Lost in 2008

It seems increasingly likely that I'm going to live through this cold and I've had some blog topics piling up. One I need to address before it becomes no-longer timely is Lost. As fans probably know season four starts airing Thursday. I'm excited to see what happens, but more than a little worried about the writer's strike. There were only 8 episodes in the can (of a planned 16 for season four), and it looks increasingly likely that we'll only get the 8 in the near term future. The writers & producers have chirped a little about S04E08 being a "big cliffhanger" and making nervous comparisons to the situation in season 3 with the first six episodes. Anyway . . . . A few things of note. I did buy the Blu-Ray version of season 3 and rewatch it, mostly before I got too sick to see straight, but I watched some bits and pieces during the "sick but not that sick" window. And yes, I watched the dreaded spider-throwing episode again although I simply didn't watch the spider fight part at all. I even watched it twice - once with commentary. I had completely forgotten that Billy Dee Williams was in that episode. Apparently one of the writers is a huge Lando Calrissian fan. Whatever. It was really interesting to watch the episodes again, I was struck by a lto of things that I missed the first time through. I hope they come out with seasons 1 & 2 on Blu-Ray soon. Also, they've been doing little mini-episodes for Verizon that they call Missing Pieces. (They call them "mobisodes" but I refuse to use that terrible portmanteau.) They are available a week later on the web and they are worth watching. They are about 2-3 minutes long and a few fill in nice pieces of missing bits (like when Juliet tells Jack she is still working for Ben). Worth taking a look. Also (SPOILER ALERT) one of them features Michael (it's set in season 1 times). However, my comment is that I really doubt they would fly the actor out just to film that. Which means, Michael is likely in at least one of the season 4 episodes already shot. It's possible this was just a deleted scene, but it seems more likely it was written for these little shorts then cut from an extant episode. Lastly, I've been sorta tracking the "alternate reality game" (ARG) - Find 815. By "sorta tracking" I've been watching the video bits and doing the little Flash games, but not messing with the heavy-lifting parts where people pull single frames out of the video, extract the hidden messages and decode secret URL's and so forth. It's kind of neat. I wonder how closely it's tied to the show. It's plausible that the freighter that Sam is on in the ARG turns out to be Naomi's boat, they seem to be doing similar things and the timeframe seems about right. If you just want to see the video parts without playing the "game" portions you could just read up on it at Lostpedia.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: , ,

Read more

The Autumn of the Multitaskers

“Where do you want to go today?” asked Microsoft in a mid-1990s ad campaign. The suggestion was that there were endless destinations—some geographic, some social, some intellectual—that you could reach in milliseconds by loading the right devices with the right software. It was further insinuated that where you went was purely up to you, not your spouse, your boss, your kids, or your government. Autonomy through automation.This was the embryonic fallacy that grew up into the monster of multitasking.
The Autumn of the Multitaskers A good article, take a looksee. It's not anti-Microsoft, there's just this part on the "Where do you want to go today?" ad. The article is about multitasking and why our brains really don't work that way. I'm reminded of all the silly arguments I've had with managers over the years about how "productive" "open pit" environments are where there are no cubicle walls and everyone just talks to everyone else on the team all the time. Bleargh! 

Blogged with Flock

Tags: , ,

Read more

It's official, I suck

I know, it's absurd, but I'm still sick. I just spent about four hours on work stuff and I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears. No fiction today either. God, I hope I'm better in time to get this silly thing done next week . . . . I'm not as bad off as I was last Friday, but writing fiction is a high-function task for me. Even if I'm at about 80% of normal function, I can do some simple coding work, but not fiction. I tried yesterday to finish the story, but I just don't have the energy for yet. Sorry everyone!
Read more

Sorry guys

I hate to do this again. Really, really hate to do this again. But I got the creeping crud this week, and at the moment I get about an hour of 80% brain functionality, then a headache and hopefully a multi-hour nap. So I (pathethically, sadly) still haven't finished the next part of Shore Leave. Mea culpa!
Read more

The Macworld Analysis

So what do I think about the new Macworld announcements? A lot of good stuff overall, but I think only one thing that for me is a will-buy.
  1. iTunes Rentals. Shrug. The marketplace wants this I think. I don't think I do. I guess I MIGHT rent a movie and throw it on my iPod before a plane flight. But I'm much more likely to rip a DVD. Still, almost certainly a big deal for iTunes. In theory I have this already on my 360 and I don't ever use it.
  2. Apple TV 2. Meh. I think it's a nice bit of kit overall, but it doesn't seem to offer anything over a Mac Mini connected to the TV. (Actually, according to Daring Fireball the HD rentals are only on Apple TV, likely due to HDCP issues.) Since I've already moved Horton into the living room I don't see buying an Apple TV. Still, nice price drop and it seems like a good feature set if you don't want a Mac Mini for some reason or another.
  3. iPhone & iPod Touch Update. Well, nothing that makes me scream "Oh, NOW I need an iPhone." Seems like good stuff, but until the iPhone has the SDK, a working To-Do list and some sort of reasonable note-taking functionality then it's still not for me. Anything else is just unneeded glitter.
  4. Time Capsule. Oh yes please. I'll almost certainly pre-order one of these in the next few days. Fantastic upgrade to the Airport Extreme and it's a great price. I'll convert all the machines to using a 1TB version for Time Machine and use the current TM drives for more capacity. And this makes Time Machine something useful for a laptop.
  5. MacBook Air. This is the tricky one. I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like the 17" form factor - it's just too damn big. The number of times I'm excited by all the screen space is overwhelmed by the amount of time I find it too big to use on the train or a plane, or even just a pain to carry around. I thought I really wanted one until I realized they hadn't said *anything* about the graphics chip. There's a reason for it - it's crap. A fair tradeoff I suppose, but it won't run World of Warcraft or Spore. Heck, I sort of doubt it would even run Warcraft III very well, but maybe that would be OK. One primary reason I'd like to upgrade Kool-Aid would be to get the ability to code in Windows, and I probably want at least a half-decent graphics chip for that. On the other hand that kicks me all the way over to a 15" MacBook Pro at almost double the weight and about 38% more cost. This is not unreasonable - if I'm going to try to claim I want to code on my laptop saying "Well get the damn MBP then" is more than reasonable. But still . . . . The bigger problem is that the new wider "gesture-enabled" trackpad on the Air looks awesome. I'd certainly want that on any laptop I was buying moving forward. I think I'm not quite the target market for the Air, but I'll probably hold off for a Pro refresh to the new trackpad before buying. But damn it's a sexy piece of hardware!
There are other considerations on the MacBook Air also. It's going to be a little lackluster performance with a slower hard drive. I think I probably really wish they sold the 13" Macbook with a reasonable graphics chip, or a 13" MacBook Pro. But I freely admit I'm probably a small minority there.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: , ,

Read more