Decongestant high

in ,


I feel like something radioactive is bubbling in my sinuses. I'm not sure if it's the result of taking decongestants for two days straight now. For some reason all my decongestants seem to all be dosed at two pills every four hours. So sometime in the middle of every night I have to wake up coughing to death like a seventy year old smoker attached to an oxygen tank. Then I rush to take two more pills and lie there coughing until the medicine takes effect. Longer lasting doses please.


I apologize in advance for all the people I may have infected during my stay in Seattle. Tough to balance being sick with wanting to catch up with people.


***


As a tribute to Radiohead's OK Computer, Stereogum asked some of its favorite musicians for covers of tracks from that much beloved album.


Clever commercial for...well, just wait for the punch line (Quicktime).


Watched a bit of the home run derby the other day and had to wonder who thought it was a good idea to have a crowd of eight year old boys who don't know how to catch a baseball waddling around the outfield running into each other while people like Vladimir Guerrero swing as hard as they can trying to hit the ball out of the stadium, and when they miss they hit searing laser line drives into the outfield. One of these years one of those kids will get hit flush in the face and go down like a criminal hit with a taser, and won't that be an awkward moment for Bud Selig.


Orlando Bloom's dirtstache.


Technorati Tags: , , , ,


Live from the Emerald City

in , , , , , ,


This post broadcast from the Emerald City, where yours truly attended Audrey and Matt's lovely wedding this weekend (some pics here). Seattle's gorgeous summer weather arrived early (for the Pacific Northwest) this year; it's actually warmer here than in Los Angeles. The only problem is that I have one of the worst summer colds I've ever experienced and have been hacking myself awake every night for a few hours. I'm popping decongestants like they're SweeTarts. If this is my last post ever, know that I probably choked to death on my own phlegm in the middle of the night.


***


Telekinesis is an iPhone Remote application that allows you to access files on your computer via your iPhone.


Red is a popular brand name for high end products. Besides the camera, we now have SRAM working on a sub 2000g component group called Red (for those of you who are non-cyclists, a component group is all the stuff that goes on your bike frame (outside of your wheels and pedals and handlebars; components include your cranks and derailleurs and brake levers, stuff like that). Always good to have a bit of competition for the two market leaders, Shimano and Campagnolo.


The rumors are confirmed: Dan Patrick is leaving ESPN. The peak of ESPN's quality was when Patrick and Keith Olbermann hosted The Big Show. He faded from view for me in recent years as he moved over to the radio. I didn't even own a radio in NYC.


Dress like Roger Federer at Wimbledon. You're sure to impress in your all-white blazer and warm-up trousers when you show up for local club match, at least until you pull your hamstring in the third game. That was some final between Federer and Nadal, by the way. Those two epitomize the peak of the modern tennis game now; compare that to, say, footage of an Edberg-Becker final from back in the day and it's a totally different game.


You think you're always waiting a long time for the woman in your life to get ready? Lián Amaris Sifuentes took it to another level. She went through the usual preparations for a date but slowed them down to fill 72 hours, and she performed it in Union Square this weekend (so close to my old apartment!). NYU professor R. Luke Dubois shot the performance on three high-def camcorders and will compress it into a 72 minute video. Dubois has used this technique before, compressing previous Academy Award Best Picture winners into one minute. Some examples are posted here (Amadeus or Titanic, e.g.). That's what it must be like to have one's life flash before one's eyes. Trippy.


Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,


Revisiting Intrade odds for the 2008 election

in


Last bid on GOP nominee:



36.0 Rudy Giuliani

34.7 Fred Thompson

17.7 Mitt Romney

 3.8 John McCain


Fred Thomspon at 34.7 and John McCain at 3.8? Wow, I'm out of touch. My last impression of Fred Thompson was his struggles to deal with terrorists in Die Hard 2. Sure, the good guys won, but I'd give most of the credit to John McClane.


And the last bids on the Democratic Presidential Nominee side:


40.9 Hillary Clinton

37.5 Barack Obama

 8.9 Al Gore

 5.1 John Edwards


Poor John Edwards is losing to someone who isn't even running.


Intrade also now has shares for the winner of the 2008 Presidential election:



24.5 Hillary

20.9 Barack

18.5 Rudy

18.5 Fred


The Democrats are also predicted to have control of both the Senate and the House.


Technorati Tags:


iNotes

in , , , , ,


Very little evidence supporting theory that poverty breeds terrorism. I find that reassuring.


In a Q&A about some device called the iPhone, Walt Mossberg says Apple will add Flash support to the iPhone browser through an early software update.


Alessandro Petacchi out of the Tour de France after doping charge. His urine sample after the third of his five stage wins at this year's Giro d'Italia showed an unusually high level of albutamol, an asthma treatment. He holds a therapeutic use exemption for its use, but he exceeded the permitted level of 1,000 nanograms/millileter. Well, there goes the top sprinter in the Tour. I'll still watch, though. I just got back on my bike the other day for the first time in ages, and on the 4th I went with Tory for a climb up Malibu Canyon Road. That climb kicked my butt all over the road but I survived to summit.


Crazy battle at Kruger National Park in Africa, caught on video. Some unlikely twists and turns. I think I caught Jeff Van Gundy in there, hanging onto the leg of a Cape Buffalo. I've seen enough specials to know that Cape Buffalo never leave a man behind (thx to Mark for the referral).






Verizon COO Jack Plating sends internal memo titled iWhatever, throws out some brave talk in the face of the iPhone. He is true in that the network is Verizon's first and most powerful advantage. But Verizon handsets are not impressive at all.


I had lunch with Robert today, and the cafe was broadcasting highlights from Wimbledon. We were talking about Federer's loss in the French Open final to Nadal, and Robert thought that a big problem is that Federer was not extending on his first serve. He was keeping his first serve motion in too close, resulting in his ghastly first serve percentage. You wouldn't be able to tell from the final score, but based on the % of points Federer won on his first serve, he would have won that much had his first serve gone in more. One of these years, Federer will break through against Nadal at the French. He's played well enough to do so in the past, but it just hasn't happened there at Philippe Chatrier.


Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Cloverfield

in , ,


Before The Transformers opening night showing, a trailer played for a J.J. Abrams movie coming out Jan 18, 2008. There's a teaser website for the movie that consists, right now, of just a single photo. The movie is known right now just by the internal name Cloverfield. The trailer made a brief appearance on YouTube before Paramount launched a lightning bolt of a lawyer and smote it into the ether. It looks to be some monster attack on NYC movie, but shot with handheld camcorders from the perspective of people on the ground. Creative trailer.


So to see the trailer, you have to go sit through The Transformers. I can't in good conscience recommend that, but I do suspect that if the Transformers played a big role in your childhood, you will get some pleasure from watching in the company of fellow Transformer-philes. Otherwise, it will probably strike you as the silliest use of someone else's $150 million.


***


People are being deceived by SPF ratings and false labels on sunscreens and getting burned. Sunscreens are tested by applying 2 milligrams per square centimeter of body, so you should apply about two ounces to cover your body. But most people put on much less. A shortcut offered in this article is "Apply about a teaspoon of sunscreen to your face and a shot glass of it to your body."


Here's a list of the best sunscreens. Darn, I guess my Neutrogena Sunblock isn't that hot at UVA protection after all. This stuff is important to me now that I live in the land of perfect weather. It has been about 75 degrees and sunny for nine thousand days straight now.


***


T-Mobile is launching a cellphone service in which you can make calls for free when your phone can connect to a T-Mobile wi-fi hot spot. It's a good thing for consumers when data streams start to merge. With this and Apple's entry into the handset market, perhaps the mobile phone industry will get a kick start. It's about time competition improved cell phone devices, services, and prices.


***


Whoa! David Pogue, branching out into musical comedy.


Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Soderbergh endoses the Red

in ,


Steven Soderbergh loves the Red One camera:


"This is the camera I've been waiting for my whole career: jaw-dropping imagery recorded onboard a camera light enough to hold with one hand. I don't know how Jim and the RED team did it--and they won't tell me--but I know this: RED is going to change everything." Steven Soderbergh


Soderbergh uses the pseudonym Peter Andrews when he's a DP. Shooting the movie you're directing is not something the ASC is a fan of. I went to an ASC even earlier this year, and there was some grumbling about Soderbergh and his ilk, though I can't think of any other prominent directors who shoot their own movies.


There are a whole slew of crazy rules set forth by all the guilds, the DGA, the Writer's Guild, the ASC, and the ACE about what names can appear where. You'd think that the person who does the work should get the credit, but that would be too logical.


Technorati Tags: , , , , ,


A "reversal"

in ,


Joey Chestnut unseated six-time winner and reigning champion of the Nathan's hot dog champion Takeru Kobayashi by eating 66 hot dogs to Kobayashi's 63 in 12 minutes. Judges deducted from Kobayashi's final count because he suffered a "reversal"--a euphemism for vomiting--after the 12 minutes were up. 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes works out to 1 hot dog consumed every 10.9 seconds, a rate which has me contemplating a reversal just thinking about it.


No one, even Chestnut or Kobayashi, had cracked 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes before, so clearly they're pushing each other, and the grand sport of competitive eating, to new heights.


Joey Chestnut is a great name. If he weren't a competitive eater he could be an adult film star.


Technorati Tags: ,


Master Classes

in


Two Sundays ago I took a few master classes in cinematography. The morning session was taught by Ron Dexter whose website includes some of the information he shared in the class.


The first half of the afternoon session was taught by Daniel Pearl who shot both the original and remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He has shot a lot of recognizable commercials, including many for Gatorade and the award winning Motorola commercial "Wings" (check out his sports reel and general reel). Pearl favors high contrast cinematography, and one of the interesting things he said was that modern film stocks are so good that they almost work against DP's striving for high contrast. First thing most DPs say when they are sitting in telecine is to crush the blacks.


Pearl's class consisted of watching clips from his reel followed by Q&A after each clip. The second half of the afternoon class, in constrast, consisted of an actual lighting workshop taught by Rodrigo Prieto, the DP most famous for his work with Alejandro González Iñárritu on Babel, 21 Grams, and Amores Perros but who has also shot films like Brokeback Mountain, Alexander, 8 Mile, and Frida.


Prieto chose to recreate the lighting from the final scene of Lust, Caution which he just finished shooting for Ang Lee. Without giving away the story, Prieto told us that the last scene consists of Tony Leung entering a dark room from the hallway, walking over to sit on a bed, and then standing and walking back out the door. On a small stage at the Mole Richardson building he set about recreating the lighting from his memory and then shooting two shots on a Viper camera brought in for the class.


I hadn't heard much about Lust, Caution, but any movie directed by Ang Lee and starring Tony Leung is going to hook me (it's adapted from this book by Eileen Chang). Prieto discussed the challenges of trying to control soft light, and he walked us through how he dealt with several tricky lighting issues he ran into for these last two shots. Several LCD monitors were set up around the room so we could get a sense of what the camera was seeing.


The camaraderie among cinematographers never fails to impress me. You'd think people who have to compete for work would be guarded and jealous, but DP's always seem willing to share their techniques and knowledge with others. Prieto was as personable a guy as you'll meet in the film world.


Technorati Tags: ,


An iPhone report

in ,


You don't really know someone until you travel with them, right? I've hung out with my iPhone for a weekend now, and we've really hit it off. I'm only the eight thousandth person to throw my thoughts out, but here are some random thoughts on my new baby.


Let's start with the negatives, many of which are missing features:


  • The device is a slave, in part, to AT&T. You don't have to search far for the horror stories spawned this weekend as the iPhone forced hundreds of thousands of customers to interact with AT&T.

  • Recessed headphone port--noted earlier.

  • No GPS which would've made the Maps feature even more killer than it already is. I'm hoping that when GPS is available I can send mine in for a GPS receiver insertion, but I've already set aside a fund for iPhone 2.0. Maybe when GPS is incorporated it can be used for anti-theft tracking so I don't have to stress so much about losing her.

  • Mediocre 2MP cell phone camera with no flash--better than the one I have on my Verizon LG phone, but it's not going to replace my Canon SD800 for pics of friends when out and about.

  • Volume is a bit soft--maybe I'm going deaf from listening to my iPod at such high volumes the past several years, but my iPhone at max volume is softer than other phones I've owned.

  • Speaker is not that loud or clear. Not surprising to me that they can't fit a great speaker with a huge amp in such a tiny device, but if you're wondering about the speaker quality, there you go.

  • Can't go to landscape mode in Mail. You really can't screw up typing in the larger keyboard of landscape mode, but that view only appears for the web browser right now.

  • Need SpamSieve for the iPhone, or I need to start using my GMail account a lot more to filter out the spam. It's been a long time since I've had to deal with spam one by one, and it's not pretty. So far I haven't found a method to delete a group of e-mails so I've been zapping spams one by one which, as anyone knows, is painful in this day and age of spam overload.

  • No copy and paste. I haven't tried that function on devices that don't have physical keyboards, but perhaps there's an elegant way to implement it. I almost think the iPhone could do with an extra button that does different things in various contexts, but I know previous efforts with such all-purpose triggers, like the one they put in BMW cars at one point, have been unsuccessful.

  • No Flash or Java for the iPhone implementation of Safari. It's easy to take Flash and Java for granted now, until you lose them and realize that so many Web 2.0 sites rely on them for basic interface functionality.

  • Web page rendering is just a hair slow for pages that have loaded already. Even once a web page finished loading, if you scroll down a page quickly, the browser will stop to render the next section of the page, presenting you with a grey and white checkerboard pattern while you're on hold. I've encountered this even if it's just a page of pure text. It's not that bothersome to me, but I'm surprised it occurs even with lightweight web pages.

  • No video capability for the camera. I had visions of using the speaker phone with an onboard video camera to do futuristic video phone chats with other iPhone or video iChat-enabled people, and they remain just that, visions.

  • No RSS reader.

  • No to-do items in the Calendar, something that would help it as a PDA replacement.

  • The calendar from your Mac is flattened upon entering the iPhone so all appointments are listed together. When you create items in the iPhone Calendar they can only be sent to one iCal calendar on your Mac.

  • One time my iPhone got stuck in this odd state where Maps and iPod kept bouncing me back to the home screen. I finally solved it by turning the device completely off.

  • Need to allow more third-party app development for the iPhone. I don't mind Apple's closed loop system in many cases because the solutions are so good, but in general, open systems speed the pace of development. For now, I've created a Bookmarks folder in Safari called iPhone and have been tossing interesting iPhone web apps in there, but I'd prefer to be able to select your own icons for the home screen.

  • Can't load your own ringtones. I'm not a huge ringtone person, and I'm proud to say I've never paid money for a ringtone, but I would like to load my own. I guess I'll have to wait a while to use the THX deep bass note as my ringtone.

  • No voice dialing or recording.

  • Can't use it as an iPod disk drive.

  • I haven't found an optimal grip for two-thumb typing.

  • No manual management option for the iPod's music, video, and photo content. You have to choose playlists or albums in iTunes and iPhoto for the iPod to sync to automatically. You can be creative in iTunes with smart playlists to manage your music at a finer-grained level, but I don't understand why you can't manually drag songs and videos and and off the iPhone like you can with any other iPod.


A lot of these issues can be addressed by a software update. I'm already giddy at the thought of finding that first iPhone software update available. I've always preferred electronic devices that are software upgradeable; even my home theater pre-amp can be upgraded via software. It's exciting when my PS3 grabs a software update and suddenly can up-res regular DVDs. It's a shame the iPhone doesn't have room for hardware add-ons, like additional memory, but I've never owned a cell phone long enough to make too much use of hardware add-ons anyway.


On to the good:


  • AT&T reception in my apartment has improved a lot since the first day I moved in. I don't know how a single person like myself can judge the antenna quality of the iPhone and the network quality of AT&T, so we'll have to wait for more stringent testing to judge this aspect of the phone.

  • On the first sync, all my Address Book contacts, e-mail account settings in Mail, and iCal appointments moved right over to the iPhone. I'd never had a phone that could sync its contacts with my computer, so I still have to move phone numbers over from my old phone, but hopefully this will be the last time I ever have to do that.

  • Maps is awesome. I don't have one of those GPS screens in my car, but now I won't feel so uninformed when stuck in traffic in my car in LA which is all the time.

  • The iPhone feels like a device from the future. I love just flicking my fingers across the screen to scroll the display. Pinching, twirling, tossing--I feel like Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

  • Speaking of the display, it's gorgeous. Bright colors, solid resolution.

  • The glass screen is sturdy and elegant. It does smudge, but you don't see the smudges when the screen is lit up. The device feels like a luxury device with its high quality build and heft.

  • Visual voicemail is fantastic. Setting up my voicemail box with screen prompts was so much more enjoyable than setting up past voicemail boxes using audio prompts. Now I just need the feature to automatically encode all voicemails from voice-to-text and I may be able to delete some voicemails without ever having to listen to them.

  • When trying to move the cursor to a specific spot in a block of text, you place your finger done roughly where you want it to go and a magnifying glass view pops up to allow for fine-grained control. Some interface specialist can put that on their resume and has a claim to fame for life.

  • The YouTube videos encoded via H.264 look better than the YouTube Flash videos on my desktop computer. That's ironic. You know how I hate the Flash video quality of YouTube. It's odd that the onset of the iPhone that's driving YouTube to recode the rest of its videos to H.264. Now when can we choose to view those on YouTube.com as well?

  • There's a switch on the side to flip the phone to silent. Why didn't any of my previous phones have this? So convenient.

  • Surfing the web via Safari is surprisingly pleasant for a device this small. Double-tap to zoom is intuitive. For many trips, I no longer need to bring along my laptop. For simple tasks--checking e-mail, web-surfing, listening to music--the iPhone works just fine.


Most important of all, the experience of using the iPhone is an enjoyable one. I've owned phones that have had better cameras, the ability to shoot video, and other features the iPhone lacks. But a customer experience does not comprise a list of features. If so, the iPod wouldn't be the runaway market leader. I really enjoy the experience of using the iPhone as it is now, and I can't wait to see how it transforms with its first software update.


At a minimum, the entry of a player like Apple into the market should raise the game for other mobile manufacturers which is something they really needed. Every one will benefit, even those who don't like Apple and its products.


The most annoying thing about the iPhone is the caustic debate between iPhone lovers and haters (a subset of the general Mac and non-Mac religious war). You can't avoid it if you're curious to read evaluations of the device; it spills out and overflows out of every comment thread. Many people who don't want an iPhone feel intent on calling it an overpriced piece of garbage, and iPhone fans are labeled zealots. Reasonable, centrist dialogue has a hard-time seizing the high ground on the web, and the iPhone launch has put a megaphone to the shouting match. No drama, please.


Technorati Tags: , , , ,


Pepper

in , ,


Lots of good stuff in this week's New Yorker:


MacArthur Grant winner Luis von Ahn is using online games to allow humans to help solve computing problems. For example, he's using human evaluations of photos to give computers an aesthetic judgment sensibility. The games, when they're show ready, will be online here.


Taiwanese director Edward Yang died yesterday of complications from colon cancer. He was 59. His film Yi Yi is humane and moving, not to mention a fascinating specimen of Asian long-shot cinema.



AllofMP3 now officially dead, shut down by the Russian government. It seems, however, to have arisen from the dead under a new URL.


Technorati Tags: , , , ,


Colossal squid caught in Antarctica

in


As a huge giant squid fan, you'd think I knew of the even larger species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni or colossal squid. Well, now I do because fishermen captured a male in Antarctica. Is the colossal squid really a different species, or did some overzealous scientists just catch one and decide to one up their predecessors?



This specimen weighed about 990 pounds, and, added a New Zealand professor, "would yield calamari rings the size of tractor tires." That sounds like a Chili's appetizer.




Technorati Tags: , , ,


Recessed headphone port - curses!

in ,


The biggest downer about the iPhone so far is that most third-party headphones don't work with the recessed headphone port. Some folks have found creative solutions to avoid buying the $10 headphone adapter. I'm not sure why the headphone port is recessed. I really hope it wasn't to drive sales of headphone adapters, but I doubt it since Apple doesn't even manufacture the adapter. Many earphone manufacturers are likely scrambling to include an iPhone adapter with their headphones in the near future.


That said, that's one of the few iPhone problems that doesn't seem solvable by a software update. The iPhone is not perfect, but it's such a leap beyond my plain Jane Verizon LG phone that I feel like I'm cheating on my wife with a twenty-something model (just a hypothetical; no I'm not married). I keep finding excuses to fiddle around with my iPhone; the display is just that gorgeous and fun to play with.


There are hundreds of iPhone first impressions on the web. I'll try and add a few of my thoughts later today, when I'm back home for the evening, but it's safe to say that the iPhone is the most addictive new Apple product since the original iPod.


Technorati Tags: , , ,


Aarrgghh! (and other cries of agony)

in


I just spent an hour trying to purchase Arcade Fire tickets through Ticketmaster.com. I want to kill myself. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I received just about every possible website malfunction and error message that website can put out, and 9 times I made it to the last page to enter a credit card # and a perfect 9 times I was turned away. Most of the time I got "Error Completing Your Request" and was just bounced back to the Ticketmaster.com home page.


I had my phone dialing Ticketmaster.com at the same time, and finally that went through. But all the good seats are sold out. I want to cry.


Technorati Tags: ,


iPhone

in ,
This entry published from my new iPhone. Sweet!
I wasn't planning to get one, but then at about 3pm I got a phone call fr Eleanor. She was in town for a wedding, but more importantly, she was in line at the AT&T store in Westwood for the iPhone. There were only 15 or 20 people in front of her.
I drove out to bring her a chair and to catch up. When they finally let us in, i got my hands on one. Then the clerk said he was holding the last 8GB unit for me. Did I want it?
Well, you know how that story ends.

Your newest Chicago Bull

in


This is the child of a former Miss Sweden and Yannick Noah (not, not David Stern, but the tall guy on the right in the photo). I can't find the words...




For what it's worth, which is probably very little considering how much uninformed banter sports drafts inspire, I think it was a solid pick. People keep saying the Bulls need a low post scorer but who was going to be that at No. 9? The Bulls are going to be a pain in the ass to play against next year with all their long-armed freaks and shot blockers in the frontcourt.


Plus, just look at that guy? He may be equal parts exuberant and irksome, but the Bulls wholesome punch needed some spiking, no?


UPDATE: According to one man's metaphoric imagination, we've drafted...Shakira?!


Technorati Tags: , , , ,