Wiki-monkey
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
fat firefox
The damn memory leaks in 1.5 are driving me nuts. It's used up to 230+ MB of memory at times. Minimizing or closing tabs doesn't recover the memory.
Unacceptable performance, Mozilla needs to release a fix for this asap. ¶ 1:57 PM 0 comments
Unacceptable performance, Mozilla needs to release a fix for this asap. ¶ 1:57 PM 0 comments
Monday, May 29, 2006
movies
The Island - A Michael Bay flick where Scarlett Johansen runs around looking like a porn star then doesn't show any skin in the sex scene even though she wanted to. Damn you Michael Bay, damn you. The movie is an amalgam of previous sci-fi flicks, the only interesting thing being the sheer amount of product placement.
Crash - winning the 2005 Oscar mandated a viewing. This film reminded me of Traffic, perhaps because
1. Don Cheadle is present in both films.
2. Both films share a gritty hand-held style of cinematography
3. All disparate stories eventually become entwined.
4. Car crashes lead to traffic jams.
The director doesn't preach, just shows us different events and lets us interpret. Solid acting and editing. I'm not sure that it was Best Picture worthy though, must have been a weak field last year.
Mission Impossible III: A two-part episode of Alias with lavish production values. The team aspect was played up considerally (woo Maggie Q), Hoffman was cool, but the story was weak. McGuffin device only existed because the writers couldn't think of any new nuclear weapon. It's not like Pulp where we had no idea what was in the suitcase. Action scenes weren't memorable aside from the money shot.
ILM did solid work in this one but the bulk of their shots were invisible effects. It's great that they were done so well that I didn't notice them but ... come on. I want to see huge tripods rising from the ground, balrogs fighting wizards, epic sci-fi battles. The demystification of visual effects is one thing, going away from imaginative / innovative FX shots is another. People come into theaters expecting to be blown out of their seats, and it's difficult for filmmakers to consistently do that. 3D cinema can't come any sooner. I think it also has something to do with TV production values getting exceeding better. Heck, 24 consistently has better action sequences than most movies. ¶ 3:31 PM 0 comments
Crash - winning the 2005 Oscar mandated a viewing. This film reminded me of Traffic, perhaps because
1. Don Cheadle is present in both films.
2. Both films share a gritty hand-held style of cinematography
3. All disparate stories eventually become entwined.
4. Car crashes lead to traffic jams.
The director doesn't preach, just shows us different events and lets us interpret. Solid acting and editing. I'm not sure that it was Best Picture worthy though, must have been a weak field last year.
Mission Impossible III: A two-part episode of Alias with lavish production values. The team aspect was played up considerally (woo Maggie Q), Hoffman was cool, but the story was weak. McGuffin device only existed because the writers couldn't think of any new nuclear weapon. It's not like Pulp where we had no idea what was in the suitcase. Action scenes weren't memorable aside from the money shot.
ILM did solid work in this one but the bulk of their shots were invisible effects. It's great that they were done so well that I didn't notice them but ... come on. I want to see huge tripods rising from the ground, balrogs fighting wizards, epic sci-fi battles. The demystification of visual effects is one thing, going away from imaginative / innovative FX shots is another. People come into theaters expecting to be blown out of their seats, and it's difficult for filmmakers to consistently do that. 3D cinema can't come any sooner. I think it also has something to do with TV production values getting exceeding better. Heck, 24 consistently has better action sequences than most movies. ¶ 3:31 PM 0 comments
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Lost
Wow, I was wrong. A computer scientist would be extremely useful on the island. Write a damn program to input the damn numbers already!
Season two started out slowly but ended in a riveting manner. Apparently the writers DO have an end game so hopefully it won't turn the way of the X-Files. An interesting parallel between Lost and X-Files (just something stupid that refers to me only) that I realized... somehow from the promotions of both shows, I gained the impression that a) X-Files was based on true stories, and b) Lost was reality TV with a new person getting voted off the island each week. My stupidity eventually led me to start watching the shows.
I also got Steve so hooked on it that he went out and rented the DVDs rather than wait a day for me to burn them for him. Now that's quality TV.
+ Desmond
+ Jack
+ Locke
+ Eko
+ Jin/Sun
+ Sayid
+ others
- Charlie
- Bernard / Rose
- Hurley
- Claire
- Sawyer
- Kate ¶ 6:59 PM 0 comments
Season two started out slowly but ended in a riveting manner. Apparently the writers DO have an end game so hopefully it won't turn the way of the X-Files. An interesting parallel between Lost and X-Files (just something stupid that refers to me only) that I realized... somehow from the promotions of both shows, I gained the impression that a) X-Files was based on true stories, and b) Lost was reality TV with a new person getting voted off the island each week. My stupidity eventually led me to start watching the shows.
I also got Steve so hooked on it that he went out and rented the DVDs rather than wait a day for me to burn them for him. Now that's quality TV.
+ Desmond
+ Jack
+ Locke
+ Eko
+ Jin/Sun
+ Sayid
+ others
- Charlie
- Bernard / Rose
- Hurley
- Claire
- Sawyer
- Kate ¶ 6:59 PM 0 comments
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Windows Media Player 11 Beta
Spent hours playing with WMP11 and adding album art to my mp3 collection. The presentation is quite clean, album art was that missing piece that really fleshed out the GUI. Look for Apple to copy this feature ASAP.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Why Sony might be in trouble
$600 price point. And the Wii factor.
The Playstation 2 didn't have the best specs, nor was it easy to develop for. It was, however, popular from the start. More importantly, popular in Japan which has the greatest gaming culture. The influence of Japan is far-reaching which is why Microsoft has spent so much money trying to infiltrate that market.
Sony and Kuratagi are convinced that people will buy the PS3 irregardless of anything. They could be right but they certainly have stacked the odds against themselves. This situation is similar the N64 - had Nintendo only included a CD-ROM drive, they would have won that generation. The price point differential is considerable even without factoring in the cost of an HD-TV. The PS3 is not merely a gaming machine as Sony has reiterated, but what about people who aren't interested in HD?
Big gamble - pushing Blu-ray acceptance through the PS3. HD requires a sizable investment and probably won't become mainstream for a least a couple of years. Microsoft was smart not to require HD-DVD. If blu-ray doesn't catch on, Sony is in a huge bind. Compared to the PS3, the 360 looks like a bargain, with similar graphics horsepower.
Secrecy - By not revealing all its cards, Nintendo builds more interest in the machine. Final specifications of the CPU/GPU have yet to be released for a machine launching this year. Nintendo has consistently played down the graphical capabilities of the Wii, common belief is that the games are "a bit better than Gamecube" (aka crap). If they suddenly announce that they are using a 1.1 gHZ processor with an R520 GPU, this will exceed all expectations. Contrast this to 360/PS3 developers releasing CG "previews" and passing them off as gameplay. When the actual screens are shown, gamers feel like they've been cheated.
Negatives: four Gamecube ports builtin. Good for existing owners but IMO a waste of real estate. Why not include gamecube -> USB adaptors. Having more USB ports built-in would be more versatile. Not a huge fan of legacy components in general, *cough* dualshock.
What's old is new again - Like the ipod to "insert ugly mp3 player", Nintendo is now the alternative to the beefy MS/SONY machines. Losing the past couple console wars relegated it to "niche" status. They are definitely playing up that aspect, but now are poised to return to mainstream gaming consciousness.
Wii is the dark horse, and now has the best opportunity to exploit the mistakes of Sony. ¶ 10:52 AM 0 comments
The Playstation 2 didn't have the best specs, nor was it easy to develop for. It was, however, popular from the start. More importantly, popular in Japan which has the greatest gaming culture. The influence of Japan is far-reaching which is why Microsoft has spent so much money trying to infiltrate that market.
Sony and Kuratagi are convinced that people will buy the PS3 irregardless of anything. They could be right but they certainly have stacked the odds against themselves. This situation is similar the N64 - had Nintendo only included a CD-ROM drive, they would have won that generation. The price point differential is considerable even without factoring in the cost of an HD-TV. The PS3 is not merely a gaming machine as Sony has reiterated, but what about people who aren't interested in HD?
Big gamble - pushing Blu-ray acceptance through the PS3. HD requires a sizable investment and probably won't become mainstream for a least a couple of years. Microsoft was smart not to require HD-DVD. If blu-ray doesn't catch on, Sony is in a huge bind. Compared to the PS3, the 360 looks like a bargain, with similar graphics horsepower.
Secrecy - By not revealing all its cards, Nintendo builds more interest in the machine. Final specifications of the CPU/GPU have yet to be released for a machine launching this year. Nintendo has consistently played down the graphical capabilities of the Wii, common belief is that the games are "a bit better than Gamecube" (aka crap). If they suddenly announce that they are using a 1.1 gHZ processor with an R520 GPU, this will exceed all expectations. Contrast this to 360/PS3 developers releasing CG "previews" and passing them off as gameplay. When the actual screens are shown, gamers feel like they've been cheated.
Negatives: four Gamecube ports builtin. Good for existing owners but IMO a waste of real estate. Why not include gamecube -> USB adaptors. Having more USB ports built-in would be more versatile. Not a huge fan of legacy components in general, *cough* dualshock.
What's old is new again - Like the ipod to "insert ugly mp3 player", Nintendo is now the alternative to the beefy MS/SONY machines. Losing the past couple console wars relegated it to "niche" status. They are definitely playing up that aspect, but now are poised to return to mainstream gaming consciousness.
Wii is the dark horse, and now has the best opportunity to exploit the mistakes of Sony. ¶ 10:52 AM 0 comments
Saturday, May 13, 2006
No Florida
My friends and I were all set to jet off of Fort Lauderdale for a week of training/vacation. We booked flights on JetBlue, picked hotels close to the beach (and Miami), lined up our rental cars. I even bought some board shorts off Amazon and rushed the shipping. Then VMware tells us that there's no room for us non-paying customers. Doh!
I still have my choice of where I want training but it's hard getting into the regular VMware classes as opposed to the special EMC-only classes in boring Milford, MA. My new plan is to take Virtual Infrastructure w/ ESX in some random location (maybe even Irvine), then takes the 2nd course in Fort Lauderdale where there will be much less demand. I definitely don't want to travel to cities that aren't close to an ocean... sushi is likely to be less fresh and edible.
I also want to take the P2V course which will be in Chicago for a couple days. In the middle of all this I'll be traveling to Salt Lake City and back to Phoenix on an unrelated project. Hopefully by then I'll have racked up enough points for a free flight. In the meantime I have a backlog of books to read, as well as another exam to study for to prove that I'm still focused on my job. ¶ 10:48 AM 0 comments
I still have my choice of where I want training but it's hard getting into the regular VMware classes as opposed to the special EMC-only classes in boring Milford, MA. My new plan is to take Virtual Infrastructure w/ ESX in some random location (maybe even Irvine), then takes the 2nd course in Fort Lauderdale where there will be much less demand. I definitely don't want to travel to cities that aren't close to an ocean... sushi is likely to be less fresh and edible.
I also want to take the P2V course which will be in Chicago for a couple days. In the middle of all this I'll be traveling to Salt Lake City and back to Phoenix on an unrelated project. Hopefully by then I'll have racked up enough points for a free flight. In the meantime I have a backlog of books to read, as well as another exam to study for to prove that I'm still focused on my job. ¶ 10:48 AM 0 comments
Monday, May 08, 2006
e3 madness!!!!
Brings back memories. Nothing I love more than wasting a whole day sifting through the vast amount of new info that comes out of E3. Especially when new consoles are being released. Back in the N64 days I'd stay up late on AOL downloading tiny movies of game trailers. On 56k dialup, no less. Currently I have the leisure of working from home so I'll be very unproductive for the next few days.
The big influx of info brings millions of posts from all the fanboys. The debates are as entertaining as the info itself. Arguments range from the Sony's apparent miscues with the PS3, to whether the "Wii" name (Nintendo's next console) will be relegated to being the butt of jokes for years to come. Here's an example - the Sony Conference thread, where pages 1-55 represents a huge circle jerk amongst Sony fanyboys. They squeal with delight at the unveiling of trailers for FFXIII and MGS4 - certain blockbuster hits for Sony. They cackle with glee when Kuratagi unveals the gyroscopic functions of the DS3 controller, an unabashed "inspiration" gleaned from Nintendo's controller. Then the megaton hits (the announcement of the PS3 pricing), to which we see a mass exodus of Sony fans jumping off the bandwagon to the Microsoft and Nintendo camps. The prevailing sentiment in the thread going forward is "fuck you Sony!".
My thoughts: ugh, the dualshock is back. I guess I'm one of the few that was happy with that batarang controller since it at least represented an effort to innovate. Now they bring back the DS2 controller and while it's a good controller.... dammit change it a bit already!!! Bringing back the controller virtually unaltered doesn't give me a sense of newness. It's not the perfect design either, - the xbox360 controller trumps it IMO. If you are going to copy Nintendo's motion sensing, copy some features from the 360 controller. The radical shift back to the Dualshock design, coupled with the addition of "Nintendo controller features" screams of desperation.
On that note, someone's already summed up the Sony press conference. Wikipedia is pretty accurate I'm told, so it must be valid.
I was floored by the pricing of the PS3. They copied Microsoft's 2 SKU strategy, but the net is the same. If you want the non-crippled (no HDMI, no wifi, no memory card ports) PS3, it is going to cost you $600. I mean, $600 was the price I was going to hawk these on ebay for! I'm not sure how they are going to swing this, marketing wise. They've got their ducks in a row with MGS4, VF4, FFXIII exclusives, but 600 could be a killing point. ¶ 11:28 PM 0 comments
The big influx of info brings millions of posts from all the fanboys. The debates are as entertaining as the info itself. Arguments range from the Sony's apparent miscues with the PS3, to whether the "Wii" name (Nintendo's next console) will be relegated to being the butt of jokes for years to come. Here's an example - the Sony Conference thread, where pages 1-55 represents a huge circle jerk amongst Sony fanyboys. They squeal with delight at the unveiling of trailers for FFXIII and MGS4 - certain blockbuster hits for Sony. They cackle with glee when Kuratagi unveals the gyroscopic functions of the DS3 controller, an unabashed "inspiration" gleaned from Nintendo's controller. Then the megaton hits (the announcement of the PS3 pricing), to which we see a mass exodus of Sony fans jumping off the bandwagon to the Microsoft and Nintendo camps. The prevailing sentiment in the thread going forward is "fuck you Sony!".
My thoughts: ugh, the dualshock is back. I guess I'm one of the few that was happy with that batarang controller since it at least represented an effort to innovate. Now they bring back the DS2 controller and while it's a good controller.... dammit change it a bit already!!! Bringing back the controller virtually unaltered doesn't give me a sense of newness. It's not the perfect design either, - the xbox360 controller trumps it IMO. If you are going to copy Nintendo's motion sensing, copy some features from the 360 controller. The radical shift back to the Dualshock design, coupled with the addition of "Nintendo controller features" screams of desperation.
On that note, someone's already summed up the Sony press conference. Wikipedia is pretty accurate I'm told, so it must be valid.
I was floored by the pricing of the PS3. They copied Microsoft's 2 SKU strategy, but the net is the same. If you want the non-crippled (no HDMI, no wifi, no memory card ports) PS3, it is going to cost you $600. I mean, $600 was the price I was going to hawk these on ebay for! I'm not sure how they are going to swing this, marketing wise. They've got their ducks in a row with MGS4, VF4, FFXIII exclusives, but 600 could be a killing point. ¶ 11:28 PM 0 comments
kobe
Here's a fairly insightful article about Kobe Bryant. I concur with all of the major points.
It IS more fun when the Lakers are in the playoffs and I get to root against them. The way they got demolished by the Suns was the perfect capper. Kobe is fairly unique the way he is so divisive and polarizing, but he brought that on himself. ¶ 10:13 AM 0 comments
It IS more fun when the Lakers are in the playoffs and I get to root against them. The way they got demolished by the Suns was the perfect capper. Kobe is fairly unique the way he is so divisive and polarizing, but he brought that on himself. ¶ 10:13 AM 0 comments
Friday, May 05, 2006
Long BEECH trip
placeholder for details to follow
- did an install
- meet younger bro, ate filet. Lakers lost.
- walked around Long Beach.
- played some ball ¶ 12:12 AM 0 comments
- did an install
- meet younger bro, ate filet. Lakers lost.
- walked around Long Beach.
- played some ball ¶ 12:12 AM 0 comments
