iPad Mania

So yesterday Apple introduced the iPad, their no-so-secret tablet computer. Kind of like an iPod touch with a 10" touchscreen. Nice! Want... Great screen and battery life, really nice interface and apps (plus it runs almost all existing iPhone apps), interesting digital bookstore. Fascinating speedy new Apple chip, the A4. But not gonna jump in. Money's tight. Wouldn't be prudent. Sorry, channeling G. H. W. Bush for a minute there.

A few surprises though; Not "widescreen" format so HD video will have some significant black bars around it, no "regular" phone functionality, no camera(s). Like the iPhone, it doesn't support Flash, which is still regarded as controversial. I'm totally OK with that though, I have Flash disabled in my browser by ClickToFlash unless I specifically want something to load.

Other news: my newest Running Room Marathon Clinic started this week, we have 33 members. Join us! I guess my long runs will have an official distance and then something extra... 10K is not a long run!

Culture: Watched the first episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand on HBO hoping for more Rome, but it's really more 300. That's not a good thing. Comical special effects, lousy writing... I'll give it another chance though. I have Caprica on the PVR, I'll watch it this weekend. High hopes for this series. I saw the new Sherlock Holmes film last week. Fun to watch and entertaining performances, but again lousy writing.

When I heard the news of the terrible earthquake in Haiti a few weeks ago, I knew it was going to be like the earthquake in Bam, Iran or the tsunami in Sumatra. The Haitian death toll is approaching 200,000. It couldn't have struck a more unprepared or fragile population... I encourage people to donate to non-religious disaster relief organisations such as the Red Cross, Care, or UNICEF.

Listening to: My City of Ruins (Benefiting Artists for Peace and Justice Haiti Relief) [Live from the Kennedy Center Honors] by Eddie Vedder from My City of Ruins (Benefiting Artists for Peace and Justice Haiti Relief).

The Shock of Recognition

My son was watching 30 Rock earlier this evening and something caught my eye. We "rewound" the TV (thank you, PVR) and watched the clip again. It was me! The footage was the "running in the rain" stuff I did for the University of Phoenix back in December. I thought it had been and gone, unseen.

My Dad appears to be stable after his stroke, which has affected the right side of his body (left side of his brain) causing at least partial paralysis and aphasia. My brother is out there now and reports that Dad is pretty demoralised and has been refusing to eat. I think I'll fly out early next week and spend a few days with him.

So what else is happening in the world? Apple announced today that their next big version of Mac OS X (version 10.5, a.k.a. Leopard) will not ship in June. Because of the simultaneous development of the much-anticipated iPhone Apple is pushing back the release of Leopard to October. This has caused a great wailing in the blogosphere and expressions of hatred of and resentment toward the iPhone from certain quarters... I can understand Apple's position though. Both the iPhone and the just-released Apple TV are running specialised versions of Mac OS X, which is actually a technical strength, but the three projects have been placing a strain on largely the same development teams. A cell phone that doesn't work reliably would be a disaster, so getting the iPhone completed and out on time has to take precedence. Too bad though, I've been itching to get my hands on Leopard.

Belinda Stronach announced today that she's leaving politics to return to an executive position at Magna, her father's corporation. She certainly stirred things up in her time, running for the Conservative leadership before even being elected and then switching to the Liberals, but I guess the nay-sayers will be saying "told you so."

Last item today was an errand with my friend Brian's wife. She asked me to come with her to Costco to help her buy and bring home a "fancy tool chest" for Brian's 50th birthday. Apparently Brian has been admiring this particular tool chest for years. I couldn't believe it when I saw it though. It's five feet tall with wheels and weights 400 lbs! Huge. People could live in it. I stood there stunned for a minute before I could grasp the fact that she thought the two of us could maneuver this thing into the back of a little Volvo station wagon, get it into their house and then get it down a spiral staircase into their basement... This thing was strapped to a pallet. Oy!

And that's the day that was.

Listening to: Living on Video by Trans-X from Living on Video.

M-M-M-Macworld!

Being under-employed has its benefits. I'm watching the live web summaries of Steve Jobs' Macworld presentation...

The newest iPod is also a camera cellphone! iPhone is here. It's all screen and has a Mac OS X interface! Holy cow. This is a product with legs. Amazing features: huge high rez touch screen, internet access (either wireless network or cellular data), real web browser, real e-mail, GPS (edit: oops, that's GSM which is just a type of cellular network), chat/photo applications based on desktop Mac products, iTunes songs & video & TV...

"Apple" TV was previously announced but the full reveal looks like a great interface between computers and TV. Cheap too, including a 40 GB drive for $299.

More nerd-gasm as it happens.

Updates: The iPhone will ship in June. $499 for the 4GB model, $599 for the 8GB, with a two year Cingular contract. Not bad really. Nothing else announced, guess they want to keep the big news message focused. We'll probably see a lower-key press event in a few weeks with desktop changes, software updates, etc.

Listening to: Drive My Car by The Beatles from Rubber Soul.

Suffering for my Art

This post is being written while cupping a warm bowl of soup, so please forgive the splashes...

Today was my day on set for the University of Phoenix shoot. My role was "runner", and my wardrobe was old-school cotton sweats. On the drive down to the location it was raining pretty steadily so I was worried it was going to be a cold, wet morning. Fortunately the rain stopped by the time I got to wardrobe. Unfortunately they weren't ready for my scene for two hours, by which time it was raining pretty hard again. Did I mention that it was 5 degrees outside, with a stiff breeze? Well, it was... That's about 40 degrees for my American readers.

Of course the director loved it, because it helped "tell the story." He actually sent me out running in the rain about fifteen minutes before they began filming so I could be suitably soggy! In the end I spent about two hours running back and forth in the blowing rain, so at least I got my day's exercise out of the way.

The D.O.P. was a triathlete, so we had a nice chat during one of the breaks about racing. He's going to Wildflower with some buddies next year. Wildflower is a unique mix of camping and endurance racing that seems to be legendary in triathlon circles, so it should be a great experience.

Last night I went to an Apple seminar on Aperture, their professional photo management and editing software, with my friend Adrian. The guest speaker was Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Frakes, who talked us through an amazing sample of his photographs. When he covers an event for Sports Illustrated he takes thirty LARGE cases of equipment and often has 20 Gigabytes of images to catalog. Great stuff, but we didn't learn much about how to use Aperture. Oh well.

Listening to: Walking in the Rain by Flash and the Pan from Flash and the Pan. Not available on the iTunes store, so here's a link to Grace Jones' cover version.

Three Things

I recently saw one of my son's school assignments, a writing project to list and describe "three things" that were important to him. They were: his baby blanket, his (my) copy of Unreal Tournament 2004, and his iPod nano.

Baby blanket: Chris has this at his mother's, I haven't seen it in years. But I know that he is prone to sentimental attachments. He still loves to pull on, at the right time of the year, a glittery "Christmas hat" that we've had since he was six.

Unreal Tournament 2004: This is a "first-person shooter" game I bought a couple of years ago because my department was addicted to playing online against each other. Chris used to love watching us play when he visited me at the office. I brought the game home when I left there, and installed in on my home Mac, where Chris has learned to play in spite of my stream of advice. "Watch out for the player behind the rock!" "Go back to the base and reload!" "That vehicle's too slow. Get into the Manta!"

iPod nano: This was a birthday present last year. It's more about the music it contains that the device itself. Blackeyed Peas, Eminem, Green Day, a bit of Cure, Foo Fighters, R.E.M., U2...

A nice surprise yesterday: I was at a post-season triathlon "event" held by Multisport Canada and won a $500 prize pack of Pearl Izumi athletic clothes! Nice.

Listening to: Don't Lie by Black Eyed Peas from Monkey Business.

Google's Earth

Google's Earth? Uploaded by Ben Lawson.

I'm heading up north tomorrow with a photographer friend. I'd hoped to get up to my family's cottage one last time before it was sold, but it has already been closed up for the winter. I didn't get up to it very often, but it was an important mental landscape for me. :-(

Instead we'll visit a friend of his further south and just drive around searching out interesting landscapes.

"Looking around" with Google Earth I spotted this oddity to the north of where my family cottage is/was on Lake Nippissing. I wonder why one strip of images taken from an overflight in the middle of winter...

Listening to: Frozen Man by James Taylor from New Moon Shine.

Lo-tek

I shaved this morning with a razor that didn't vibrate and only had two blades! Ghastly.

I survived though, and now I'm heading out into the afternoon sunshine to fix a friend's computer and then go for a 10 K run...

Listening to: Fit But You Know It by The Streets from A Grand Don't Come For Free.

Someone's not pulling their punches...

You know there's a history between parties when lawyers start using phrases like "moron" in their submissions! Apple Computer (they make Macintosh computers and operate the iTunes store) and Apple Corps (the normally comatose record label for The Beatles) are currently involved in their third trademark dispute over their shared name and things are off to a vigorous start. Apple Corp. claims that Apple Inc. is getting into the music business, which their existing agreement forbids. Apple Inc. says that they don't create music, which is Apple Corp.'s supposed business, and "even a moron in a hurry" wouldn't confuse one Apple for the other.

I smell lawyers making money...

Listening to: Let's Get It Started (Spike Mix) by Black Eyed Peas from Elephunk.

Oh no, Mr. Rogers!

Sometimes I love technology and sometimes I hate it. These three remote controls, for three different new digital cable boxes from Rogers Cable, are an example of hated technology. From left to right they are for a digital cable box from my bedroom, a digital PVR cable box from my living room and a "high def" digital cable box from Sheryl's place. A close inspection (click on the picture) reveals that they all have different locations for important buttons like "Mute", "Info", "Page Up/Down" and "Last". They're just similar enough to confound your fingers. This kind of interface confusion stinks. Feh.

There really is a Mr. Rogers presiding over the Rogers media empire. And it seems that he does torture the little people just as Sluggo and Mr. Hands did in the Mr Bill segments from Saturday Night Live...

Listening to: Love My Way by The Psychedelic Furs from Forever Now.

Science Fiction - Not.

This is is not a scene from a science fiction film. It's a photograph of a real thing, called the "Z Machine", in operation. The Z Machine is an experimental particle accelerator used for nuclear fusion research at Sandia National Laboratories. It only operates for a tiny fraction of a second, but this is what it looks like while it is generating temperatures of 1.8 million degrees Celsius and producing 290 trillion watts. This is 80 times the electrical output of the entire world, but only for a few billionths of a second.

When I saw this picture all I could say was "wow." The equipment is submerged in an insulating pool of water, and the dramatic arcing is a product of electrical leakage. Click on the picture to see a higher-resolution version. The Z Machine is in the news at the moment because it recently achieved a high enough power output to hint at practical fusion power generation. That would mean "free" "endless" power...

Listening to: Use It by The New Pornographers from Twin Cinema.

Movie Night

I geeked out this evening. Sorry l.a.h.!

Tonight the Toronto Final Cut Pro Users Group held a meeting at The Regent, which happens to be my local neighbourhood cinema. Video editing on Mac, in case you don't know... I get out to some of the meetings because I need to stay on top of the technology for my agency's little editing suite. The Regent is also home to Theatre D, which has taken over the balcony and connected several high-end digital film editing suites to the main projector. Ever wanted to edit your film or TV show on a 50 ft. high screen? Go to these guys!

The main event was watching an interview of Walter Murch talking about editing Cold Mountain using Final Cut Pro. This guy is the bomb... He also edited such films as The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Oh, and The Godfather: Part III...

Because The Regent is still a functioning public cinema the first show was cancelled to allow our meeting. We got to join the audience for the second film, Closer, though. Interesting film about destructing relationships, with Natalie Portman showing a very grown-up side as a stripper... I think it falls into the love it/hate it category. We got an accidental peek at the theatre's backstage too. Many screens in converted stage theatres, such as The Regent, are actual screens: a tight reflective mesh that blocks off the front of the old stage. When back-lit you can see through them. In our case as the film started we got a faint ten minute look at the elaborate backstage scaffolding until the staff turned off the backstage lighting. Heh.