Apple TV…am I the only one who thinks this is a sleeper product?
August 10th, 2008
This is part commentary and part theorizaticalation. Not only do I think that the next great thing to come out of Apple is the Apple TV, but I think it could – and should – become something somewhat different than what it is right now.
(quick note…I’m throwing this random tidbit into this here post both because I don’t believe it deserves its own post and because a commercial aired just now reminding me of it: I’m heartbroken that the next star wars movie is the animated piece of crap that’s being released in 4 days. and here I thought George Lucas couldn’t make star wars suck even more than the last three movies did. or technically the first three. whatever.)
Okay, back on point. Apple’s strategy for a while has been to embrace how the market has borne their products for the last decade or so, and that’s basically if the enterprise world won’t love Apple’s stuff, Apple will make things that rock the world of their existing fan base: consumers. That being said, I also believe Apple’s about to/in the process of making a huge power play for significance in the enterprise market as well, but that’s another post for another time. Currently, my point is that Apple is going after being our homes’ digital service provider. They want our digital universe to revolve around their products. They’ve done it with music, and I think they’re going to do it with video as well.
The Apple TV is dangerously close to being a digital media server, which is dangerously close to, well, a server. I believe that if Apple does it right, they could turn the Apple TV into THE digital hub of our homes: serving up all of our media, email, shared calendars, documents…you name it. It could become like a giant iPod for your home. Or rather, a giant iPhone for your home.
But I don’t want to discuss what the Apple TV could be in terms of the service it could provide or the merits of an Apple-made home server. I’m sure a quick Google will reveal many many articles about these two topics written by analysts and theorists much more qualified than I who make compelling arguments and probably much brighter ideas about what could be. No, what I want to talk about specifically is what form I believe the Apple TV is bound to take, and how surprised I am that nobody else seems to have thought of this. If you’re a blogger who has, or know of someone else who has, please do let me know. However after searching high and low, I’ve been completely unable to find anyone else who thinks this should or will happen.
Rather than get straight to it, I’m going to follow my normal operating procedure and loligag around the point before finally making it. You know you love it.
So…think about the awesome HD monitors that Apple already sells. Pretty sweet, right? And there’s a huge one that could probably be an awesome HDTV were it mounted on a wall…dang, I think you probably know where I’m going with this. That won’t stop me.
Next, let’s consider the lowly iMac. The savior of Apple. The original all in one pc. Responsible for singlehandedly making the home computer cool. And pretty much one of those neato HD monitors which a computer inside. Now you REALLY know where I’m going with this.
Why can’t the Apple TV be…a TV? Make an entertainment center/digital media server/HDTV that hangs neatly on your wall or sits in your awesome blue entertainment armoire? Call it the iTV. Call it the Apple TV Pro. Call it whatever you want, but the idea is take the current Apple TV and iMacize it.
They’ve done it before, and they have all the pieces to do exactly what I’m describing. Has nobody else thought this is a good idea? I’d love to hear anyone’s theories as to why it’s not. Or is. I’m fairly confident that it should happen and probably will. I just don’t know why nobody else seems to be.
Technorati Tags: Apple TV, digital media server, Apple, iTV, iMac
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Be That Guy
August 5th, 2008
In a the recent Olympic Preview issue of Sports Illustrated, and interviewer asked Michael Phelps if he could recommend any exercises that would help build a swimmer’s body. Phelps replied – I’d imaging with just a hit of irony in his voice – “Um, swimming.” (paraphrased)
The simplicity of this statement brought me back to some advice I received many years ago. I was trying to improve my martial arts skills and aiming directly for my black belt, but I’d hit a wall. My instructor at the time simply said “You know that guy you see at all the competitions? The one who can’t seem to lose and is constantly ranked? Be that guy.”
This was pretty profound. He didn’t mean flip a switch and magically become this other person. What he meant was that if I wanted to be a better martial artist, I needed to behave like a better martial artist. I needed to fall in love with the sport more, read more literature, practice more, and in pretty much eat and breath it. That’s how that guy did it. If I wanted to be like him, I had to become him.
Though you could apply this principle to just about any type of goal (becoming a civil war buff, getting skills in the kitchen, having a George Hamilton tan…), I like to think of it in regards to my own physical, spiritual, and mental character. If I want to be more fit, I need to start behaving like a fit person. If I want to improve my spiritual life, I need to start behaving like a spiritually healthy person. If I want to improve my mental capacity, I need to start behaving like smarter people behave.
I’m in no way suggestion that we should pretend we’re healthier, smarter, or more spiritual than we actually are. I’m a big fan of authenticity, even though I struggle to be more authentic each day and have never quite perfected it. This isn’t about some hokey self-affirmation practice of tricking myself into being smarter or healthier just by speaking the words or thinking positive thoughts. Instead, think of it like Michael Phelps. How do you think he became the best swimmer in the world? He swam. All the time. He still swims. The Olympics start in a couple of days and he may have just landed in China, but I bet he’s thinking about swimming right now this very moment. Michael Phelps had a life goal to be the best swimmer in the world, so he simply set out to be that guy.
How do healthy people behave? Maybe they eat better things. Maybe they run. If I want to be a healthy person, I need to emulate that behavior. In this case, being goal oriented may not help me. In other words, I shouldn’t think of being a healthier person as an end, but rather who I am. In this way, I don’t “diet” and my exercise program doesn’t really have a time frame. It’s just a part of who I am.
Simply put, I’d encourage any of you who would like to change something about yourself, even just a little, or if you have a goal that you’d like to accomplish, analyze the average person who already is how you want to be or has already accomplished that goal…and then be that person.
To add onto this, I’d also like to state another quote that I find inspiring. “If you want to be what you’ve never been, you have to be willing to do what you’ve never done.” (if anyone can help me attribute that, I’d be very appreciative) You are capable of doing/being much more than you think. You just gotta be willing to be that guy.
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There’s Nothing Wrong With Ambiguous Goals
July 10th, 2008
As long as you can boil them down to specifics.
Ha! I tricked you!
Hold on, hold on. There is a valid point here.
First of all, what are ambiguous goals? Well, Friends, they are goals that can’t really be measured quantitatively or qualitatively. “Lose some weight.” “Read more.” “Go out with a Pussy Cat Doll.” None of these goals are measurable. How much weight? What is “more”? Which Pussy Cat Doll?
Okay, I guess if your goal was to go out with any Pussy Cat Doll…
It’s true that if these goals are all you have, they don’t serve much of a purpose, but they do still pack a punch. What an ambiguous goal does is gives you a starting place. It helps you identify what’s important to you. “Lose some weight.” for example, tells me that I might be interested in reducing my body’s fat content, being healthier, looking better, etc. I can identify that losing weight, no matter how ambiguous that may sound, is important to me. I can now move forward to identifying something more specific and measurable.
My next step would then be to break that ambiguous goal down into a specific, measurable goal. “Lose 50 pounds.” or “Achieve 10% body fat or less.” are goals that I can measure. I can (and probably should) even set a deadline to meet this goal. “Lose 50 pounds by News Years Day.” This is measurable, and it was born out of an ambiguous goal to “Lose some weight.”
So go ahead and set those ambiguous goals. Write them down. They may help you identify what’s important to you; then you can go about setting more specific goals after that.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, health, goals, goal setting
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Dude…ScribeFire!
July 6th, 2008
And I’ve finally found it!
After using Flock for a while (a great tool for guys like me who have to be constantly playing around on social networks) to handle all of my blogging, I’ve discovered ScribeFire. My life has changed.
ScribeFire is a plugin for Firefox, so instead of having to crack open an entirely different browser to post to my various blogs, I can simply open up this tool inside my current browser and type away. The best part is that it opens in a “pane” type thingy below my browsing window so that I can actually blog while browsing the web. Pretty cool.
Like Flock, ScribeFire provides me the means to compose once, post multiple places. It allows for tags, categories, looking at previous posts, etc. I can edit in a WYSIWIG mode or edit the source code directly. At first brush, it also seems to be a little less buggy than Flock’s blog editor, but then again, this is only my second attempt at using it. I’ll keep you posted if I run into any trouble.
Best of all? I’ve finally found a tool that will post to every single blogging service I use, including MySpace. Cool, huh? Now I can write one post and send it to my WordPress blogs, Xanga, MySpace, and Blogger with hardly any effort at all.
The saddest thing is that I took all of those hours moving my blog from MySpace to Blogger a few months ago when I could have kept them all there too. But hey, MySpace was frustrating me at the time and the decision to move away from it as my central personal blogging platform to Blogger was also related to my decision to move away from it as my central social network of choice to Facebook. So I don’t regret it.
If you blog in multiple places and use Firefox, I’d encourage you to check out ScribeFire. I’m liking it so far.
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Dude…ScribeFire!
July 6th, 2008
And I’ve finally found it!
After using Flock for a while (a great tool for guys like me who have to be constantly playing around on social networks) to handle all of my blogging, I’ve discovered ScribeFire. My life has changed.
ScribeFire is a plugin for Firefox, so instead of having to crack open an entirely different browser to post to my various blogs, I can simply open up this tool inside my current browser and type away. The best part is that it opens in a “pane” type thingy below my browsing window so that I can actually blog while browsing the web. Pretty cool.
Like Flock, ScribeFire provides me the means to compose once, post multiple places. It allows for tags, categories, looking at previous posts, etc. I can edit in a WYSIWIG mode or edit the source code directly. At first brush, it also seems to be a little less buggy than Flock’s blog editor, but then again, this is only my second attempt at using it. I’ll keep you posted if I run into any trouble.
Best of all? I’ve finally found a tool that will post to every single blogging service I use, including MySpace. Cool, huh? Now I can write one post and send it to my WordPress blogs, Xanga, MySpace, and Blogger with hardly any effort at all.
The saddest thing is that I took all of those hours moving my blog from MySpace to Blogger a few months ago when I could have kept them all there too. But hey, MySpace was frustrating me at the time and the decision to move away from it as my central personal blogging platform to Blogger was also related to my decision to move away from it as my central social network of choice to Facebook. So I don’t regret it.
If you blog in multiple places and use Firefox, I’d encourage you to check out ScribeFire. I’m liking it so far.
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review: The Happening
June 15th, 2008
dan rating system: Full Price
recommendation: No Chillins under 14
Ahh…my first review written on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s kinda fresh, right?
(note: I’m also posting this on my blogs…so don’t be confused my friends)
Listen, this movie has gotten a piss poor rap, and I can’t help but be reminded of Lady In The Water. I’m not an M. Night fanboy, but I do enjoy his work, so take what I say here with a grain of salt. That being said: this movie does not suck.
I still kind of agree with the consensus that it starts with promise and then degrades a little. Mr. Shyamalan would have done well to get an appointment with a script doctor on this deal. The story might have been better served being more about the love story between Elliot and Alma and less about, well, the happening. He very successfully did this in The Village, so I know he’s got it in him!
First, I’ll address the end. Had the love story been developed more, I would have felt more moved when they decide to be together despite threat of death. But even that scene itself felt pretty rushed and contrived. Both Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel are great actors, so I’m left to blame the writing, directing, and editing that made that scene so bad. Sorry Night. You’re cool and all, but it just didn’t quite get there.
The good? Well, there is certainly a Hitchcockian, looming, unseen terror throughout the film. And despite what others have said, I think that throwing the gore factor into this one was a good decision. It fit. There was some pretty traumatic imagery that the movie would have felt incomplete had it not been there. There was a little bit o’ comic relief that worked as well, so I literally laughed between moments of fear.
Also, I do appreciate his treatment of his characters. M. Night always seems to put a lot of care in birthing them; as though they are his very children. I like that in a writer. Maybe the character development was a bit off in this one, but it doesn’t mean that he didn’t care. Maybe he just forgot.
Unfortunately, the bad is glaringly bad. I’ve already mentioned the lack of a central plot device (or did I? well, there is a lack of a central plot). But there were also some dangling participles that I thought were completely unnecessary and made this feel more like a sophomoric effort than someone’s 9th film. LIke the little boys getting capped on the crazy old man’s porch. I mean, I get shock value, but all I ended up thinking is WTF???
And dude…is it just me, or is this picture incredibly preachy? M. Night attacks environmental apathy, emotional apathy, detachment, anger, and the list goes on and on. By the end, I didn’t know if I was supposed to love my neighbor, invest in solar energy, or cut down my tree swing. There really shouldn’t have been an underlying moral to this story; I don’t think Al would have approved.
Not that Al. He probably would have approved.
Again, overall, I still think this was a fun movie. It scared me and that’s what I wanted. I said this about the rest of his followups to The Sixth Sense, and I’ll say it again: if you expect this to be that, then you’re going to be incredibly disappointed. MNS has a style. He takes other genres and pulls them into the thriller genre and it works (think about it. he’s done a ghost story, a superhero movie, an alien movie, and now a horror film. He adapts them to his flavor, and it works. I just wish he’d get some help on his scripts.
Oh yeah, the Dan rating system and recommendations. I give it a Full Price rating if you’re not going to poo poo on the fact that this isn’t his best work. And I wouldn’t take your nino’s to see it unless they’re over 14. There’s some pretty scary imagery that could cause some serious nightmareage. Get it? NIGHTmareage?
Tags: M.Night Shyamalan, The Happening, movie review
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The Incredible Hulk (again…not a review)
June 15th, 2008
So I think I like doing things this way for now. Basically another “random thoughts during the movie” post, typed on my phone. It’s a little stream of consciousness, or something like that:
Ed Norton makes any movie awesome.
Only in Brazil do female factory workers look like super models.
I need a new hat.
A little silly nothing…I think if I were sprinting through the streets, my heart rate would be through the roof.
Okay, definitely badder ass.
Lou Ferrigno’s cameo is way better in this one too.
So much truer to the television series than the last.
Liv Tyler is like Jennifer Connely and Jennifer Garner rolled into one.
General Ross bad.
Say what you want about comic books, but Stan Lee has created some of the most complex, deep, and authentic characters in all of literature.
Lots of references to the Marvel while still keeping the story believable.
Best place in the world to get lost: NYC
This movie’s stacked with talent.
And suddenly I’m reminded of Rampage.
Alright, alright. Good reference to the comics with the “Mega Clap”, but c’mon.
Hulk smash!!!
If I don’t see Tony Stark soon…
Hello Justice League movie.
Tags: ednorton, hulk, the incredible hulk, liv tyler, jennifer connely, jennifer garner
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Sex and the City (not really a review)
June 5th, 2008
I was planning on typing a full review, but my lack of desire to do so has gotten the best of me. What follows are the raw thoughts I had while actually in the movie last weekend, uncut, typed on my phone:
For any normal woman, being left on the day of her wedding would be devastating. For Carrie Bradshaw, it’s the end of a universe that revolves around her.
In the theater, when I hear laughter, it’s all female voices. At the oh so high-larious moment Charlotte poo’d her largeish pants, the chatter of woman giggle is all I can hear. It’s rather fun.
To watch this film is an exercise in observing the differences in the way women and men think. And feel. And act. And love. In terms of the human condition, we are all the same. In terms of living out that condition, we couldn’t possibly be more different.
I’m certain that I view this much differently than the 300 women watching it with me. And I think that’s wonderful.
Tags: Sexand the City, Carrie Bradshaw, men and women, women
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oh steve (organized religion)
June 2nd, 2008
I wanted to post something of a clarification of my opinions. This is my official disassociation with Steve Pavlina…with whom I’ve never had an official association to begin with. In fact, no association whatsoever other than a respect for him as a writer and personal development theorist.
Until now, I’ve linked to Steve in many of my own articles and quoted him happily. But today I read a recent article that he posted on his blog that has prompted my loss of respect for him to such a level that I won’t be linking to him from here on out.
No offense to the man. He’s still written some of the best stuff I’ve ever read, and I won’t be removing old links. Some of his ideas I’ll still be implementing in my own life, and frankly, I’ll probably still read his blog from time to time. But I refuse to promote anyone who attacks other people’s beliefs with such vehemence.
Here’s the article, if you’re interested.
Amazingly, I don’t completely disagree with him. If you’re one of the 10 or so readers that have laid eyes on my blog, or if you know me personally, you probably already know that I certainly have my own love/hate relationship with organized religion. Religious fanaticism has caused more wars and atrocities than anything else in history. It has also caused much personal hurt to individuals that I personally know. Go ahead and lump me in there too.
But that doesn’t make religion itself evil or wrong. Nor does it make religious people idiots. Let me share here a few adjectives that Steve lovingly piles on proponents of religion: dysfunctional, false, authoritarian, incongruent, unproductive, idiotic, hypocritical, immature.
It’s not even the specific words he chose to use. It’s the overall tone of the article. The subtext that if you practice religion, you are an idiot.
Read a little more closely and it becomes obvious that Steve has been seriously hurt by organized religion – specifically the Catholic church. And thusly, I take his article to be further evidence that organized religion certainly does cause a tremendous amount of hurt. If a normally intelligent and reasonable man like Steve Pavlina can be inspired to lower himself to personal attack and insult against the largest group of people on earth, then those of us who do subscribe to a particular belief system should take our responsibility to NOT hurt people much more seriously.
Faith is not stupid, Steve. Religious piety is not ignorance. But I’m very sorry that foolish and evil men have given you such a bad taste in your mouth for the church (and I think, God…). You’re not alone…I’ve tasted how bitter it can be myself. Millions have. But attacking other people’s beliefs is not the answer.
As for my own opinions regarding religion, stay tuned. I don’t blame God for any of those wars or atrocities that I mentioned, that’s for sure. And I also don’t blame the literally billions of sane, kind, intelligent, faithful religious people who really do exist for them either. Though don’t we all share in the responsibility somewhat for the terrible things our family does in the name of God?
Alright, I’m just rambling again. As I said, stay tuned. In the meantime, farewell Steve!
Tags: religion, faith, steve pavlina
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strenghthening relationships
May 11th, 2008
I’ve posted a lot of negativity over the last couple of years regarding relationships and how they sometimes end badly. In the light of being fair and balanced, I wanted to post a link here to a fantastic article by Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project. It’s a really cool collection of some psycho-babble that’s not so much babble and actually a lot o’ useful. Ok, that sounded silly. These are some really smart ideas, pshycho-babble aside, about how to make quality relationships and keep them healthy.
My personal fave is number 4, Fundamental Attribution Error.
Here’s the article: This Wednesday: Eight psychological terms to help you strengthen your friendships.
Tags: relationships, friendship, happiness
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