Monthly Archive for April, 2007

I’m sick

Published
by
Austen
on April 30, 2007
in Life
. 2 Comments

Yep, that’s right! I’m sick. I had a sore throat this weekend that was pretty bad. This morning I still had it, but not as bad. A trip to the doctor’s confirmed (or at least 90%) accuracy wasn’t Strep throat, but they’re doing the full (not quick) test now. The funny thing is ever since this morning I’ve been feeling better and better (without any medicine) so now, at 4:00 my soar throat is almost gone.

So yay, I missed school today. But I also missed a Spanish test, and a Science lab. And the next few days will be all makeup work. Tutoring during lunch periods, tests after school lets out, etc.

Of course, being sick isn’t what it used to be. It used to mean a day blocked off from any form of learning… a day to have an excuse to sit on the couch and watch TV all day. But not anymore. The 21st century has made sure of that. Now I can get my homework online, and email teachers to schedule tutoring appointments because I missed their class today.

And this broke my perfect record! I’ve never been absent all this year! (Although I’ve been late a couple of times.)

Serenity

Published
by
Austen
on April 29, 2007
in Movies, Television and Videos
. 0 Comments

Serenity is probably the best Sci-Fi movie to come out in the last decade (when digital technology was available.) I have talked about both Serenity and the series it was based on, Firefly. I recieved the complete season of Firefly on DVD for my 13th birthday, knowing nothing about it. I did eventually find out though, that it was a sci-fi TV show made during the 2001-2002 season that takes place 500 years in the future, and now instead of riding boats, we ride spaceships.

The show pulled very much from a classic western style of life. The main characters were crewmates on a small ship called Serenity who are always trying to evade the Alliance, an interplanetary government trying to control the galaxy. Of course, they’re not the good guys. There ways of getting things done can be considered… violent at times.

Anyway, the TV show (all 16 episodes of it) were simply amazing. Despite a normal TV budget, it is still in my opinion one of the most imaginative and great shows I have ever seen. Joss Whedon, who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the executive producer, and despite his fame, the show was cancelled before the end of the season. But the fan base was amazing. The fans pushed for Joss Whedon to continue it, even raising money to give to him. Finally, in 2005 Serenity comes out. Serenity is the continuation of the TV show, and it stays true to all of the characters, only this time we have a slightly larger budget.

Even without seeing the TV show (although it definitely helps) Serenity is funny, exciting, scary and just FUN all at the same time. Take a look at this clip from the opening sequence of the movie:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

That clip shows the characters and the heart of the show/movie. Although Serenity is a Sci-Fi movie, it doesn’t over-do the special effects (the budget was fairly low) and it keeps things real. So rent Serenity from your local store or on Netflix! You won’t be disappointed. Then, if you like it, buy Firefly on DVD.

Goodbye Lost, may you rest in peace

Published
by
Austen
on April 27, 2007
in Television
. 2 Comments

Lost that was is now dead. Lost used to be a great show, as I have mentioned at least 6 times on my blog. Season 1 was amazing. Season 2 was always exciting. But Season 3 really has jumped the shark. Seriously. If I were to list every single un-resolved mystery on Lost, it would go on for pages upon pages.

But I won’t, for that reason. I’ll just do some of Season 3. Season 3 has been like The Twighlight Zone, only in color. It’s jumped the shark. When did it do it? When we found out that there were in fact 2 islands, and then when Eko died. Oh, and then when Desmond started time traveling and seeing the future. Oh, then there was the whole thing with Hurley’s restraunt being hit by a meteor, Nikki and Paulo being buried alive, Locke being thrown out a window by his father, and then his father all of the sudden appearing on the island, and then a helicopter coming to the island, but crashing. And then Desmond’s ex-fiance is all of the sudden there, and then there’s the farm on the island that no one ever knew about containing none other than Mikali, who is in fact an other, dies from a seizure the next episode by being electrocuted by some weird electro-fence thingy. But then Mikali is alive again, all pregnant women die on the island, and now, FINALLY when this new woman on the island says that they found Oceanic Flight 815 and that there were no survivors!!!

These aren’t even all of the new mysteries introduced JUST in Season 3 so far. The sad thing is that Lost is still such a good show. Aside from the whole thing that each episode there’s another person who suddenly appears on the island, the quality of the acting and episode structure is as good as it’s always been. I will continue to watch Lost, but it has recently crossed the line where it no longer makes any sense, and it can’t come back from that. Because even if they had a whole season explaining all of the mysteries, they wouldn’t get through them all.

Anywho, I’m still watching it - it’s still enjoyable - so… It’s not really goodbye to Lost, just to when it still made sense. Anyway… Is it just me or does interface on the satellite phone from 2 episodes ago look just a LITTLE like the iPhone’s??? They have the same rounded corners on the boxes……

Wordpress Plugin: Twitter Tools

Published
by
Austen
on April 26, 2007
in Technology
. 0 Comments

Twitter Tools is a Wordpress plugin by developer Alex King which is really what it sounds like: A collection of various tools to link Twitter with you blog. It allows you to:

  • Archive your Twitter tweets (downloaded every 30 minutes)
  • Create a blog post from each of your tweets
  • Create a daily archive of Twitter tweets
  • Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post
  • Post a tweet from your sidebar

Of the 5 above, I only use 3: Twitter links to my new blog posts, I have a sidebar module with my latest tweets, and I can post from that same sidebar. It works amazingly well and simple, and is a great way to get some of your tweets done automaticallly, and also to create a better connection between Twitter and your blog.

Twitter Tools (3rd one down) | Readme | Alexking.org (lots of other great plugins)

Karl Rove, um… rapping?

Published
by
Austen
on April 25, 2007
in Humor and Videos
. 3 Comments

This is already almost a month old, and I don’t know how I missed it. But this was just too good to pass up.

When you hear the phrase “polar opposites” what do you think of? I think of, well, the north and south poles. But after that, I think of rapping and politics. Apparently not.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Wikipedia explains this:

On March 29, 2007, Rove was persuaded to participate in an improvised rap song at a Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington by improvisors Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame. A video of the event, showing Rove attempting to dance to the rap and referring to himself as “MC Rove” has since spread on the internet.

Thanks Uncle Bob for alerting me to this very strange video.

The Daily Show: Apocalypse How?

Published
by
Austen
on April 25, 2007
in Humor, Television and Videos
. 0 Comments

Last Thursday The Daily Show had a hilarious segment featuring Jason Jones going to find the “other side” of the global warming debate. He makes a movie with an opposing view to “An Inconvenient Truth” and shows it to a 7th grade class at the request of a parent.

As that 7th grade teacher remarks in the segment: “I found an article from Newsweek that opposed the film’s (An Inconvenient Truth’s) view, but it was over 30 years old.” The clip is hilarious, although way to short. They could have done a whole show on just this! Here’s the Comedy Central embedded player: (sorry there’s no YouTube version)

“Photoshop” not a verb

Published
by
Austen
on April 24, 2007
in Other
. 0 Comments

From the Adobe Terms of Use:

The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a common verb or as a noun. The Photoshop trademark should always be capitalized and should never be used in possessive form, or as a slang term. It should be used as an adjective to describe the product, and should never be used in abbreviated form.

And then, look how they go on:

The following examples illustrate these rules:

Trademarks are not verbs.

CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.

And to top it off with the big finale…

Trademarks are proper adjectives and should be followed by the generic terms they describe.

CORRECT: The image was manipulated using Adobe® Photoshop® software.

INCORRECT: The image was manipulated using Photoshop.

All I can say is: Ah, shaddup. I know that Adobe has a copyright to protect and everything, but it just seems so… mean and pointles. Google has no problem making their “trademark” a verb… It’s in the dictionary now. I guess I’m over-reacting, but this is really just so stupid!

[Via Digg]

Oh! and on a completely unrelated note, you should definitely check out this picture that was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® software!

The image enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® software pokes fun at the Product® Red® campaign, and at Apple Inc.’s® constant updating of their iPod® Nano® line of iPods®.

I’m finding that I’m having a lot of fun while playing with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® software, you should all get it from Adobe® as soon as you can so you can do more stuff like this image enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements® software.

I’m 14 and a half!

Published
by
Austen
on April 24, 2007
in Humor and Life
. 2 Comments

Today, April 24th 2007 marks my half birthday. Why do I care so much? Well…

Let’s say that on a happiness scale of 1 to 10, on my birthday I’d be about 10. So, on my half birthday I should be half as excited as I am on my normal birthday. That’s a 5. And the subtitle for 5 is “fairly happy.” That may not seem like that much.

But… this is in addition to my normal daily happiness which is usually around 4 (sorta happy) or 5. So… that sets my happiness scale to be 9 or 10. (4+5=9 and 5+5=10) But of course, that would make me 15 happy on my birthday, but that actually seems about right anyway.

New trailer for Harry Potter 5

Published
by
Austen
on April 23, 2007
in Books, Movies and Videos
. 0 Comments

The new international trailer for the 5th Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix was released yesterday…

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

My favorite part:

Hermione: It’s really exciting, isn’t it? Breaking the laws.
Ron: Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?

The trailer is AWESOME, and I’m looking forward to the movie, but not nearly as much as the 7th book. This is probably the only series where I would prefer the book to the movie. Not that the movies aren’t great, though. I really think that they handled the movies very well. They could have easily just been crap. They’re not as good as the books, but they do a good job of interpeting them.

World’s Largest iTunes Library

Published
by
Austen
on April 22, 2007
in Music
. 0 Comments

Glenn Wolsey has an interview with Will Friedwald, owner of the world’s largest iTunes collection:

849 GB | 172,150 tracks | 809.2 days
2,935 artists | 11,561 albums
iTunes library database file - 282 MB
iTunes library XML file - 259 MB

And about how fast iTunes runs with his massive library…

Essentially the problem is that iTunes was designed for people to buy music from the store, to put CDs on their iPods, and then, perhaps lastly, to store some of a personal CD collection in the library. It was NOT designed for what I am doing with it, which is to store, manage and access a major music collection of nearly 200,000 tracks. As a result, when I am working with the full 800 GB library, it is painfully slow, getting around the library, doing searches, and editing info on individual tracks or whole albums just takes forever!

As an example: when I want to edit the information on an individual song – the “metadata” as technically-minded people call it – I highlight the track, then I press Apple-I. With a small library (under 50-100 GB), the edit info window comes up instantly. But with my 800 GB Matrix, I have to wait three or four minutes before the window comes up. That’s time enough to go to the bathroom, make a cup of coffee, or entertain myself with 99% of the clips on youtube!

It’s a very interesting article, and after reading it, it’s apparent that Will is just a normal guy… with a huge collection of music.

The Office: Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Published
by
Austen
on April 22, 2007
in Humor and Television
. 1 Comment

It wasn’t a new Office this past Thursday. That was disappointing. But this promo for next week made up for it. Thank you NBC!!! Jim imitating Dwight is one of the best Office scenes ever!

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Harry Potter 7!!!

Published
by
Austen
on April 21, 2007
in Books
. 1 Comment

The book cover for the 7th and final Harry Potter book was released today, and it’s awesome and all and now there’s only 90 days left till Harry Potter 7! And 82 till the 5th Harry Potter movie! I can’t wait!

Of course, this is just the American book cover and artwork. You can find the UK ones here. The book will apparently be 784 pages long (longer than Goblet of Fire, but not the Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince.)

Harry Potter 7 Wiki | Harry Potter 7 on Amazon

Tux Racer - Have you ever seen a penguin sledding?

Published
by
Austen
on April 21, 2007
in Technology
. 0 Comments

Tux Racer is a long-dead game featuring the Linux mascot and penguin Tux. Why Tux? Because Linux is the ultimate representation of open source, and this is an open source game! The game isn’t very complicated, in fact it’s not really a “race” because he’s not racing against anyone.

But basically, you’re controlling Tux who’s in a way sledding down a series of various snowy and icy hills, and trying to collect fish. That’s about it. The game stopped being developed in 2001, but it’s still a great little game.

There have been a few spin-offs of it, attempts to revive the game, but I believe that none of them are currently in development.

Tux Racer Page | Tux Racer Wiki | Tux Wiki

iTunes slower on Windows

Published
by
Austen
on April 20, 2007
in Music and Technology
. 2 Comments

I love iTunes. It’s a great program to manage my music with. It has a great interface, and a beautiful layout. But I have noticed a HUGE difference between its performance on Windows and Mac. Is some of it due to that fact that my computer is 3 almost 4 years old, and that the Mac in question is not even a year old? Maybe.

But I seriously believe that iTunes performs better and faster on a Mac. Is that unfair yes? Is it wrong? Not really. Of course iTunes is faster on a Mac, it’s by Apple and it’s hard to just “convert” a program to another platform. But still, sometimes I wonder what it would be like if iTunes just worked faster, My main problem is scrolling, it’s anything but smooth. And then, when I have a bunch of other programs open, it’s basic functions like playing a stoping songs turn super-slow.

Has anyone else noticed a difference in speed between the Mac and Windows version of iTunes?

Scribd: Digg for documents

Published
by
Austen
on April 19, 2007
in Netsua.com and Technology
. 1 Comment

Scribd (yes, I spelled it right) is a new web service very similar to Digg. But while Digg is a social network focused on rating websites and blog posts, Scribd is a social network focused on rating documents and writing.

It’s just starting out, and doesn’t seem to be that popular yet, but it really has a lot of potential. It overall runs much faster than Digg and even lets you upload documents without logging in!

Uploading a document to Scribd (.doc, .pdf, .ppt, .xls, etc.) is easy and fast. Then, it has a page where you can either view as simple HTML text or in a pdf-style flash window that’s available to be embeded into websites. And it’s not like the Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer, it’s just simple. It doesn’t take forever to load, and it’s only got the controls you need.

You can rate documents (which range from essays to online magazines to a collection of pictures) just like Digg, and even download it, no matter how you uploaded it, as a .doc, .pdf, .txt, and even an MP3 (using a computer voice, it reads out your document.) So in a way, you can use Scribd as a conversion service for files also!

Some of my favorite documents: They Didn’t Study, 10 Random Questions You’ve Never Thought of Asking, How to Succeed in Business.

I’ve been uploading some of my writing to Sribd and posting it on the writing page - so now you don’t have to download the word document, but just view it in-browser in the Scribd pdf-style document reader.