Posts
Please for the love of frugality, head over to http://www.macheist.com/.
My old alma mater has become insanely expense since I graduated college. Not every student is on scholarship,
I wonder whether paying full price for my kid’s college would really be a good investment. What if parents just gave their kids the money instead?
Option 1, give an 18 year old $200,000. Yeah right.
Option 2, buy your kids a house. Let’s assume that by the time my kids go to college, their education will cost $50,000 per year with tuition, room, board, books, and an Apple laptop. Now we take that $200,000 college fund and put it into a $200,000 house. A 30 year mortgage on that house would cost the little buggers $430,000. The free house on the other hand saves them the cost of a mortgage and gives them the value of the house for a total of $630,000 benefit to them. Option 3, buy your kids retirement.
Put that $200,000 into a 47 year CD with a 5% rate of return and when the kid is ready to retire at 65, that $200,000 will be worth $2M. Compare that to the almost $1M a college education is worth over a lifetime. I didn’t need college to tell me that $1M is more than $2M.
Option 4, keep the money for yourself.
Of course, college provides intangible benefits: appreciation of art and culture, social networking, a coming of age story, Ramen noodles, late nights studying, terrible stress every three months, and communal bathrooms. Such good times in fact that l’m sure my kids won’t mind working and borrowing to pay their own way (at least part of it). Like I’d really have $200,000 to spend on their education anyway.
Every now and then, a movie comes along and sets an impossible to beat standard for an entire genre. “Star Wars” did it for sci-fi movies. “Titanic” did it for disaster movies. “The Dark Knight” does it for comic book movies.
Two and a half hours never felt so good, which is ironic considering the subject matter. This is one gruesome movie. Even though actual murders are are mostly kept off-camera, they do mount up. Sometimes we see a body falling or a vehicle explode. Other times the bodies show up pre-murdered. A few murders are merely mentioned. We never really see the gory details and that restraint is to the film’s credit. Batman feels bad about every death, of course, and considers retiring. If I saw every facet of each death, I’d probably tell him to do the same thing. Batman’s fights are non-lethal but visceral affairs and not over edited like the incoherent fights that plagued “Batman Begins”.
The story is non-linear but it has a central theme: the corruptibility of man. The psychopathic Joker sees everyone as corrupt and guiltlessly works to reveal that “truth”. “Batman” is the incorruptible hero, the Joker’s polar opposite. In the middle is everyone else. We cheer as some unexpectedly rise to the Joker’s challenge. We are aghast at others who are complicit in the Joker’s murderous schemes. The plot requires some suspension of disbelief. Some of the Joker’s plans require the invention of new technology on the part of Batman. Perhaps the Joker simply knows that he should never underestimate Batman.
In terms of greatest comic book movies of all time, “The Dark Knight” has some serious competition that start with “S”: “Spiderman” and “Superman”. Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman” gives us an awkward teen superhero worthy of our empathy in a parable who’s moral is oft quoted by kids and their seniors. Richard Donner’s “Superman” gave us all the goodness and grit of a god-like hero with all the special effect wonders available in the late 1970s. “The Dark Knight” trumps them all. It gives us a Batman tortured by his conflict between his refusal to kill (his “one rule”) and the death that surrounds his fight against crime. It gives the Joker, played by Heath Ledger in the best superhero movie performance ever. All superhero films have a hero and a villain, sure, but “The Dark Knight” has an ace up its sleeve: an entire Gotham city’s worth of the most fleshed out supporting characters in comic movies history.
Sometimes a movie’s length and wide cast is its detriment. The crime drama “Heat” is one of those movies that is about one hour and several quiet character development scenes past greatness. The devil really is in the details. “The Dark Knight” can deliver a great movie with mass appeal because it makes the hard choices, much like Batman himself. I give extra points to The Dark Knight for its willingness to kill off staple characters of the franchise. We also never find out the Joker’s real background: why a criminal genius chooses to be an anarchist. Other events are sped up, like the creation of villains and the development of new technology. So be it. Life is too short to watch every single backstory. And piqued curiosity bests strained patience. Making the hard decisions makes for a good movie. Also making the right decisions makes for an instant classic.
I give “The Dark Knight” 5 out of 5 bat-stars.
Great Hardware
I have nothing but praise to lavish on my MacBook for its construction. Made of a solid piece of aluminum, it is the sturdiest object I own. The size of the MacBook is “just right”. It fits well on my lap for couch computing and is large enough to accommodate a useable screen and an adult sized keyboard. The picture above is a self-portrait not so lovingly manipulated with some free open source image editors. Don’t let this picture fool you, the unibody aluminum MacBook is 100% gorgeousness.
The Macbook just plain feels good. The cooling fan is silent during normal use and very quiet during heavy use. Heat over all is quite low. This is no lap-burner that will give you sweaty palms.
Macs of late have been criticized for using glossy displays. Back in 2002, I bought a LCD monitor for the sole reason of reducing eye strain due to the brightness and glare of CRTs. The MacBook has a glossy LCD screen, but it is no mirrored hunk of glass. On sunny days I have to keep the screen shaded, but I have not noticed any problems in any other light. Perhaps the LED backlighting is bright enough to overpower reflections. The screen’s resolutions is also just right: enough pixels for 720p HD movies but a low enough resolution to avoid squinting at on-screen text.
The Nvidia 9400M integrated graphics really pep-up the display. For an integrated chip, the 9400M is more powerful than many discrete cards. Its a real game changer and the reason I bought this MacBook over Apple’s weaker offerings.
Typing is a pleasure: quiet, smooth, with keys that are well laid out and easy to find by touch. The keyboard sits back from the largest trackpad I have ever seen. My MacBook does not include a backlit keyboard, which is available on the more expensive model. This is a feature that I do not miss, thanks to contrast between the keys and the aluminum shell.
I was never a fan of laptop trackpads because I could never move the cursor from one end of the screen to the other. I also had trouble hitting the buttons. The multi-touch trackpad is a quantum leap in trackpads, and perhaps the most innovating input device since the invention of the mouse over 40 years ago. Tapping twice for “right clicking” and running my fingers around to scroll is so much easier than mousing around that I have packed away my spare mouse possibly forever.
Great Software
Little did I know that experimenting with Linux was good practice for using the Mac OS. Coincidence? I think not. Both Linux and Mac OS are derived from Unix based systems of old. The user interface for many linux systems also borrow from Mac OS. Frankly, with no disrespect to the hardworking and ingenious Linux community, Mac OS is better. Applications install to the Applications folder and are therefore easier to keep track of. Connecting to other computers and network drives is ten time easier. Mac OS also has smarter user management which for you Linux geeks means no more typing "Sudo" a thousand times just to edit xorg.config and makes a mockery of the thousand times I had to type "sudo" in a Linux terminal. There is no point in comparisons to Microsoft Windows except to point out that after using Linux and Mac OS, Windows just seems wrong.
Most of the great open source software I used with Linux is also on the Mac: OpenOffice.org, Gimp, and Firefox. I was surprised, though, at how much I liked most of the software included with the mac. iWeb is a fantastically web publishing tool that perfectly compromises ease-of-use with features. iPhoto is easier to use than I originally believed. Preview is also more capable than I would have given it credit for (but it still doesn’t replace Irfanview). TimeMachine is just magical in its ease of use. The biggest surprise I found was Safari. With a few free extensions (from pimpmysafari.com) Safari had all the tab saving ad-blocking power of Firefox. I can’t quite put my multi touch finger on it, but Safari just seems better on a Mac than Firefox.
But the New Macbook Is so Expensive! Or is it?
All-in-all, is the unibody MacBook worth it? Yes. Financially, the MacBook is a good deal. "Wait . . . what?" you say. Just look at this handy table comparing the costs of the MacBook versus Apple's cheapest computer, the Mac Mini. I supplemented the Mac Mini with products from the Apple store necessary to bring the Mac Mini to the feature level of the MacBook.
Looking at this table, the new MacBook is a better deal from Apple than the Mac Mini. The advantages of portability don’t lend themselves to a chart, but ponder this: I created this web page on my couch. Can a desktop do that?
Consider also the resale value an Apple computer versus its Window's lovin' competitors. A late 2004 Apple iBook G4 originally cost around $1500. Now it might sell for $500 on ebay. The most sought after PC in my experience is the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad. A Thinkpad t42 that cost $2050 in early 2005 might sell for $300 on ebay. An iBook owner would have $200. Some Macs fetch even better resale values.
And Now the Bad
Some of the software that comes with new Macs are not all they are cracked up to be. iWeb fills a hole in my heart, but programs like iTunes and Safari are free to anyone. iPhoto has lost some luster with Google's release of Picasa for the Mac. Some software, like Garageband, looks cool and would be great if I only I could play a musical instrument. Other software, like iMovie ’08 stink big time.
Using iMovie ’08 for the first time is like finding a dent in your brand new car.
To be blunt, iMovie '08 is a broken program that can no more edit my home movies than change my underwear. My first movie project was editing my wife’s home movies on DVD. iMovie '08, however, won’t even try to import movies from DVDs. I encoded the DVD as a .mp4 files with a handy free application called Handbrake. iMovie '08 would import the .mp4 file but that took about 12 hours. The whole time a bar imperceptibly indicated progress toward making thumbnail pictures for the video. I gave up and hit the (X) button. The video survived, but without thumbnails. Then iMovie '08 crashed. I started up again and selected a portion of the video to crop. iMovie '08 first ran excruciatingly slow before crashing again. I could have sworn I was computing back in 1992. Then iMovie '08 crashed again.
In disbelief, I searched the internet for a solution. To my surprise, iMovie '08 was derided by many. In fact, the reaction was so poor that Apple now allows owners of iMovie '08 download iMovie '06 for free. In my opinion, Apple should have saved me the download and pre-installed iMovie '06 on my MacBook. Despite being two years older than iMovie ’08, the download actually edits video. Another great free program is Mpeg Streamclip. It can make quick cuts from a movie before iMovie will even load. In my opinion, iMovie '08 can go suck an egg.
Prospective Mac purchasers, you can look forward to using iMovie '09. Apple announced this upgrade less than a month after I received my MacBook. Apparently this product is like an iMovie '08 that works. Am I hurt and angry that Apple sold me a broken version of iMovie when they planned on coming out with a better version less than a month later. You betcha’. But I am more disturbed that Apple released iMovie '08 in the first place.
Mobile Me makes me think Apple's engineers had to have the internet explained to them.
Mobile Me works somehow, that's the best I can say about it. The service can sync passwords, bookmarks, calendars, mail, contacts, and files saved on network storage named iDisk. Signing up was easy. Syncing was easy too. MobileMe even imported my contacts from gmail. Mounting the iDisk was easy at home but transferring files is very very slow, like dial-up speeds. Maybe Apple's servers only came with 56K modems. Sometimes Mobile Me does not work so well. The iDisk does not always mount on my work computer and other users complain of outages.
The mobile part of MobileMe is the most lacking. MobileMe has the most barebones website since the original Google search website. It looks slick with smooth shiny buttons, but that’s all it is, buttons. Compare that to the user defined splash pages pages such as iGoogle or Yahoo. Even Microsoft has customizable home pages (that seem like neanderthals in a crowd of homo sapiens). I feel great after syncing my bookmark changes, but then I log onto iGoogle and instantly see my gmail, calendar, RSS feeds, weather, and sticky notes. No syncing is necessary with iGoogle and unlike MobileMe, iGoogle never gives me a bogus error for using the wrong web browser. The real kicker: I can do everything on Mobile Me for free somewhere else. Yet Mobile me does what it advertises, is a one-stop-shop for my syncing needs, and I feel safer having my data backed up on the servers of a solvent company.
In Summary
As a hardware company, I give Apple 5 out of 5 stars. The Mac OS is in my opinion the best on the market. Most of Apple’s software is valuable and makes the MacBook a MacBook. When I combine the failure of iMovie '08 with the buggy and lackluster Mobile Me offering, I must wonder whether Apple is really ready to deliver in this new age of high definition/internet delivered content. Troubling thoughts for a new Mac owner.
My wife asked me to help find evidence and arguments to turn around a climate change critic in our family. He had some evidence that Arctic sea ice is re-freezing at record pace. That would be great news for a warming planet except Arctic sea ice has been drastically shrinking. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, "Arctic sea ice in 2008 was notable for several reasons. The year continued the negative trend in summer sea ice extent, with the second-lowest summer minimum since record-keeping began in 1979. 2008 sea ice also showed well-below-average ice extents throughout the entire year." According to this data, one winters record re-freezing will be undone by another summer's record thawing. So did I send these actual facts to the climate change critic? No. The problem is not his lack of scientific knowledge but a conundrum of social psychology.
Most all of these critics are not scientists or more importantly are not climate experts. I learned years ago working on legal cases with experts that in any given subject, they will know more than I ever will. There are many reasons (that I have observed) why good people refuse to believe an experts:
1. The expert challenges their pre-existing beliefs.
2. They don't like some "poindexter" telling them what to believe.
3. They have a $$ interest in the opposite point of view.
4. They believe they actually know more than the expert does.
5. They feel like the expert is accusing them of doing something wrong.
Basically, if a climate change critic admits that climate change is real, the critic has to feel bad. No amount of evidence or reasoning will change that.
So when a critic of climate change says things like "scientists are doing science all wrong" or "its all a liberal conspiracy", just tell them that whether climate change is real or not, they are good people.
I am a big fan of doing more with less (material and work). The best hacks, a.k.a. DIY projects, are the simplest. My Blackberry is no iPhone but it is handy on the road and also makes a nice companion in the office for quickly looking at new e-mails. It has big flaw: its USB socket is on the side. The cord couldn't be in a worse position for desk use of a Blackberry. While charging, the Blackberry naturally contorts away from a good reading position. When disconnected, the cord would often fall behind my desk. A prone Blackberry is not ergonomically easy to look at either. Desk mounts are not really that expensive, but I am loathe to spend money just the same.
My solution: tacking the USB cable and Blackberry to my bulletin board. The tacks and board are effectively free from my employer. Set-up was easy and the whole arrangement is further customizable. The cord no longer falls behind my desk. The Blackberry is in a nice upright position to display incoming e-mails, calls, and reminders. Huzaa to thumbtacks!
Total cost: $0
Time spent: 5 minutes
Sometimes a movie is so amazingly great that it transcends itself. "Pulp Fiction" comes to mind as one of these kinds of movies. These instant classics convey a compelling story and show us intriguing characters but the spectator experience is uplifted by how the movie was filmed. These movies are art and "No Country for Old Men" is simply the best art I have seen in years. A friend of mine was asked if he loved it and he responded, "love is not a strong enough word to describe how I feel about this movie." That's about the best accolade a movie can get.
All of the principal players in this movie could have been awarded an Oscar for their performance. Javier Bardem did win an award for his chilling role of a complicated madman. Tommy Lee Jones provided one of his best performances ever as a Texas sheriff burnt-out from what he sees as an increasingly violent world. Josh Brolin is unerapreciated, in my opinion, for his very down-to-earth portrayal of a the ordinary guy on the run from an extraordinary killer. Special kudos should also go to the large cast of ordinary looking folk such as the man who plays a befuddled gas station attendant desperate to end an ever more akward conversation with Javier Bardem's assasin.
The real star of this film is its own cinametography. Perhaps the first 1/3 of this film is dominated by a desolate Texas landscape that never looked so good. This film also makes use of clever shot that deftly tell us what has happened or what will happen. The film also brings ordinary places to life. Cheap hotel rooms and trailer homes have never before come to life as they do in this film. Much of the beauty of this fim is wasted on an old fashioned standard definition television, of course. Mark Twain may have said "You will always regret the things you didn't do". I truly regret passing up the opportunity to see this film in a theater. Do not make my mistake, see this movie the right way!
Despite all of the accolades from critics and me, some people did not like this movie. My wife for instance, did not care as much for it as I did. Her complaints were few but stong: there is graphic violence and blood and many scenes are slow and expository, as I'm sure the book was. In defense of this movie, the blood and gore show the real consequences of violence. The movie also has a statement to make about violence that is well told through its characters and well conveyed by the brilliant cast of actors. There is nothing wasted in this film; some scenes are diamonds, but each scene is a gem.
I rate this movie as 5 out of 5 "must see"s. You must see it. You must see it. You must see it. You must see it. You must see it.
I was all set to post about how movies often come in pairs. That is, when a movie about a certain subject comes out, a movie that is very, very similar comes out soon after. Well, those professional bloggers beat me to it, further proving that there are no new ideas.
The list laden website Den of Geek compiled a list of its top 10 movie clones. 1998 was an especially good bad year for clones, with two movies about earth destroying asteroids and two computer animated movies about ants. Notably, both movies about mars in 2000 were laughably terrible. I for instances. Chuckled when a biochemist in "Red Planet" listed the four genetic base pairs as "A, G, T, and P". Generally, if two movies are about the same topic, neither can be all that good.
Den of Geek's list does not include all of the clone movies. I've noticed this trend since two Robin Hood movies came to theatres in 1991 and a year later when two Christopher Columbus movies that came out on the 500th anniversary of his most famous discover. Rounding out the biopics, runner Prefontaine also hit the movie clone jackpot in 1997 and then 1998. Now copies are routine, like the two movies about animals in a New York zoo escaping to the wilds of Africa in 2005 and 2006.
It just goes to show that creativity can't be learned but it sure can be borrowed.
Certainly my cheapskatery, a.k.a. frugalness, has been a constant topic of mine. Maybe I am frugal because I lived below the poverty line during a decade of my college and post graduate studies. When you have little spend, you learn how to get by with less. What if everyone was frugal like me, I used to think. Back in June, I ran across an on-line article that asked this very question: What Would Happen IF Everyone Was Frugal? This mental exercise was fun back in June but terribly relevant now. As credit markets collapse, jobs become scarce, and the future becomes undertain, more and more people are becoming frugal just like me! Sure, the economy will take a big hit as people save their pennies and drive their cars until they become scrap metal. Over time, though, we will all benefit from fewer bankruptcies, foreclosures, and disposing of piles of waste produced by our pre-economic metldown consumer driven society.
I wonder though, what if people were more like me in other ways too? Many industries would cease to exist. Say good buy to the alcholic beverages industries . . . and drunk driving accidents. The soda (or pop) industry would implode and with it a sizeable demand for dental work. Coffee and tobacco growers would need to find new crops to plant. Illicit drugs would disappear completely, and morticianers along on the Mexican/Amercian border would have to find new jobs. Green products would become the industry standard. Without early adopters, new consumer technologies will take longer to develop. Sales of used goods would spike. Medical costs would fall some as more and more people would only go to the doctor when they absolutely had to.
There would be massive cultural changes as well. Micheal Bay would stop making movies, no one would see them. The internet would become the primary means of all entertainment and non-internet based entertianment would be at risk of extinctions. Top 40 radio would stop broadcasting. Discs in generally will become a dead media. Comic books would move out of their niche. Videogames would continue their increasing domination of media. The term "literally" would be used in its proper sense. Saturday Night Live would be cancelled and thereafter made reference to in association with something that was meant to be funny, but is not. "That joke was SNL".
I would like to think that the rate of hear disease would fall, as all people would at least try to exercise. Organic and natural foods would supplant foods with chemicals like MSG in them. Sure, cookies would become a staple food but we would all at least try to have a vegatable course at dinner. Kids would spend more time playing outside. Crime would near non-existence, espcially violent crimes. Volunteerism and charitable giving, however, would reach all time lows :(
Does everyone hope that they are good people making the world a better place to live? They would if they were more like me. At least, I hope so.
