Something Actually Nun-Related
Not overly sexy, but actually red-headed!
Pregnant version, too!
Agreeing with Hitler
I never thought I would ever agree with Hitler:
ModBook or iPad?
Well, the new iPad has been revealed. I'm not all that excited. For $500-$830 you get, well, a big-ass iPod touch with 3G.
I could do better by just taking my existing white polycarb MacBook and have it converted into a ModBook for $630.
Here's a quick comparison:
| Feature | ModBook | iPad |
|---|---|---|
| Internal RAM | 2 gigs | Unknown, iPod touch has 128 meg |
| Storage Space | 160 gigs | up to 64 gigs |
| Screen Resolution | 1280x800 | 1024x768 |
| Multi-Touch | No | Yes |
| Operating System | Real OS X | Enhanced version of stripped-down version of OS X |
| Multitasking | Yes | No |
| Run Any App | Yes | No |
| Run iPod touch apps | I have an iPod touch for that | Yes |
| WiFi | Yes | Yes |
| GPS | Yes | Yes |
| 3G | No | Yes |
| Price | $630 | $500-$830 |
The ModBook looks pretty damn good. If anyone thinks of additional points of comparison, stick 'em in the comments and I'll add 'em to the table.
The Best Possible News Possible!
Yes, that's right: There will be Venture Bros. action figures!
Bobbleheads, too. But who wants bobbleheads?
Initial figures? How about:
- Dr. Venture
- The Monarch
- Brock Samson
- Hank & Dean Venture
- and more
And what do they mean by and more?
They damn well better mean Dr. Girlfriend! I want a Dr. Mrs. The Monarch version, too!
Finally Worthwhile?
I've bought plenty of digital photo frames in my time. The thing is, they usually suck.
One problem is that they usually have a widescreen aspect ratio (16:9). But no one takes photos at that ratio. We all take them at the normal golden ratio
(4:3). So you have to either manually crop all your photos, or have heads cut off, or have ugly black bands at either end of the screen.
The second problem is that digital photo frames haven't been very full-featured. Sure, they show photos, and maybe that's all one should expect. But Casio has something better up its sleeve.
Behold, the Casio Digital Art Frame!
Judging from the photo, it's the same ratio as every damn photo I take. Good! I can just toss the photos on a card with no pre-processing.
But wait, there's more!
Ever try applying some of those fancy Photoshop-ish filters that make a photo look like an oil painting? Well, this thing has that sort of stuff built-in. Maybe it'll be cool. Maybe it'll get old after awhile.
But wait, there's more!
It does some sort of thing where it cuts objects out of one photo and sticks them into another. I'm not sure how that's gonna work. The examples on the Casio site look unbearably cheezy.
But wait, there's more!
It supports Flash Lite! That's a light-weight version of Flash. That means the frame can run small Flash apps!
Now, at first, that doesn't sound all that exciting. I mean, how many little Flash apps are you going to find that will work well on a small digital frame?
Ah ha, but here's the trick! There's this thing out there called a Chumby. And the Chumby runs Flash Lite apps. So there's already a development community that builds just the sort of apps you might want to run on such a frame, things like clocks and webcam displays. True, the Chumby has a touch screen. But maybe this frame does as well. And even if it doesn't, only a small percentage of Chumby apps depend on it, or on other Chumby-specific features.
So, in short, I'm actually excited about a digital photo frame. If it has WiFi and Flickr connectivity built-in, I'd buy it in a minute. If not, I might still buy it, but I would have to ponder it for a bit first.
(Note: I do have a Chumby. But I don't often use it. The screen is too bright, even when dimmed and blacked-out, to have it running at night.)
PVR on the Cheap
So, we bought a new Mac mini Server to act as a, well, as a server.
It replaced an old PowerPC-based Mac mini that was our pseudo-server. But that left me with an old Mac mini. What to do, what to do?
As luck would have it, my combo VHS/DVD recorder recently died. Well, it didn't up and die. Rather, the DVD drive won't open anymore. And that sucks because I would occasionally use it to record shows to DVD so I could watch them later. Basically, I used it as a half-assed PVR.
So I took a look into turning the old mini into a PVR. Well, that's a tough order. Due to its old processor, most of the software-based PVR systems just won't run on it. They want a more current Intel chip.
But then I saw EyeTV, specifically the EyeTV 250 Plus. It's a little chunk of hardware that plugs into the USB port. It grabs signals from your cable feed and encodes it in hardware. (You can also feed it a signal via S-Video or composite.) Then it just spits the completed product out to the computer.
And that means it works fine on old hardware. All the mini is really doing is storing the info. Well, and playing it back. But even the mini is up to playing standard TV. The funny thing is that the EyeTV can capture high-def TV, but the mini is too slow to play it back!
So, here's what I have set up: The mini sits upstairs, hooked into the cable feed via the EyeTV and using the TV as a display. (Needed an adapter for that.) EyeTV's software runs on the mini and lets me easily schedule recordings. It gets its info from TV Guide, but you could always set recordings up manually. Instead of squinting at the TV screen, I usually interact with it via VNC from any of the computers downstairs.
There's also an app for the iPhone and iPod touch. So I can schedule recordings that way or even watch recorded shows streamed to me. (After a lengthy wait. It takes the mini much longer than real-time to re-encode the recordings for streaming.)
If I had this all on a faster box, I could stream live TV to the iPod touch. But I don't, so I can't. And if I opened up the right ports on the router, I could stream it outside our network. But I'm not planning on doing that.
Alas, the app doesn't let you remotely control playback. It really ought to. As it now stands, I have to pull out the mouse in order to watch recordings on the TV. Or stick a VNC client on one of the netbooks. Hey, that might be a good use for the old ASUS eee 701.
And what did this all cost? The EyeTV was on sale for $150. The TV adapter was $15. The iPhone app was $5. So that's $170 total.
I think that's cheaper than a Tivo. Plus, I can play the shared iTunes library and surf the web. And when Tivo dies, and you know it will, I won't be out of luck.
New Server!
Whee! Just ordered a brand spankin' new Mac mini Server. We've been using a stock Mac mini as a file/print/music server for over three years now. Its optical drive is dying. It's also PowerPC-based, so it can't run Snow Leopard.
The new server version comes with a terabyte internally, split between two drives, 4 gigs of RAM, and Snow Leopard Server. All in all, a nice package for a small business.
We'll be mirroring the two internal drives (RAID 1), then backing them up to an external drive.
The old mini is being converted into a DVR. It'll probably go upstairs to replace the old VHS/DVD dubbing machine that died a couple months ago.
What the Hell is Wrong with the Japanese?
So we're over at Roger's for Halloween and we're playing Dokapon Kingdom, an RPGish game developed in Japan.
Your character can be either male or female. Interestingly, winning the game awards you the hand of the King's daughter in marriage, apparently regardless of your character's sex. That's cool, except for the whole quasi-forced marriage thing, that is.
But then there's the issue of the avatars for the game. Here's what my wife's female warrior avatar looked like:
WTF? Is that a 12 year old in a black leather bikini? I'm worried I'll get arrested just having this screenshot on my hard drive. What the hell is wrong with the Japanese?
Cheap-Ass 3D iPhone Viewer
Okay, this isn't amazing or anything. But I think it's a little bit neat. We've been seeing a few 3D movies lately. And, while they ask you to return the glasses, I keep 'em. So now I have, oh, I dunno, six or so pair. And I don't really know what to do with them.
I started playing around. They're just your basic polarized filters. (Well, maybe they're more than that. I have no clue. But they are polarized filters.)
If you take a right lens, flip it over, turn it 90 degrees, and view it through the right lens of another pair, you'll see it's totally black. If you view it with the left lens, it's clear.
And vice versa for the left lens.
So, here's what you do:
1) Take two pair of Real D glasses.
2) Break open one pair with a really small screwdriver, liberating the lenses. Put them aside.
3) Take some 3D photos. In other words, take a photo of something with some depth with a digicam while leaning to the left a bit. Then take the same photo while leaning to the right by the same amount. Try to keep the photos at the same height and pointing at the same place in the distance.
4) Take a decent graphics program, like Pixelmator, and resize the two photos. If they're landscape photos, make 'em 240 pixels wide each. (They'll be about 180 pixels tall.) If they're portrait, either make them 240 pixels wide or 320 pixels tall, whichever ensures that the resulting photo does not exceed 240x320 in either dimension. (There's a good chance it'll end up exactly 240x320.)
5) Now make a new image at a 480x320 resolution. I like to make the background black.
6) Copy the left photo and paste it into your new image, putting it flush to the left and centered vertically. Do the same with the right photo, only putting it to right. Flatten layers, if needed, and save it out.
7) Sync this resulting image to your iPhone or iPod touch. (Or a Palm, for that matter.)
8) Prop your iPhone up in a landscape position and view your new image.
9) Place the liberated lenses on the screen oriented as above.
10) Put on your intact pair of Real D glasses. Cross your eyes a bit.
Hooray! 3D!
Yes, you could do this simply by crossing your eyes. Some folks, like me, can do this easily. But lots of folks can't. This might make it easier for them.
Also, normally, just crossing your eyes results in three images, a 3D one in the middle, and copies of the left and right images on the, well, left and right. This method eliminates the extra images.
Look, I told you it wasn't anything amazing. Whadda ya want for nothing? Rubber biscuit?
Staying One Step Ahead
I managed to finish my custom Minimate Moon Knight before the official one came out. (Any time now!)
Then I started work on a Superhero Squad Moonie. (Combining Daredevil arms with a Doctor Doom body. Doom's about the only figure with a hood and cape. Need to Dremel it first and it's been too hot outside to sit on the deck to do that.)
And now I see that the official one comes out in October. I guess I had better get on the stick. (Or not. My custom Minimate Moonie looks better than the official one. Blue eyes? WTF?)
Other Moon Knight customs I want to do? Well, I have all the pieces for a Mighty Muggs version. Combine one of the all-white blank ones with a Count Dooku cape I found on clearance. Just need to paint the outside of the cape white and draw on the face. If only I could draw.
Another I wanted to do was a Bruce Timm style Moonie, using a JLU figure. But none of them had an adequate hood and cloak. Luckily, the new League United set has Hourman. He should work perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. His hood isn't peaked, but there are Moonie comics where his isn't, either. (Hourman, by the way, is basically a guy who takes a drug that gives him superpowers for an hour. I guess Angel Dust Man
was already taken.)
And, finally, I'm considering doing a Pocket Heroes one. Unfortunately, the capes and hoods are glued to the figures. So, either I need to separate things somehow, or else paint really, really carefully.
