Sony PSP: succumbing to temptation


I returned from Nashville to discover that my roof has sprung a leak. In spite of several impending repair costs (roof, car, cameras), I succumbed to temptation and bought a Sony Portable Playstation (PSP).

Initially I had no interest in Sony’s latest gadget, after all I hardly have time for games anymore, and there are very few games that hold my interest for more than an hour or two. Unfortunately, being stuck in the office/hotel room in Nashville meant that I had time to discover the “killer app” for the PSP (at least as far as I’m concerned). One of the launch titles for Sony’s new system is Wipeout: Pure — the latest in a line futuristic racing titles. My roommates and I spent the majority of our college careers killing time playing games from the Wipeout series.


Online reviews indicated that unlike recent incarnations of the Wipeout series, Wipeout: Pure was a return to the game-play and mechanics of the original title and exceptional sequel. So in spite of my many financial obligations (tax time is around the corner), I bought into the hype and nostalgic temptation and dropped too much money on the game and the required system to play it. The verdict — awesome!

The PSP itself is really impressive: large, bright screen, built-in wireless, movie/photo/audio playback capabilities. Like so many others I’m completely wowed by the screen. I watched in the included Spider-man 2 movie last night, and the quality was impeccable. The only complaint is that the sony-proprietary media formats: Universal Media Disc (UMD) and MemoryStick Pro Duo are more expensive and less available than the competition. Also since there is no way to create your own UMDs, we’re stuck with a 1GB maximum storage on MemoryStick.

Some people are calling this an iPod killer (boy, is that phrase over used), but since it is almost twice the size of a 60GB iPod, only holds as much as the 1GB iPod Shuffle, and has a 4-hour battery life (rated) — it’s not really targeting the same uses. In any event, I probably won’t find myself taking the PSP very far from the house, but it is a cool toy.

Back from Nashville

Got back from Nashville way too early this morning; this trip has officially required an all-nighter each time before I flew. My sleep schedule is now officially FUBAR.

I spent most of the time in Nashville legitimately earning a living, and only had an hour or two to hit the downtown area. What free time I did have I spent being a slacking loser in my hotel room. There are a few photos from my excursion into the city posted on the photoblog, but I didn’t take any truly worthwhile photos. I spent most of my time being bashful and afraid to approach anyone about making a photo of them. I think, before I can make decent photos I need to spend a certain amount of time:

  • being social around people in general
  • have a certain comfort level with my surroundings
  • be in the right mood

I’m going to need to work on getting primed for photos with less effort, or at smaller amounts of the three prerequisites above.

review: I ♥ Huckabees

I ♥ Huckabees is an eclectic “comedy” about a man in search of the meaning behind a seemingly innocent set of coincidences. This off-beat, slightly humorous movie is good for a chuckle or two, and might fuel some pseudo-philosophical discussions in coffee-houses after viewing, but don’t believe the packing propaganda about it being hilariously funny. Possibly seeing the movie in a theater, with a larger audience would have led to more laughing out loud, but on DVD the comedy definitely comes across more subdued.

Jason Schwartzman does a good job leading this ensemble cast including: Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, and Naomi Watts. The script is smart, and has some good moments, but the whole proceeding seems to suffer from a lack of cohesion. While the premise of an existential detective agency is a neat concept, the rest of the story, characters, conflict, and indeed most of the plot are only briefly sketched out. This serves to keep the movie moving quickly, and it never becomes tedious, but I would have rather come to care about one or another of the characters more at the expense of losing some of the “existential” schtick.

The writers are aware that they are badly abusing the original concepts of french existentialism. These existentialists are proactive, and intimately involved with their fellow man. Fundamentally, classic existentialism was about accepting the world, and your moral value was defined by the way you dealt with all that life threw at you.

In the end, I ♥ Huckabees is a fine evening’s diversion, and worth a rental, but only pseudo-intellectual movie buffs need to purchase it. (Yes Virginia, that means me.)

review: Catwoman

Catwoman DVD

Ok, I basically enjoyed Catwoman. I mean really, Halle Berry strutting around for 90 minutes in a tight-leather outfit; I was going to enjoy it for that reason alone. But frankly, it wasn’t that bad. I think most people who saw it took the movie too seriously; I saw it as part of the same campy spirit that the original TV show enjoyed, and less like the melodramatic movies of the 90’s.

Undoubtedly, Michelle Pfeiffer’s portrayal of Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Batman Returns was vastly more nuanced, foreboding, and impressive than this latest rendition. But let’s face facts, they were not trying to build on that performance or even the history of the previous character. The new Catwoman has: a new name (Patience Phillips), a new boyfriend (Tom Lone), and a new outfit ;-). I think the failures of this movie mostly stem from the choice to strike out in a different direction from the source material. Instead of pulling directly from 40 years of existing plot and dialog, the director and producers took a chance on creating a new story arc for our heroine, and that was a tricky proposition. In leaving behind the old baggage the writers also left behind the emotional pathos and character interactions that had been developed over those last 40 years.

Besides being crippled with a bad plot and mediocre dialog, Catwoman. suffers from bad budget decisions — apparently, after paying Ms. Berry her salary the producers couldn’t afford a decent villain. Hollywood’s current facination with super-hero stories has come with larger-than-life villains played by larger-than-life actors. Since Jack Nicholson as the Joker, we’ve enjoyed Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Ian McKellen strutting their stuff as super-villains. Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson are just out of their depth trying to keep this company as the real stars of the superhero epic. And besides, their form of evil just doesn’t compare to world domination or the eradication of mankind.

The result is the new Catwoman. comes across as glib and untroubled, even in passing from death to rebirth. The whole production feels contrived, plastic, and inevitably trivial. We don’t really care about the heros, villains, or the impeding “doom” that is about to be unleashed. Add to the fact that the threat to mankind presented is pretty trivial — ok, totally trivial. All in all the movie feels like a modern sequel to the original series, which suffered from the same flaws. Add a “blam!” here, and a “bloop!” there, and there would have been no question of this version’s heritage.

Bottom line, enjoy it for what it is, a 90 minute diversion starring an incredibly attractive woman. If you want a more melodramatic and compelling version of, then stick with the previous version.

Tools for more effective blogging

Last week I posted four suggestions for improving your blog (or website), this time I thought I’d recommend a few tools that go along with those suggestions.

  1. Screen Size Tester – check what your page looks like on different sized screens. While this tool does not simulate different browsers or include the blog explosion banner, it will give you an idea who other people will see your site.

    Checking the statistics for my blogs it looks like : 800×600,  1024×768, 1280×1024 account for 80% of my page views, with 1024×768 in the lead by a long way (4x the next most popular screen resolution). So minimally, I’d check out my page on a simulated 1024×768 screen, although all three settings would be a good idea.

  2. Web page Analyzer – find out how long your page takes to load on different types of Internet connections:

    This tool lets you know how long (in minutes and seconds) your page could take to load on different types of Internet connections. It’s not definitive, but it produces pretty good optimal times. It’s a fair bet you page won’t load faster then these estimates.

  3. BrowserCam (free trial) – see what your page looks like on different computers and browsers

    BrowserCam rocks, no two ways about it. The free trial is enough to let most people know how their site looks, and lasts long enough to fix any problems with your site. If you have lots of blogs, or develop webpages for a living, then the monthly subscription is probably a worthwhile investment.

  4. I don’t have a tool to help you include a mute button on your website, but if you’re looking for some cool tunes to surf (or blog) by, check out Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Dinner with Jef and Becky

My friend Jef and his girlfriend Becky came over for dinner and a little hot tub last night. We had a pretty good-time, and I used it as an excuse to crack out a few recipes I had been meaning to make and post. So here’s the menu (with links to the cookbooks or the recipes):

Appetizer: Rock Shrimp in Pernod Sauce – a favorite from the Village Bistro in Rosslyn, VA. My version isn’t as good, but it’ll do in a pinch. (You’ll be happy to know that this recipe is pretty Atkins-friendly, leave out the veggies if you’re tight carb points).

Main course: Rack of Lamb – simple, elegant, tastes great.

Side dishes: Asiago Cheese Grits and Flageolets au Beurre de Cerfeuil (I admit it, I couldn’t find flageolets, so I used navy beans).

For dessert, Becky and Jef brought over sorbet, fresh fruit, and whipped cream. We all ended up stuffed. Jef seemed to really like the lamb, and Becky was pretty polite about the whole meal, but the beans were a delight for me. It’s the first time I made that recipe, and now I’ve got to hunt down flageolet beans — although the navy beans weren’t too bad :-).

Apple I: It’s alive!

I completed the Apple I replica (Replica I). I had a couple of false starts, and ended up redoing a few low solder joints, but all in all the assembly went pretty smoothly. All told, I probably spent 3 hours on the assembly, and didn’t really run into any real problems. Tom Owad’s book “Apple I Replica Creation” came in handy, in spite of the review on Slashdot.

A few of quick insights:

  1. Boot times on a device with no disks rock!
  2. I don’t remember much BASIC
  3. BASIC is kinda fun
  4. No line editor == not as much fun
  5. I should have added the serial interface board

That last one is a killer, I can’t store anything I write (or load existing software) without the interface.

More effective blogging, making an impact in 30 seconds

I’ve been having a great time surfing Blog Explosion; there are some truly interesting and wise people blogging out there. It goes without saying that there are also some crackpot and opportunist blogs out there. But one of the really frustrating things are blogs that don’t give their audience a chance to discover their worth. Most of the advice in this post is specifically target to Blog Explosion users, but the principles apply to most websites. So without further ado, my list for improving your blog’s effectiveness:

  1. Put actual content “above the fold”. In the newspaper business, “above the fold” is the part of the front page people see first and putting interesting headlines there sells newspapers. In blogging terms, this means putting interesting content on the first screenful of your blog. Have a look at how many headlines the New York Times and the Washington Post cram onto the first screen of their websites.

    While surfing Blog Explosion, I’ve run across several sites that don’t have any meaningful content above the fold. Between normal user interface junk (menubar, browser title and tab bars), the Blog Explosion banner, their own blog title, and a banner ad or two; some sites have absolutely nothing interesting to see without scrolling down the page. Sometimes I do scroll down, but if I’m surfing Blog Explosion, I’m more likely to let the 30 second timer expire and move on without bothering to check out the rest of the blog.

    Sometimes, the blog owner has a cool graphic or picture to attract my attention, but again they allow these elements to push the actual content off the first page of their site. I hate to say it, but there are a lot of blogs out there with great designs and pretty pictures; filling 50% of my screen with yours won’t necessarily keep me at your site. Of course, photoblogs are an exception to the large image rule; if the image is content then by all means – go large.

  2. Make sure your page loads quickly; I’ve actually been to pages on Blog Explosion that don’t even load in 30 seconds! You can blame it on a slow connection, but I’m surfing on a broadband connection at home (1.5 Mbps), and a seriously fast (OC-12 – 622 Mbps) connection at work. If your blog takes more than 30 seconds to load, it’s pretty much not my fault. If your page doesn’t load before the 30-second timer expires, what are the chances that people will stick around?

    In most cases, the problem seems to be all of the cool toys people put on their front pages: virtual pets, wall clocks, weather widgets, etc. Last week’s blogroll outage was a good example of how external dependencies made lots of people’s blogs extremely slow. One external widget (from a dependable source) included in your blog won’t hurt your speed much, but let it get out of control, and it will start to impact your blog traffic.

    The same is true for music, images, and flash animation. Load too many large items into your first page and it might not even render in the first 30 seconds. You can help yourself here, by including the width and height properties for image tags and embedded movies; also using progressive jpeg gets something on screen faster, but it somewhat slows page loading.

  3. Check your blog in at least two browsers (and preferably more). I’ve been to a few blogs that load poorly, or not at all, in some browsers. In a couple of cases, the whole design loaded, but there was no text on the blog at all, just the images and backgrounds. One or two sites brought up a blank page. Most of these websites are simply suffering from a slight HTML or CSS error, and are easy to fix, but the owner doesn’t even know there’s a problem. Viewing your blog in Firefox and Internet Explorer will at least ensure most web surfers can see your design, and that it looks the way you want. If you want to be really popular, make sure to check your site in Opera and on several Macintosh browsers as well.
  4. Finally, if you’re going to include music on your page, provide a way to turn it off or mute it. I often browse while listening to music; if your blog starts playing music as well, the result is just noise. Give me an obvious way to turn off your music; I’ve often surfed off a site immediately to shut-off their music rather than even wait for the 30 seconds to expire.

Trying to lose weight, again

I briefly had a successful campaign against my weight last year; I had been bicycling daily and managed a couple of longer rides (20-50 miles). Graduate school and legal consulting work took too much time for me to maintain the old program. I’ve put most of that weight back on, and I’m facing another year of being intolerably obese. This year my plan is to be more moderate in my weight-loss regimen.

First, I’m going to commit to getting back on the bike, and I’ll publish my track record here. Furthermore, I’m going to go back on the hacker’s diet with a goal of reducing my caloric intake by about 5250 calories per week (1.5 pounds of weight loss/wk). Who knows, I might even mix in a little Atkins for fun. Hopefully, I’ll have an easier time maintaining a more moderate weight-loss program (my average is less than 3 months). Links to riding and weight data in a future post. Any encouragement or advice is welcome!