Seeing this advertisement from Hitachi makes my head spin.
It reads:
8-track or cassette… let Hitachi end the argument.
She wants 8-track stereo… He wants cassette stereo. That doesn’t mean they have to argue.
They both can have their own way with Hitachi.
When I was a kid, 8-track tapes were the newest technology. They were supposed to replace vinyl and be the new wave of portable music. Then came cassettes. Then came CDs. Now, we have MP3s.
The way we consume music has changed FIVE times in my lifetime. FIVE TIMES!
The music industry expected me to pay for the album, the 8-track, the cassette, and the CD, and then they complained when people downloaded MP3s of the same music they already owned.
They’ve done the same thing with movies: Beta, VHS, DVD and now Blu-Ray. I still haven’t bought a Blu-Ray player. If you replaced DVD and Blu-Ray on this old advertisement, that is the argument that’s raging in our house right now.
I’m beginning to think that they are doing this on purpose.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets — Laura Moncur @ 10:00 am
This photo from Nicole Lee brought back such a vivid memory for me:
In her words:
Let’s see. Shut-down escalator? Check. Random kid-size shoe? Check. No kid in sight? Check.
Yep, kid-eating escalator.
This EXACT thing happened to my friend, Kirstie Salamanikas, at the top of the escalator in the Mervyn’s store at Valley Fair Mall back in the Eighties. Kirstie was lucky enough to give her shoe a big yank and get it out of the escalator, but the bite it took out of the sole left an indelible mark in my mind.
To this day, I’m scared of escalators, jumping over that dangerous seam where the escalator can grab hold of your shoe and keep crunching it as the stairs move under your feet.
Mike tries to tell me that escalator technology has advanced since then and it’s impossible for someone to get their shoe caught, but now I know he’s WRONG!
One of the side effects of being a geek is that you like geeky things, like Star Wars, Chess, and Legos. Of course, combining three of those things together is an opportunity a mildly obsessive geek like me can’t pass up.
It would be prohibitively expensive to buy all the necessary sets to get a decent collection of the right mini-figures, but Lego’s new Star Wars magnet sets provides the opportunity to get many of the right figures without the overhead of buying full sets.
For about $180 (thanks to some Black Friday sales prices on Lego.com) I put together all the mini-figures necessary to make a “Light vs. Dark Star Wars Lego Chess Setâ€. MSRP for everything is $250. I put together this set using just one actual Lego set, a number of magnet sets, and one Star Wars Lego Watch.
Here are the Lego part numbers, all of which can be purchased on shop.lego.com:
(1) 6212: X-Wing Fighter (Luke parts, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2D2)
(1) 2851192: C3PO Child’s Watch (C3PO)
(8) 852553: Magnet Set Storm Trooper (Storm Trooper, Rebel Pilot, AT-ST Driver)
(1) 852554: Magnet Set Chewbacca (Chewbacca, Obi Wan, Darth Vader)
(1) 852552: Magnet Set Royal Guard (Boba Fett, Imperial Royal Guard)
(1) 852715: Magnet Set Darth Vader (Emperor parts, Snow Trooper, Shadow Trooper)
(1) 852551: Magnet Set Darth Maul (Emperor and Luke parts)
Light Side:
King: Luke (constructed from Luke Pilot & Anakin mini-figs: see photo above) Queen: Leia K Bishop: Obi Wan Kenobi (pants swapped with Luke) Q Bishop: Han Solo (Shirt swapped with Anakin) K Knight: Chewbacca w/crossbow laser Q Knight: Chewbacca w/blaster K Rook: R2D2 Q Rook: C3PO Pawns: Rebel Pilots
Dark Side:
King: Emperor (constructed from Darth Vader and Darth Maul mini-figs. See photo below.) Queen: Darth Vader K Bishop: Imperial Guard Q Bishop: Boba Fett K Knight: Shadow Trooper Q Knight: Snow Trooper K Rook: AT-SD Driver Q Rook: AT-SD Driver Pawns: Storm Troopers
The leftovers are: Child Anakin hybrid, Princess Leia in Slave Costume, Darth Maul/Damaged Vader hybrid, six AT-ST drivers, and two extra Rebel Pilots left over from Luke in Pilot suit and Wedge Antilles. Oh, and an X-Wing fighter and watch.
The choices of some pieces are driven by what can be purchased inexpensively: The AT-ST Driver rooks are there simply because they came free with the pawn pieces. I could obtain an “actual†Emperor as a Lego keychain, but he’d have a metal knob in his head and come glued together, whereas the mini-figures that come with the magnet sets are the real McCoy. I actually like my constructed Emperor better anyway.
I am considering demoting Han Solo to Q Knight and introducing Yoda as Q Bishop from another magnet set, eliminating the “extra†Chewbacca. This will leave Count Duku and Mace Windu leftovers.
With a little bit of Lego Know-How, you can have a full Star Wars Lego Chess Set. Not only is this a fun project to construct with your family, but it will be a workable chess game that they can enjoy for years to come. Not to mention the serious geek cred you’ll get from displaying it!
When I downloaded the update to Bejeweled 2 [iTunes link] about a month ago, I found that there was a new game that had been added. It was called Bejeweled Blitz. Although it looked very similar to my normal Bejeweled game, it had some very different features. Firstly, the game only lasted a minute. I only had sixty quick seconds to make as many matches as I could before the entire game exploded in a sparkling array of jewels. You might think that I would play LESS because the game only lasts a minute, but the exact opposite is true. Since a game is only one minute, I can tell myself, “One more game,” for minutes upon minutes. An hour later, I’m still playing and I’m still telling myself, “Just one more game.”
The more significant difference between normal Bejeweled and Bejeweled Blitz, however, was that it is connected to my Facebook friends, so I can compete against everyone I know. I cannot tell you the joy I have when I beat my friends and see myself at the top of the list. I know it’s just a silly game, but that competitive spirit in me is an angry beast when I can’t beat someone. I actually considered unfriending some people on Facebook just because I couldn’t beat them. I didn’t and boy am I glad I didn’t because when I actually beat their score, I feel like I’m the king of the world. Sure, it’s an imaginary world filled with diamonds, but I’m the king of it, if only for a brief moment before Ernie kicks my butt again.
I Think It’s Just Random
“I’m beginning to think the high scores are just random. When I get a high score, it feels the same to me as when I get a low score,” Dan said.
My entire family is playing this game either on Facebook or on their iPhones. We were discussing the high scores at great length.
Mike replied, “I would think it was random too, except that Laura ALWAYS beats me.”
I chimed in, “And Ernie always beats me. It’s not just random.”
“So, how are you getting such high scores?” They all wanted to know. (Continue Reading…)
Mike and I visit the Mt. Hood area in Oregon every year. It’s a quick drive from Portland, but ever since they closed the Swatch store, we don’t bother driving into the big city. Now, we have a reason.
Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade has over 90 video game consoles and a bunch of pinball machines as well.
It has all of my favorites from years past like Centipede, DDR and Tetris, in addition to games that I love, but never saw in an arcade when they were at their height, like Arkanoid, Dr. Mario and Columns.
It’s not just an arcade, however. It’s a bar with food and they have cool events EVERY night. Rock Band Tuesdays, Atari parties and even Free Play parties (pay a fee to get in and play all the games for free).
Suddenly, Portland just seemed worth the drive up from Welches!
I’m surprised at how high tech the album was. It was released in 1983 and it is far more computer, robot and digital friendly than I realized back when I was a kid. Take the song, Digital Duck, about Donald Duck’s love for gadgets, even when they steer him wrong.
He’s a D-D-D-D-Digital Duck
D-D-D-D-Digital Duck
Donald loves his gadgets, even though they run amok,
He’s a D-D-D-D-Digital Duck
You can hear a clip here:
For the full Disney and Eighties masochists, here is the full song:
I just can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to pay over $600 for Adobe Photoshop. LONG ago, Mike and I bought Photoshop and we have been hobbling around with that ancient version ever since. Now that Snow Leopard has come out, that ancient version of Photoshop just doesn’t work anymore, but I can’t bring myself to buy the new one. I just can’t see the value in it.
How will I ever survive?
Quite easily, actually. Back when Mike and I DID pay for Photoshop, there weren’t any other options available, but now there are a couple of software packages that you can use that have all the functionality of Photoshop without the industrial strength price tag.
A couple of months ago, I talked about GIMP. You can see my review here:
GIMP doesn’t have a beautiful interface like many Apple programs, but it’s starting to catch on and now there are lots of tutorials online to show you how to do things using GIMP instead of Photoshop. You can see them here:
If you own a Mac, however, you don’t even need GIMP. Included with every Mac is a program called Preview. MOST of what I need Photoshop for is resizing graphics, cropping, rotating and adjusting wonky colors. Preview does all of that and loads INSTANTLY instead of the 15 second load time for GIMP. Photoshop takes less time to load, but there’s no way it could beat Preview’s instant on feature.
If you want to organize your photos in addition to simple editing, Macs also come with iPhoto. The beauty of this software is that you can do everything that you could do with Preview AND the software does cool stuff like facial recognition, geotagging and organizing photos into Events.
What about Photoshop Elements?
At only $65, you would think that Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 might be a good program to buy, but I can’t even bring myself to buy that. If I want to do something really complicated that I can’t do with iPhoto or Preview, then I usually need a tutorial to teach me how to do it. The tutorials that I can find online are all written for the full version of Photoshop, not Elements. If I have to figure out how to do something complicated using an inferior program, I’m going to save that sixty-five bucks and just use GIMP.
What if I use a PC?
GIMP is also available for the PC (and LINUX, if you’re keeping score), so that option is available for you. It looks the same on a PC as it does on a Mac, so if you switch between machines, you won’t have to relearn the user interface.
If you are looking for software that is free and will organize your photos like iPhoto does, the best option is Picasa from Google. In addition to easy upload to Picasa, there is a simple built-in movie editor so you can create movies with your photos, videos and music and upload them to YouTube. Here is a video introducing the software.
In some respects, Picasa is better than iPhoto because it takes a hands-off approach to photo files. iPhoto will move or copy my photos to a different location on the drive, nearly doubling the amount of hard drive space I need. I HATE this about iPhoto, but Picasa handles the files better.
Why do you hate Adobe?
I don’t necessarily hate Adobe, but I feel betrayed by them. I have bought many software packages from them over the years. For the longest time, Photoshop was the only photo editing software worth using, and Adobe took advantage of their monopoly. When there was nothing available to me, I was willing to shell out my hard earned money to get the software I needed to do my job. Now that they finally have competition, I’m not willing to give them one more penny.
Ironically, if they priced Photoshop reasonably (i.e. $200), I would be a loyal fan and pay for every upgrade. Pricing their software over the $600 mark just screams a hubris that makes me want to boycott them. Is GIMP as good as Photoshop? No, but with a six HUNDRED dollar difference in price, I’m willing to deal with the minor differences.
If you own a Mac, however, you don’t even need GIMP. Included with every Mac is a program called Preview. MOST of what I need Photoshop for is resizing graphics, cropping, rotating and adjusting wonky colors. Preview does all of that and loads INSTANTLY instead of the 15 second load time for GIMP. 
If you want to organize your photos in addition to simple editing, Macs also come with iPhoto. The beauty of this software is that you can do everything that you could do with Preview AND the software does cool stuff like facial recognition, geotagging and organizing photos into Events. 
