All Posts By

Chris

The Batsuit, not for kids.

Posted on June 15, 2005

here’s how the batsuit in the new Batman movie works. cool. i hope the movie is good too. i won’t hold my breath.

in other news of my world, I have not taken my ailing G5 mac into the shop to see what the heck is wrong with it so no report there. i’m going tomorrow to a place called melrose mac in burbank. i’ll let you know if the suck. nor have i done any more work on my canon 20d article or much of anything for any of the other sites or publications i am supposed to be writing for. i have just been too busy to do much of anything but work. I think parents should prepare their kids a little better for how life really is. what do i mean?

well, i think parents should tell their children that life is sometimes hard and that they will most likely end up doing a job they don’t love for inadequate wages and slaving away for most of their natural lives. i’m not taking about me, i have it pretty good in that i do what i want most of the time and work when i want for whom i want. that’s one of the advantages of being on your own. of course, if you don’t have any work, you can become screwed pretty fast. so the freelance, self-employed, owning your own business route isn’t for everyone.

my main problem is that i have a hard time working for other people. i’m not a very good employee and not a good follower. i guess you could say that i’m a leader. i like to be the boss. i probably could be far more successful today if that wasn’t the case. i could have spent the last ten or so years working for a company, climbing the corporate ladder. unfortunately, i just can’t do it. i tried. really i did. it’s just not for me.

right or wrong, i need to be on my own. be my own boss. take chances and follow my own path no matter what happens. i think that this kind of life can be a happy one. and i am happy almost all of the time. yes, it carries with it a large degree of uncertainty and sometimes can be very stressful.

but at the end of the day, you only have to rely on yourself to make things happen. you are your own boss and when you succeed, even in small ways, it’s a great feeing because you did it. on your own, your way. not much else can compare to that feeling. notice, i said not much else. there are a few things . . .

of course, when you don’t succeed, you can always blame someone else. not that i would ever do that. so, its a win win all around. but seriously folks, it is good to be your own boss and it has many rewards. i suggest everyone try it once. don’t be put off by fear. fear is the number one killer of innovation and success.

fear isn’t real. it can’t really hurt you. it’s just a feeling about something that might happen. it might not happen too. you could get lucky. it happens all the time. don’t let fear be a buzzkill. get out there and do something, even if it scare the crap out of you. well, this turned out much more “tony robbins” than i thought it would. ok, so, stay in school and don’t do drugs. that’s enough.

Follow the money (or not)

Posted on June 9, 2005

it’s odd to me. one of my jobs is in the technology field doing consulting and such. so, i feel that i have a pretty good idea how things like computers work. at least, i know enough to make them work when they are bad. at least until things get really, really complicated.

Imagine my surprise then when not one, but both, of my primary computers, my g5 tower and my powerbook, decided to take a dump in the same week. i know, i was as amazed as you are. these are apple computers after all. known for their quality and reliability. or so i thought up to this week.

i think something is going wrong with apple computer. no, not that they basically abandoned all of their “64 bit computing is the bomb” hype they have been spinning for the last few years to make us not feel the pinch of the speed gap with pentium chips. no, i’m talking about a simple thing like quality control.

in the good old days, around the time right before the first iMacs and the return of iSteve, apple computers could be counted on to be well-built and last a long time. but, for the last few years, i have seen the number of problems with various apple products increase quite a bit. my own machines have also been affected.

i had one of the first white iBooks and it had to have the motherboard and video assembly replaced. then, i had a bad video card in my G5 tower and it had to be replaced. now, the G5 has a bad power supply and also has some odd freezing issues (when it will turn on at all) and it needs to be fixed again.

and, my powerbook is also starting to show signs of a bad video cable with wavy lines appearing on the screen when the screen is at certain angles. and its not just me. i haven’t done the math but a rough guess would put the number of hardware problems at about 20% at least for my mac-based clients. everything from bad power supplies, melted capacitors, bad motherboards (or mid-planes as the call them sometimes), dead hard drives and a host of other issues that never cropped up with this kind of frequency a few years ago.

i know, as things get more complicated they tend to have a greater chance of something going wrong. and, as apple sells more computers, the number of people reporting problems is also going to rise. i worry about all of this because i see a pattern. the once great company seems to be heading down the road where it must sacrifice one of the things that made it great in order to appease the bottom line.

apple has never been the company for everyone. they are a niche player either by accident or by design. and of course, market factors are also a consideration. i just hope that in the pursuit of dollars and expanding market share that they don’t loose sight of what made the company “insanely great”. they need to remember to “think different”. (i just wanted to see how many slogans i could get in one paragraph).

money is great. we all love money because we can buy shiny things and pay the rent. but in the end, all we really have is who we are and what we do. people and companies alike are defined by it. apple needs to remember where it came from and who it is before it does something really stupid like switch to intel processors or something.

actually, that might turn out to be a good idea. if ibm can’t deliver then they needed to get the boot. i kind of wish that apple had turned to amd instead of intel. you know, one underdog to another. i guess it would be no big thing to make another switch to amd if intel can’t do what iSteve needs it to do.

i can see the future and its a shiny silver box powered by quad pentium 5 processors running osx 11. maybe that’s when the machines will realize that we humans were the problem all along and deal with us accordingly. it could happen. or maybe i saw that in a movie once. either way, it looks to be an interesting next few years in the tech world.

in other news, while in Vegas over the weekend we ran into that kid from “home alone” and the dark haired girl from “that seventies show” at the Mandalay Bay while playing blackjack. you would think that after all those movies and several years on a hit tv show they would have been at a higher limit table. i guess they like their money too. as in, they like it where it is. in their pockets. we could all learn a lesson from that.

This time the rumors are true

Posted on June 6, 2005

Yes, its true. Apple is switching to Intel. I can feel hell freezing over right now. However, I think its a smart move if Intel can provide better, faster, stronger chips than IBM can. Apple needs faster chips and needs them in large quantities and for less money. I think Intel can deliver on this.

Who really cares what is under the hood? It’s still the same great OS and the same great hardware. In other words, its still a Macintosh. Let’s hope this leads to less expensive Macs. That would be cool.

A little vacation and some “deep” stuff

Posted on June 2, 2005

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Me and mine are going out of town for several days to, among other things, celebrate the 40th anniversary of the birth of our friend Anthony. He’s a good guy and decided to have a party so we decided to attend. Why not.

So, the posting may be a little lite for the next few days as we are going to be away. Not flying this time because of my last experience waiting at the Burbank airport for four hours. This time, I’m gonna drive. Of course, I fully expect a huge accident will delay me even more and I will wish I had flown,

Oh well, at least it will give me something to complain about. Also, before I forget, I am working on my review of the Canon 20d and some other stuff which I will post as soon as I can. Until then, content yourself with the musings of my friends at LAist or feel free to go back and read some of my archives. They are always good for a laugh or at the very least, a slow shake of the head as if to say “what they hell is he thinking”.

Happy weekend all. Oh, how could I forget this. Deep Throat revealed! He waited a long time and kept his secret. That’s pretty impressive as most people can’t keep a secret at all. This guy is something. 2nd in command of the FBI and chief investigator of the Watergate break in. Now, who will be playing him in the movie? Russell Crowe? Johnny Depp? George Clooney? Me? We’ll see.

Happy weekend again.

putting your best face forward (or at least the one you like the most)

Posted on May 26, 2005

if you live in and go places in Los Angeles it is pretty hard to avoid running into either someone you know, someone you don’t like or who doesn’t like you or some sort of famous person. yesterday was typical of the last one.

some friends and i were out enjoying some psuedo-mexican food at the burbank taco bell and jennifer love hewitt came in, got some food, chatted with some of the staff, then left in her mini cooper. she looked great, btw. taller than i thought, which is a surprise. usually, they are almost always much shorter.

anyway, what struck me as interesting about this encounter was that she came in herself, alone. she didn’t send her assistant or something. she drove herself over from the house or the studio (take your pick), made her own order, took her bag of 99 cent bean burritos or whatever and drove herself away. she did this on her own with no help from anyone. i was impressed by that. from everything i have heard, she is one of the nice ones.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying that all famous people are too dumb or too arrogant or too lazy to drag their own asses to taco bell but it might not be too far from the truth in many cases. let’s face it, famous people are not always the most interesting or most pleasant people to be around. in fact, many times they can be downright nasty.

you can’t really blame them, though. if enough people told you your were the greatest thing to come along in years and that yes, your shit doesn’t, in fact, stink, you might start to believe it too. no, what am i saying. that would never happen to you.

another telling example of this was during the oscars. hilary swank won again for her role in “million dollar baby”. during her acceptance speech, who did she thank? she said a big thank you to her “best friend and publicist”. interesting, no? her best friend is someone she pays to say nice things about her. if that isn’t a warped sense of reality i don’t know what one is.

you may get the impression from this entry that i have something against famous people. actually, i don’t. some friends of mine are famous people and i like them just fine. do i think they are stellar human beings not completely full of themselves? some are, some aren’t. oddly enough, that ratio probably holds true for non-famous people like you and me as well.

well, no, not like me. i really am full of myself. oh, and i am also lazy too as i am going to start posting in all lowercase. starting now, as you can probably tell. it’s too much effort to hit the shift key along with all of these other keys.

tu Ciudad

Posted on May 25, 2005

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Last night we went to the launch party for a new magazine here in Los Angeles called tu Ciudad or just “City”. I wrote about it for LAist but there are more pictures on my flickr page, in case you are interested. It was a fun party with lots of free-flowing music and booze. Plus, lots of beautiful people having fun. And, the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was the setting. Good times.

Apple to use Intel chips?

Posted on May 23, 2005

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This again? Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. Really it would not be too hard to get OSX to run on Intel or AMD chip. Well, at least for the smart engineers at Apple. I’m sure that in some vault at Apple it is already doing just that. Humming along nicely, thank you.

Star Wars: E3ROTS is already online

Posted on May 19, 2005

Already? I’m surprised it took this long. Not that I condone this kind of thing (illegal downloads, that is) and I don’t always agree with Cory Doctorow (although, he probably doesn’t know or care). He is pretty much right on the money with his latest post at Boing Boing. I question what good DRM is all the time.

Although, as I probably know one or two of those “shouting, petulant babies” he refers to I must make a hasty disclaimeer: If any of you are reading this, that’s one of the parts I don’t agree with. I’ve never heard you shout, at least at me. There, happy now.

Ok, gotta go see “Star Wars:E3ROTS” in a theater now.

Busy couple of weeks . . .

Posted on May 19, 2005

It’s looking to be a pretty hectic next few weeks for your humble writer (me, in case you can’t figure it). This week I will be all over the City of Angels at various events. Monday night is a screening of a new film at Cinespace, which is a great venue to see films while drinking (not that I condone that). It should be an interesting time.

Also, at the LA convention center is the Electronic Entertainment Expo, aka e3. This event promises to be very interesting as it was in years past. New games, new consoles (like the XBox 360 or the PS3) and all kinds of other cool toys for me to play with. Plus, there are usually one or two attractive booth girls to talk to. Not that i care about that or anything. I’m there to work, dammit.

This time, I will not only be going just for fun I will be covering the event for LAist. So, I will actually have to take a few notes and a few pictures with something other than the Treo. I hope having to do a little work won’t interfere with my fun.

And of course, the other big event this week, at least for many, is Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I will be seeing it on Thursday at high noon at the fantastic Arclight theater. If you have never been to the Arclight, I highly suggest going.

The best part is that you can buy your tickets in advance and get an assigned seat. No waiting in line or getting there an hour early. And, another great feature is that the Arclight doesn’t show those annoying commercials before the movie. Just previews and then the movie. That’s it. It’s the only way to go.

If you are going to E3 or to see Star Wars, be sure to say “hello”. The secret word is “Teraflops.” Why? Why not?

George Lucas is a rich mofo . . .

Posted on May 14, 2005

Forbes has the info. “It all started with a story treatment, handwritten in pencil on a few sheets of lined yellow legal paper.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

They also have a breakdown of the “Star Wars” franchise and how the dollars flow and where they go. Inspiring or depressing? Take your pick. I’ll go with both.

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