A group of around 1,000 gathered in Seattle yesterday and danced to music from the TV show, GLEE.
Unfortunately embedding is disabled for the video, but you can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5PyIVVKoWU
Definitely worth watching. More videos from other locations around Seattle are coming soon.
What other flash mob videos have grabbed your eye? I love the Internet.
OK, it’s been a few weeks since we had a general TV thread. So I figured I’d put one up. Feel free to chime in about how you think the TV season is going; shows that the rest of us ought be watching; and what you dislike.
My thoughts.
So I pre-ordered a CD recently, and as a bonus Amazon gave me a $1 credit for an mp3 download. I’m a big fan of Amazon’s music store. Not being an Apple person, and as someone who has always viewed iTunes as annoying bloatware, Amazon is a wonderful alternative. They were offering high-quality, non-DRM mp3s long before Apple finally gave in.
So now I’m looking for suggestions. What should I download? What mp3 would you bring onto a desert island with you, assuming you had the world’s smallest mp3 player and an unlimited supply of batteries? What song gets stuck in your head for weeks at a time without bothering you?
Help me out here people. This store credit isn’t going to be around forever.
(Want your own free song from Amazon? Go here. Thanks to Slickdeals.)
So Apple’s Snow Leopard comes out tomorrow. I had mine pre-ordered via Amazon but they are only shipping starting Friday. Which means I’d have got it on Tuesday. So I cancelled the order and will pick it up from the local Apple shop.
This is an upgrade without the “gee whiz” features of previous editions. It’s mainly cleaning things up, making things faster and smaller, and eliminating the beachball of terror that crops up in many apps. (Finder and Safari, I’m looking at you)
(Crossposted to Clark’s Tech Blog)
A short review of the xGPS. As I mentioned in my Jailbreak post this is one of the best reasons to jailbreak your iPhone. While my posts on jailbreaking make it seem like Linux at it’s worst, that’s more because I’m interested in doing some useful scripting of the phone. Few would want to do that. However if you simply want some “unauthorized” apps that could never make it past Apple’s draconian AppStore rules then jailbreaking is a great idea. You basically download an application, plug in your phone, and click a button. You then click a button on your phone and suddenly you have a second app store. In there you’ll find xGPS in a prominent location and it’s easy to get running. Nothing technical about it really.
First let me talk about my comparison. I’ve used Google Maps on the iPhone for a year to run around. Then last fall I bought G-Map US West for a trip to the Bay Area (since there is little internet coverage in the Nevada desert and because AT&T coverage is only slightly better in San Francisco). The big news this week was Tom Tom’s release. I’ve not used it and can’t imagine paying $100 for it. However I’ve read many reviews.
OK, I know there are lots of iPhone users on the list. Did you download the 3.0 update today? If so, what did you think?
I’ve only had a short time to play around with it and here are a few thoughts.
After following the coverage of the stevenote this morning I’m impressed, but not by what I thought I’d be impressed by.
Well. I finally did it. After my kids manage to lose yet an other DVD and I looked at what replacing a Disney DVD cost I realized it was time to get the AppleTV. The way I figure it I need only justify the cost of 12 DVDs and I’ve paid for the AppleTV. Plus I get the convenience of having all the movies handy without having DVDs in a place where prying little hands can scratch them or worse put them in the trash.
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Devices that I’d never have thought would be hits are. To me the Kindle looks ungainly, it’s LCD too slow refreshing, and why would I read on that rather than a book? Yet, according to Amazon, it’s a hit. They are selling more than they can make.
Ditto the Apple TV. (Or, if you’re reading on Safari, TV) Underpowered (although at least it now has 5.1 sound). With HD content that is better than cable or dish, but not in the same ball park as HD-DVD or BluRay. At best an excuse to use Netflix to rip DVDs.
And the iPhone, as cool as it looks, has little RAM, no cut and paste, no spreadsheet, and won’t have 3rd party applications until June.
So have any of you consumed?
Here’s why I’m waiting.
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Here are a few internet music toys that I have found useful. Please share others. (more…)
OK, like at least one other person here I got an HD-DVD player over the holidays. It was extremely cheap at the Thanksgiving sale at Costco ($170) so I said, “Dang. How can I miss that?” Especially since I now had an HD-TV and the Dish shows only play at 720p not 1080i. I’ve only watched a few HD-DVDs. (Oceans 13, Bourne Ultimatum) However I noticed that at Walmart, while the BluRay section was slightly larger it had fewer movies I wanted. Further the HD-DVDs were always sold out while the BluRays never were. Plus, since Microsoft was pushing HD-DVD I figured momentum was on that side. Dang. I should have paid attention to Microsoft’s failure with Vista.
This week, Amazon introduced a gadget that has the potential to change our world—or at least the way we read about it.
UPDATE: All Laser Pointer, iSight, and even WiiMote head tracking info is now located at InsightVR.com.
This was the scene in our driveway yesterday evening. It took a few weeks worth of spare time to hack it together but I think the result was worthwhile.
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It’ll soon be time for a new phone and I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do. For the most part, the iPhone hasn’t been an option (how can I justify $600 for a phone?). So I’m looking more seriously at a Samsung Blackjack, which is a great phone. Well, it’ll cost me $100 (after rebates) to purchase the phone and $40/mo. for the data plan ON TOP of my regular phone plan. So the phone is relatively cheap and adding the data plan makes it expensive.
Well, last night I did a little math and realized that the Blackjack might not be the best way to go. (more…)
No, I didn’t get an iPod this weekend. But reportedly a lot of people did. Did any of you? Personally, I’m glad I waited. There are reports of folks with odd AT&T plans having problems and being put on indefinite hold to get their iPhones activated. I have a family plan so… However the general consensus from what I’ve been reading is that, if anything, the phone actually surpassed the hype. Quite the feat given what seems like to biggest hype machine ever. (So big that even Apple was trying to downplay things after a while)
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OK, I can’t help myself. It’s time for an other computer post. I’ve been both excited and skeptical about the iPhone. Yet Apple released some new ads and they’ve got me nearly excited enough to buy one. (Which I can write-off if it is for business) Why? Because they skip all the hype and just focus on the UI and how you do things. Check them out yourself. It’s a bit of an oddity given that Apple has The Daily Show correspondents presenting hyperbolic allegories for why one ought buy a Mac. (Always undermined, in my opinion, by the fact we like the PC guy more than the Mac guy) Then we have the eternally dancing silhouettes of the iPod commercials. But these are pure function. And wow do they excite.
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A friend asked me for suggestions on podcasts. “Why,” I thought, “this sounds like a good idea for a post.” (more…)
How hard can it be? I’ll get us started.
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OK, since I did the excited iPhone writeup back in January I thought I’d revisit the Apple TV (henceforth aTV because Windows browsers don’t display the Apple character correctly). Now let me note that I don’t have one of these things. So this is basically an apology for why I’m not buying one and why you probably shouldn’t either.
Remember when you could watch music videos on MTV? Yeah, we do too.
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The buzz has been building for the past few months. Denials, rumors it’s on, rumors it’s off. Steve Jobs somehow manages to capture more buzz for his yearly trips to MacWorld San Francisco than Bill Gates can dream off. Yes it’s unfair. Yes, a lot of it is hype and not content. But this year (as has so often been the case) Steve Jobs delivered. (more…)
This is the first time in several years that I haven’t participated in fantasy football. I hadn’t planned to skip out this year but as it turns out, I’ve been grateful that I did because I have enjoyed this NFL season more than any season in recent memory, despite Denver’s collapse. (more…)
I watched with some interest recent commericals and advertisements for the Sony Playstation 3. (more…)
Isn’t it about time we stop saying, “double-u, double-u, double-u” before we say a web address? I mean really.
