• Movie Releases
• Theaters are thankful for 3D
• And that’s a problem, accurding to James Cameron (link)
• Doctor Hobbit: Sylvester McCoy in talks for a role in The Hobbit
• Doctor Here-We-Go-Again: BBC screwing with the schedule for next year…
• “The Woz” will be on The Big Bang Theory!
• Apple’s Announcement: We’ll get to it next week.
• Price Cuts, Price Cuts, Price Cuts!

Promo:

• The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd

• Movie releases
• The canary in the coal mine? – Dorchester Publishing has announced they are getting out of mass market publishing, focusing on Ebooks and Print-on-Demand.
• German schools to start teaching digital privacy (link)
• Seagate ‘Momentus’ hard drive review (link)
• Listener question: What’s a good first programming language?

Peeks:

• Melissa – Alamo Draft House showing ‘The Blues Brothers” at Joliet Prison in Chicago
• Richard – The Earth as Art
• Melissa – The Mondo Zombo Extravaganza Release Party at The Source
• Paul – Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Melissa – The Geek Partnership Society Ice Cream Social
• Melissa – The Minnesota Fringe Festival (with bonus power outage!)
• Mike – Nathan Lowell‘s Quarter Share, Now in print!

Also, feedback requested for a future topic.  check out the Facebook page!

Promos:

• The Radio Adventures of Doctor Floyd
• Did This Happen?

• Movie releases
• Ebook price wars ramp up
• Geek Peeks:
  • Melissa – The Minnesota Fringe Festival
  • Richard – Cyber War, by Richard A. Clarke and Robert Knake

Promo:

• The James Randi Educational Foundation

(Also: I just want to apologize for some of the audio quality.  There was an issue with one of the mics picking up Richard in the background, which let to some syncing issues (of which I took care of as much as I could).  Add to that a brief Audacity crash near the end (which you will most likely notice, because I wasn’t going to edit out part of Richard’s peek), and you have the episode that was a bit of a challenge for me to work on, but I got working anyways, because I love you all.  You ‘re welcome – MT)

Promo:

• The WebComic Beacon

• Mike gets attacked by Cookie Monster
• Video releases
• The EBook wars bring it
• iPhone OS 4 is out
• Paul has a Proud Father moment
• CONvergence is coming!  Want to see the schedule?

Mentions:

• Celebration Generation Cakes

Promo:

• The Scott Sigler ‘Ancestor’ book tour

TREBUCHET

With special appearances by Phil Plait, Peter Gregson,
Slau, and The Skeptical Shoe Horns.

1. God is Not Great
2. Everything Alive Will Die Someday
3. Ms.Information
4. Fifty Stories
5. FAR
6. Remora
7. Sviatoslav Lobster
8. When I Was Your Age
9. Trebuchet
10. Atlanta
11. Death From The Skies
12. Never Knew
13. Hai Yookito ‘Ya
14. Where Have You Been?
15. One Hypnopompic Jerk
16. Small Comfort
17. Happy Birthday Baby

All songs ©2010 Geologic Records/You Call That Music

Trebuchet is available at CD Baby and their
digital distribution partners including iTunes.

• Video Releases
• Office 2010 now available at retail, beta expires October 31
• Watch out, there’s an Adobe exploit floating around.
• iPhone pre-orders began today, Apple and AT&T on-line stores struggle to take the load
• Newsweek reports on zombie invasion? (link)
• Mac Mini got an update. Now more tempting as a media center box?
• XBox gets some needed love and attention
• Nintendo showing off DS3D at E3 show – Is it worth it?
• Our faith in humanity gets a boost (link)

Peeks:

• Warhammer 40,000 weekend at the Fantasy Flight Games Event Center
• CONvergence is coming
• Monster Chess. Mike wants it.

Promo:

• Movie Mantras

Plugged:

• Celebration Generation Cakes

Promo:

• The Webcomic Beacon

Oh yes, and links galore!

• http://autumnlake.com – Autumn Lake by Mark Savary
• http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/ – The Webcomic List
• http://familywebcomics.com/ – Family Webcomics
• http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/ – Medium Large by Francesco Marciuliano
• http://www.intrepidgirlbot.com/ – The Intrepid Girlbot by Diana Nock
• http://galaxioncomics.com/ – Galaxion by Tara Tallan
• http://mycardboardlife.com/ – My Cardboard Life by Philippa Rice
• http://lastplacecomics.com/ – Last Place Comics by Zack Cranor
• http://drmcninja.com/ – Dr. McNinja
• http://missmab.com/ – Dan and Mab’s Furry Adventures
• http://www.sandraandwoo.com/ – Sandra and Woo

• Bees swarm an accident scene on I-35W in Minnesota.  To be fair, it was their truck that got hit… (link)
• Happy Towel Day!  Do you know where yours is? (link)
• In honor of the ‘Lost’ series finale, we talk about other finales from the past, planned and otherwise.
• Okay, and a few tangents as well.

Promos:

• Geek Radio Daily
• The Geologic Podcast

• First, Mike has a brief announcement.  Apologies ahead of time.
• May is the 50th anniversary of the LASER (link)
• The Kids Are Alright: 2010 edition (link)
• Remember the old jokes about if Microsoft made cars? (link)
• Poor Sony can’t catch a break, but will 3D save the company?
• Foxconn reportedly looking for an exorcist to deal with suicides at factories

Promo:

• Geek Survival Guide

Also, no real notes for the second half.  Yeah, I know, I suck.  Anyways, hope you enjoy what’s there.

Video releases

• Melissa’s trip to Ebertfest
• Big week for Microsoft Windows updates, go get ‘em
• New York Post claims Dept of Justice and Federal Trade commission negotiating on:
  • which will make inquiry re: Apple iPhone 4.0 ban on apps built using cross-platform tools
  • Does it harm competition
• Apple announced it sold 1 million iPads within 28 days of going on sale.
• Gizmodo reports Microsoft Courier project was killed and it hadn’t even been born yet.
• Windows Live Hotmail will get ActiveSync support his fall
• HTC licenses patents from Microsoft so they can sell Android phones. WTF?
• According to an  International Federation of the Phonographic Industry report, iTunes responsible for 1/4 of digital + retail US music sales. (link)
• Steam for Mac Beta, May 12

Promo:

• I Should Be Writing

The film itself is remarkable in the fact that the footage is incredibly candid. Director Greg Kohs and his team not only camped out in Lightning & Thunder’s home for long enough to catch the family in their darkest moments, they also discovered scores of videotapes in the home, where both sides of this married couple documented the most stressful points of their lives. The fact that the family allowed this frank footage to be tied together in a feature documentary is amazing.

The result is a deeply touching tale about ordinary people struggling to be extraordinary. I hesitate to say more, as I found experiencing the film without knowing anything at the start was a supremely satisfying experience.

After the film, Thunder herself graced the stage of the Virginia Theatre with renditions of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, the latter of which got the whole balcony dancing. (In the photo above, you can see Chaz and Roger Ebert watching Thunder from the wings.) It was a great feel-good close to the film festival.

L to R: Greg Kohs, Chaz Ebert, Thunder (aka Claire Sardina), Roger Ebert

After her songs, there was a good hour’s worth of Q&A from both Thunder and Greg Kohs, moderated by Steve Prokopy (aka Capone from Ain’t It Cool News). During the Q&A, Prokopy had a bit of a fan moment, when he showed Thunder that he still had the ticket from Summerfest where he saw Lightning & Thunder perform with Eddie Vedder. She happily autographed it for him.

After the close of the film festival, I was treated to a few fun moments at the theater while I waited for my ride to show. Not only did I meet Thunder, but I also ran into Vincent Falk, who I talked about in my previous post. I even wound up trading coats with Vincent, if only for a moment. How cool is that?

Click the thumbnails below to see these images and descriptions on Flickr.

And that, my friends, was my Ebertfest experience. Many thanks to Steve Prokopy, who kindly let me hang out with him in the balcony for a while on the last couple days. (It was great to see another Butt-Numb-a-Thoner outside Austin, TX!)

Also great big truckloads of thanks to Tom Rogers, who provided my crash space in Urbana, IL. If it weren’t for him, this trip would not have been possible at all. He was a fantastic guide to the Chambana area, too. I owe him many martinis.

Day 4 of Ebertfest for me started very slowly. Those gin & Squirts from the night before were the devil. Thus, I opted for breakfast over the first film of the day, I Capture the Castle. I generally don’t care much for Austenesque British drawing room dramas, planned guest Bill Nighy wasn’t there thanks to the volcano, and, well, I really needed breakfast. Thus, my friend Tom and I headed into Urbana and thoroughly enjoyed The Courier Cafe.

Sadly, I also have never seen the film before, so I can’t even make comments about it. I will try to see it within the next few weeks, so I can at least say I’ve seen all the films that played at Ebertfest this year.

I did make it back to the Virginia Theatre for Vincent: A Life in Color, which was the first of two new documentaries that played at this year’s Ebertfest.

Vincent: A Life in Color is about Vincent P. Falk, who is a bit hard to describe. If you’ve ever been in downtown Chicago and have seen a man wearing a blindingly bright-colored suit waving at the tour boats from the Michigan Avenue Bridge, you’ve seen Vincent. That’s what he does. He dresses in bright suits and waves his jacket at tour boats.

There is, of course, much more to Vincent than that. The documentary is downright fascinating. In fact, if you live in and/or love the city of Chicago, I’d say that Vincent: A Life in Color is required viewing, as the film is as much a love letter to Chicago as it is an analysis of a strange man who waves at people.

The film itself is very straightforward and simple, as it wisely lets its quirky subject take center stage. The film lets the information unfold like a mystery, so you get the sense that you continue to delve throughout the running time, and each morsel of information you find is a joy. There aren’t any big dark secrets here. This is a movie about how one man lives joyfully. It’s a feel-good movie.

I’d very much like to have a double-feature, pairing this film with Man on Wire. Both are about men who celebrate cities. Both men are colorful, odd, and perhaps slightly crazy. Both films are about joy. (Aside: if you haven’t yet seen Man on Wire, do it as soon as you can. It’s one of the best movies ever made. Note I said “movie”, not “documentary”. Yes, it is that good.)

After the showing of Vincent: A Life in Color, Vincent himself came on stage in an orange suit that could probably be seen from space. We got his trademark dance, and then a Q&A. Jennifer Burns, director of the documentary, joined him for the panel. It soon became clear that Vincent: A Life in Color was a labor of love, which is something you sense with every frame of the film. Jennifer Burns funded the film entirely on her own credit cards. It was perhaps not wise in a monetary sense, but at the end of it all, she has made a fine film.

Above: Vincent Falk and Jennifer Burns at Ebertfest. Vincent is the one in orange, Jennifer is in green.

The next film on the schedule was a movie that has sadly yet to see proper distribution: Trucker. It’s a movie with a plot we all know from 1970′s low-budget working class dramas: loner adult gets saddled with the responsibilities of being a parent, and learns as much from the child as the child learns from them. However, there are several things about Trucker that make it more than worthwhile:

• James Mottern’s earthy script
• Gender swap of the main character (the loner is a woman here)
• Nathan Fillion’s natural charm
• Michelle Monaghan’s Oscar-level performance

Yes, the film is a showcase for the talents of Michelle Monaghan, who delivers a performance that should have garnered much more attention. Roger Ebert himself declared her work Oscar-worthy here, and I have to agree. Monaghan’s characterization work here feels like it’s the most natural thing in the world to her to play, yet it’s a role that is demanding in its transparency.

You’ll need to don your Lifetime Channel armor before watching this film, but you’ll be happy that you did.

The Q&A after the film featured both writer/director James Mottern (center right) and Michelle Monaghan (far right). They answered questions for a good hour or so, about everything from the charm of Nathan Fillion (“Watching him is like watching a country song.”) to Monaghan’s boots (borrowed from a Grand Canyon tour guide) to Monaghan’s inspiration for the role (wild Mustangs) to learning how to drive an 18-wheeler truck (yes, Monaghan got her Class C license as preparation for the film). Mottern and Monaghan were both so likable as people that I got the sense that the audience would have talked to them all night if they could.

The final film of the night was a film that was very nearly forgotten after the 1980′s: Barfly. This is sad, as it has a quirky charm that is hard to deny.

Barfly is a semi-autobiography, written by and about American poet Charles Bukowski. It isn’t a standard biopic, however. It covers only a few weeks of time, in which Bukowski met the love of his life, Jane Cooney Baker. The account is fictionalized, as evidenced by the fact that the characters don’t share their names with Bukowski or Baker, but the characters are so odd that they couldn’t come from anywhere except real life.

It takes a little while to get into Barfly. For the first few scenes, it looks like a random 1980′s trash drama, with overreaching performances and arch dialogue. However, after the characters develop a bit, Barfly turns into a real gem. Bukowski’s script, of course, reads like one of his stories: even though it seems at a glance to be bogged down in the grime of life, it often breaks open to reveal deep, elegant insights. It’s beautiful stuff.

However, Barfly would be nothing without its two leads, Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. They both deliver larger-than-life performances, about two people who drink as a major part of their identities. You eventually get the sense that these are the only two actors big enough to fill the characters in Bukowski’s script.

The whole thing is reigned in by Barbet Schroeder, a great director who is often not remembered on lists of great directors. In watching Barfly, you marvel a bit that it doesn’t spin apart at the seams, but it works thanks to Schroeder’s deft hand.

Barfly has long been out-of-print on VHS and DVD, which made the Ebertfest showing that much more impressive. However, I am told that you can rent the film as a streaming video from Amazon.com, so if you want to see it, you are not entirely out of luck.

The Q&A after the film was wonderful. Barbet Schroeder (far left) told dozens of stories about making the film with Bukowski, many of which are touched upon in IMDB’s trivia section about Barfly. The best tale, of course, was the about how Schroeder convinced Cannon Films to put the movie on their production list. Schroeder injected his finger with novocaine, walked into the Cannon offices with a power saw, and threatened to cut off his finger until the producers said yes.

I think that story alone was worth the drive to Champaign, IL.

The first film up on Friday was a Japanese film called Departures, perhaps better known to westerners as the film that Japan entered for Best Foreign Film candidacy for the 2009 Academy Awards. In Japan, I am told that movies like this are called “wet” movies, and after watching it, I know why. I tend not to seek out sentimental films, as they generally fall outside my interest zone and leave me cold. This one, however, rightfully had me weeping like a five-year-old with a skinned knee, and yet didn’t insult my intelligence by going for the cheap emotional hits.

Departures is a gorgeously-shot, charming, unabashedly sentimental film about a Japanese cellist who has to take a job as a mortician. Apparently, this is a job that is seen as “unclean” in Japan, so this poor guy winds up hiding his real profession from his wife, even though he soon learns that it is a vitally important career, one that he grows to love and even appreciate as an art form.

It’s a beautiful film, so beautiful that the rich images and carefully honed sounds alone will probably make you grab for the Kleenex. But it’s the characters and performances that really bring life into this movie. Every once in a while, you see a movie that is about good people trying to be good to each other, and it makes you feel good, too. This is one of those.

After the film, director Yojiro Takata went up to the stage for a Q&A, speaking to our audience through a translator. The most insightful thing he said was that he chose a cello as the musician’s instrument because it sounds most like a human voice, and because the motion of playing the cello mirrors many of the motions of the Japanese casketing ritual. That’s the sort of movie we are taking about here: very human, very rich, very beautiful.

The next film up was this year’s silent movie: Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, accompanied live by the Alloy Orchestra.

I have seen a lot of cool things on the silver screen in my life. One of my favorite film experiences of my life was seeing Buster Keaton’s The General accompanied by a Dixieland band, while Peter Jackson sat behind me.

Was seeing Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by Alloy Orchestra cooler than that? Very nearly. It was jaw-dropping. The Alloy Orchestra has apparently been performing this particular film for ten years; if you ever get the chance to see them score it live, you should run, not walk, to get tickets. Sell limbs if you have to.

I’d seen Man with a Movie Camera before, back in the fog of time when I was a film student at the University of Minnesota. I hadn’t seen it since, but I’ve always loved it. The film is a movie about making movies, only it’s a stretch to call it a documentary. Essentially, the film is 68 minutes of a man running around Moscow with a movie camera, taking random shots of life and editing them together. The film doesn’t tell a story as much as it leaves a visual and rhythmic impression of Soviet life in 1929. The images themselves are highly experimental: double exposures, early split screen, cameras (and their operators) strapped to cars and underneath trains, freeze frames. We see film of the editor, cutting the film itself together; we see the camera itself, dwarfing the city in a trick shot that involved double exposure and mirrored screens.

The film itself is cool as hell. But the score provided by Alloy Orchestra made the experience the sort of thing that makes you want to leap to your feet and be alive. Alloy’s score is heavily percussive, at turns modern and classic, lyrical and cacophonous. It matches the film perfectly.

You can buy a DVD of the film with Alloy’s score at their web site. I will be buying a copy, certainly. You should, too. However, the real treat is to see them perform the film live. See it if you can.

(Also, I hear that they are RIGHT NOW flying to the Turner Classic Movies festival, to score the new complete cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. If you can, go. GO NOW. I’ll envy you forever.)

The last film of the night was Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, a movie that Roger Ebert has deemed “the film of the decade.” Charlie Kaufman himself was there to introduce and talk about the film. The theater sold out completely.

Guess what? I didn’t go.

I’ve seen Synecdoche, New York before. While I don’t agree that it’s the film of the decade, I do agree that it is one of the densest pieces of cinematic art I’ve ever seen. It’s the sort of film that people can write their doctoral thesis upon. There are parts of the film that blew my mind enough that my jaw literally dropped open in the theater. Other parts of the film leave me cold; those parts make art feel dead and humorless, and the characters are the types of characters I want to strangle.

Synecdoche, New York is the sort of movie that splits audiences down the middle. I know people who loathe the film. I know people who love it. I can see reasoning for both. My highest praise for the film is this: you should see it. You might not like it, but it will make you think and digest. The movie is not a waste of time, even if you hate it. As art that makes your brain chew, it is highly successful.

I would like to see the film again, and I would have loved to see Kaufman talk about his work. But it boils down to this: I’ve been sitting in a theater for three days. I’d hardly gotten a chance to see Champagne/Urbana. I’d hardly gotten a chance to hang out with my friend Tom, who is graciously providing me with crash space during the festival. As much as I love film, it doesn’t supplant real life.

The fact that I opted instead to go drink a heinous thing called a “gin & Squirt” at the local dive bar isn’t a condemnation of Synecdoche, New York. It was simply my way of reminding myself that even simple, ordinary life is grander than even the wildest things that can be put on a screen. Plus, the fact that I gave up my seat meant that someone else, who perhaps hadn’t seen the film before, got to see it.

So, in short: see the Synecdoche, New York, and don’t mix Squirt with gin. Seriously. It tastes like a chemical factory had a car accident with a spruce tree.

First, I’ll tackle something I said yesterday, in which I said “more on that later” but never followed up. Sorry for the tease. I ran out of time at the coffee shop and forgot to return to the subject.

Basically, I’m sad to report that, due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland which has canceled most flights from Europe, Ebertfest is not enjoying visits from many of the filmmakers promised in the festival materials. So far, Jessica Lundberg, Johan Carlsson, Bill Nighy, and Walter Murch (whose planned appearance was the main reason I drove here in the first place) were/are all unable to be here to talk about their work. Unfortunately, this means that the Q&A sessions after the films have mostly consisted of critics talking about the movies, instead of the actual creators talking about their movies. Sadly, for me, this means that I’ve become mostly uninterested in the Q&A sessions. I can get critique and trivia from IMDB.com; what I can’t get just anywhere is actual discussion with the people who actually make this stuff.

Of course, Ebertfest can’t control volcanic activity in Iceland. It’s just an unfortunate turn of events. Still, with all the projection equipment and the availability of Skype, you’d think someone would have rigged up a live webcam chat with the folks who have had to cancel.

Thursday’s lineup started at noon with a film named Munyurangabo, which I have yet to learn to spell without looking it up. I am determined to learn how to spell it, however, as I expect to be recommending it a lot to other people. It is my favorite “new to me” film of the festival so far, which is impressive, as You, the Living gave it a good run for its money.

The plot of Munyurangabo is one we all know, but the film tells it in such a way that you don’t really piece together which plot you are watching until the end of the film. The film is hauntingly simple, completely unafraid to linger on quiet moments. As such, I am reluctant to say more about the plot of the movie, except for the fact that it is set in current-day Rwanda, and it stars two teenaged boys. No, it’s not about the Rwandan genocide of 1994, but it is about the youth who grew up in its aftermath.

After the film, Lee Isaac Chung (director), Sam Anderson (writer/producer), and Jenny Lund (sound/producer) held a Q&A, which is where most of us in the audience heard a story as fascinating as the one told in the film.

A few years ago, Mr. Chung, a South Korean/American man, decided to start teaching film in Rwanda. He felt that, in order to do this, he should first make a film. Munyurangabo was filmed in 11 days. The script was a plot outline; the dialogue was mostly improvised by the actors. As such, it is the first dramatic feature ever to be in Kinyarwanda.

I love that we now live in a world where a film like Munyurangabo can get made like that: 11 days with a handheld camera and improvised lines. It really can work, people. Get out there and make movies.

The next film in the lineup was The New Age, which was as different from Munyurangabo as you can get. Peter Weller and Judy Davis (who were also co-stars in Naked Lunch three years prior) star as two halves of a disconnected marriage. Both are unhappy, self-absorbed, morally bankrupt, culturally bankrupt, and monetarily bankrupt. In a last-ditch effort to save their rich LA lifestyle/rich LA home/rich LA marriage, they open a high-end clothing store named Hipocracy.

The film was made in 1994 by writer/director Michael Tolkin (who was one of the other filmmakers who escaped the wrath of the volcano and actually made it to Ebertfest). Tolkin is also the man who wrote Robert Altman’s The Player, which shares the same sort of personally-blanched early-1990′s LA characters. He writes these types of characters extremely well; you may not like them, but you at least know how they tick. Even though you might not want to admit it, there really are people like this in the world, and yes, they are people like you and me. In fact, The New Age rather impressively explains the rise of new age culture amongst the LA set, better than almost any other analysis I’ve ever seen.

The timing of this film at Ebertfest was also impressive. In 1994, the United States was in a financial crisis much like the one we have now in 2010. Within the first five minutes, Judy Davis’ character launches into a impassioned rant about collapsing banks and shopping malls that had the audience in the theater cheering. It also served as a fascinating counterpoint to Munyurangabo: the Rwandan genocide started on April 9, 1994. The New Age is what people in LA were doing as Rwanda ate itself. Even though that LA culture horrifies me anyway, pairing such characters against what was actually happening in the world turned the contrast dial to the maximum.

Beyond that, I have a tough time succinctly articulating how I feel ab0ut The New Age. It’s an extraordinarily well-written film. The characters behave in ways that you don’t expect, but you do understand. The ending, in particular, fascinated me. However, as much as I like the film as a cineast, I don’t enjoy the film. I felt much the same about The Player, which is achingly smart, and yet it leaves me not just cold, but clammy. I feel much the same about Wes Anderson movies. I suspect it’s because all these films are about a class of people I have never really understood, and the cultural/emotional vacancy that goes along with that crowd truly bothers me.

But that’s just me. Your mileage will likely vary. The LA crowd are people, too, and they deserve art that reflects their view of the world.

I will close with a comment from Michael Tolkin himself, which he made after watching the film with us: “It’s much more personal than I remember. There are things in there that are basically letters to me.”

The final film of the night was the “redux” print of Apocalypse Now. This film was made when I was four years old. I think I first watched it when I was 11. I know nearly every line by now. I never remember to include it in “my favorite movies” lists, but it is a movie that I have a long relationship with.

I won’t discuss the film itself much here, as most people have seen it, and the world has had over 30 years to talk about it. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s one of the best war films ever made, and you will suddenly find yourself understanding more Animaniacs jokes.

The Redux version of Apocalypse Now is around 50 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. I still haven’t decided if I like the re-edit more than the original. It certainly works. Unlike many “director’s cuts”, the extra material doesn’t throw off the pacing of the film here. However, I’m still not sure that the inclusion of a long scene at a French plantation really adds much to the experience aside from length.

I do, however, love the Redux version on one front: the restoration of the film is amazing. The print I saw last night, struck in 2000, was pristine. I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now look so good. The colors were lush, and the blacks were black. It made digital projection look embarrassing. And the remix of the sound was nothing short of spectactular. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a more satisfying aural experience in a movie theater. There were many times I just closed my eyes and listened to the film.

Plus, overall, there is nothing like seeing Apocalypse Now in a theater. It’s a feast for the senses, on the scale equivalent to eating three Thanksgiving dinners in a row. After seeing the film on the big screen, all you want to do is crawl off and rest.

In fact, that’s exactly what I did after the film. I didn’t stick around for the Q&A. I was wrung out like a dishrag. Maybe it’s good that Walter Murch didn’t show up, as I don’t know if I would have had the fortitude to stay around for his discussion.

Today is a rainy, hazy day here in Chambana: perfect for going to the movies. Catch you later!

• Microsoft released a 64gb Zune HD, didn’t tell anybody, most didn’t notice
• Microsoft Kin: smartphone for the dumb generation
• Apple iPhone OS 4 is coming
• Dear Google: Please fix  things *before* launch
• Another ownership tussle puts next Bond film on hold
• Avatar on Blu-Ray/DVD
• Yea, we know.  Star Wars is coming to Blu-Ray.  Please don’t make us buy I-III just to get IV-VI

Peeks:

• Richard – Torchlight
• Melissa – Ebertfest

Ebertfest is a five-day film festival, hosted by film critic of Roger Ebert. (Yes, that’s the same Roger Ebert from At the Movies. Yes, it’s the same guy who recently declared that video games could never be art. I’m wearing a Legend of Zelda jacket to the film festival today, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.) The festival takes place in his collegiate hometown of Champaign, at a gorgeous art deco building called The Virginia Theatre. It consists of 13 films; most are recent overlooked films or older classics. There is usually one 70mm print placed on the screen, and there is usually one silent film scored by live musicians. This year’s Ebertfest includes such things as Apocalypse Now Redux (a title that always makes my inner chemist wince, but my inner cineast leap for joy), Dziga Vertov’s amazing Man With a Movie Camera, and Song Sung Blue.

I’ve never been to Ebertfest before, but the combined efforts of The Virginia Theatre, My Faithful Native Guide Mirko, and a complete and total stranger named Barbara landed me both free lodging and a pass to the festival (which have been sold out since early January). Thus, yesterday I made the nine-hour drive from Minneapolis to Champaign, through the beautiful sunlit rolling fields of the central United States. After Mirko treated me to beers at a place called The Blind Pig, and we found sustenance at a place called Cowboy Monkey (best. restaurant. name. ever.), I was released into the theater.

I managed to score a seat in the front row of the balcony. I sadly had a corner of plexiglass in my line of sight toward the screen, but with a seat like that, I couldn’t complain much.

Chaz Ebert, Roger’s charming and gregarious wife, opened the festival with a short introduction. She was followed by a woman from the Illinois Film Board, whose name I utterly failed to write down. (Sadly, the Ebertfest materials, combined with the Icelandic volcanic eruption, has made it difficult for me to track who was talking live. More on that later.) Then Illinois governor Pat Quinn came onstage with Roger Ebert himself. After a very lengthy and glowing speech from Gov. Quinn, April 21st was declared “Ebertfest Day”. Speeches and applause all around.

Roger himself got up to the podium for a speech and looked quite spry, which is remarkable for a man whose jaw has been taken away by thyroid cancer. Roger manages to speak to audiences these days through his Apple laptop, which was always nearby when he was on stage. The computer voice sounds a bit Stephen Hawking-ish, but really, Apple’s text-to-speech software has come a long way since I first toyed with around 15 years ago. The robotic nature of the computerized voice was softened by the fact that Roger would humorously gesture along with it, once he set it rolling.

(Is it wrong of me to want to see him debate Hawking on something? Just once?)

The first item of the festival was a short film called “Stand By Me”. Do yourself a favor and watch it right now:

This was followed by a 35mm print of Pink Floyd The Wall, which always makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind would get stoned before watching this film. I’d never seen it in a theater before, though, so last night’s viewing was a cinematic joy (of sorts… The Wall evokes a lot of emotion for most folks, but “joy” usually isn’t in the mix). My one lament is that the print was not the 70mm print promised by the festival materials. However, the 70mm print apparently came in from Britain, but failed inspection by the festival runners. (In the words of one of the festival organizers, the print was, “Pink. Very pink. Too pink.” Funny in this context, yes, but it’s sad that the only 70mm print of The Wall in existence has deteriorated that much.) Thankfully, Warner Brothers provided a 35mm print at the last minute, or else we wouldn’t have seen the film at all.

Much has been said about The Wall since 1982, and I doubt I could shed much more light on it here, especially since my half hour is mostly up. A panel of international film critics discussed the film for around an hour after the showing, and mostly determined that the film was about the parallels between fascism and rock & roll, the isolation of self, and the life of Roger Waters.

The most interesting observation of the night came from Tom Dark, the one critic on stage who hadn’t seen the film before that night. He theorized that rock & roll prevented World War III, by venting the anger and frustration of youth.

Well, how do you follow The Wall? With a Swedish comedy about isolation, of course.

I’m talking about a film called You, the Living, which came out a couple years ago, and which I saw for the first time last night. My first post on Twitter about the film said: “You, the Living is a movie I can’t really describe. I can at least describe The Wall. Consider that.” I did enjoy the film immensely. There are portions of the film that I found howlingly funny, and individual scenes are genuine works of art. But I don’t have the words to describe it.

Thankfully, a hastily-assembled panel of critics discussed the film at length at midnight, and they provided me with the right words. I lament that I don’t have any of their names at hand (if I can figure out who they were today, I’ll post a correction). One critic described it as, “an Alfred Hitchcock plot as written by Samuel Beckett.” Another said it was “like The Far Side crossed with Ingmar Bergman.” A third noted that it was “like being stuck in the ugliest IKEA ever.” All three descriptions are apt, and yet they fail to embrace the sheer oddity of You, the Living.

I guess my description of it, as flawed as it is, is that the film is a string of 50 or so absurdist vignettes about disconnected people. One of the critics noted that the film was more like installation art than a movie, which is something I was mulling over before he said it. The movie sets up static spaces, and deadpan things happen in the spaces.

Anyway, if you have an off-kilter sense of humor, I highly recommend You, the Living. You can test his humor yourself by viewing this playlist of his commercial work on YouTube. If you laugh yourself silly by watching these, you know what to do next.

Anyway, that closed out the night, and I am now about 10 minutes behind schedule. I have to get back to the theater for today’s noon showing of Munyurangabo. Catch you tomorrow!

• R.I.P. – Microsoft Vista (link)
• Melissa has a pigeon!
• New Hard drive pre-loaded with DRM-locked films (link)
• Taylor Lautner fan to Universal Studios: “Your Wolfman ripped off Twilight” (link)

Plugs:

• Sharon Stiteler
• Safe As Houses
• The MISFITS/GPS Team Trivia Challenge
• The Charity Fragathon

• A few movie releases
• The iPad is out (and Richard has one)
• New Doctor Who is out (and Mike’s seen it)
• RIP – John Forsythe
• RIP – Ed Roberts (Founder of MITS, Inventor of Altair 8800
• The FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction over Net Neutrality enforcement (link)

Geek Peeks:

• Melissa: The MISFITS/GPS Team Trivia Challenge
• Paul: The Charity Fragathon
• Richard: Bento
• Mike: The Geek Life Facebook page

Promo:

• Geek Radio Daily

Battery life comes in at a paltry 5 hours compared to the iPads 10. Livable, but still not a day’s work which is the benchmark for me.

The real killer is the combination of a 1.66 Ghz Intel Atom Z530 and Windows 7 Home Premium. I have never been a fan of the Atom, and my experience with several different netbooks running XP or Windows 7 has not changed my opinion. While people insist you can run Windows 7 in 1 GB of RAM they are only technically right; you can also run XP in 512 MB of RAM but it will be a miserable experience.

Where Apple wins is being able to control the design of the hardware and software. This has always been the problem with Microsoft’s business model where constrained hardware devices are concerned. With desktop computers and servers you usually have enough performance overhead that programmers are no longer dropping down into machine code to squeeze every little speed gain they can because we’ve hit ‘good enough’.

I’m not against Windows 7. I do development work on it every day and believe that it is a good operating system – for full powered hardware. Anybody running it on an Atom chip with 1 GB of RAM is going to feel some pain. But my 2.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM runs it just fine.

One thing they did get right: weight. At 1.49 lbs they nailed it compared to the iPad. In this case, however, two out of three is bad.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/monolith-action-figure.shtml

Picks:

• Melissa – w00tstock and EbertFest
• Paul – The Charity Fragathon
• Richard – ‘I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay’ by John Lanchester

Promos:

• Scott Sigler’s ‘The Starter’
• Geek Survival Guide

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to Blu-Ray on April 6. Yes, these are the original theatrical cuts of the films, not the extended versions that came out on DVD previously. The only possible explanation, of course, is that Warner’s is going to double dip again – after getting people to buy two copies of the movies on DVD they’ll get them to buy two copies again on Blu-Ray.

Except that people who have a brain won’t do it. When the Rings movies came to DVD for the first time Warners was rather transparent that an extended cut of the film was coming down the road. Now that the Blu-Ray versions of the films are coming out it is also well known that the extended versions are being held back as part of a bigger box set we’ll see once the Hobbit movies are completed.

Is this just greedy witholding? No, I don’t think so.

As a cost saving measure, when the extended cuts of the films were completed in post production the effects rendering was done in 480p, most likely because they were not going to be transfered back to film for theatrical exhibition and to keep costs down. If we simply got an upconverted 480p-> 1080p image on Blu-Ray we’d hear no end of screaming about how we got ripped off. So instead the films will have to go through a post production cycle again to produce a true 1080p image, and that takes time.

Something tells me that Jackson’s production team is a busy with a little something called “The Hobbit”.

Nobody has a gun to their heads forcing them to buy this release when we damn well know another release is coming in a few years. In the meantime the existing DVDs look rather awesome on my big-screen tv even at 480p.

But I don’t see an excuse for flooding Amazon with user reviews that drag the rating down to 1.5 out of 5 just because the product is not the version people wanted. Truthfully there shouldn’t be any user reviews for this since it hasn’t been released yet, but that’s a whole different column.

A word of warning: that Avatar release on April 22 is going to be just the film with no extras (just the way I like it!). This means that someday we’ll get another release of the super extended director’s wet-dream cut, the one that runs 20 hours and begins with the Big Bang.

So while other people are bitchin’ and moanin’, I’ll be relaxing with my Blu-Ray copies of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and deciding if I want to buy Criterion’s Sanjuro/Yojimbo set. I’d rather have a heart attack because of the butter on my popcorn than the nerd rage over a video release.

I run a software development shop for a marketing company. We got dropped a very short deadline that has tied up almost all of my attention for the past few weeks. Then I got sick. Then I got better. Then I got tired from not sleeping properly.

Now to top it off my desktop computer has decided to emulate a caffeinated hyperactive two-year-old in a permanent tantrum. The MacBook Pro I use to research and record the podcasts got conscripted into serving as a development environment for testing web services.

So I’m sitting here on Sunday with a borrowed computer that doesn’t have my web links, rss feeds, or audio tools. And, of course, time. It takes a surprisingly long time to research, write up, record, edit and post 10 minutes of audio, even if most of it is just me droning on. Geek Bytes is both a hobby and test for me, to see if I could keep up with a twice a week short cast to summarize news and new releases now that The Geek Life weekly is devoted to fewer stories in more depth. Clearly, I failed the test.

Today I’m working on recovering my data from my backup discs, in preparation for a replacement for the desktop computer that should arrive sometime this coming week. I also have a deadline at the end of the week that may take up most of my time.

I don’t want to give up Geek Bytes or The Geek Life, but I don’t want to do a half-a**ed job of it either. Would the material of Geek Bytes work better in blog postings? I don’t know, but I’m willing to try it.

What I’d really like to hear is what you think. Please write to us at talkback@thegeeklife.tv or comment here. What could we do to make this more interesting or useful to you?

In the mean time, thanks for listening, and we’ll record again on Tuesday.

This week, the crew talks about:

• An Avalanche on Mars.  Caught in the act! (link)
• So Paul, what’s going on at the Summit Brewery?
• Casting in “Predators“
• What phone apps do you use?
• Mike also makes a quick plug for the Basic Brewing podcasts

Promo:

• Scott Sigler’s “The Starter”

• Valve is bringing the Steam gaming service to the Mac! (link)
• The Oscars: Were there any real surprises?

Peeks:

• Melissa: JägerCon
• Paul: Twin Cities Fragathon 2 and Robot Unicorn Attack
• Richard: Black Dynamite

Mike’s daughter, the elusive ’2.0′ even has a brief cameo!

Promo: The Geologic Podcast

• More iPad news, natch
• Valve makes Mac gamers very happy
• Microsoft does games integration like nobody else
• Microsoft Courier vaporware continues
• Ubisoft’s DRM PR nightmare
• Is Internet access a fundamental right?

• Alice in Wonderland and Miyazaki Madness in video
• More magazines coming to iPad
• No upgrades to Windows Phone 7 Series
• Google and Microsoft fling mud at each other
• Newspapers are dead, they just haven’t fallen down yet.
• Apple “admits” to child labor, but not what the headlines imply.

• Apple gets lots of good news for Steve Job’s 55th birthday
• Yahoo gets into the Twitter game
• EU says Google is next, mystery hacker says Intel next
• The rickroll may finally be no more.
• Subversion for Photoshop.

• The Apple App Store’s policy changes regarding ‘sexual content’ (Link to the chilifresh article)
• The Lower Merion School District web cam debacle (Link to the lawsuit .pdf)

Geek Peeks:

• Demonless for the iPhone
• Charity Fragathon 2! (Link soon)

Promo: Geek Survival Guide

 Webbed in a continental data-net that year by year draws tighter as more and still more information is fed to it, most people are apathetic, frightened, resigned to what ultimately will be a total abolition of individual privacy. A whole new reason has been invented for paranoia: it is beyond doubt – whoever you are! – that someone, somewhere, knows something about you that you wanted kept a secret…and you stand no chance of learning what it is.”

That was part of the dust jacket blurb for John Brunner’s “The Shockwave Rider”, a novel written in…1975.

• New video releases, now with more Ron Jeremy!
• Wal-Mart buys Vudu
• Twitterers Tweet 50 million a day
• Applying for college? Get out the video camera
• John Carmack gets UberGeek award

• Toy Story 3 Game, Starcraft 2, Sucky DRM and on-line game server shutdowns
• Metro 2033 will have more game features you can’t use yet.
• Google allows you to delete Buzz profiles as EPIC complains to FTC
• Please Rob Me
• Diff utility for Photoshop files
• Verizon will permit Skype VOIP calls on 3G
• Facebook Zero ready for mobile web browsing, no carriers support it yet

In this episode, we talk about the Apple iPad, and this year’s Oscar nominations.  Enjoy!

No, you didn’t miscount.

No, we didn’t miscount.

Truth be told, there was an issue with the recording, which resulted in Richard’s audio not getting picked up.  And by the time I found out, he was already on a plane to parts Northeast.

However, all is not lost.  We have a plan to reconstruct the episode using the pieces we have available, and we’re diligently working to get it together so we can put it up on the feed.

So yeah, there will be one episode out of order, but if all goes as it should, it will be worth it.

Mike

No, you’re not getting the full list yet.  I’ll post it on Monday

This week, the crew talks about the top 5 “Must See”: movies in their respective collections.  Want a list?  Well, you’ll just have to wait, now won’t you

Part 2 will post in a couple of days.

Links:

• Project 365
• The Twin Cities Develpoer’s Guild
• Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age
• The Adventures of Indiana Jim

See you all next year!

Via Engadget.

This episode, the crew talks about:

• Movie, video and game releases
• Sony Reader goes ePub December 11
• Barnes and Noble Nook units starting to ship
• Apple buys Lala
• Dell creates new division for mobile phones and portable devices
• Google Chrome beta for Mac and Linux released
• Virgin Galactic unveiled SpaceShipTwo, plans commercial space flights for the uber-wealthy in 2011 (Waiting for regulatory approvals and building spaceport in New Mexico.)
• FCC admits CableCard failed. Why? Since 2004, only 14 3rd party devices available, and generally are a pain to setup.
• Apple does it again: new MacPro has 2TB hard drive option for $350, get ‘em from NewEgg for < $200
• Verizon raised early termination fees up to $350 in some bases, FCC now asking them about it and how customers are notified about it
• Comcast of Borg wants to buy NBC Universal in deal with GE, will own 51%. FCC, FTC, Justice Dept staff see another 2 years guaranteed jobs.
• Handbrake updated, supposedly faster compression with smaller file

Promo played: Geek Radio Daily

• Video releases
• Game releases
• Rumor, WalMart selling Magnavox profile 1.1 BD player on Black Friday for $78, Sony & Samsung profile 2 models for $148
• But Roku delivers more smackdown: rolling out update adding new content channels Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe.
• Rogue Amoeba publically leaves iPhone App store over frustration with approval process (follows Justin Williams after Google Voice rejection). Devs went back to Mac development where speed bumps to sales don’t exist.
• Public betas for Office 2010, Project 2010, Visio 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 are now public and on MSDN/Technet.
• Woops! Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 (all versions) have a flaw in SMB File Sharing. Attack can cause target computer to lock up. No patch yet available.
• Woops! Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 have a remote code execution vulnerability. IE 8 is not affected. Time to update if you haven’t already.
• Microsoft publically released SDK for Surface, $10,000 table not included
• Windows 8 rumored for release in 2012. 3 years, no duh. Perhaps they’ll make it this time.
• Square Trade annual laptop repair survey: Asus had fewest repairs in 2 and 3 years, followed by Toshiba and Sony. Apple came fourth. HP was dead last, just after Gateway/Acer. HP failure rate over 3 years: 25%. Netbooks more likely to fail by 20%. (link)
• More Drobo: Drobo S adds a fifth drive bay and can withstand 2 drive failures, adds eSATA support. $799 with no drives.
• Makes sense: Sergey Brin says Android and Chrome OS will likely converge over time. Don’t suppose you could…plan that or show a road map?
• AdMob claims that 75% of web traffic on web sites comes from iPhone and Android.
• Large Hadron Collider operations, “We have captured it! First circulating beam of 2009!”, and we’re still here to talk about it.
• Anniversary of Origin of the Species and Lucy.
• Opinion: Apple can’t have it both ways
• Geek Peeks:
  • Richard: Left 4 Dead 2
  • Mike: Mandelbulb (link)

Promo: The Leviathan Chronicles

• In case you haven’t heard yet, There’s Water On The Moon! (link)
• NASA trying a radical, unorthodox manoever to get the Spirit rover unstuck from the patch of sand it’s in: Backing up (link)
• What Happens When You Bring a 22-Year-Old Mac to the Genius Bar? (link)
• Oh yeah, YouTube went to 1080p video (link)
• I’ll believe it when I see it – The reality of flying cars (link)
• Mike’s Geek Peek: The Feynman lectures on Project Tuva (link)

• Video Releases
• Game Releases
• News Shout outs:
  • Paranormal Activity spiked to #1 box office this past weekend.
  • Fortunately, Saw VI opened at #2
  • You gotta be kidding: Wal-Mart will do their own ‘Geek Squad’ styled home installation service.
  • Amazon will bring Kindle reading app to Windows and OS X
  • Andy Ihnatko sez Apple tablet could do digital comic books, and talks about Longbox (link)
  • Apple BootCamp does not support Windows 7 yet, Apple says by end of year
  • Apple’s Phil Shiller sez you can go shopping now: holiday product lineup is set.
  • WTF? Burger King in Japan selling a Windows 7 Whopper with seven slabs of beef(!) thankfully one week only.
  • Microsoft first quarter numbers: revenue down 14%, but still beat expectations, still made $3.5 billion. XBox 360 & Zune division doubled profit on same revenue.
  • Director of Programming for XBox Live says no Blu-Ray drive for XBox, Ballmer says future is on-demand, not physical media. Damn it.
  • Microsoft was going to sponsor entire episode of Family Guy, but not anymore.
  • The free ride’s over: News Corp executives keep saying that Hulu’s ad-supported model isn’t working, may start charging as soon as 2010.
  • PlayStation 3 to get NetFlix streaming sometime in November. Users must have a special blu-ray disc that uses BD-Live to stream content.
  • Champions Online will be free to download and play from Oct 30 – Nov 2.
  • GameFly (rent by mail service) now has iPhone app to manage your account and queue.
  • Now your iPhone is Doomed – John Carmack of id Software claims “Doom Classic” submitted to App store.
  • Someone is finally trying it! Microsoft Store in Scottsdale AZ has kiosks to burn games in-store (link)
  • Roger Daltrey claims The Who is joining the Rock Band Wagon.
  • Ars Technica seize: B&N Nook runs on top of Android.
  • Google Wave is still in “dev preview”, and already they’re talking about an “App Store” for extensions to the service. WTF?
  • Fasten your seat belts. FCC drafting net neutrality rules; McCain proposing “Internet Freedom Act of 2009″ specifically to prevent the FCC from implementing them.
• Cool thing of the week:
  • VScan – ultrasound scanner with the form factor of a clamshell phone. (link)

Promos Played:

• 7th Son: Descent
• The Geologic Podcast

Today is the release of J.C. Hutchins book, 7th Son: Descent from St. Martin’s Press.  Let’s show Hutch some love, and help him prove how this New Media stuff works.  Head on over and take part during the Amazon blitz, going on today, and let’s help him reach the top of the Amazon charts!

Don’t want to take my word for it?  Fine. Take a look at the first ten chapters, then order the book for yourself

This week, the crew talks about:

• Video releases
• Game releases
• Movies
• Apple’s new kit
• Computing news
• Tech news
• Gaming news
• Science! news

Promos played:

• 7th Son: Descent
• Movie Mantras

Some highlights:

• Toys ‘r Us has buy 2 get 1 free deal until October 17. (link)
• New Toy Story 3 trailer is up! (link)
• The Big Download tells you What PC Gamers Need to Know about Windows 7. (link)
• The cloud fails…again…and lessons learned
• But crappy passwords are also still a problem. Lessons learned. (link)
• Software Patents are Rotten Story #4,826,021

Our usual post production tools weren’t available to me, so…enjoy anyway.

• Video Releases
• Game releases
• News Briefs
• Queue the violins – Jack Thompson is suing Facebook (link)
• Self proclaimed ‘Anarchist’ arrested for tweeting out The Fuzz to protesters (link)
• A new ebook reader is coming out, and prices are only going to get lower (link)
• New-Egg posts OEM prices for Windows7 (link)
• Gizmodo won’t shut up about Microsoft’s ‘Courier’ (link)

Promos played:

• Movie Mantras
• The Adventures of Indiana Jim

• Videos!
• Movies!
• Games!
• News Shoutouts
• Microsoft retail stores – Are we comparing them to the wrong thing?
• Intel’s app store for Moblin is up (link)
• iRex DR 800SG ebook reader
• Courier: What is it? (link)
• It’s Official: Morons ruin it for the rest of us. (link)

Promo: Sessions With Slau

Also, in case you need a reference for the title: You can check out the video.

I’m still amazed that you can’t see any evidence on this thing that it had been dropped, except for a small ding you have look for to see.

Happy listening!

• Video Releases
• Microsoft XBox Rebate
• This is a game changer
• Google’s changing the browser game. Again (link)
• Microsoft Office for Mac changes
• BeOS Lives! (link)
• Apple gives Grand Central Dispatch to open source
• Intel launches development program for Netbooks
• AMD to release AM3 6-core processors next year, but compatible with AM3 and AM2+ motherboards.
• Days of not using anti-virus on Windows are over.
• MySpace adds sync with Twitter

Note: For some reason, the web player below is playing Episode 26, even though it’s not supposed to.  I’m looking into it.  In the mean time, iTunes, the RSS feed and the ‘Download’ link all work the way they’re supposed to, and *clicking on the post title, so only this post is displayed* will get the web player to behave properly.

• Video releases
• Intel begins manufacturing 32-nm chips
• Leaked Toys r Us ad shows $50 price cut for Wii?
• Lenovo announces two convertible laptop/tablet models (with Touch interface)
• HP introduces MacBook clone that is more expensive than MacBook
• Novell releases “MonoTouch“, develop iPhone apps in .NET
• Apple revises Apple TV products, but not enough
• Sega Dreamcast 10 years old this month!
• We’re running out of IP v4 addresses…again!
• Zune HD ships
• The Apple event: How close were we?

• Video releases
• IBM announced POWER7 chip with 8 processing cores. PowerPC is not dead!
• AMD announced an upcoming 12-core processor for servers due in 2010.
• Opera just won’t quit, releases Opera 10
• 16 and 32gb Zune models will be on the only ones for sale; all existing models retired.
• Windows Mobile 6.5 phones to ship October 6, but we know WinMo 7 is coming.
• Diebold out of the electronic voting market; sells “Premier Election Solutions” to ES&S for $5 million
• Separation of public and private life continues to blur (link)
• Are you kidding?! Library ditches books for big screens, computers and e-readers (link)
• Sony brings price war to eBook market
• Apple holds event Sept 9 – (How wrong were we?)

Promos played:

• I Should Be Writing
• Nobody’s Listening Podcast

• Video releases
• New iPod models expected in September announcement.
• Snow Leopard is out
• FTC bans Robo-Calls… sort of.
• DHS Seizure guidelines clarified, still ugly (link)
• US District Court of Appeals overturns cable company ownership limits (link)
• Video game console competition create price war
• Wait, Disney bought Marvel?!

Promos Played

• Variant Frequencies
• The Geek Spin

• Video releases
• Paul has a rant about “Wiseguy”
• Office 2010 for Mac will have honest to God Outlook, really, we mean it this time
• Apple re-introduces anti-glare option for 15″ MacBook Pros, but it’ll cost ya $50 extra
• University of Washington introduces certificate programs for OS X and iPhone development
• Sony moving ebook store to ePub standard, introducing $199 reader this fall
• TomTom has navigation App for iPhone: Only $99.99 for US & Canada!
• Mike had a surreal moment the other day
• The music migration continues (link)
• Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word.  Word. (link)
• ‘Bodies’ exhibit at Mall of America

Promos played:

• Movie Mantras
• The Geologic Podcast
• Sessions with Slau

In other news, I noticed I said “you know” a lot in this episode.  I really have to work on that…

• Facebook bought FriendFeed?
• 40th Anniversary of Moon Landing
• Apple’s App store reaches 1.5 billion downloads in about a year. That’s a lot of little bits. Too bad so many of them were flatulence apps.
• Melissa Kaercher’s TAM7 report
• Windows 7 Hits TechNet
• Microsoft will open retail stores near Apple stores. Best way to guarantee failure: imitate instead of doing your own thing.
• Evans data study says developers surveyed using Ruby increased from 10% in 2008 to 14%, with 20% expecting in the coming year
• Anniversary: Narodowe Melodye – Our theme song – was recorded July 24, 1922. Happy 87th Anniversary! (link)
• Survey: People who use subscription and streaming services tend to buy more CDs. (link)
• It isn’t Orwellian, yet…just an unfortuante coincidence (link)
• Bored? Stanford prof sequences own genome in a week (link)
• Still bored? Scientists get a million Linux kernels to run at once (link)

Promos Played:

• The Adventures of Indiana Jim
• Mike’s Hot Dish

• A short announcement from Mike about the quality of the next few episodes
• Video releases
• Quick news shoutouts
• “Asteroids” – The Movie?! (link)
• Windows 7 – “Family Pack” licencing? (link)
• Violating terms of service is not a crime (link)
• Nope, There’s no vested interest here (link)
• Another reason to use less-than-dominant Operating Systems (link)
• WTF? – News media has no obligation to tell the truth. (link)
• Paul’s Geek Peek – The Plinth Cam! (link)

Promos Played:

• Mike’s Hot Dish
• Geek Survival Guide
• Scott Sigler’s ‘The Rookie’

Elektra has re-released the catalog for “The Cars”, with shiny new remasters, on CD. Nothing fancy or new in the packaging. The CDs are going for $6.99 at Best Buy and Amazon (and Amazon shows the MSRP as $7.99).

iTunes has these albums too. They can be yours for $9.99 each. So much for that “variable pricing” the labels insisted they had to have.

Honestly though, CDs should have come down to this price point years ago. When they first started shipping in the 80s the criticism that they were expensive (and compared to vinyl they really were!) was countered by the argument that as volume increased costs would go down. Somehow they never did until mass discounters like Best Buy and WalMart were willing to sell them at cost or as loss leaders to get foot traffic into their stores.

I feel such a luddite for still buying CDs, but I get a nice plastic backup copy of my tunes and sometimes a nifty little booklet with lyrics. In this case, it was cheaper than the download. Imagine that.

Now where’s my LP of Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven”?

• Video releases
• New Futurama Episodes coming! (link)
• Give your Kindle that New Book Smell (link)
  • (although, I half expect Demeter Fragrance to come out with this… – MT)
• 3 Actors signed for The Hobbit movies
• O’Reilly publishes The Geek Atlas (link)
• This is news? – ZD Net CIO Jury: wait on Windows 7 (link)
• 46 movie remakes currently in the works: Who needs originality? (link)

Promos played:

• The Geologic Podcast
• The Adventures of Indiana Jim

• Video releases
• Tetris is 25 years old. Go play it.
• 50k Palm Pre sold on opening weekend. Not great, but not bad.
• Friday, June 12. Digital TV switch is gonna happen this time, for real, seriously, we mean it.
• Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference
• Stupid Microsoft Stories:
  • MS further limits netbooks (link)
  • Internet Explorer 6 forced to set Bing as default search engine? (link)
  • Best Buy makes hay of Vista’s crappy image (link)
• Kindle DX at the Univ. of Washington (link)
• WTF were you thinking? – Sony’s new PSP (link)

Promos played:

• The Leviathan Chronicles
• Geek Survival Guide
• Variant Frequencies

• Video releases
• Amazon Kindle DX to start shipping June 10 (link)
• The Matrix Online proves the final movie’s tagline “everything that has a beginning has an end” (link)
• BlizzCon second block of tickets sells out in 30 minutes (link)
• Sell used games, give up your fingerprints? (link)
• Games become the next software subscription service (link)
• Windows 7 Starter Edition loses 3-app limit (link)
• WTF were you thinking? – Quo Computer – Mac clones? (link)
• Geek Peeks
  • Richard: “Up”.
  • Mike: The Falkirk Wheel, Scotland (link)
    • With video, no less (link)

Promos:

• Scott Sigler’s ‘The Rookie’
• The Adventures of Indiana Jim
• The Geek Spin

• Video Releases
• A new media streaming unit?  Where is this going?
• Amazon changes their Kindle email pricing. (link)
• WTF? PeTA boycotting Canadian maple syrup? (link)

Promo: Nina Kimberly The Merciless

• Video releases
• Star Trek opening weekend
• Maybe the Kindle won’t save newspapers after all (link)
• Microsoft announces non-announcement we all already knew about (link)
• The new Microsoft Ad: As if we haven’t heard this argument before (link)

Promos Played:

• The Geek Survival Guide
• Metamor City

• Video Releases
• Movies
• Myst is now on the iPhone!
• Useless, but cool:  Reiner van der Ende’s game component X-Ray gallery (link)
• Windows 7 release candidate available to the public
• A bunch of rumors about Amazon, Apple and Sony
• Geek Peeks:
  • Richard – Zombieville USA (link)
  • Paul – Earth Impact Database (link)

Promos played this week:

• J.C. Hutchins’ Personal Effects: Sword of Blood
• Nobody’s Listening
• Variant Frequencies

So, we’ve been getting a bunch of comments lately from spammers.  Due to this, I have turned on the “Users must be registered and logged in” setting for comments to help curb this for now.  I would love to be able to have something like Captcha enabled for comments, but there doesn’t seem to be an option for it (and I’m at work, so I’m not going to have the time to really research it right now).   Sorry it had to come to this.

Mike

And, as a special bonus, they’re all backed by the full recording of Narodowe Melodye – A polka recorded in 1922 that we use as the theme for the podcast (courtesy of The Internet Archive)!  How cool is that?

Enjoy the look back, and we’ll see you again when we’re all feeling better (or at least well enough to record again).

• Video Releases
• Gasp! or Ha-Ha! OS X BotNet may be in the wild (link)
• Digital continues to reduce cost of entry (link)
• O’Reilly announces 160 titles for Amazon Kindle without DRM (link)
• CompUSA is back?! (link)
• Amazon adds HD content (link)
• Richard goes on a Rant (link)

Promos:

• The Takeover
• Nobody’s Listening
• Metamor City
• Nina Kimberly the Merciless

• Movie releases
• Wizards of the Coast takes their ball and goes home (link)
• Ars reviews the DSi (link)
• Will Microsoft’s ad campaign backfire… Again? (link)
• I mean come on, Warhammer Online could do better marketing…like this (link)
• Another one bites the dust: Starlog in print no more (link)
• Geek Peeks:
  • LaCie iamaKey – a SB keychain drive that will actually fit on your keychain (link)
  • ‘Matter’ by Ian Banks (link)

Promos Played:

• I Should Be Writing
• Krakens Quest
• Commit Yourself to The Brink

• Video Releases
• Microsoft claims 96% of Netbooks run Windows (link)
• But older versions of Windows aren’t going away… (link)
• Nintendo DSi now available in the US
• Saying goodbye to the chain DVD rental store? (link)
• Toy Story gets a 3D release (link)
• Discussion: Are 3D movies staying, or just a fad (again)?

Promos played:

• Mur Lafferty’s ‘The Takeover’
• The Leviathan Chronicles
• Nathen Lowell’s ‘Quarter Share’

Here is the video to accompany the theme song from the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, written and performed by George Hrab.

From Geo: “It features me, a number of silly hats, and the city of Bethlehem. No Geos were harmed during the making of this film. They were however made to feel really dizzy. Enjoy!”
……………………………….
Check out: 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast
The Geologic Podcast

Here’s the video

• Video Releases
• The International Year of Astronomy (link)
• Netflix charging more for BluRay?  Yeah, that’ll end well. (link)
• PS2 is $99, what about the PS3? (link)
• The new EEEPC: Netbook, or Laptop? (link)
• That computer you once would have paid $3000 for is now only $49.95 (link)
• Skype for the iPhone (link)
• The new Microsoft ad: What are they selling again? (link)

Promos played in this episode:

• Nina Kimberly The Merciless (link)
• Vairant Frequencies (link)
• The Geologic Podcast (link)

• Video Releases
• Internet Explorer 8 released (link) (another link)
• Silverlight 3 announced (link)
• iTunes adds HD movies to computer and Apple TV (link)
• World Domination I can handle – Netflix on Wii? (link)
• Dear Dell: Not everything Apple does needs to be emulated (link)
• Warner Archive: A good thing? (link)
• Meanwhile, Some geeks never lose their cool (link)
• Warcraft Dual Talent Trees coming (link)
• BSG Finale – Better on DVR?

Promos played in this episode:

• Billibub Baddings and The Case Of the Singing Sword (link)
• Space Casey (link)
• The Nut Gallery (link)
• Nobody’s Listening (link)

• Video / Movie News
  • Transformers 3 already?
  • Michael Bay and Ewe Boll films
• Intel vs AMD – Again
• Windows CE – Good for Netbooks?
• WTF – SyFy?
• iPhone 3.0 Software Announced
  • (In which Mike goes off on a tiny geek-out about LCD body displays)

(Note: During the recording, Paul’s Audacity crashed while trying to record the iPhone 3.0 segment.  Twice.  We decided to record the rest, then do the iPhone segment at the end, just in case it happened again, hence the general mayhem about it during the other segments. – MT)

Promos played this week:

• J.C. Hutchins wants you to ‘Commit Yourself To The Brink’ (link)
• Krakens Quest (link)
• The Nut Gallery (link)

• Video releases
• Just in time for Rich: Kindle reader for iPhone/iPod Touch
• Why does computer shopping have to be such a dismal experience?
• Microsoft introduces yet another search engine: Kumo (link)
• Apple’s new Kit: What?
• Geek Peeks:
  • Richard:  “House of the Dead: Overkill” for Wii
  • Mike:  Geek Merit Badges! (link)

Promos in this episode:

• J.C. Hutchins wants you to ‘Commit Yourself To The Brink’ (link)
• I Should Be Writing (link)
• Variant Frequencies (link)
• Christiana’s Shallow Thoughts (link)

• New releases
• Failed formats, past and present
• Paul’s G1 Android Phone review
• Me Too Me Too! – The Microsoft Store
• Kindle 2 announced
• Goodbuy, Pioneer
• MMO data – The next privacy problem? (link)
• Hey, Matt Smith haters – WTF?
• Geek Peeks:
  • Richard – Foxmarks (link)
  • Paul – “Paradox: Book I of the Nulapeiron Sequence” by John Meaney (link)
  • Mike – Audacity (link)

• The Digital TV Transition: Delayed? (link)
• Windows 7: Did MS get this one right? (link)
• Nothing else

Well okay, we talked about plenty more, but we had a slight problem…

On the bright side, you now know how we do the recordings!

See you next week!

• New Video Releases
• Laptops outship desktops globally (link)
• Nintendo beats XBox beats PS3 (link)
• Microsoft Certification: So easy, a nine year old can do it! (link)
• Roku box adds Amazon Video on Demand streaming (link)
• That was inevitable: LG adds NetFlix streaming in TV (link)
• Google Android showing up on netbooks already
• Windows 7 looking pretty good so far (link)
• It’s MacWorld!  Since we recorded this the night before the keynote, all we have are guesses and speculation.  You’ll know if we were wrong the moment you hear the predictions.  Instant gratification for the win!

iLife is starting to suffer from featuritis. Sure, the face and geo-tagging features of iPhoto are kind of nice, but as time goes on the application grows more complex. I won’t know for sure until I get my hands on a copy, but moving from the original albums to ‘events’ stacks took some adjusting.

The big feature I like in GarageBand is “Artist Lessons”. My big complaint about games like Guitar Hero is that they actually teach you nothing about playing a real guitar. (I’ve read that the musicians who do best at these games are drummers, for obvious reasons). I think its really neat - and shows some real educational potential – that for $4.99 you can download an add-on for GarageBand and Sting will teach you how to play one of this songs. If this gains any popularity I can see it being used as a promotional vehicle (given away free when you buy the whole album, for example).

As for iWork, while I think it is pretty and works fine for light work, it is no replacement for Office. (Heck, even Office 2008 for Mac isn’t a replacement for Office on Windows, but that is a different conversation.) I’ve said before that Apple needs to take Bento and bundle it in to iWork so you get a database app too.

My biggest disappointment has to be the 17″ MacBook Pro. Having a sealed, non-user replaceable battery in the MacBook Air I understand: for most people the Air is not their primary computer but a travel companion, so being out of use for a few days while Apple does the battery replacement is not too heinous. But the kind of people buying a 17″ workhorse may need the extended battery life, and won’t want to go without their computer for something as stupid as a battery replacement. Every manufacturer’s projections on battery life and the number of charging cycles the battery can take are badly over stated.

But take a look at what $2,799 buys you: 2.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, a 320 gb hard drive (running at 5400 rpm!), and a gorgeous 1920×1200 LED display with an NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT. I can get those specs out of a Windows PC for less than $2000. Great that you can finally break the 4GB barrier in a notebook, but upgrading to 8 GB RAM will set you back another $1,000 as a build-to-order option.  Don’t forget to throw in for a mini-display port to DVI or VGA adapter if you do presentations.

This is clearly a high-margin notebook for working professionals and consumers with lots of spare cash.

The best news has to be the iTunes music store going DRM-FREE 256 kbps AAC for all tracks. Songs purchased will now play nicely with other music players supporting AAC (such as the Zune), and for most people the 256 kbps tracks are as close to CD as their listening environment will permit. Now there are just two more improvements needed: allow customers to re-download their purchases if a download goes bad or they suffer a data loss, and remove DRM from the video store purchases while getting hard on content providers about the quality of their MPEG-4 files. If I have to pay $15 for a movie or $35-$40 for a TV season, I would at least like to see the purchase match DVD quality, and MPEG-4 can do it.

Promos:

• Christiana Ellis’ Shallow Thoughts (link)
• Variant Frequencies (link)
• Quarter Share, by Nathan Lowell (link)

Have a happy, fun and safe holiday, which ever one you celebrate, and we’ll see you next year!

• DVD/BluRay releases
• George is at it again – Star Wars in 3D?
  • Link for the “Give it to Berman” reference: (link)
• Promo: The Leviathan Chronicles (link)
• Songbird: The iTunes killer?  It depends… (link)
• Promo: I Should Be Writing (link)
• Security: White-listing versus signature-based malware detection?
• Promo: The Geologic Podcast (link)
• Ugly Christmas Present #2: Does violating a web sites “Terms of Service” constitute a computer crime? (link)
• Promo: Variant Frequencies (link)
• Geek Peeks:
  • Mike: Blurb – Self Publishing, On Demand (link)
  • Pau: Squids got elbows! (link)
  • Richard: 2600 – A Hacker Odyssey (link)

• DVD / BluRay releases
• Promo: Space Casey (link)
• Netbooks: New market, or just a fad?
  • Pro article (link)
  • Not so pro (link)
• Promo: I Should Be Writing (link)
• Ugly Christmas Present – BitTorrent sounds like it’s going to get ugly (link)
• Announcement from Mike: Sorry, but there’s no more show this week

Here’s what’s in store this week:

• DVD / BluRay releases
• Promo: The Geologic Podcast (link)
• History Channel releasing season 1 of ‘The Universe’ on BluRay
• General discussion on BluRay and HD
• Promo: 7th Son – Book 1: Descent (link)
• What will Black Friday bring this year?
• The next big thing: Low Def?
• Download services: Where’s the consistency?
• Promo: Morevi Remastered (link)
• Two, yes two, World of Warcraft releases
• Lots of general RPG nostalgia…
• Promo: The Leviathan Chronicles (link)
• iPhone software v2.2 will let you download podcasts! (link)
  • And really, who didn’t see this coming?
• New segment: WTF were you thinking?!
  • Adelir Antonio de Carli (link)
• Promo: Quarter Share (link)
• Geek Peeks:
  • Mike: Encedalus Up Close (link)
  • Paul: Tactics of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson
  • Richard: WALL-E

Yes, we recorded this past week, so there *will* be a new episode coming down the pipes soon.

I’m acutally toying with a new format right now, and I’m not settling into a groove as quickly as I’d like.  Don’t worry though, I think I almost have this figured out, and things should go smoother for me in the future.

Expect some audio goodness soon

If all goes well, we should be able to get back into it once November rolls around (hopefully sooner, but we’ll have to see about this week), and we’ll have even more news, discussion, and maybe even a little fun along the way

Thanks, from all of us, for your understanding, and we’ll try not to let you down.

Mike

• DVD / Blu-Ray releases
• Goodbye Paul Newman
• iPhone Developer Follies, Pt. 2 (Link) (Another Link)
• iPhone App store only allows reviews by people who bought the application
• T-Mobile’s First Android Phone (Link)
• Ars Technica Jonathan Coulton Interview (Link)
• Warhammer: Age of Reckoning does well (Link)
• Meanwhile, Massively.com asks “Sick of fantasy yet”? (Link)
• Duke Nukem 3D available on XBox Live Arcade for $10
• Geek Peek of the Week:
  • Richard: Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (Link)
  • Mike: XKCD (Link)

In the interest of fairness, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss what Apple got right, and what things about the iPhone are satisfying and make it worth the price.

Convenience

Before I got my first-generation iPhone, I was always carrying three pieces of electronics when I left the house: my cell phone, my iPod (80 gb hard drive model), and my PDA. Three devices, each serving a separate purpose, each with a battery to be charged. (Is there a “green” argument to be made for convergence devices?)

Now I leave the house with just one thing in my pocket. Clearly it is best at being a portable media player than it is at any of the other two things, though the 2.0 software update really helped close the gap with PDAs. I’m not a heavy phone user, but it certainly qualifies as “good enough”. I even get a camera thrown in, which I didn’t have before, and the display on this thing is much better than both the PDA and the iPod I had before.

At home, my phone goes straight into the cradle. Unlike my cell-phone, I never forget to charge the thing, because it happens automatically when I plug it in to sync my podcasts. I never forget to sync the contacts and calendars because that happens automatically over WiFi.

Anywhere I go, I have a notepad available. If I find a book at the bookstore I’m interested in but not sure I want to read, I can jot down the name and look it up online later. If I find a CD at Best Buy that looks interesting, I can check out the band on the web before I plunk down my money. Nice.

The only reason it hasn’t totally replaced my paper planner is a problem all portable devices have: screen size. Project planning and task management are still easier to do on paper.

WiFi

We’re finally getting to the point where all smart phones have this, but not too long ago even most PDAs didn’t have this necessary feature.

WiFi is everywhere, and more importantly for me, it is in my home and my office. I spend most of my time in these two places, and when I’m out and about I don’t really need data connectivity. It took a bit of wrangling, but I don’t have a data plan with AT&T. EDGE isn’t all that impressive, and anything I could do over EDGE (now 3G) I can do better over WiFi. That has saved me a ton of money.

Exchange Support

Even on Windows Mobile devices, getting Exchange sync to work has traditionally been a pain. On the iPhone it is practically effortless, and you don’t ever have to plug your device into a computer to make the sync happen. I don’t have push setup on my Exchange account, but it does sync every 15 minutes and in practice I have found that to be good enough for me.

If Exchange support is built into the Mail and iCal in Snow Leopard as well as it is implemented here, one more obstacle to corporate adoption will get smashed.

The Screen

The display on the iPhone really does need to be seen to be believed. It is sharp, vibrant, and bright. Pictures and videos look fabulous.

• DVD Releases and News
• Large Hadron Collider shut down, we have more time to live! (Link)
• SoCal officials to pave over music-making asphalt (Link) (YouTube Link)
• EA Games teaches us how to lie with numbers (Link)
• Game developer polls for platform for next Timesplitters (Link)
• Microsoft changes ad strategy again (Link)
• Intel Six-Core chip (Link)
• HotHardware takes apart the Dell Mini…er Studio Hybrid (Link)
• The ultimate small form factor computer (Link)
• Geek Peek of the Week:
  • Paul – The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks (Link)
  • Mike – The Middleman (Link)
  • Richard – Rune Soldier (Link)

And then there’s my iPhone, a first-generation 8-gig model I got last November. There’s a lot to like about it. It’s solid, has survived a few drops without damage beyond a nick on the paint, syncs with Exchange nicely, and because I take it everywhere I always have a notepad and a camera on hand.

That said, I have a few issues with it. I won’t get into the recessed headphone jack (fixed with the 3G model) or the interference that blares through every speaker in the house when it is turned on. No, my issues range from the practical to the philosophical, and I’ve outlined them in brief below.

AT&T Exclusive

AT&T has less than stellar service where I live. I was on AT&T before, then Cingular when they sold out the mobile phone business…only to get back in a month later. I get dead spots in really weird areas. I’ve also had problems with getting voice mail to work and with dropped calls – and remember, this is a first-generation device, not the newer 3G model.

Capacity

I’ve been holding out on upgrading to a 3G model until a 32-gig model is available. I was hoping we’d get one at the September iPod announcement, but no such luck and, as usual, no clue or indication if and when it may happen.

The App Store

While Apple has been trying to silence developers and keep away applications for nebulous, poorly defined reasons, they still haven’t addressed one of the largest problems: lack of trial or demo capabilities. Taking a $5 risk on an application is one thing, but there productivity apps going for $20 or more. A minor point for me, but one that developers have been taking on themselves by creating free limited versions, sometimes ad supported (ugh!), sometimes not.

The iTunes umbilical cord

Why do I have to attach my iPhone to iTunes in the first place? I can sync my calendars, contacts and e-mail over WiFi, so why can’t I sync my songs, pictures and podcasts in the same way? I can purchase songs on iTunes and download directly to my iPhone, so why can’t I subscribe to podcasts and have them download directly as well?

The only reason I should have to plug a cable into this thing is to charge it. Everything else I should be able to do over WiFi. I understand not syncing 6 gb of songs over EDGE or 3G, but my WiFi connection is my own.

No unified Sync framework

My music, photos and such sync with my computer through iTunes. My calendars, contacts and e-mail sync with Exchange server over WiFi. SplashID syncs with a desktop client over WiFi, but only if Apple’s Bonjour service is installed. OmniFocus syncs with a file stores on my Mobile Me iDisk.

In the Windows Mobile and Palm world, a single sync manager uses conduits to manage all this. I can dock the phone or pda, hit sync, and everything happens at once. But syncing for SplashID and OmniFocus I have to manage manually, and remember to do it.

Apple’s poor treatment of developers

This is more theoretical than practical to me, but since I make a living as a developer it does matter to me. Apple’s criteria for accepting or rejecting applications is to vague and cloudy. Sure, we know they won’t accept porn and bandwidth hogs, but beyond that the message so far is “there are other rules, but you’ll find out what they are when you break them”. Except that you don’t find out what the rule actually is, only that you’ve broken it.

What is worse, developers who signed up during the Beta program for the iPhone SDK were bound by a non-disclosure agreement not to talk about it. That’s normal in the tech world, but once the beta period was over and the App Store went live, the NDA should have been lifted (as is standard practice). It wasn’t. If anything, it has gotten worse: the rejection letters Apple sends out to developers now remind them that the rejection of their application itself is restricted under the NDA.

This means that developers aren’t allowed to talk to each other about their experiences writing applications, and this is a huge disservice to the programmers who are making the App Store possible. Developers like to share knowledge and help each other out. Problems and challenges are easier to overcome when you can talk to other people who are doing the kind of work you are.

Apple is abusing the exact audience they need to court like crowned royalty. The App Store is a value add to the iPhone and iPod touch, and a big one at that. But as developers feel the sting of Apple’s treatment, they will begin to move to other platforms, and will not recommend Apple’s products to their family and friends. They won’t pump them up on their blogs. It will drive them to recommend jailbreaking their phones, or just plain buying other phones instead.

• DVD/Blu-Ray Releases
• iPhone Applications: Problems with Developer PR (Link)
• AT&T pushing the wrong plan?
• The iPod as a mature product
• NBC is back on iTunes? What about Hulu?
• Hard Drives expand!
• Dell enters Netbook market
• World of Warcraft Patch 3.0 is trickling out (Link)
• ‘World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King’ announced!
• Spore’s DRM Woes
• Guest Review: Spore

Geek Peeks of the Week

• Paul:
  • Charity Fragathon – Wednesday, September 24, 2008 (6-10PM) (Link)
  • Head First Statistics (Link)
• Richard:
  • The Verve “Forth” (Link)
  • Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard “Farscape” (Link)

Talk to us!

www.thegeeklife.tv

talkback@thegeeklife.tv

stories@thegeeklife.tv

Entertainment News:

• New releases
  • The Forbidden Kingdom (Jackie Chan, Jet Li), 2-dvd $35, 2-disc Blu-Ray $40
  • Smallville – Season 7, 6-dvd $60, 6-disc Blu-Ray $80
• DVD re-releases
  • The Big Lebowski 10^th Anniversary Edition, DVD, $20 SRP
  • Blu-Ray re-releases
  • Night Watch, $40 and Day Watch, $40
  • Kill Bill, V1 and V2, $35 each (and Mike starts a small Tarantino rant)
• British and US TV Updates
  • Tangent about alternative distribution methods

Technology News:

• Amazon revamps VoD service, now works on multiple platforms
  • Including the Sony “Bravia Box” (?)
  • Own via downloading vs. Own via streaming
• Everyone’s speculating about the Apple announcement
• Microsoft will put sales reps into big box stores

Geek Peeks of the Week:

• Paul: The Charity Fragathon (link)
• Paul: Esquire magazine with an e-Ink cover?
• Mike: Free online book: John Palmer’s ‘How To Brew’ (link)
• Rich: Doctor Who: The Silurians on DVD

• New DVD and movie releases
• Harry Potter pushed out, Twilight pulled up
• What’s wrong with Urban Fantasy/Supernatural Romance books?
• Sci-Fi has ADD: Stargate Atlantis is out, Stargate Universe is in
• TV Episodes: Good constraints and bad constraints
• Flash Gordon quietly dropped, thankfully
• Nintendo’s “My Chinese Coach”: a new way of language education?
• Amazon Kindle for Textbooks: saving student’s backs and budgets
• Jerry Seinfield to punt for Microsoft
• Mike’s Peek: Lego Man is 30 years old
• Paul’s Peek: Charity Fragathon (yes, again!)
• Richard’s Peek: Terminator-The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 1 DVD

• The iMac is 10 years old
• The world is coming to an end: Apple has a higher market cap than Google? (Link)
• The next Y2K? – Ars Technica reports: 2.7 billion IP addresses used, < 1 billion left
• DVD News
  • Ultraman – The Complete Series, 6-dvd, Oct 14, English + Japanese, English subtitles, $50 SRP.
  • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Oct 14, 2-disc DVD and 2-disc Blu-Ray, $40, single disc DVD $30
• Movies opening
  • Death Race, Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Ian McShane Link)
• Geek Peek of the Week:
  • Mike: Podiobooks.com – Serialized audio books (Link)
  • Paul: Charity Fragathon (Link)
  • Richard: Michael Moorcock stories re-released (Link)

You know, I wonder if I can use two recording programs at the same time…