Lone Locust Productions

Author: Eugene Glover

  • If Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth, Facebook is…

    …the most depressing place on Earth.

    (Needless to say, I’m not cross-posting this one to Facebook.)

    Facebook is a fascinating phenomena. You can, for example, find out what Mini-Me is doing right now.

    It is certainly also an amazing tool for finding old schoolmates and even long-lost friends. The “net” that the social network casts out has lead me to some really surprising “finds” of people I thought I’d never, ever hear from again.

    The thing is… it’s all rather grim. For every one person who grew up and became mildly interesting, 10 more grew up to be ignorant racists, crystal loonies, ultra-rightwing republicans or worse. I have Facebook “friends” who subscribe to religious beliefs that include listening to snakes talk and glossolalia (More commonly called “speaking in tongues” -in effect, gibbering and making bizarre-assed noises and pretending this power is gifted from god.)

    It’s all so depressing. These people had the same education as me, where did the system fail them?

    I’m not going to deny that I may have had an advantage in terms of raw brain horse-power. It would be disingenuously for me to deny that I was identified as “gifted” by the time I was three and put in a special school. (Hated it!)

    Nonetheless, arrogant and self-important that may have made me as a child, I have still always believed that most people can absorb and use the vast majority of the education that is afforded them.

    Facebook proves that premise is horribly, horribly false.

    I had a brief exchange with one of my classmates from back in the 70’s. It wasn’t pleasant as I was being given a dressing down for both being (supposedly) a smartass and apparently for being educated. Funny thing was, I wasn’t actually being a smartass. I suspect there was some simmering resentment or hatred towards me that has been there for 30+ years.

    I’m going to reproduce the last piece of the exchange because, lest you think I’m exaggerating, I want to document just how depressing some of these people can be.

    This has had all names changed, but the spelling and punctuation are exactly as I received them. Can you imagine this is from a 45-year old person and not a second grader?

    YOU DONT KNOW ME TO WELL TO SAY THAT . OKAY FOR ONE . AND I REALLY NEVER CARED ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY AND 2I HAD FRIENDS AND I HAVE GOOD CHURCH GOING FRIENDS .AND PAGAN FRIENDS AND FRIENDS THAT PRACTIC WICKA AND YOU DONT KNOW ME THANK GOD .. SO DONT ASUME THAT I WAS A PERSON THAT WAS A PROBELEM .. I THINK THAT YOU NEED TO REFLECT ON BEING A BELIVER OF GOD AND STOP ACTING LIKE YOUR BETTER THAN ANY ONE YOU UNDERSTAND ME .. DONT WRITE TO ME BACAUSE I HAVE NO NEED FOR YOU ANY WAY NON BELIVER

    Well, I won’t write back, instead, I’m going to ridicule your English skills just by putting them out there for people to see. (Now I am being an arrogant smartass.)

    Ironically, the original discussion was started because this person was slagging off our English teacher back then and I think you can tell that this person might not have learned a lot in that class.

    Most tellingly, there was not the slightest reference to religion prior to this message. Apparently, they found out I was an atheist from my profile. It’s amazing how some people can really get their backs up against the wall and attack when they learn you don’t share their… umm… as Richard Dawkins would say, “delusions.”

  • Bond in Retrospect

    There’s been some back and forth going on lately about what makes a great Bond film. (For those who don’t think Bond films are great, this post is not for you.)

    I’ve been a Bond fan since 1979, when I saw my first Bond film on the big screen. It was, of course, Moonraker and at the very moment Bond was tossed out of an airplane without a parachute, I was hooked. It was totally unexpected and, as the James Bond theme music washed over the theatre and 007 kicked back his armed and swooped down on the unsuspecting pilot like a giant raptor, the crowd, and myself, quite literally cheered.

    It was that moment, for me, that taught me about the “magic” of movies, sitting in that audience, whilst people gasped and then held their breath, then roared with thunderous triumph. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck.

    Sure, Star Wars was cool, but it didn’t reach out of the screen and grab you. Moonraker was a roller coaster – an absurd, ridiculous roller coaster, but a really fun ride.

    How could I not love this film, flawed though it may ultimately be?

    Perhaps it’s just age? I saw Moonraker at age 14, and I never missed another Bond opening until Pierce Brosnan took over in 1995 – and I loved them all.

    I saw Goldeneye with a date on my 31st birthday (It was still opening week, but it was the first time I’d missed opening day.) We walked out of the theatre in silence and turned to each other and said, “What was that?” It had all the Bond elements, and yet, somehow, it just wasn’t a Bond film. It was like one of those 1960’s “other” spy films trying to capitalize on James Bond – a pale comparison, but no the real thing, It seemed the producers had lost their touch – and yet, other people were walking out of the theatre raving about the film. “That was the best Bond film I’ve ever seen!” one woman exclaimed.

    (I rather impolitely quipped, a little too loudly, “Don’t like Bond films, do you?” To my chagrin, she heard me. Oops.)

    Honestly, though, that’s not what this post is about, that’s just the prologue.

    So, I was having this Twitter discussion at lunch today with correspondents far and wide and was marveling at how disparate our opinions on Bond films were – despite all being fans of the series. I realized that no amount of discussion was going to bring them around to the correct way of thinking, so I did what was within my own power – I became introspective.

    I tried to decide exactly what makes a good Bond film to me. First I tried to look at the elements that make a Bond film – Bond himself, hot babes, action, more hot babes, larger-than-life villains, larger-than-life (If you know what I mean) hot babes, cool gadgets, hot babes, daring stunts, hot babes, and, to a lesser degree, trivial things like plot and characterization.

    I didn’t really reach a definitive conclusion, but I did decide that it wasn’t the hot babes. I’m apparently not as shallow as my previous paragraph might indicate. It’s something to do with a sense of fun. I go to Bond films to have fun.

    Believe it or not, that’s not what this post is about, either!

    While I was thinking about the various aspects of the different Bond films, I noticed something odd. I’ve seen all of the films, except Quantum of Solace a minimum of five times, and yet when I tried to summarize the major plot, I found some films’ plot completely unmemorable. Obviously, I could look them up, but I think this should be telling me something about these films (and not the possibility that my eidetic memory is failing with age.)

    • Doctor No – Half-Chinese operative of SPECTRE uses base is Bahamas to topple US missiles.
    • From Russia With Love – SPECTRE uses complicated trap to steal Soviet encrypting machine, blames the British and take revenge on Bond for Doctor No.
    • Goldfinger – Goldfinger plans to break into Ft. Knoxß, irradiate the gold and see the value of his gold skyrocket.
    • Thunderball – SPECTRE steals nuclear weapons and blackmails the world
    • You Only Live Twice – SPECTRE tries to start WWIII by capturing US and Soviet spacecraft, blaming each other
    • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – SPECTRE tries to create massive crop/livestock blights and blackmail the world
    • Diamonds Are Forever – SPECTRE builds giant laser in space and tries to blackmail the world
    • Live and Let Die – Drug lord tries to sell lots of drugs
    • The Man With The Golden Gun – World’s top assassin builds laser weapon to… umm.. I think he wanted to sell it to the highest bidder
    • The Spy Who Loved Me – Mad billionaire steals nuclear subs in effort to start WWIII, kill world’s population and start new world under the sea.
    • Moonraker – Mad billionaire plans to rain nerve gas down on Earth from space station, kill world’s population and start new world on Earth.
    • For Your Eyes Only – Villain steals top-secret British missile command computer, tries to sell it to the Soviets.
    • Octopussy – Crazed Soviet tries to blow up nuclear weapon on US military base in order to force nuclear pre-emptive strike, take over the world for Soviets.
    • A View to a Kill – Genetically engineered villain tries to blow up Silicon Valley, for some reason.
    • Living Daylights – Soviet spy defects, but it’s all a setup because some General is a crook, with no apparent purpose
    • License to Kill – Bond goes on a vendetta against a drug lord for hurting his best friend.
    • Goldeneye – Former 00 agent goes bad, betrays Bond, uses radio telescope to do something forgettable.
    • Tomorrow Never Dies– Newspaper mogul tries to start a real shootin’ war so he can sell more papers.
    • The World is Not Enough – Crazed oil baroness tries to get more business by blowing up rival pipelines with nukes.
    • Die Another Day – North Korean guys builds an ice palace. (Was there more to this film?)
    • Casino Royale – Bad guy tries to finance bad guy stuff by winning a card game.
    • Quantum of Solace – Bond kills bad guys, bad guys had no memorable plan.

    The point of this exercise is that, as we get into the later films, there’s less and less memorable villainy. These bad guys are big yawners compared to the likes of Goldfinger or Blofeld.

    Oddly enough, the most memorable of the post-Timothy Dalton villains is the baddie in Tomorrow Never Dies, and I can’t remember his name, except that he’s supposed to be Rupert Murdoch. Which should act as a warning to everyone.

    See also: The Best of Bond, and the Worst at Little-Storping-in-the-Swuff for a different take.

  • A Bad Day in Phoenix is a Good Day to Test the iPhone

    Friday was a state furlough day. While the school were still operating, the entire machinery of the state of Arizona was closed (and unpaid, of course, that was the whole point.) With nothing to do and no family around, I was going to attend to miscellaneous tasks around the house – until the air conditioning died late Thursday night. Summer is running long this year and it’s still well over 100 every day. Air conditioning repair companies are swamped and it’s nearly impossible to get a good technician to look at a dodgy unit on short notice. We have a reliable company that we use and they were able to get someone out towards the end of the day Friday.

    The practical upstart of the whole situation is that I needed to abandon the house for the entire day and could not retreat to the office.

    I decided I was going to try two things:

    • First, make a movie with the iPhone and the iPhone version of iMovie. I had tried this on the day I got the phone, but made a horrible mess of it. I was unable to cut and assemble the scenes as needed and learned I needed to adjust my shooting style, and
    • Go to as many Apple Stores as necessary to get an iPad Camera Connection Kit, which is never in stock. I figured I’d probably have to go to all of them and still not get one. Of course, I could have called, but how would that kill an entire day?

    With nothing more than that in mind, I headed off on my trek.

    I did vaguely attempt to make a few different types of shots, such as close-ups, using both the front and back camera, using the video light, moving shots, walking talking shots, etc. From my first attempt I also knew not to cut the shots too close. You want plenty of pre-roll and post-roll footage, as I didn’t have much luck with frame accurate editing.

    After spending the day taking a series of mostly extemporaneous shots as the mood hit me, I came back home – and while suffering still without A/C, I set about editing it with the iPhone iMovie app.

    A lot of people have remarked how wonderful it is, but to me, it’s extremely restrictive and difficult, suitable for 5 or 6 shot, “cuts only” editing. Trying to string together 15-20 shots from a collection of 25-30 is tough. Let’s start with the work flow. Let’s assume we’ve already shot the footage and it is (obviously) on the phone.

    You start by creating a project. Currently there are four themes and you cannot choose “none” although if you don’t use any theme elements, you essentially have chosen none. You cannot combine elements from one theme with elements from another (exception: the music) As far as I can tell the theme dictates only three things – the titles, the transitions and the music.

    Once you have a new project, you can start dropping things in. Select new video media and your library of video is shown, as film strips, in reverse order. If you’ve shot your program linearly as I did, you scroll to the bottom, find your clip and tap it – it’s tossed into the project at the end of the clip that’s currently on the “playhead”. Note: it doesn’t place the clip AT the playhead, it skips to the end of that clip and places the new clip. There is no insert/overwrite editing.

    There is no way to inspect the clip in the bin before placing it, and there’s no information, not even the name, provided, meaning you have to guess what clip you want based on the opening frames. In “Bad Day in Phoenix” I shot mostly in order and deleted outtakes before editing. if it had been many shots with similar locations, a slate would have been essential. Just the ability to preview the clip before inserting it would be very helpful.

    Clips are automatically placed with a .5 second crossfade. You can double click the transition placed between the clips and change the duration or change to a simple cut or the “theme’s” transition.

    Trimming the clip is achieved by taping the clip once, then grabbing the pin at either end and sliding in or out. It’s not very precise and doesn’t play audio so it’s hard to line up shots. I found it difficult to trim the shots the way I wanted.

    The program is not without bugs, too. Sometimes clips wouldn’t play their audio. On the next pass they would. Since everything was shot on the phone, it shouldn’t be an incompatibility with the clips. Nonetheless, one clip never played audio and didn’t even render with audio and I had to delete it from the movie. The clip plays just fine, with audio, in the phone’s photo application.

    Titles are placed over a single clip, and seem to run the entire duration of the clip (minus transitions). You have three kinds, opening, middle and closing. Essentially opening and closing are title cards and middle is roughly a lower third. You cannot position them to start at any location than the start of a clip. Nor can I find any way to “split” a clip that’s in the timeline (this would allow you to trick the title to appear on just the segment of the clip you wanted and would also be handy for attempting to simulate an insert edit.)

    Considering the type camera, and the prominence it was given in iMovie HD for the Mac, I’m surprised you do a simple 90 degree rotation of a clip. It’s fairly common that people using digital cameras to record video forget that it’s landscape only and shoot in portrait mode. iMovie HD “fixes” that easily. iPhone iMovie does not. I made that mistake twice while shooting this movie, luckily, you might think it was as artistic choice. It wasn’t.

    The clips audio can be turned on an off. There is no way to adjust the volume so you cannot normalize the audio between one clip and the next.

    You can law down some audio, which can be either any of the themes’ music selections or anything from your iPod. You cannot place the music where you want it, it simply starts at the beginning of the project and moves towards the end.

    You also cannot insert audio from you voice note recorder and so cannot record narration and lay it down over the video, nor can you overlay audio from another movie clip. This means I had to narrate each shot as it was recorded, which is a very inflexible and inelegant solution.

    Rendering the video was also a problem. The 15 minute video is 1.2GB, the various clips used to make the video were closer to 2GB. With 6 GB free on the phone, I was unable to render the video. My phone ran out of space. I had to change my sync options and put far less of my music collection on the phone to get enough room to process the video.

    The quality of most of the video was really good and I have no complaints about the finished output (no complaints that couldn’t be explained by the lack of choices in the editing and shooting process.) For short, quick features, iPhone iMovie can produce a remarkably polished, but it is not suitable for much more. You can do much, much better by loading the footage into iMovie on a Mac and editing it there. You can’t do that in the field, though.

    Next, I might try editing it on the iPad.

    Oh, and here’s the movie:

    Bad Day in Phoenix from Lone Locust Productions on Vimeo.

    What to do when it’s 109º outside, you’re off work for the day with nothing to do and you air conditioning goes out at home and won’t be fixed until the evening?

    That was my dilemma today. See how the Apple Store solved my problem of what to do!

    This video was shot, edited and rendered entirely on an iPhone 4 using iMovie. My intent was nothing more than experiment with the onboard features to see how robust they were.

  • Fusion Patrol Podcast Update

    FP-Podcast-Logo.jpg

    I’ve been reminded that I’ve been remiss about writing about my experiences getting the Fusion Patrol podcast up and running. I’d like to wait until I’m sure that everything is working right, but that day may never come!

    We’ve now put out 16 episodes spanning three continents and there have been some hard won lessons learned. I think, in fact, that I’ve forgotten much of the frustration, but I think I can remember what I need to impart.

    The fundamental flaw we’ve had has been in sound quality. I suppose that goes without saying for an audio-only podcast.

    Perhaps it will be easier to explain if I describe our setup. Ben and I conduct the podcast over Skype from our respective homes. Ben uses a PC, which plays little or no further part in this story. I do the recording on my end on my Macbook Pro.

    Skype does not natively record phone calls and I purchased a piece of software called Call Recorder, which plugs into Skype and can record all Skype audio. Unfortunately, there is no distinction between callers. Skype turns both ends of the call into one audio stream.

    In our first episode, Ben’s audio was of poor quality and mine sounded good. This was really surprising because, while in the conversation, it sounded great to us. It wasn’t until we listened to the playback that the problems were obvious. A little (read: a lot) post-production magic improved things, but it was clear Ben needed a better microphone/headset. I gave him mine and I bought a new, USB headset. I chose USB because… I don’t really know why. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

    For the next few podcasts, my audio sounded clean, but was extremely low in volume, week after week I was forced to spend hours attempting to balance the audio, manually raising and lowering the volume of each sentence spoken. Weirder still, my voice seemed to get quieter and quieter as each podcast progressed.

    I decided I didn’t like my USB headset and preferred the quality of the original mic that I’d given Ben, so I bought another one, which has separate input/output plugs. My audio seemed to get even quieter.

    It turns out the new microphone (and possibly the original that I gave Ben) is not powered, but a Macbook Pro doesn’t have a microphone in, it only has line in, which won’t work with an unpowered source. What was happening, it seems, was that I was actually recording though the built-in microphone on the Macbook Pro. As the podcast recording session would progress, I would begin to fidget and get further and further away from the Macbook, thinking that I had the microphone suspended in front of my face. The Macbook’s built-in noise-cancelling microphone is really good for telephony chatting but not what you need when podcasting.

    When I discovered the problem I had a dilemma. I was in Taiwan and my options for buying and testing equipment were limited. I discovered, though trial and error, that the Macbook Pro’s headphone jack is actually the same audio in and out jack that is on an iPhone, and as I had my iPhone headset, I used that for one podcast. The microphone quality wasn’t as good, but it was definitely not going through the laptop’s microphone.

    Having finally solved my problems, I was devastated to find that still my audio faded away as the podcast progressed. What could be causing it?!

    About this time I also discovered a piece of software called “The Levelator” which automatically does something similar to what I was doing manually by raising and lowering the volume. It does a remarkably good job, but not good enough. I found myself using the Levelator and then tweaking the final results, which did make for a lot less work for me.

    Perhaps belatedly, I began searching for other possibilities as to what the problem and I came across a possibility. It seems that the Mac version of Skype differs from the PC version of Skype inasmuch as the Mac version always has auto-level control enabled and does not have user-accessible option for turning it off. With that knowledge in hand I conducted some tests and, sure enough, if I would make a slightly louder sound, the Mac’s audio input control would be lowered by Skype. Oddly enough, the so-called auto-leviling never raised the volume when it got too low. In the essence, it simply kept lowering the audio and never raising it back up. By the end of a podcast, my audio input was down to nothing.

    With a little checking online, there are some hidden control XML files for Mac Skype that you can edit, adding in some commands that will disable the level control.

    Thinking I’d solved that, my next task was to try to find a plug adaptor that would take the in/out plugs from my headphone and neatly combine them into a standard iPhone style jack. Despite the millions of iPhones out there, I couldn’t find such a device, save for one company that makes equipment for court stenographers. Being such a vertical, captive market, their prices were not realistic to my budget. As a fallback, I purchased an iMic, which is a audio in/out to USB converter, effectively turning my new headset into a USB headset. (You might think I’d just go back to the USB headset, but it really does have a poor microphone.)

    With no auto-leveling and proper microphone placement, things seemed perfect, just in time for our (extended) discussion about Doctor Who with our guest Simon from the UK, who also joined us via Skype over our first ever three-way Skype conversation.

    That was quite a day. We’d expected to talk around 90 minutes but ended up talking for over 4 hours. It wasn’t easy scheduling a time when everyone was available and just 30 minutes before the appointed time, my neighbors began mowing their lawn. I was worried that the lawnmower would interfere with the audio. It did, but only indirectly. They were done long before the podcast started but the gunk tossed up in the air began to slowly, almost imperceptibly to me, clog up my sinuses. My breathing became somewhat more labored than normal. This is fairly common for me and I rarely notice it. Little did I know how horrible it would be!

    With my audio now solid and uninterrupted, I should have realized Sod’s Law would take full effect and Ben and Simon’s audio would be very low. Once again, for the four-part podcast that it turned out to be, I was forced to raise and lower the volume on a sentence by sentence basis. It would have worked, except… for my sinuses which continued to labor away while they were talking. When I’d raise their audio, so my belabored breathing got raised up as well.

    Once or twice during the long podcast, I no doubt bumped my headset, lowering the microphone closer to by breathing, making it worse in some parts of podcast.

    It’s all horribly, horribly embarrassing.

    While our most recent Podcast #16 wasn’t perfect, I did not have to extensively tweak the audio, although I did let the Levelator work on it, which seems a great improvement to me.

    What’s really needed is multi-track recording, but that seemed impossible with Skype. It seemed the only solution would be to find a way to bring my audio and Skype’s audio into a mixer before being recorded. Ideally we’d bring each participant into a different input to the mixer and then I’d be able to adjust each audio source independently in GarageBand in post production. That’s an extensive hardware solution that I was just not willing to invest in.

    But just yesterday I read an article about a piece of software called Wiretap Anywhere from Ambrosia Software that sounds like it may be the very solution I’ve been looking for.

    Wiretap Anywhere allows you to create virtual multi-channel audio devices from any number of hardware and software sources. For example, you could put the audio input from the computer’s microphone, iTunes, a USB microphone and Skype output as four stereo inputs into one virtual device. That virtual device can then be used as an 8 channel input device into GarageBand (or any other input capable destination). GarageBand can only use one input device, but it can record each of the channels independently (either individually as mono sources or as stereo pairs). In simple terms, it allows GarageBand to do multi-channel recording from practically anything that generates sound on your computer.

    They have a free 30-day demo and after a bit of trial and error, I was able to successfully record my end of a Skype conversation and the remote end as separate tracks: exactly what I’ve been wanting. The proof will be in using it in actual podcast conditions, but it looks like this might be the solution to one of our major difficulties.

    At $129 it’s a bit on the expensive side for someone like me that’s just podcasting with no major ambitions towards world domination, but on the other hand, if it keeps my blood pressure down, it’s worth its weight in gold.

    I’ll be testing the demo on the next podcast. Keep your fingers crossed.

  • The iPhone 4 Just Needs One Thing…

    IMG_0896 I just couldn’t afford to wait 4 weeks for my damn free bumper. The new smaller form factor caused the phone to slip out of my holster today. Can you imagine if I’d lost the phone? It’s not worth risking it, so I picked up one of the cheapest I could find at Best Buy and, frankly, it makes the phone 100% better.

    Not only did it completely resolve any variable signal issues, but it now fits in the holster and the unpleasant edges are softened just enough that the phone now feels great in my hand.

    Plus, it’s green and I like green. A Lot.

  • iPhone 4 and bumpers

    Back on July 17th, I ordered an iPhone 4.

    I knew about the so-called antenna-gate problem, and I waited until Uncle Steve gave the word for free iPhone bumpers/cases to mitigate the problem. I’d also been down to the Apple Store and checked out the issue myself. Even inside the Apple Store it was apparent that signal strength was distinctly altered by the way you held the phone, but, the potential for problem that this might cause versus the benefits was not sufficient to stop me from ordering one. Especially since I had always intended to have some form of bumper case on the iPhone 4. It was clear that Apple would be supplying free bumpers, but details of how that would happen were not yet announced.

    Now I can tell you why their plan blows.

    I was given an estimated delivery date of August 12th because of the backorders! I would have ordered a bumper at the same time, but they weren’t available to be ordered (for free of for cost) because of the pending free bumper program.

    So, would I just get a bumper along with the phone? No, when the details of the program were released, it turns out you have to download an app for the iPhone 4 and order from there. I heard a lot of people say how clever that was. Bullshit, it was.

    Until I received my phone, I wouldn’t be able to order the (necessary) bumper. Inconvenient, but I supposed I would be able to live with it for 3 or 4 days until my bumper could arrive after I ordered it.

    Last Monday I received shipment notification that my phone had left China, arriving on August 9th, although the Fedex website said August 10th. It arrived in Alaska by Wednesday and there it stayed, and was, according to their site, still in Alaska when I left work Friday afternoon. Imagine my surprise when it was sitting in my house when I got home 30 minutes later!

    For grins, I checked the Fedex website and my phone was still in Alaska. 2 hours later and the website was updated to show that it had been traveling down the coast since Wednesday.

    My first order of business was to get the phone activated. When you upgrade an existing phone via mail order, when the new phone is plugged in, it automatically transfers the service from the old phone, and this process was fairly painless. My old phone shut down within 5 minutes and my new phone activated within 5 minutes after that. I restored the backup from my old phone and that, ultimately, took many hours. Once it started to sync music, I got bored with watching my new phone do nothing and cancelled the sync and saved it for bedtime.

    Once the phone was in my hands, I started checking all my applications. All my passwords were gone, but that’s a minor inconvenience and probably a “good idea anyway”. Once I got that sorted out, we went out to dinner for some field testing.

    Without a bumper, in places, I’m having significant problems with signal strength. On some occasions, when I pull the phone out of the holster, I have no 3G and No Service, which is well frustrating. Setting the phone on the table resolves the problem.

    It was imperative that I order my bumper right away. Here’s why the program blows. I’ve already waited 3 weeks for the phone, which I have to have before I can order the bumper. Now, I have to wait another four weeks for the bumper! They need to get phones and bumpers into the customers’ hands at exactly the same time.

    I’ve tried using a piece of plastic film over the sensitive antenna areas, and that helps, but it won’t stick, so I’m left holding my phone gingerly and awkwardly, or learning to type left handed while I wait for a glacially shipped bumper.

    Enough griping about the bumper issue, lets talk about the phone.

    I’m not a fan of the new form factor, which surprises me. I think I preferred the rounded edges. That said, the unit feels firm and solid in your hand, even a bit heavier than the old 3GS, but that may just an illusion. I do like the new buttons.

    The new Retina display is awesome. Everything looks crisp and sharp. Even under a loupe it looks great.

    The “new” camera produces nice pictures, but the flash and video light has a bluish cast to it. Still, it’s better than nothing. The distance of the flash seems pretty short, but adequate for shots in dark restaurants. There’s a certain quality of being lighted by a flashlight to it. The HD video is very nice, but I’ve yet to determine how much video I’ll actually be able to record, since my phone is perpetually 95% full of music.

    Phone calls… I don’t know. I’m not due to make a phone call for a another few days. I’ll let you know when I’m forced to talk to somebody on the phone.

    The processor is zippy and it feels as quick as the iPad.

    Finally, the big thing is supposed to be battery life. It’s better. Difficult to quantify, though. Last night at about 11, my phone was down to 39% and I hadn’t done a lot of driving (My car stereo charges my phone) so that’s probably a bit better than the 3GS, but I’ve not suffered from the battery problems that other people report, perhaps because I don’t waste my time talking on the phone. I have noticed that when the 3GS has bad signal, batery life is seriously degraded. Since I don’t have a bumper and my signal is all over the place, my battery life may not be up to the capacity it would be if I had a bumper.

    I want my bumper.

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  • I Had a Dream…

    I don’t dream much.

    More specifically, I just don’t normally remember dreaming when I wake up, which might be a good thing because, when I was a kid, I used to have horrible nightmares – the kind that would make you try to stay awake rather than risk dreaming.

    Now; however, when I do have/recall dreams, they’re just weird!

    Of course, they mean nothing. Dream analysis has long ago been debunked, but it’s hard not to try to ascribe meaning to them – they seem so….intentional. Perhaps that’s why drug users often think their thoughts are profound rather than just insane or insipid? I don’t know.

    Nonetheless, I had a humdinger last night, and more importantly, I remember it. Since I haven’t had much to write about lately, I thought I’d share it with you and you can try to work out some insight into my inner mind.

    Cue soft focus and dream sequence music

    Several friends and I were touring England. The group of friends appeared to shift from time to time, but I identified David, Jeff, Ben and Morgan. (That’s in addition to the point where we were temporarily joined by Thomas Magnum from the TV Series, Magnum P.I.)

    At one point we came across an industrial warehouse, very much like the one that James Bond flew a helicopter through in the pre-credit sequence of For Your Eyes Only. That particular warehouse was part of the old Thames gasworks, which is now the site of the Millennium Dome. In my dream, the warehouse-like building had also been renovated, as the sides had been removed and a lovely park had been installed inside of it. It had a pleasant stream running through the middle, although it ran through side to side rather than front to back. The M42 Motorway (Is that a real motorway in the UK?) would have run front to back, but the bridge spanning the stream had never been built, causing all the cars to drive up to the edge and then have to back up and out and try a different route.

    I remember remarking to David Mitchell (who was, for some reason there with his pal, Robert Webb) that the lower gravity in the UK made it much easier to do chin ups on the unfinished edge of the M42. I recall they were quite impressed and set off to write a sketch about it.

    At one corner of the park, there was a sort of open-air cafeteria, where a hundred or so people, with their dogs on leashes, were eating at long tables. It wasn’t a picnic, it was actually a BBC game show, hosted by Vic Reeves and Jamie Oliver.

    I somehow got drafted to play the game, which was played like this: Eight people, including myself, we selected from the people at the table. We were put in a queue at the serving counter. As I was chosen second, I was the contestant and had to stand last in the line.

    Each of the seven people in front of me were given a plate of exotic foreign food. Each dish was the same food, but each person got a different variation of the dish. I, as the contestant, was given a plate with all seven variations. We went back to the tables and ate our food. My job, after we’d all eaten our food, was for to determine which contestant was given which variation. I did pretty well considering I was standing in line behind them and watched them get served their food. 7 out of 7 for me, but for some unknown reason, I only scored 3 points, which was enough to win – especially since the other participants had no way to score points at all.

    The prize was the “exotic foreign food” I already ate, which, incidentally, was corn chips and salsa.

    About this time it was necessary that I go to the restroom, which, fortunately, there was a free-standing public restroom just next to the unfinished M42 bridge. The restroom was of an unusual configuration. Rather than the typical row of open urinals and stalls, this bathroom was entirely stalls. Each stall was roughly the shape of a portable toilet, reduced in size exactly in half front and sides. (It was, fortunately, normal height). It was very restrictive in size and, for some unknown reason, you were required to remove your shoes before entering.

    Upon exiting, I couldn’t find my shoes, which I went looking for. There was a shoe closet at one end, which I thought someone might have put my shoes in. The door was busted and off its hinges and when I tried to open it the door fell on the floor, triggering an alarm. The shoe closet was filled with cleaning supplies, not shoes and, frantic because of the alarm, I started searching for my shoes. I then realized we’d made a ghastly mistake. It wasn’t a public restroom at all, it was a luxury hotel suite, and it was obviously someone else’s room.

    While searching for my shoes, the hotel staff came into the room in response to the alarm. I hid behind the furniture while avoiding the bellhop. About this time is when Thomas Magnum showed up and, seeing my plight, distracted the bellhop, allowing me to escape the room.

    I didn’t get my shoes back, and the whole plot seemed to hinge upon them, but at this point my wife woke me up.

  • Sherlock – I feel Vindicated

    So it was just the other day I reviewed episode 1 of Sherlock and expressed a couple thoughts about the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Holmes stories of the 1940’s and the relationship of forensic science and Holmes’ deductive powers.

    I’m not above patting myself on the back and saying, “Hey, I really was on same wavelength with the co-creators of the series.”

    Mark Gatiss blogged this:

    It didn’t take long, though, for us both to shyly admit that our favourite versions of the oft-told tales were the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce films of the 1930s and 1940s. Particularly the ones where they brought them up to date.

    This may sound like heresy but really it isn’t. Although Steven and I are second to none in loving the flaring gas-lit atmosphere of a lovely old London, it felt as though Sherlock Holmes had become all about the trappings and not the characters.

    and

    Doyle virtually invented forensic detection. How can Sherlock exist in a world where the police do all the finger-printing, criminal profiling and analysis that were once his unique attribute?

    The answer, in our version anyway, is that Sherlock Holmes is still, and always, the best and wisest man there is. The police may be able to put clues together, but only Sherlock has the vast brain power and imagination that can make the huge leaps of deduction.

    I’m really looking forward to the next episode.

  • New Family Member

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    There have been Tweets, there have been Facebook postings, and now there is the Blog Post.

    We have a bit of a surprise in that we have a new family member, Taz, a six-month old Lab/Shepard mix of some kind that we adopted through the Humane Society.

    No one is as surprised as me. My wife, Irene, comes from a society that doesn’t really value dogs as pets. On my first visit to Taiwan in 1998, ferrel dogs roamed the streets of Taipei, alone and in packs and while most of them seemed quite content to ignore me, they certainly weren’t dogs you wanted to run up to you, and, in some of the more rural parts of the Taipei metroplex, some packs were downright menacing.

    Irene, having grown up in that environment, and have been bitten was not hugely enamored of dogs on the whole when we met, although her host family had one or two small, friendly dogs that she liked.

    (On our latest trip, you could hardly imagine the change in Taiwan, pet shops and crazed pet owners who think their dogs are children are everywhere. You would barely recognize the attitude towards dogs since my first visit. I can only imagine Taiwan’s world’s-lowest birthrate of 1.0 has something to do with it.)

    I’d like to think that, despite her protestations, Kiba, with her gentle and loving nature slowly won Irene over, for no one could not like Kiba given enough time. It certainly didn’t hurt that everyone, from the police to the handyman all immediately said, “get a dog” after our recent burglary. (Of course, we did have a dog, but Kiba’s wasnt much of a watchdog. She was kind to everyone, and, in her later years, deaf and partially blind, which means she probably didn’t even know they were breaking into our house.)

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    I think every kid should grow up with a dog, but, there was one thing Kiba didn’t have when my kids were younger – she didn’t have youthful vigor. By the time Michelle was big enough to go outside and play with a dog, Kiba was past her playing years. Because of my opinion on kids and dogs, I did want the kids to have that opportunity, but it’s been clear for years that Kiba would be our last dog, so when, last week, Irene wanted to discuss the possibility of getting another dog… I was pleasantly shocked.

    Since we had a three-day weekend, unpaid though it was, I decided we might go peruse the dogs at the Arizona Humane Society. It’s been 15-20 years since I was last at the Humane Society, so I hopped on their website to find their address(es) and hours. I really shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised that (apparently) every animal in their inventory has their own webpage of information, which picture. While their searching and sorting functions don’t work worth a bean, you can get an idea of what they have. One or two dogs on the site caught my eye; Taz being the standout.

    We were down that way on Saturday, so I decided to check out the Humane Society’s southern campus. As we toured the kennels, one puppy was particularly bright and friendly. It was Taz.

    So, after we’d finished checking out all the dogs (heart-breaking though that is) we went back and asked to have some introductory time with Taz.

    Taz is about six months old and had a previous owner, who was forced to given him up because of no place to keep him. The details aren’t given, but little clues are around that seem to indicate that, perhaps, Taz was in a house, with a pool, but then the family had to move to a new place that either didn’t allow pets, or that the space was just too small. No matter what the circumstances, so things were immediately obvious when we leashed him and took him out to the play pens: He was leash trained and housebroken already. He was friendly, but gentle with the kids; smart enough to stay in the shade while still obviously excited to have someone to be with. He was a puppy just begging to go home with us… and he did.

    We weren’t even remotely ready for a new dog. There’s a bit of fence that needs repair in the back yard and there was cleanup needed in the backyard, plus it’s much too hot outside for a puppy and while Kiba never seemed to mind the heat, Taz needs to be kept inside during the day, but we’re not going to give him full run of the house, that means there’s doggy fences to erect and then he needs a kennel, so he can be cage trained, plus there’s toys, food and who knows what we’ve forgotten.

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    When we go him home he continues to behave in an exemplary fashion. He’s not made a mess of the floor, he obeys most rules without a problem. In fact, on the first day we had to erect a makeshift barrier. He could have easily gone over it and, at first tried. I simply told him, “no”, and not only did he back down, but he didn’t try to go over it again.

    The kids are a little nervous around him, but apart from licking them a lot, he’s not given them any reason to be concerned.

    We’re quite pleased with our new family member. Now, if it turns out he likes Doctor Who, he’ll be the perfect pet.

  • Sherlock E01 A Study in Pink

    @steven_moffat and @markgatiss have got a winner in Sherlock, a new series on the BBC.

    Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ new series, Sherlock premiered last night on the BBC and the series is off to a cracking start.

    There’s no questioning of either Moffat’s or Gatiss’ chops as aficionados of Arthur Conan Doyle’s master detective, Sherlock Holmes and their love for the character is plain to see on the screen. As a life-long aficionado of Holmes myself, I almost feel if they were writing just for me. A conceit on my part, to be sure, nonetheless, I consider that to be the highest praise I can give it. It was completely entertaining television and there was never any question that it was anything other than Sherlock Holmes.

    For those not in-the-know, Sherlock is a new BBC series consisting of three, 90-minute stories. It is a modern-day retelling of the Holmes story. In the first story, Moffat’s A Study in Pink (a play on Conan Doyle’s original Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet) a wounded Afghanistan war veteran, Dr. John Watson returns to London and meets and takes lodgings with the world’s-only consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.

    Many Conan Doyle purists have complained about attempts to “update” Holmes now and in the past, but I’m not one of those. I grew up watching Basil Rathbone fights the Nazis. As a title card from the first “modern” Rathbone movie stated, Holmes is timeless and indeed he is! From my perspective as a child of the 1960’s, even the “updated” 1940’s Holmes stories were about the ancient past – and so too, someday, will Sherlock be viewed by some as yet unborn Holmes fans.

    In Sherlock, Holmes is a nicotine-addicted, self-proclaimed, high-functioning sociopath. Like all incarnations of Holmes, his brain operates on a whole different level than us mere mortals. Holmes has no friends and is disliked by most of the police force, in particular the forensics team, but is tolerated (indeed, sought out) by DCI Lestrade.

    John Watson is returning war veteran, wounded in the line of duty. As the story starts he is suffering from a psychosomatic problem with his leg. He’s been encouraged by his therapist to keep a blog, which will no doubt reflect the modern-day equivalent of Watson’s journals of Holmes’ adventures. Was it just good timing that the this modern series has taken place at a point in history where, like the Victorian original, Watson can be returning from a war in Afghanistan?

    In their first adventure, Holmes probes a mysterious case of “serial suicides”, which are, of course, actually murders.

    A Study in Pink doesn’t pretend to be a remake of A Study in Scarlet, although some scenes are cut whole-cloth from the original. As an original story, they have avoided having the audience know who the dastardly villain is until the conclusion of the story, yet by using parts of the original, the entire thing just feels right as a Holmes story. The story struck a nice balance between a new story and the necessary legacy of the Holmes we all know and love.

    Benedict Cumberbatch puts in a great turn as Holmes. His voice, appearance and mannerisms are spot on. Cumberbatch’s Holmes is younger than what we’re used to seeing onscreen, but let’s not forget, when Holmes and Watson met in A Study in Scarlet, Watson would have been a young doctor, fresh from medical school and then into military service, and Holmes was a student. In Sherlock, they’ve cast accordingly.

    Martin Freeman is Dr. Watson and also puts in a solid performance, although so far, he has far less personality than Holmes. Whenever I see him on screen, I can’t help thinking of John Simm’s Sam Tyler. Perhaps it’s his appearance or perhaps it’s the competent, no-nonsense professional character tossed into a mad, bizarre world that makes me think of Simm. Either way, he may turn out to be the most useful Watson to date.

    If I had any complaints at all about this episode, it would have to be with the direction. At several points the use of a split-screen to emphasis two different pieces of action or to cut between successive scenes is gratuitous and distracting. At other times, through the use of onscreen titles and gimmicks, the director attempts to visualize Holmes’ thought process for the audience. It reminded me a bit too much of the TV Series Psych in that it highlighted what was catching Holmes’ eye. It went further by actually writing his observations on the screen.

    This technique might have worked if Holmes didn’t have to then turn around and explain everything to the other characters in the room, anyway. Watson is our tool for understanding Holmes’ brilliance and I don’t think the flashy on-screen graphics in any way enhanced the story. Perhaps in a situation where Holmes couldn’t or wouldn’t have an opportunity to explain it might be better, but if we know what Holmes is seeing and thinking, where is the joy of “the reveal” that was so all-important in the Holmes literature?

    None of that was distracting enough to diminish my enjoyment of the story at all.

    Finally, it’s been questioned if a modern-day Holmes story could compete in this age of CSI and high-tech crime scene forensics. Forensics was, of course, completely in its infancy when Holmes was first conceived. Conan-Doyle’s own professor that Holmes was loosely based upon, was an early advocate of the careful, methodical examination of the clues that are overlooked by everyone, but in this age of DNA analysis and computer programs to analyze blood spatter patterns, has Holmes and his “amateur detecting” got anything to add?

    Indeed he does. While forensics investigations have taken on the necessary methodological and technological tools to thoroughly document and analyze, Holmes is able to spot and sift the important pieces nearly instantaneously and his deductive powers from that evidence leaps beyond the methodical into the magical. It is only afterwards when it is explained that we feel like we should have been able to see that, too. Forensics will find hair fiber and DNA evidence and help link someone to a crime scene, but Holmes will deduce from the age and wear patterns of a wedding ring that woman is a serial adulterer. This has always been the appeal of Sherlock Holmes, for the he is the archetype thinking-man’s hero.

    The hero that gives us the hope that, if we’re just smart enough and observant enough, everything will always make sense.

    Unfortunately, that isn’t true, and until the day it is, Holmes will live on in any age for any generation.