What happens when a family of ducks takes a walk through the city?
In this case, an unfortunate (but amusing) tragedy.
iTunes: “ToriMix v2” by Various Artists from the album Difficult Listening Hour (1999, 46:37).
Saved!
The Seattle PI has an interesting (if short) Q-and-A session with director Brian Dannelly, the man behind one movie that’s been high on my radar for a few weeks now — Saved!
“Saved!” — Brian Dannelly’s first feature — is a high school comedy with a twist: It’s set in an evangelical school. It’s a world he knows well, having been educated in a Catholic elementary school and a Baptist high school (with holidays at a Jewish summer camp). His affectionate satire stars Jena Malone as a passionately Christian teen who gets pregnant after trying to “cure” her gay boyfriend and Mandy Moore as a popular student whose uses public demonstrations of devotion as social currency. The film won acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and played to a sold-out gala presentation at the Seattle International Film Festival. It opens a regular theatrical run tomorrow in Seattle.
“Saved!” also has been polarizing viewers and critics in the Christian community. While many, young and old alike, have embraced the film’s loving approach to acceptance and diversity, it was condemned by Ted Baehr, founder of the Christian Film & Television Commission, as “a sad, bigoted, anti-Christian movie that mocks the Christian faith.” Dannelly knows he’s courting controversy, but he believes passionately about his message.
Saved! opens tomorrow, and I think that it’s definitely on my list of things to do this weekend.
iTunes: “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears” by Cruise, Julee from the album Until the End of the World (1991, 2:37).
Ink or champagne?
Following up (in a way) on my printer ink woes, today MetaFilter points out that by volume, printer ink is six times more expensive than Dom Perignon champagne.
I still haven’t bothered to replace my printer, though I need to at some point — I’m just still pissy about spending the money on the ink just to find out that my printer was dead. Still, at the moment, as long as I don’t mind waiting for a bit I can just bring anything I need printed out to work (side benefits of working in a copy shop), so I’m not entirely without options. It’s still a frustrating situation, though.
iTunes: “Get Bizzy Time” by Voight Kampff from the album In to the Mix II: The 2nd Coming (1998, 5:03).
Little details
Former Microsoftie Will Parker has an interesting post about the Microsoft Mac Business Unit’s work on a generally under-appreciated aspect of software publishing: the packaging.
Our study team handed a fresh, unopened Office X box to the subject and asked them to talk a bit about their work habits, their plans and expectations for Office X, and a little bit about the box design. They then asked the subject to open the box, install Office on their machine, and do some work.
One result of this study was a painfully funny Office X Blooper Reel — five straight minutes of people trying to get that damned plastic pack open and get at the CD, by any means necessary. Scissors tended to bounce right off of this thing, so Improvised Opening Devices were the order of the day – pocket knives, steak knives, paper trimmers, teeth, staple removers — even screw drivers made an appearance. Our research team lived in fear of blood spatters.
Not being an Office user, I never had to deal with this, but I’ve certainly dealt with enough other horridly packaged items to be able to put myself in these poor people’s shoes all to easily. Shrink wrap, and its many variations, is evil.
iTunes: “3 Floors Above You” by Meat Beat Manifesto from the album Actual Sounds and Voices (1998, 5:00).
VisitorVille
Apache log file analysis plus SimCity equals VisitorVille, a program that displays your website as a city, with traffic represented by people moving from building to building (page to page), and arriving via bus (referrers and search engines).
Visitors come to your web site from other sites (referrers). Some of these referrers are search engines. In VisitorVille, referrers are depicted as buses. And web pages on your site are depicted as buildings. When a new visitor arrives, a bus delivers them to a building. To move between buildings, visitors either walk, take a cab or — if you have designated them as a VIP — a limousine. VIPs also fly in by helicopter.
When you have many visitors on your web site, it begins to resemble midtown Manhattan, and it’s hard to get your eyes off the screen! Buildings resize and illuminate dynamically based on the number of people inside, their relative popularity, and how many visitors exited through them. Buses, taxis, and limos race around the streets; pedestrians walk across crosswalks; helicopters ply the air. It’s all very real, because it’s reflecting something that’s also very real: Your visitors are human beings, and they exhibit human behavior. They are not abstractions, and with VisitorVille you no longer have to think of them as such!
As goofball as it sounds, after spending some time perusing their website, I have to admit that this is a really cool idea. Unfortunately, it’s a really cool idea whose client software only runs on Windows. Such a shame…
(via Wired)
iTunes: “Part 2 (Bomb the Bass/Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five/The Charlatans/Prodigy/Jane’s Addiction/Tim Dog feat. KRS-One)” by Howlett, Liam from the album Prodigy pres. The Dirtchamber Sessions Vol. 1 (1999, 6:44).
Enough already
Yes, yes, we know. Reagan died. Can we get back to reporting about more important things now, please?
iTunes: “Headhunter” by Front 242 from the album Live Code (1993, 4:40).
No longer the top of the heap
Well, it lasted longer than I thought it would, given how fast technology advances, but my dual 2.0 GHz Power Mac G5 is no longer the top-of-the-line machine from Apple.
Apple today introduced updates to their Power Mac G5 line, now featuring a full range of dual processor systems at 1.8 GHz, 2.0 GHz, or 2.5 GHz — and ~~all~~ [the 2.5 Ghz model]{.underline} features a new liquid cooling system to keep heat and fan noise down. Nice!
iTunes: “Hazy Daze” by Wax Police, The from the album Acid: Breaks and Beats (1998, 2:24).
Time for a touch-up
iTunes: “Perfect Day” by Reed, Lou from the album Trainspotting (1972, 3:44).
iTunes supports AC3 and DTS?
I was just reading this Macworld article on how AirTunes works (the new audio streaming technology built into Airport Express), when I noticed this paragraph…
If iTunes is playing back a digital multichannel file format like AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS, those bitstreams are wrapped in Apple’s compression and encryption, and then decoded at the other end. In those cases, AirPort Express would end up streaming the raw AC3 or DTS stream via an optical cable to your home theater receiver for decoding.
blink
iTunes can play and output AC3 and DTS? How does that work — and from what source? Are there standalone AC3/DTS audio tracks out there somewhere? I’ve generally only seen them used on DVDs, though I know that there are some audio CDs made that use DTS, and probably some that use AC3. If I had such a CD, how would I put an AC3/DTS audio track into iTunes?
I don’t have a use for this information right now, I’m just really curious. It’s news to me.
iTunes: “Sweet Surrender (Roni Size v2)” by McLachlan, Sarah from the album Plastic Compilation Vol. II (1998, 4:00).
First look inside the new Sci-Fi museum
I’m jealous — while the public isn’t allowed in just yet, there was a “family and friends” night at the EMP‘s new Science-Fiction museum last night, and Thumbmonkey has the details…
My friend Larry is a curator at the Sci Fi Museum here in Seattle- and last night I got a sneak peek at the “Family n’ Friends” opening. Let me just say I was really looking forward to seeing what they had done, but also skeptical that it’d be good. I was blown away. It’s a small museum, but gorgeously made…it’s in the EMP which looks like a space blob anyway so it fits right in.
(via Pops)
iTunes: “Red Towers” by Anal Solvent from the album Secret Broadcast – Pirate Radio USA (1998, 3:20).