rich ruminations

I wish I had this kind of creativity.
Animator vs. Animation

Check this video of a radio-controlled airplane.

The New York Times has a fascinating article today about Condoleezza Rice’s love of music.

The article was timely for me, as Alex is wanting to start violin lessons, and I’ve been thinking of getting back in practice, perhaps playing chamber music with friends, or the local community orchestra. The balance of work, family, hobbies (including music) is something I’ll be thinking more about in the coming months.

I entered college on a music scholarship, and intended to make a career as a professional musician, as did Ms. Rice:

At 17, she attended the prestigious summer school at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and came to believe that though she was a very good pianist, she was “not great,” she said. “That was the really the revelation,” she added. “And it wasn’t just that experience. You start noticing prodigies, and you realize that I’m never going to play that way.” There is “just some intangible” in music, she said. Whatever it was, she said she felt she didn’t have it. She decided to major in international relations instead, focusing on the Soviet Union.

Of course, she’s now one of the most powerful people in the world, incredibly brilliant and talented, so she made a good choice. While my life has nowhere near that notoriety, I’ve been lucky to have a great family, personal and business experiences, and a full life that continues to be interesting. Certainly no regrets on my choice of career.

She’s arguably one of the most capable Secretary of State ever to have served, and her love of music, and making music, shows her to be incredibly well-balanced. And she’s got a great fitness ethic also.

This will be of interest to Michele and Lindsay.

The Phantom Professor is at SXSW, and has blogged on a few of her experiences there. Today she got to flirt with Matthew McConaughey’s stunt double, and met the star himself.

Star sighting in Austin

Lindsay, our teenager, is typical of many teens — each morning is a struggle for her to wake up and get out of bed. Sometimes it takes her over an hour. She gets that from Michele.

What’s a parent to do? Last night I was browsing Boing Boing, and found a link to the Top Ten Most Annoying Alarm Clocks. Quite a few intriguing products… we’re probably going to get the Sonic Alarm.

Do you find it hard to get your partner or the kids up in the morning? Well the Sonic Alarm is the perfect solution to your problem.

Getting that grumbling snuffling bulk out from under the duvet in the morning is a challenge you really shouldn’t have to bother yourself with. Especially as the thing that emerges is inevitably grumpy and looks like a hung-over swamp monster. Well the Sonic Alarm makes the whole ‘getting them out of bed’ exercise a very simple, and indeed amusing, operation. Looking like an old-fashioned comedy hand grenade, the Sonic Alarm will wake pretty well anything up. Simply pull the pin, yell an emphatic “fire in the hole” and lob the grenade into the sleeper’s room. After twenty seconds a very annoying and piercingly loud noise (there are three volume settings) will blast out from the alarm. That’s not all however, what makes this especially great is that to stop the alarm the sleeper has to find you so you can put the pin back in. It’s stupid, and brilliant, and will be the bane of every over-sleeper on the planet. Parents are going to love this, though the soon to be rudely awoken might not.

Alex really wants us to get this… he has no trouble waking up in the morning (gets that from me), I think he’s wanting to be the first one to toss it into her room. If we do, I promise a video follow-up.

John forwarded an article to me today from the Economist, about the fight between Apple Computer and the music industry. The article is prompted by the recently announced inquiry by the Department of Justice into possible industry collusion on prices. Not much of note here until the last paragraph (emphasis added):

Mr Jobs says that the majors risk stifling the new market, and also that they are plain greedy. The charge of greed is unfair. Although digital music sales tripled in 2005 to $1.1 billion, the music companies are hardly raking in the cash from music downloads. There are two problems. First, people are downloading more single tracks than albums, which means lower revenues for the majors.

This presumes that faced with a choice of buying an entire album or nothing, that people will buy the entire album. This assumption probably isn’t valid, based on the negative trends in CD sales, which started several years prior to the iTunes music store.

Second, they are mostly filling their new iPods from their CD collections, not from iTunes. For the music giants, it may well be worth risking another run-in with the law, if that means they can make downloading truly profitable.

These CD collections… were purchased. Not from iTunes, but from record stores, Amazon, etc.

So, contrary to what was expressed by the author of this article in sentence two of the last paragraph, the charge of greed may actually be fair, since the two justifications provided are problematic.

This very cool.

TiVo may give away set-top boxes-CEO

Chief Executive Tom Rogers said the company, whose name has become synonymous with the ability to pause live television and skip commercials, was close to offering a range of pricing options, including one plan that would include a free set-top box.

“We’re continuing to pursue the prospects of zero upfront and all upfront” pricing, Rogers told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.

The company is likely to begin the test to offer free boxes, possibly in exchange for higher priced and longer term plans, fairly soon, said Rogers, who was named chief executive last July.

Obviously at a loss… but they’ll make it up in volume…

We really love our two Tivos — great technology, but a very confused executive management team.

All our family has been enjoying the Olympics this year on the new HDTV. While there are some occasional problems with the video and audio, on the whole the high-def broadcasts have been a huge improvement over the old SD we’ve been used to.

One of the many hundreds of engineers NBC has employed to make it all happen has been blogging the experience, and answering questions from the hard-core HDTV geeks on the AVSForum. He provides unique insight into how it all happens.

HD Olympics Blog - start at the bottom to read the entries in chronological order.

This just in:

Turner Network Television (TNT) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with DIRECTV, Inc. to provide customers with the high-definition (HD) feed of TNT. The service will launch on DIRECTV on Friday, Feb. 17 and will be available on DIRECTV channel 75. The 24/7 HD presentation of the TNT East Coast feed will offer DIRECTV’s customers a wide range of dramatic programming in HDTV format, including sports such as live NBA games and NASCAR races; series; movies; and TNT Originals.

Great news!

Next up: getting the National Geographics new high-def channel.

According to the National Geographics Web site,

National Geographic Channel High Definition (NGCHD) is not currently offered by DIRECTV. Please call 877-77NGCHD (877-776-4243) to request that NGCHD be added to your channel line-up!

I just called the number, after listening to a pre-recorded message, they transferred me to DirecTV to make the request. And was then stuck in DirecTV’s automated phone hell.

Here’s a hilarious comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live.

Be sure to keep the volume low in the office.

Lots of complaints from Islamic Jihad supporters about cartoons published by a Danish newspaper a few months ago.

Background:

Info and the cartoons which caused the ruckus (are these really offensive… how about these cartoons from Arab newspapers?)
Fight the bullies
Michelle Malkin’s latest column about this
Papers worldwide publish offending Danish cartoons. American MSM?

And finally, what we do in the US when an offensive cartoon is published… hint: we don’t riot or shoot people.

Lots of folks are weighing in on the prospects for Disney following the purchase of Pixar.

I think the deal could be hugely successful for several reasons, most of them have been discussed ad infinitum by many analysts and bloggers, so I won’t repeat them here.

One point that hasn’t been made is that Steve Jobs has done this before. In December 1996, Apple announced it was acquiring Next. Back then, Jobs was the CEO of Next, the company being acquired. Within a very short time, he seized control of Apple, and the Next leadership team reinvigorated and rebuilt Apple. Everyone knows that under Steve Job’s leadership Apple has redefined the music business and devstated the competition.

Pixar of course is in much better shape now than Next was back then, which only improves the odds of success. And I don’t expect Jobs to try to seize control of Disney. But have no doubt, Steve Jobs will have a huge influence on Disney.

Remember, he’s done this before, and Jobs seems to get better and better with age. The next several years should be quite exciting.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is the organization which rates movies in the United States. They also are active in fighting piracy of movies. According to the MPAA’s website,

Movie pirates are thieves, plain and simple. Piracy is the unauthorized taking, copying or use of copyrighted materials without permission. It is no different from stealing another person’s shoes or stereo, except sometimes it can be a lot more damaging. Piracy is committed in many ways, including Internet piracy, copying and distribution of discs, broadcasts, and even public performances.

They’ve got some explaining to do.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated looks at the motion picture ratings system created and run by the MPAA. Director Kirby Dick submitted the film for rating in November. After receiving the movie, the MPAA subsequently made copies without Dick’s permission. Dick had specifically requested in an e-mail that the MPAA not make copies of the movie. The MPAA responded by saying that “the confidentiality of your film is our first priority.”

Dick later learned that the MPAA made copies of the film to distribute them to its employees, despite the MPAA’s stance on unauthorized copying. Ah, there’s nothing like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning-apparently the prohibition against copying films without the copyright owner’s consent doesn’t apply to the MPAA. A lawyer for the MPAA justified the organization’s apparent hypocrisy by saying that Dick had invaded the privacy of some MPAA staffers, which justified the MPAA’s actions.

hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē| noun ( pl. -sies) the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.

Here’s an interesting article about preparations for high-definition broadcasting from this year’s Super Bowl.

In addition to just about every camera being high-definition, there is some interesting prototype technology being used.

ABC Sports will field test the Sony advanced prototype HD super slo-mo camera system, according to Robert Willox, director of marketing for content creation at Sony Electronics. He said the world’s first 3x super slo-mo camera captures video at 180 fps in multiple HD formats, from 720p to 1080i, “so the camera will be useful for NBC or CBS the next time they air the Super Bowl.” Several engineers from the Sony design center in Atsugi, Japan, will baby-sit the prototype during game, according to Willox. Sony also is providing its Cinealta HDW-F900 camera, which will shoot HD 1080p at 24 fps for archive material to be created by NFL Films.

Cool stuff. Hopefully we can get the network waivers we’ve requested via DirecTV to allow us access to the west coast high-definition network feeds (we’ve been unsuccessful at getting the local channels over the air). Otherwise, we’ll be stuck watching the game in standard definition.