people burned their thighs, they are legally covering their butts by calling them "notebooks" now. That's what I hear.

Note one on the books: they really need to find some space-age materials to make 'em from. I just digged out my 15-inch MacBook Pro, and gawd, is it a monster! We need something as strong/stiff as aluminium, but 25% the weight at most.
(Heck, even my old 12-inch Powerbook seems big and heavy after dealing for a while with the Airbook and the Pad.) (Note: "Powerbook" has a PowerPC processor, and "MacBook" (whether pro or not) has an Intel processor. The latter are newer and much better.)

Second note: if you have a notebook that you're not using regularly, or which is always plugged in, I recommend that you once a month or so let the battery run down and charge it up again. It keeps it alive. I'd neglected this too long with my 15-incher, and now the bat is dead! dead! dead! It's so dead the machine reports "no battery found"!

Following instructions

I'm getting a bit of sympathy for tech companies and other groups and individuals who have to make people follow instructions. For example, for the Domai Art contest (ending in a couple of hours), I wrote one rule in italics, in bold, and with red letters: "put your name in the file name". And what do you know, still maybe 20% simply don't do it.

Levy and cannibals

Steven Levy gives an interesting comment: "Apple is a company which is not afraid to cannibalize."
No other company with a highly successful laptop line would ever introduce a device which could replace many of those laptops. Especially when that device is half the price!! Think about that. They must be fantastically ballsy and stone-certain of the game-busting success of the pad for allowing this to happen. Their profit on a pad is much smaller than on their notebooks. If the pad turns out to mainly replace notebooks, Apple has not so much shot themselves in the foot, as in the balls.

Also, unlike Microsoft, they have been able to get past the OS and user-interface that they have invested millions of man-hours in, ditch it, and start from scratch. Microsoft tried to make tablets which run Windows, and it just doesn't work.

A mobile library

[Thanks to TTL]

Your ALDITCS (A Leading Device I the Tablet Computing Space) may hold more books and play video too, but can it protect your from the traffic when you're immersed in reading?

UBS and the ALDITCS

So, it seems that the the ALDITCS works well with USB devices well beyond just the cameras that the USB/camera adapter was designed for. For example good microphones, headsets, and keyboards (though it briefly complains about the latter.)
I'm particularly interested if it will work with an Alphasmart Neo as a keyboard. Because the Neo is small, sturdy, and has the greatest keyboard ever. Its only flaw is a very small and very dark screen. Well, if it work with the pad, you can safely say that that problem is handled! By several orders of magnitude.

160 Greatest Arnold bits, and Mifi

160 Greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes, video anthology. Pretty funny.

I found it by clicking on the nearest popular YT video when testing my likkle Mifi gadget. Connecting over the mobile phone net, it can wirelessly feed two computers both showing youtube video with no waiting or stuttering, neato. (Review.)

... Admittedly I need to test it more, because there are some odd little connection issues. Last I used it in town, some sites (Domai) were very fast, and some (like The Online Photographer) took aaaaaages to load, if at all. And today, watching my subscription videos on the pad, I was told "no go". And then I was told that youtube was closed! But when I navigated to Popular videos, those worked fine. Odd.

An Open Letter Of Thanks To Hef

[Thanks to Angelo]

An Open Letter Of Thanks To Hugh Hefner For Saving The Hollywood Sign, article.

It has finally happened: the layers of sarcasm, irony, flattery and mockery has now officially become so convoluted in entertainment "journalism" that nobody can tell any more what stance the writer originally had or has now. Wow!

Pam Grier and her snowy kitty

Pam Grier and her snowy kitty, article.
I refuse to write the actual title of the article, it's disgusting.

But well, it's nice to hear that there's nothing to the rumors that there are drug problems in Hollywood.

Increase Your iPad Media Storage for Just $49

Increase Your iPad Media Storage for Just $49, article.
It amuses me that on an 32GB SD card, the size of half a potato chip, you can bring an extra twenty-five movies with you on holiday! (If you do it on your honeymoon, though, don't tell the missus, she may take it to mean you consider her boring.)

Another bad parking

Hef helps

Hefner helps save the Hollywood sign.

Good thing. It's amazing how important for our global picture, and for the economy of the places involved, landmarks like these are. I'll bet you real estate near that sign is damn expensive. And what would Paris be without the, uh, you know phallic thingy? And Sydney without the famous, uh, the windsail building. I'll bet that building has pulled more people and money to Sydney than anything else.

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(Don't fret, I do know what these things are called. "Just a little humor there, to keep you at ease," as Peppermint Patty said to her doctor.)

Bandsaw artist

My dad would see something like this on TV, and he'd say: "sure, but I'll bet he's practiced it."

30Rock and Katrina

I'm really enjoying 30Rock. Very funny, very loose in just the right way.

My only complaint is my usual: under-use of the beautiful women. To be specific, Katrina Bowden, who plays Cerie, Liz Lemon's secretary. She must be a quite mediocre actress, otherwise I can't figure out why they wouldn't show more of her, she must surely get tons of fan mail.

A few pics

Multi-tasking

Modern computers are impressive. Right now on my machine all at the same time:

• Photoshop is going through a series of actions, including scaling, on a batch of photos.
• iTunes is playing music.
• GraphicConverter is compressing a huge stack of files one at a time, automatically.
• I'm using a different copy of GraphicConverter to sort images.
• iMedia Converter is converting a DVD.
• And of course I'm on the web, twit, email and such like normal.
• And I'm writing (after being done with the image sorting).

And despite three or four of these being processor-heavy tasks, none of it is slowed down!

[Update: Seemingly the only thing that will slow it down, or some services anyway, is very heavy downloading. If it's downloading a couple of files from a very fast server, that will make web browsing quite slow.]

(And the Mac Pro barely gets warm either. The G5 I had before, even under a much lighter work-load, would turn up the fans so loud that it was unbearable.)

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By the by, on the iMac in the living room, I'm also converting DVDs. Those are the astonishing number of American ones I have. I have set the iMac's optical drive to "Zone 2". (What is odd is that when it's set to the wrong region, sometimes I can rip a DVD, sometimes I can't, and sometimes many strange problems just turn up.)

More marker art

Here's another one, Heike Weber, who is making art with "permanent" markers. I just hope she isn't too heart-broken if and when they fade.