Contents:
The Apple Brick Revealed?
The ‘Brick’ is… | 9 to 5 Mac
The MacBook Brick is a block of high-quality, aircraft grade aluminum. It is the beginning.
The beginning of what?
It is the beginning of the new Apple manufacturing process to make MacBooks. It is totally revolutionary, a game changer. One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade.
OK, that would be very very cool, and completely different.
Again, it’s all wild speculation, but I like the novelty of this rumor.
Little Link Dump
Whoopsie
Whoopsie of the century?
“A TV stuntman is lucky to be alive after actor Jimmy Smits stabbed him for real during a fight scene for TV show Dexter.”
Smiths got lucky and hit a tiny plastic piece covering the stunt man’s heart, deflecting the blow. Still: YIKES!
Weird Al in the Digital Age
The latest issue of Wired Magazine has a nice interview with Weird Al Yankovic in it. It covers a lot of old ground for Al Fans, but there is a near attempt to touch on the problems Weird Al has in the current music market. It’s twofold: First, music is much more fractured than it used to be. In the 80s, you had MTV and a Top 40 chart. Today, you have 40 Top 40 charts. No single lasts the entire summer in the #1 spot. How can you parody a song that everyone likes, when no single song reaches everyone anymore?
Second, the YouTube Generation can make their own parodies by slapping some random words that rhyme together and uploading them to YouTube, MySpace, etc. overnight. Not that it’s entirely legal, but it happens. And anyone who ever looked at Napster in its hey day and any BitTorrent stream since then knows that Weird Al is credited with all of them by people with clearly tin ears.
The solution to both problems is simple: use the internet. Target niches. Release as you write.
Sure enough, that’s what Weird Al is doing. He’s announced that he’ll being selling songs off his website as he writes them, rather than waiting to put together and entire album. Smart move, though the purist in me misses the sensory overload and excitement of 12 fresh songs on a CD. Times have changed. I’ll deal.
The first song comes out this Tuesday, and will be an iTunes exclusive for two weeks. Sold! More hints from Al in the link above.
Point and Shoot, Beverly Hills Style
Did you see “90210″ on Tuesday night? Sadly, I did. And I laughed where I probably shouldn’t have.
You see, the lead character’s mother is a budding photographer and is given her big break at a fashion show in this week’s episode. Her photography skills start off strongly enough. She uses multiple bodies to switch lenses. She’s using Canon cameras with fast lenses. (They’re huge.) The hot shoe has a pocket wizard or something attached to it to remotely fire the flashes. It’s not tethered to a computer, but that’s forgivable. Not everyone likes working that way.
Then, things go downhill. First, the photographer is seen proofing pics on a light board. These are digital pictures. They’re not making film contact sheets of them. They should be reviewing them on a computer monitor, most likely an Apple Cinema Display.
Then, she’s seen holding the camera inches in front of her face as she takes pictures. She’s not looking through the viewfinder! She’s looking at the screen. This isn’t a point and shoot camera! This is a high end Canon dSLR camera, probably without Live View yet. Even if it did use Live View, that’s not the time to be using it. The lag would destroy her pics.
Also, every woman in the show is entirely too skinny. It’s skeletal looking, save maybe Shannon Doherty.
And I also think I’ve seen enough teenage melodramas now that I recognize they’re all the same show, just with slightly different coats of paint on them. “Dawson’s Creek” was the only one to attempt something different, and that was through its use of language.
Everybody Dance Now!
Due to a lack of much else interesting to watch on TV that my wife would sit still for, I’ve been sucked into “Dancing With The Stars” this season. It’s like watching a live action crossover comic book, though. For starters, one of the contestants’ professional dance partners was a finalist on “So You Think You Can Dance.” (That’s Lacey Schwimmer.) Then, this week’s results show featured choreography to a Jessica Simpson song from two ballroom dancers from previous seasons of “So You Think,” as well as a new number by a choreographer from “So You Think” featuring a dancer from “Step Up 2,” a dance movie produced by a judge on “So You Think.” With Shane Sparks (of “So You Think” fame) now doing Randy Jackson’s (of “American Idol” fame, from the same producer of “So You Think”) dance crew show on MTV, I’m beginning to think the televised dance world is an incestuous little thing. Or that Nygel Lithgoe rules over them all.
Or, perhaps they know they’re a small industry and so stick together for the betterment of their chosen art form.
Too bad the comics world will never learn that lesson. We can’t even manage to get a “Batman/Daredevil” book published, and that’s a guaranteed money printer for Marvel and DC.
One other note: The dance shows repeat for multiple seasons, but the shows that attempt to find a double- or triple-threat always crash and burn — “Grease,” “Fame,” and “Dance War.” People shouldn’t try to sing AND dance at the same time. The professionals make it look easy because they’re lip-synching half the time.
New DVD Releases for 30 September 2008
There is only one big release this week:
Amazing movie. It’s the kind of movie you want to upgrade the home theater system to truly appreciate. At least, Best Buy seems to be counting on that in their circular this week. The annoying thing is that they’ve worked out something like six different exclusives to go with this movie. Depending on where you guy, you might be able to buy the movie with a special comic or a special action figure or something.
- Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD
Yes, it’s the David Hasslehoff made-for-TV movie. It’s a Best Buy exclusive.
- Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Unrated
Not for me, but maybe it will appeal to one of you. But does it really need a three disc set?
Speaking of shows starring Kristen Bell, Best Buy is now selling VERONICA MARS Seasons 1 - 3 for $20 now. Well worth it, even with the third season missteps.
Assorted Thoughts for a Tuesday
- I can feel the balance starting to shift. I’m starting to tire of all the podcasts. At work, I’m listening to more music now. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to do work while listening to music rather than to people talking. Maybe the job is shifting more than the listener? I don’t know. Maybe I just need an exciting new podcast to jumpstart me again.
- The on-going eBay Death Watch took an interesting turn this week, as eBay has finally integrated Skype. Sorta. They’re including a Skype link in a Firefox toolbar that very few people will want to install. If the eBay auction you’re looking at has a phone number — not yet a Skype handle — the toolbar will allow you to call up the seller to ask them questions. Or something. And who will be silly enough to publish their phone number with their eBay auction? I imagine that would only be the businesses who use eBay as a side income stream. Isn’t that the crowd eBay is catering to, to the exclusion of all others these days?
- Speaking of Apple, congrats to The Unofficial Apple Weblog on their new design. It’s very nice. Someday, I’ll do the same to this blog. . .
All things TiVo:
The week’s new DVD releases will be run down here tomorrow.
Red Dwarf Returns
New Red Dwarf Specials Confirmed | News | Red Dwarf
As announced by Robert Llewellyn for Grant Naylor Productions this week at the UKTV seasonal press launch, the project is a short series of brand new specials to celebrate the 21st birthday of Red Dwarf.
Doug Naylor will be masterminding the four half-hour instalments, and the regular cast will all be reprising their iconic roles. They are being made by GNP for UKTV’s free-to-air channel, Dave - our new best friends!
Two half hours will be new episodes. One episode will be a Making Of show. And the fourth will be a clips show. Odd assortment, but what Red Dwarf fan could complain about anything new coming out after all these years?
The Brick
So, Mac fans are setting themselves up for disappointment again.
The latest thing is the “Brick” rumor. Like all the patent filings that lead to wild speculation on new product announcements, “the brick” is a rumor fueled by speculation and incorrect readings of financial reports. The lower profit margins warned by Apple at the end of the last quarter were explained by the lowered prices on the iPods. but that’s not enough for some people, who demand that the margins are falling because Apple will release an all-inclusive touch-screen tablet that will cure cancer and shore up failing banks — for free! Without Google Ads!
Or maybe it’ll just be Apple TV v3.0, complete with HDTV integration, TiVo functionality, a built-in Blu-Ray player, and a Wii built in!
It’s gotten to the point now where “The Brick” is going to excite Apple and the economy and revolutionize the computer industry on October 14th. Really, check out all the insane predictions that have been made.
And when Apple announces a simple MacBook upgrade — maybe an aluminum case instead of white, with a moderate chip speed-up — Apple fans will whine and complain that Steve Jobs has lost his touch, and that Mac doesn’t revolutionize any thing anymore.
Can’t we just enjoy the surprise when it comes, and stop feeding into the hype machine with endless speculation that gets mistaken for fact?
I hate people sometimes.
That said, I hope it’s Apple TV 3 — but only as a software upgrade so I don’t have to buy a new one. Mine’s only 6 months old!
