I may not be feeling so well today, but the Easybeats are having a good time! According to allmusic this was an Australian band in the 1960s, although lead singer Stevie Wright originally came from England and bassist Dick Diamonde hailed from the Netherlands, as did guitarist Harry Vanda. The others, guitarists George Young and drummer Gordon “Snowy” Fleet, were recent arrivals from Scotland and England – most significantly, Fleet was Liverpool born and raised, and had been a member of the Mojos, one of that city’s more promising bands of 1963 and 1964.
I’ll have what he’s having…
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Crayon Physics
Crayon physics is a toy version of the sort of Interactive Physics simulator I use in my classes. It is a tablet version of what I posted over a year ago.
Posted in physics, technology, video
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Gravitas
Gravitas: Portraits of a Universe is astrophysicist John Dubinski’s self-published DVD containing his stunning supercomputer simulations of galactic evolution set to music. Dubinski has now made the DVD disk image available free via BitTorrent for personal and educational use. You can also see online versions of the simulations at his site. From Cornell University’s arXiv e-print service:
GRAVITAS… presents a visual and musical celebration of the beauty in a dynamic universe driven by gravity. Animations from supercomputer simulations of forming galaxies, star clusters, galaxy clusters, and galaxy interactions are presented as moving portraits of cosmic evolution. Billions of years of complex gravitational choreography are presented in 9 animations – each one interpreted with an original musical composition inspired by the exquisite movements of gravity. The result is an emotive and spiritually uplifting synthesis of science and art.
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Indiana
I’m glad I never lived next to the water,
so I could never get used to the beach.
And I’m glad I never grew up on a mountain,
to figure out how high the world could reach.
I love the miles between me and the city,
where I quietly imagine every street.
And I’m glad I’m only picturing the moment,
I’m glad she never fell in love with me.
For some the world’s a treasure to discover,
and your scenery should never stay the same.
And they’re trading in their dreams for explanations,
all in an attempt to entertain.
But I love the miles between me and the city,
where I quietly imagine every street.
And I’m glad I’m only picturing the moment,
I’m glad she never fell in love with me.
The trick of love is to never let it find you,
it’s easy to get over missing out.
I know the how’s and whens, but now and then,
she’s all I think about.
I wonder how it feels to be famous,
but wonder is as far as I will go.
Because I’d probably lose myself in all the pictures,
and end up being someone I don’t know.
So it’s probably best I stay in Indiana,
just dreaming of the world as it should be.
Where every day is a battle to convince myself,
I’m glad she never fell in love with me.
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Apple TV finally comes through
Apple TV (160 GB Model) at Amazon
For the past year my Apple TV has been a great tool for watching and listening to the plethora of podcasts that keep me entertained. And it has been fun to occasionally play some music on it from my sizable and fully legal iTunes library, watch a few dumb YouTube videos on it, and even download some videos from the internet and convert them for playback on the Apple TV. But I was never, ever, tempted to buy a movie from Apple. Recently all Apple TVs were upgraded with the capability to rent, not buy, regular and high-definition movies. And that feature has finally made the Apple TV a device the masses should enjoy.
I took advantage of a day off from work, due to an ice storm, to rent Ratatouille as a $5 high-def movie on my Apple TV. Selecting, downloading, and playing the movie was simple and rewarding. The movie downloaded fairly quickly, was sharp and clear, and showed only minor compression artifacts. It was a far better experience than struggling to hook up my laptop computer to the television for the Netflix Watch Instantly service, which has lousy picture quality and often streams poorly. It was also simpler to access than the Amazon Unbox service on my Tivo, with better picture quality.
The downside to this sort of rental is that you only have 30 days after downloading a movie to start watching it and only 24 hours to finish watching it after you start. So I still greatly prefer an actual DVD disc from Netflix since I can take as long as I want to view it, plus the disc often has fun extra features like commentaries. In fact, I’ve kept the Ratatouille disc in my Netflix queue because I now want to hear a commentary and see some extra features.
But sometimes I want a quick, fun movie that hasn’t shown up in the mailbox from my 5-disc-at-a-time Netflix queue. Whenever that occurs, my preferred alternatives are now:
- rent it in high-def on the Apple TV
- rent it in reg-def on the Apple TV
- rent it from Amazon Unbox on my Tivo
- rent it as a DVD disc from my local Hastings video store
- watch it using Netflix Watch Instantly
Overall, Netflix is still indispensable with its fantastic selection of feature-laden DVDs and user-friendly policies. But it lacks the near-instant gratification of Apple TV movie rentals, and Netflix’s Watch Instantly service simply is not competitive. If Apple TV eventually offers enough high-def rental choices, I may very well reduce my Netflix disc plan back to 3-discs-at-a-time.
I think my next experiment will be to rent a regular-definition Apple TV movie for playback with a fun Rifftrax. All of this sure beats cable TV!
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Meador Manor 