the darkerside to rants

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:

I admit it. I came late to the “new” TopGear hype, not until late 2008 did I discover Jeremey Clarkson’s ode to the automobile. I had heard of it before, but I thought it was pretty stupid (a motoring show that is). And you know what? The first season of the re-designed TopGear really wasn’t all that great, it was very much like what you would expect from a motoring show but then there were hints of greatness.

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.

 

детско обзавежданеI came late to the Call of Duty franchise. My first game was CoD Modern Warfare 2 last year which I quickly followed up by the first one int he series. Now of course, it’s Black Ops time.

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)

I admit it. I loved the first game in the series. It was utterly cool to force grab a Stormtrooper or two and fling them off the walkway to their doom. In general, what made that game was the ability to wield the “awesome” powers that the jedi and Sith have.

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

So it seems ICP is a Christian “Rock” Band? Who’d thunk.

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 have not owned a notebook in almost three years. My last one was a Powerbook G4 bought in 2005 just before Apple dropped the PowerPC platform and went all Intel on us.

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