Having said this: I have an ethical problem / dilemma when it comes to immunization.

Here’s the deal. Immunization works because everybody gets the shot. This creates a protection for the group (society) as a whole and even protects the few that are falling through the cracks (herd immunity).

The problem is that lately in the US (where else?) there has been a war on immunization. The arguments against it range from the paranoid fringe who perceives the immunizations as an attempt by the Government to control us to the fears that it causes autism. Unfortunately it seems more and more people all over the Western world seem to come to the same conclusion and as a side effect herd immunity is quickly disappearing and the rise of former vanquished or at least mostly controlled sicknesses like measles are making a come back. This is obviously not good at all.

So here is my ethical dilemma. I do not think we should force people to do something they do not want to do, but in this case? The cost in human life and economic impact is enormous. So should we go and force people to get their children immunized? Should we just tell them that it is their choice and live with the consequences?

I think the whole thing would be easier for me to answer (no, they shouldn’t) if the arguments of the vaccination opponents had any merit in a scientific kind of way. But they do not. So here I am now, wondering if there should be a limit to self-determination.

I guess I could make the argument that not having most of the children immunized poses a risk to others and as such my initial stipulation (as long as they do not cause anybody else harm) has already been violated, but is this really enough to force people to inject their kids with something they oppose?

Opinions welcome.

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak – and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful – which is equally foreign to god’s nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE)

May I ask when Apple will join the 21st century and abandon the failed approach of using a monolithic file to manage a database?

Two years ago you guys sent me a questionnaire about my iTunes use. Including how many tracks I had in there. Well, I tried to tell you guys back then but you didn’t let me, your stupid web form maxed out at 30K tracks.

As it stands at this moment I have 78K tracks in iTunes (not counting video) and iTunes becomes more and more unusable by the day. It has gotten to the point that when I edit data in an album I have to shut down iTunes and start it up again so that it actually manages to read the changed data.

It is utterly broken and you guys keep stuffing more “features” into it without addressing the underlying performance and usability problems.

So how about this: Instead of enhancing it for the next iTard expansion you get two guys to write a SQL backend for it that allows me and others to store our data in MySQL or Postgress.

After that, feel free to go back and add useless features to sell more trinkets to some hipsters.

The interesting thing is: This only happens in Google reader. if I go to the site (e.g. BoingBoing), the video plays just fine.

Seriously EMI, what’s your problem? Afraid that people may actually LIKE the stuff? Idiots.

Oh, and here is the (rather cool) video, presuming you can play it from this blog:

(via Schockwellenreiter

I admit, I am not good with math (Calculus, Algebra I am quite good at, same goes for geometry), but this is beautiful and almost makes me want to try and get better at Calculus.

Can you get them all?

(via Shockwellenreiter

I admit I am always fascinated by hair / fur animation as this still is where a lot of “revealing mistakes” happen. But this one is quite good, not only in the fur animation but also in the overall execution. Kudos.

(via Schockwellenreiter)

But this is not what this is about, this is about something else, the question on why it is so hard for people to make changes that are necessary, or rather why most people only do things they can no longer avoid.

We are at a crossroads right now when it comes to humanity and how we will go from here. We clearly have risen, as a species, higher than anything else on this planet before (as far as we know) and we are now having to decide which direction to take. The one that will continue our dominance of this planet or the one where we will eventually be reduced to small groups and settlements.

Sounds negative? Maybe, but let me give you a rough overview on what we are facing.

Currently we are under “assault” (all mostly self made) on three main fronts:

- Finance
- (Cheap) Energy
- Climate Change

Let’s tackle those one by one.

1. Finance

The current and most pressing matter (and the one that will have an impact on the other two as well) is the financial situation.

Now, depending on what side of the line you fall you either think all will be well soon or the current system as we know it will collapse. Personally I am in the middle. The current system clearly has failed, if it will fail catastrophically and completely implode over night (it is a possibility) or if it will be a slow decline will remain to be seen. For now though it’s pretty clear that we cannot continue the way we have.

So what caused this? There are a few reasons, chief among them are two though:

1. Greed, pure and simple (it is a bit more complex but that would be an entire book to deal with all the finer points, for this discussion I just go with that). Short term gain without any regard for the long term future. This isn’t just something that is done by big corporation, it’s also a trademark of our politicians and those they represent (that would be you and I).

2. No idea what Money actually is.

Okay, so it comes in coins, paper notes or as a number on a piece of paper or computer screen, but that’s just a representation. What money really is is a representation of work. You work, you get paid money which you can trade for other goods and services, like the new leather jacket I bought the other day.

Debt on the other hand is a promise to work. Every time you use that Credit Card and don’t pay it off right away or you go and get a mortgage or a loan you essentially promise the lender that you will work for however long it takes you to pay back the lender.

The problem is: In most of the western world we have completely forgotten that distinction and are using debt like money. Out of obvious reasons this can’t end well.

2. (Cheap) Energy

If you pick up a history book and read through the last two thousand years something should jump out at you: Technological advancements didn’t really start until we started replacing human and animal power more and more with fossil fuel energy. Yes, we have used water power, and in some places wind, for millennia but those are geographically locked energy sources. Coal though allowed us for the first time to use the energy input were it made the most sense. It allowed us to build railways and large factories where people worked and consumed their goods, in or near cities.

With this came quick scientific advances as we slowly entered an age of prosperity, and boy did this take off in the early part of the 20th century when we finally found all these uses for oil which just literally shot out of the ground and wanted to be used.

Fast forward 100 years though and we are quickly running out of cheap energy, not to mention the environmental damage we have caused by burning all these fossil fuels.

The problem is though: Without cheap energy our way of life cannot happen. Think about: Every time you flip a light switch, turn over the ignition of your car or right now when reading this on the computer. Our entire way of life depends on cheap energy. If it wouldn’t be cheap oil (and it still is, despite what you may think) those Strawberries that you eat in rainy Vancouver, freezing Edmonton or snow covered Toronto in the middle of January would not be possible. Neither would your vacation in Cuba in February be a possibility.

Your cushy office job? Not a chance, you’re more likely to be tilling a field behind an ox or a horse or do hard manual labor in a factory.

In short: None of our gadgets would work if we wouldn’t have had cheap energy for the last 100 years. So far, we have not invested heavily into alternatives to the fossil fuels. Not in the least because the current oil companies have no interest in being priced out of the market by alternatives. So for now we’re lumbering along in, as it has been called, the long emergency.

3. Climate Change

Let’s not talk about if we are at fault or if it’s just a natural cycle. The reality is sea levels have been rising, glaciers are retreating and growing seasons are shifting. Not to mention that pests are migrating further north and are surviving winters here. Just ask BC and northern Alberta about the Pine Beetle to get an idea on what this could mean.

The problem is: We are not dealing with the fallout of this. Vast investments in infrastructure need to be made as rising sea levels are threatening coast lines and billions of people and their livelihoods. An increase in droughts and floods will continue to take a toll on food production and other resources.

What I did not mention here are two other things: Peak Soil and Peak Ocean. The first one being the rapid loss of arable land due to either desertification or just plain lack of nutrients in the soil, and no artificial fertilizer is not the answer, not on the least because many are derived from fossil fuels.

Peak Ocean is the realization that we have essentially overfished vast amounts of it, and continue to do so. Will we be able to let fish stocks recover?

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

This was Obama’s slogan during the 2008 election. I am not going into US politics here, but I think this slogan is a good example of the problems we’re facing.

First and foremost after two years you’ll realize that Obama has achieved little of what he promised. The “Big Change” did not materialize. Why is that?

I am sure his opponents will say that he just isn’t as good as he made people think he is, but this is a bit too easy an explanation, plus it’s blame shifting.

So instead, let’s think about this for a moment.

As it is January I am sure many of you have made new years resolutions: No more fatty foods, no more drinking, get back to the Gym etc.

We’re around two weeks into the new year now. How are you doing? Have you stuck with them? Or are you already finding excuses? Are you doing all you could do to achieve your goal are you just doing token actions to “feel better”?

Going to the Y at least three times a week I have to admit I found myself a bit surprised to note that it seems the traffic has not picked up, so maybe the new years resolution for many is not to get fit. But a few weeks ago I ended up going with a friend. She made it clear to me that she needed to do something to get fit. All fine, but the moment we were at the Gym the overarching theme was this: “I don’t want to be sore tomorrow.”

“Ah,” I thought to myself, “typical girl.” Yes yes, call me sexist, but I have been around gyms often enough to have heard that song, mostly with the: “I don’t want to be too bulky”. Those are interesting statements out of a simple reason:

a.) As a girl you’d be hard pressed to bulk up with normal training.
b.) Soreness is a given if you go from a couch potato lifestyle to an active one. It’ll pass.

Point b.) is what made me realize something. She isn’t the only one who has this attitude, I know a few guys who have a similar attitude, they do “token workouts” but nothing that really challenges them. Why? Because they don’t want to “sweat” or “hurt” etc. In other words: They want the benefits but not do the work. If this would be the Matrix, most people would take the blue pill.

But here’s the reality too: Change is painful. There will be a phase of chaos, then a phase of pain as you adjust to the new way and then it will be just like before, just different.

But this bred in inertia, this “comfort seeking” is what is holding us back on all three levels right now as well.

The bailouts the Governments all over the world have performed over the last few years, and continue to do, are not really solving the problem. They are the “token workout” that many people are doing. Just enough to look as if they are serious about it but not hard enough to really create a change or cause them discomfort.

On the energy front it is similar, in order to make the cheap energy we currently have to last longer people need to use less of it, be it by eating more local, less driving their car or turning down the heat or AC or turning off the lights when not in the room. Instead people are told to buy hybrid cars and CFLs or get a more energy efficient device. All designed to force us not to change our lifestyle.

Same goes for Climate Change, in order to prepare for it, resources need to be reallocated, people moved etc. You get the idea.

The reality is we are failing on all three points out of the same reason: We don’t like to experience any discomfort. So people who see the writing on the wall either become activists (and in the course mostly alienate most people) or tell themselves pretty lies, like most of the real estate bulls in Vancouver, that it is “different this time”.

A short story from my past: When I started doing Triathlon and aiming for Ironman I hired a trainer. One of the first things he told me was: “Pain is weakness leaving the body”. This statement, although somewhat hollow, has a certain ring of truth to it: Once you’re over the pain you are stronger, more capable and, in a way, a different person. The old adage of “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” applies.

So where does that leave us? We have three large problems that all require us to change the way we live our lives. Many people I think realize this but do not want to make the effort. If the choice is giving between no car or a hybrid, people will chose the hybrid. Not because they really necessarily need a car but rather they don’t want to have to deal with all the chaos and change that would ensue would they not have the car.

Or finances. The debt to income ratio in Canada right now is quickly approaching 1:1.5, BC’s own Government shows in their statistics that 1/8th of the Province’s GDP is generated by people buying houses / apartments / condos to live in. Think about this, 1/8th of the entire economic output is people borrowing money.

So why are people so reluctant? For one it is really the avoidance of “pain” and “suffering”, at least in the short term. But the much bigger problem is that people do not really understand the world we’re living in. We are meant to live in small groups, anything above around 30 people and we cannot emotionally attach to what happens to the individual. As Stalin said: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a number.”

Cynical? Maybe, but also pretty close to the truth, who here truly feels bad about all the people that day on a daily basis of preventable diseases or violence?

Then there is another reason: Until recently (~60 or so years ago), life in general was rather harsh and hard. We were also quite limited in the amount of resources each individual had access to. These days though we in the west have an abundance of stuff, quite often pillaged and plundered from other parts of the world. So we are “programmed” to hold onto the things that we possess. Furthermore, disasters / problems in the past were usually limited to the small group you were in. If things didn’t work out, say you ran out of water, you could pack up and move to another place where there was water, and people regularly did.

This time around though we are facing global problems, all three of the ones mentioned above, and for most people this is something they cannot really process. By the time the problem will land on their doorstep it will be too late to react and we won’t have the option to move to a different place to escape the problem.

So what’s the take-away? I guess: Be aware, prepare and hope for the best. There are forces at work right now that are away beyond the individuals control.

It truly is different this time, but not in the way many think (hope?) it will be.

So why not?

On the global scale, things that I am aware of but that don’t necessarily directly affect me I would have to say the biggest news was Wikileaks. Not so much because of what they released (or are releasing) as in the way the media and politicians have reacted.

To put it mildly: It was and is a pretty shameful spectacle.

Like or don’t like Julian Assange, but at least the man seems to have principles and stick to them. He also gave Wikileaks a face and that seems to have galled some of the earlier Wikileaks supporters.

The good thing that may come out of it next year is another leak site, if they will be as principled as Wikileaks seems to be under Assange remains to be seen.

But I still wonder how much of an impact this will really on our day to day lives. It seems the internet is split between people who support Wikileaks and it’s mission and those who (mainly) see it as an attack on the United States. Again, I am sure, 2011 will give us more answers to that as media and internet loudmouths will jockey for a new position trying to either take Wikileaks down or support it.

As for the politicians? They seem to have had the scare of their life this year and to that I can only say: Good.

Not so good though is what happened in Toronto. I mean seriously GTA? You elected Rob Ford as Mayor? I read time and again that the justification by many is not so much that they voted for Ford but rather against all the other ones. Let me put this simple: You’re fucking idiots.

Do not EVER vote against someone. Make your vote count towards the change you want to see. Depending on what council does Ford may just try and put the city closer to 1951 and 2011. Enjoy, is all I can say.

Meanwhile here in BC the political stupidity continues, be it Liberals or NDP. Campbell, at least I have to give him that, had the good grace of finally realizing that he was no longer wanted, if that will save the party though remains to be seen.

James meanwhile still seems to be in the same Lalaland that Campbell occupied for the longest time, it will be interesting to see who will get to lead either party in the new year high hopes though I have not.

And then of course there is the recall campaign, something I am glad to see is happening. Why? See Wikileaks above. The entire political establishment in Canada, and especially in BC, is so convinced about their right to rule that they really need to get some serious kicks up the ass and a few knocks to the head by the electorate. I will be watching with curiosity to see if they can unseat those Liberals, they really do deserve it.

So that’s the big picture, I am sure there are many things that I have overlooked, not mentioned, but those things were at the forefront as far as public news goes this year for me, for a more exhaustive list check your “news” source of preference.

Oh, one thing I forgot: Kodachrome is now gone…. 75 years of documenting the world… For most people it will mean little, for me it does signal the end of an era and the end of a certain way to see the world.

So onward to some personal stuff. I am not usually that big on putting personal life info out there (there is a reason why my main Twitter account is private and why I don’t post anything onto Facebook), but 2010 was an interesting year and I think I should put some thoughts out there, if for nothing else to remind me 12 months from now.

So how was 2010 for me?

In a one sentence summary: A chaotic transition year.

It started rather harmless with a quiet January and then quickly started getting hectic, both on a dating front as well as with the Olympics.

The dating stress lasted roughly until the middle of June and during that period I learned a few things, or rather I got a new perspective on an old me.

This was a theme for most of this year anyway, I found myself on the “other side”. I met several people over the course of the year that I, in hindsight, realized are essentially the way I was a decade ago when I first came to Canada.

To be honest though it wasn’t only people but life in general seems to have had a mirror like quality to it, only this time I am standing on the other side and see how many people have perceived me.

It was truly, on that aspect, an interesting year also because having become a permanent resident in August of 2009 it took me almost a year to realize what this actually means, that I DO have choice to do what I want to do. The most important realization was just how much the “limbo state” has kept me on the down and low because I couldn’t be convinced until now to actually make plans that went beyond the duration of my work permit.

So, for the first time in a decade, I am making plans, concrete ones at that.

When I moved to Canada in January 2000 I felt like I was starting my life over, as if I had been “reborn” (and no, not in the stupid Christian sense of the word). Now a decade later I have a similar feel. This despite my believe that we will be seriously get screwed over in the next few years on a variety of levels.

Looking Forward to 2011 and beyond

So I have been working on my personal plans for a few months now, they stand and some of those I will outlay here in the next few days in separate posts, mainly on things I think that will be useful to others.

But what do I foresee for the next 12 months?

The main story next year, I am sure, will be the economy. More precisely a “return” of the recession / depression. I put the return in quotes because it never really went away. If you look at the Statscan website and dig through their employment reports for the last few years you see a markable shift from fulltime to part time employment. I am sure if you’re not living in a cave you have noticed that to with people around you. So this will start playing a more significant roll.

I am also a housing bear, have been for a few years now because financially it didn’t seem to make sense to me, most people though seem to disagree.

It seems that the general consensus on housing is either: “Everything will be alright” or “We’re doomed, the sky is falling”.

I am somewhat in the middle of it. If you look at the RE releases and numbers you will notice that the decline has started but the pumpers and dumpers of real estate are doing a good job in massaging the numbers to hide that fact…. For now.

I don’t expect the bottom to fall out next year in Canada (or anywhere else) but I do expect an increase in listings and price depression at the start. It won’t be over overnight as “nice” as this may be, instead I predict a decline over five to ten years. Think that isn’t possible? Look at Japan. 15 years and counting.

On a more global scale I think keeping an eye on China will be advisable. They keep their numbers closely guarded but anecdotal stories coming out of there seem to indicate that their real estate market is close to get pricked as well. What that means for China and the rest of the world remains to be seen.

In Politics I think on the Federal Level Harper will continue to bully everyone he can and in BC we may see another provincial election, if there is an appetite for that again would remain to be seen. I wouldn’t put it past most people to want to “teach them a lesson” should the opportunity arise.

Personally? My big theme for 2011 is finances. My goal is to be in a position a year from now that I only have to work nine months out of the year, by the end of 2012 I want to be in a position where six months on / six months off is doable. The numbers so far see to check out, I just need to stick to them (so no more gadgets in 2011 for me).

I have also decided to make some other changes, mainly to make sure I spent at least one weekend a month away from Vancouver, the details of which I still have to figure out and this is also supposed to start in February, any tips on were to go? Cheap, of course, is the name of the game. Maybe winter camping?

So this is my “rearview mirror” moment on 2010 and a bit of a look through the binoculars on 2011…. Check back in 12 months when I do the same thing (probably) again.

Enjoy the rest of 2010 and have fun in 2011.

Above is one of the earliest tests of Kodachrome film from 1922, this is probably one of the oldest colour film images one can ever see, and yes, the irony is that you experience it digital.

I was actually going to wait for this post until I get my last six rolls of Kodachrome back from Dwayne’s, but as Canada Post seems to be determined not to return them to me this year I figured I get this one in “under the wire” so to speak.

Many people have (or still are as the time of this writing) been sweating bullets about their films. Because you see, as of Noon Central Time today there will be no more Kodachrome development in the entire world. The last place who did it will shut down the machines at the end of day tomorrow and if your roll didn’t make it to them today it will never be developed as Kodachrome.

So why should it matter, hasn’t the world moved on to digital photography and nobody cares about still film photography anymore?

Mostly. But for more than 50 years Kodachrome is and was the way the world recorded events, from the mundane family picknick to far flung places like the Afghani Girl which is probably National Geographics most famous photos.

Speaking of National Geographic, they were once upon a time one of the largest users of Kodachrome, almost all of their correspondents recorded the world in the colours of Kodachrome and this is how many, even of my generation, learned about far flung places. Long before the Internet came along and made it easy to see parts of the world that one would most likely never visit.

So why the sadness over Kodachrome then? Because it is an end of a product that, together with Technicolor, defined the look of much of the 20th century. For many the world WAS Kodachrome.

Be it this blurry picture of the CNE Model Kitchen that I found on a flea market:

To a shot from an Ontario Hydro at Niagra Falls:

Or Algonquin Park in 1957:

I am sure if you rummage through your basement or attic you will find some old slides from your family vacation back in the day.

Yes, now we have digital and many programs that are trying to “copy the look”, but it’s not the same. If you find a slide, hold it up against the light, get a loupe and marvel at the colour and expression. For me digital has nothing on it.

So, until I get my last six rolls back, here is a shot I took at the 420 in Vancouver in 2009:

Fast forward eight years and 15 Seasons later and TopGear, the original one, is apparently the most downloaded program on the planet. Now that’s an achievement. Not only that but TopGear has gone on to spawn copies in a variety of places, Russia, Australia and now (again) in the US.

So what is it that makes the original TopGear so great? The answer to this of course is probably different for everybody but I think there are a few core principles that TopGear has nailed:

The Presenters

In it’s currently lineup they are together since Season two. You have Jeremy Clarkson as the “leader”, Richard Hammond as his sidekick and James May (aka Captain Slow) as the resident Geek.

What all three of them have though is really good Chemistry. They are all “boys at heart” and TopGear clearly plays on and off this.

They all are accomplished journalists too and although Richard Hammond is hosting Total Wipeout he still writes columns and does serious stuff as well. Overall the Team just works.

The Presentation

There is a remarkable amount of work that has been put into creating TopGear, the production values seem high, and not only because they have high-end sports cars but rather really good cinematography, editing and scoring.

In part the BBC’s blanket music license helps in creating this feeling, but kudos have to be given to the editor and director of photography (DP).

It is FUN

Yes, it needs to be stated here. The three presenters are big kids in a candy store and they aren’t ashamed of having fun. This is where it clicks the most with me, those guys get to do things that most guys watching on TV would LOVE to do. We live through their experiences. How can this not be a great program.

Enter TopGear USA

There were already two aborted attempts to bring TopGear to the US, as of this November the History Channel of all places has commissioned one series. The show follows very closely the original, which on the surface sounds like a good idea, but in reality it makes it hard not to compare the two. So far, the strengths of the original have proven to be the weakness of the US version.

The Presenters

The US version has Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood as the presenters. I admit: The only person I knew (somewahat) was Adam Ferrara, though not in the context of motoring.

Those three are clearly modelled on the original cast, with Ferrara filling in for Clarkson, Foust for Hammond and Wood for May. The only problem is: They aren’t.

I don’t mean that they aren’t those three guys, obviously, but the archetype that is associated with the three original presenters isn’t there either.

Ferrara is not Clarkson. Their personality and attitude is completely different. Where Clarkson has a lot of hard corners and in general is a very imposing person Ferrara comes of as being washed with too much fabric softener. The writing on the show tries him to be “the tough guy” but you can see he is struggling with it. He just cannot be mean like Clarkson can without coming off as a complete asshole.

Then there is Foust, a Hammond (aka Hamster) he is not. He clearly fits better into his role than Ferrara does but I mostly put this down to a similar physical type (albeit taller) than Hammond. His presentation and talking still comes off as someone who is reading someone else’s script (more about this a bit later).

Which brings me to Wood. He clearly is a copy of May, he is a geek, but not a car geek. He comes off as the little kid that was always teased in school but now finally is in the limelight and is so awestruck by it that he can’t help but constantly have a stupid grin on his face announcing to the world: “I can’t believe they let me do this.”

So, individually they are not living up to the expectation / character, but it gets worse, there does not seem to be a lot of chemistry. Yes, TopGear (the original) is a scripted show, in the sense that they do lay out the course of a “race” or “event” and they have certain “presentation segments” but the difference seems to be that the original cast gets to write it’s own lines. The US team though seems to rely on other writers and it shows. The delivery is coming of as wooden most of the time, it doesn’t matter if it is a “flippin remark” or a presentation. Wood especially comes off as “wooden” in most of his presentation to a point where I am wondering why they actually hired him in the first place.

None of the US presenters seems to feel comfortable in being in the limelight, they all come off as stiff and uncomfortable and although some reviewers said it is getting better beginning with Episode three I can’t quite see that. Last nights Episode four was just as bad as previous ones.

The Presentation

Okay, so we have the presenters out of the way which gets me to the visual presentation itself.

Firstly, there is a huge change with the music, not too surprising considering that music licenses are expensive and History isn’t that big a network, fine, I can live with that.

Where it gets painful for me though is when I look at the way the show is shot. This starts from camera angles to focus pulling to general “look” of the show.

My reaction after the first episode was:

“TopGear (UK) is high gloss (car) porn, while TopGear (US) comes off as a cheap webcam show.”

Unfortunately this hasn’t changed. Watching last nights episode (and then briefly skimming through some older (Season eight) episodes of the original TopGear makes this quite clear. Where the original has smooth focus pulls, nice use of gradient filters and a flow to each of the videos the US version comes off like a high school project. Fast snap focus, jump cuts and an overall feel of aimless editing. It all feels disconnected and badly edited.

I know many people are saying that the first two Seasons of TopGear UK weren’t that great either, and they are right. But the difference is this: TopGear UK started anew, they tried to create a new type of car show and they succeeded. TopGear US does not try to re-invent the show format, they are trying to copy it for the US market and they do fail miserably in the process.

It is NOT Fun

Which brings me to the final verdict though. The show just isn’t fun. The things mentioned above are a big part of it, but worse to me is that judging by the shows I have seen as well as the preview for the rest of season one I can’t help but feel that someone at TopGear US went through 15 seasons of the original and then decided which episodes / stunts / films were cool and then set out to re-create them with a much more limited budget.

So, having seen the original a lot feels like a re-hash. Maybe that’s not fair to the show as I am sure there are many people in the US who have never seen the original (though it has been broadcast on BBC America), buy for me this is a problem. Not only because it is a re-hash (which is fine, there are only so many things you can do with cars) but rather because it allows me to directly compare how they have done things and the reality is this: The US remake comes off cheap and amateurish.

So what would need to change?

That is an excellent question. I think a few things are in order:

Presenters 

Have them write their own material, forget about the archetypes that were established in the UK version and let those guys find their own inner “petrolhead”.

Get a decent DP

Seriously, or if you can’t afford one, then have your current one watch all of the original UK episodes. What makes TopGear look so good is not expensive cameras or special effects, it’s knowing how to light the scene and use the camera.

Get Creative

Stop aping the original show (now there’s a theme going) and start thinking of your own stunts / ideas. Come on America, you went to war to not be beholden to the Brits and now you’re just aping them?

Also: What makes the original work so well is that Clarkson is the top dog. No doubt about it, he has the arrogance to pull it off. TopGear US lacks a “core”, find one.

Final Verdict

If you don’t know the original, watch it, there is much worse out there (especially if you’re a car enthusiast), if you have seen the original…. Well, I’d say don’t bother. I think after four episodes I am done with it… Besides, the new season of the original starts soon.

I have to say the intriguing thing for me in the CoD series (at least the ones I have played) is mostly the cinematic quality. To be honest, CoD is more or less a rail shooter with some limited freedom. It is, for all intense and purpose a Jerry Bruckheimer summer blockbuster that you can play.

So what about Black Ops?

BACKGROUND

Call of Duty Black Ops is set in the 1960s. The Cold War is in full swing and a Russian General is trying to use a Nazi weapon to bring the US down. And you and your allies are in the midst of it all.

GAMEPLAY

If you have played any of the recent CoD offerings the playstyle should be familiar. At the core of it it is a railshooter with a Jerry Bruckheimer story. The story is interwoven and you do jump character. It is not a world exploration game but rather a story you get to discover for yourself, mostly by shooting people.

The controls are standard FPS fare, you can zoom in, you can shoot the enemy and you can make use of different weapons with a variety of attachments (e.g. a thermal scope). There won’t be any surprises for anybody who has played an FPS in the last decade, it’s all pretty straight forward.

GRAPHICS / PRESENTATION

I admit. I was quite taken with the visuals. The facial animations are so good that they used them during the “story telling” elements (read, when you don’t shoot people). That’s the good news. Unfortunately foilage (especially when hiding in it) still doesn’t look too good, At least on my XBOX the textures came off as flat and low-res. Does it distract? Not really, the game tries to keep you moving, it’s just when you decide to “do your own thing” and loiter around that you notice these things.

GRIEVANCES

Oh yes, there are things to complain about. No, it’s not the floating apple, it has mostly to do with the AI which at times (at least on normal difficulty) shows a remarkable amount of stupidity. Enemies standing in front of you not doing anything. Your own comrades wildly firing at a tango that has been down for a few seconds already, indicating to me that their actions are scripted and not really an AI thing per-se.

Then there is something that most players won’t really be bothered by: The voices of Robert MacNamara and JFK.

Yes yes, my history buff side is coming out but it just looks awfully wrong to me to hear these voices. Robert Picardo does a decent job of trying to copy Kennedy, but he is not Kennedy and it throws the entire thing out for me. Same thing for whoever voices MacNamara.

The latter one I have a really hard time to forgive, Macnamara is still alive, they could have tried to get him or done a better job in copying him.

CONCLUSION

Itching for a firefight? Want to be driven forward by the story? Don’t mind linear level progression? Get it.

Don’t like any of this? Then your SOL, most modern shooters follow this formula these days.

Rating: 7/10 (9/10 as an action movie)

So now in 2010 Lucasarts comes out with a sequel, trying to continue the story. But did they actually succeed?

I quickly jumpted back into the first game, also on the 360, to remind myself of what I liked about the old one. Then I quickly fired up the new one.

First perception? The graphics look much better than in the first one. More “lifelike” and in general more polished. The old Force powers are back and you are even given a handful of new ones (more about this later). The first ten minutes or so left me impressed with the desire to continue.

THE STORY

Now, not trying to spoil the story I can safely say it continues where the last game left off, nice to see that they found a (not completely stupid) way onward.

Having said this though, the story isn’t anything special. It does not “reveal” anything big and it merely tries to hit all the check marks along the way to a “Star Wars” ending. It does so though in style, with pretty explosions and well executed effects for the force powers.

THE GAMEPLAY

This is where the game has let me down quite a bit.

First and foremost I think the controls are horrible. They weren’t overly precise in the first game, but they are utterly horrible in the sequel. It turns down into button mashing and hoping you have enough Force power juice to take out that enemy.

In theory you should have a nice balance between your powers and your lightsaber skills. In reality though I mostly used push and light sabre combos when I encountered enemies that I couldn’t beat by using the Force.

Which brings me to the next, and much bigger problem. The difficulty curve on the game is harsh. From “easy” to “medium” (which they recommend as default) it is a huge step. What makes this even worse though is that the increase in difficulty mostly stems from more and tougher enemies, not from smarter Ai.

The AI in general is pretty crappy, they either swarm you or they stand aimlessly around occasionally taking a shot at you that can be easily deflected with the sabres. So most enemies really are just decoration for you to toss around. Fun for a while, but after a while it becomes boring and annoying.

In later levels it becomes so hard even on medium that I found myself ultimately lower the difficulty to “easy” and ending up just blasting through the game. I did not intend that, I actually ended up raising difficulty in between only to get my ass kicked. Now maybe it’s old age (I am not as young as I used to be) but I would say the problem in this game is balance.

VERDICT

Can I recommend the game? Yes and no. If you are good with frustration, can live with a small number of enemies and are willing to wildly button smash to get a story that is roughly on par with what George Lucas has punted out over the last two decades then by all means go for it.

If you just look for a fun way to toss Stormtroopers to their death you may be better off getting the old game or just wait until this game goes into the bargain bin.

Total rating: 5/10

There always seems to be confusion about what Atheism is or why it is a valid position to have. This nice, 10 minute video is a really good introduction to the “atheist dilemma” if you want to call it that.

There are problems, the AF mostly not to mention the low resolution. I am trying again right now with MF and will “borrow” a better camera and see if I can get it working. If it does, I may end up setting up a webcam again

If you don’t know them, here’s one of their videos:

And here’s Saturday Night Live’s “version” of it:

Clearly my “Huh”? For the weekend.

Bonus Video:

I kept using the Powerbook for a while longer, but it becamse clear quickly that Apple was doing their best to try and force people into the Intel fold ASAP. With 10.6 they effectivly have achieved it.

I did buy another Mac though, a new MacPro as I had done most editing / working from home anyway and the need for a portable computer didn’t seem that pressing.

Then Apple decided to turn all of the Notebooks into appliances, fusing the battery with the Computer, this killed it for me. If I am on a mobile computer I want to have the ability to swap out the Battery when need be, I am not a Hipster who uses his Computer to importantly type away at a coffeeshop pretending to be writing the next great Canadian Novel about the hardships of today’s 20something.

So I abstained.

Over the last few months though there were a few times where I could have really made good use of a mobile computer. As technology goes though, things are quickly progressing and as such I was holding out. The iPad looked interesting but suffered from the same "Apple disease" they seem to have acquired ever since the iPhone really became a hit, plus it is in essence an Internet Consumption device, not a mobile computing platform (and yes, I know a-many will disagree with me on that one).

Netbooks had fascinated me for a while, small, powerful and exciting. Only problem was, the ones I tried weren’t really powerful enough for me, main problem being memory, or rather lack thereof.

On the weekend though I finally bit and bouth a Netbook, two actually.

The first was a Toshiba 305N, at $450 quite an expensive netbook. My joy lasted all but an hour, as I installed the tools that I needed I realized quickly that the thing was way too underpowered, no way that I could do even basic photoediting on it. So back it went where it came from.

In it’s replacement I bought an acer Aspire 1830T.

To call it a netbook is probably a bit of a "lie". The little thing is quite well equipped. 11.6" screen, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD and even an HDMI output.

It works very well indeed, I did some on the fly photo editing in Lightroom with images from my Panasonic GF1 and it did it well.

The small trackpad is a bit of a concern for me though as especially the gestures don’t always seem to work. Apparently the driver supplied by Dell works better but I haven’t installed it yet. The problem could very well be the touchpad, mine is made by Alps and online many people complain about the funcationality of it, while the ones with the Synaptic verson seem to be happy as clams.

This being a netbook and going with the latest style it has, unfortunately, a glossy screen. If I would hate myself I would very quickly need to overcome this, even as I type, in a semi dark room, the screen and bezel are so shiny that I can see myself. Oh, I need a shave I guess, thankfully if I am ever stuck at the side of the road with no mirror this won’t be a problem. The Computer screen will do just fine.

Another point of complaint for me is the keyboard.

Firstly, the keys are flat, which makes it hard to "feel" where you are, but this you can get used to.

Worse is how the keyboard has been laid out. For some reason someone at Acer thought that having a full sized CAPSLOCK key was necessary, but the shift key on the left hand side was cut in half. The end result? I often hit the \ key instead of the shift key, which then has me struggle back the text and fix it.

On the right hand side a similar brainfart seems to have occured. Instead of having the return key wide at the bottom (you know, the way IBM original laid out the keyboard on the Selectric typewriters), the Acer engineers thought it should do so at the top, instead in the lower par they squeeze in the copy of what they had done on the right, meaning, more than once instead of a line break, I get this: \

Yeah, nice, if I need to escape that would be handy, but mostly I write texts in an editor, not computer code or on the shell.

I am sure in time I will get used to these quirks, but honestly, if Acer would have addressed these it would be THE perfect computer to take with you, the build in SD card reader has proven useful as well, no juggling with card readers or USB cables, just pop out the SD card from the camera and plug it into the notebook and you’re good to go.

Pros:

- Small Form Factor, light too.
- Powerful, can replace most notebooks "on the go".
- Six hours of battery life (they claim 8, but I think that would only be possible without any wireless.
- Large HDD and screen resolution (1366×768)

Cons:

- Glossy Screen (not only reflective as hell but also fingerprint attracting)
- Awkward Keyboard layout
- Temperamental touchpad.

Verdict:

If you are looking for a small, portable computer with lots of power you probably will be hard pressed to find anything similar for the price. My model comes with the i3-330UM CPU but in the US they will also sell you one with an i5 and 500GB HDD.

The United States is locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusion. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another enthralls the country…despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class.

– Chris Hedges