One of the reasons I have not posted anything since the end of Jan is that I’ve been busy working on an iPad app. But I decided to take a 10 min break from Xcode and discuss a quick topic that struck me tonight.
First, make sure you are sitting down because I’m going to reveal some shocking things about myself here:
In 1983 I was in high school. (Yes, I am that old) Pretty much I was late for school every day. (again… I know.. very surprising!) As “punishment” I got detention and had to stay after school. Detention could be spent in a variety of rooms, my preference was the computer lab. The trick here was that I wanted to spend time in the computer lab. So it was impossible to “punish” me. At some point I think they caught on and made me spend my detention in a different room, but that actually punished them more than me, so eventually they gave in. But I digress…
The point of this post is that in the 1980’s when I programmed, I just tried stuff to see what would happen. I had no fear of typing “Run”. The result was that I made some cool apps. But these days, in iPhone OS, where I’m not that swift on objective-c, or these days Open GL ES – I tend to be taking more of a ‘research-research-research’ approach and am not clicking “Build and Run” as often as I would of when I was 16. At least that how I feel at the moment. I can’t say that it’s fear – because I know that nothing will explode. But there’s something going on.
What do you think? Are you less creative or less adventurous with technical things than you were when you were younger?
High Tech Monorails is a documentary I edited for my friend Rob Kelly. It’s airing on Travel Channel and Travel HD several times this month starting Sunday at 7pm PST. Set your TiVo and be sure watch it!
The show covers several of the world’s best monorails including the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal Germany, which was built over 100 years ago. It also takes you to China aboard the 1.2 billion dollar mag lev that reaches 270 mph, and to Las Vegas where a monorail was built to connect the back side of the strip’s casinos. And the film talks about how Los Angeles was offered a free monorail in the 60’s but turned it down due to pressure from the oil companies. And it asks the question “why aren’t we using these technologies more today.” All egos aside, it’s a delightful way to spend an hour. I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out.
What’s better to help me forget about that stolen iPhone other than a new big budget prime time sci fi show to watch. Gosh V, that’s a big TV…
I watched, hoping for a BSG-style re-imagined remake of the 80’s original and I got the feeling that’s what they were going after. For some reason I can’t quite tell yet if they succeeded. I didn’t watch much of the original miniseries (or any iterations thereafter) but remember enough know a few spoilers. So I was glad that the pilot covered a lot of ground and I think it got us far enough along the story to hopefully be able to kick into full swing next week. In comparison I felt both BSG and Sarah Conner Chronicles had excellent pilots and got things rolling right away. I think it might take a few more episodes to see how well I’m going to like this. But at least they got me willing to give it a try for a few more weeks. For now we’ve got a season pass. What did you think?
In 1986 I went into my local Atari ST store and was furious to find a cheap Othello-type game selling for $30 – which was like 100 bucks in ‘86. Why sooo serious?! Well, because in my opinion it was a total rip off. First off it showed no creativity – the graphics were just black and white circles for game pieces. And second, it should have been free out of a magazine (back then you’d just type in the code). It was a total rip off. So I set out to write my own version of the game, and mine looked more like a 3D game table. The rest of that story another time.
To my point, a similar thing has certainly happened to the makers of the iPhone app Bang!Bang! and Boom!BOOM! Shotgun Free (iTunes links). They had what they thought was an original idea. They set out to make it professional, using realistic graphics and hollywood sound effects, and they worked it through the iPhone app approval process. Only to find out that Apple was approving several ‘gun’ apps all around the same time. No proof of this of course, but I suspect that Apple might have held theirs back to time the releases closer together. I believe theirs did hit the store first, but others soon followed, including what can only be described as an extremely cheap knock off called Shotgun Pro. But plagiarism is the best form of compliment, right? And competition is what makes this country great.
But still, the idea that Shotgun Pro had made it to #2 on the Entertainment charts got under their skin a bit. And to be honest it also makes me scratch my head as it is a somewhat un-inspired soundboard app. So to combat it they too set out on a mission, to ‘pop a cap in the arse’ of the competition. Take the jump to read on and see the video…
I’ve been looking forward to Jimmy Fallon taking over the Late Night spot. Last night around 1am I realized that I forgot to TiVo Monday night’s episode which had an interview with Joshua Topolsky from Engagetand a performance by my old friends The Lonely Island Boys. Luckily there’s this new fangled thing called hulu. Tonight, I’m in the middle of watching the eiposde now and so far it’s the funniest one yet.
I’m glad to see Jimmy embracing the tech side so much that he’d interview Joshua. The Apple fanboy in me is also comforted by the mac on his desk.
You can watch the entire episode below (for as long as the link works) or at hulu.com. Full screen it’s almost as good as cable…
UPDATE: After watching I realized that the TiVo description was wrong. Turns out the Lonely Island Boys were not on that episode. For shame. Here’s another clip of them with Jimmy from Feb 11th.
RnSK Softtronics Firearms new iPhone application “Bang! Bang!” simulates a real gun, complete with a safety switch, optional silencer, and an animated slide. When running the app you hold your iPhone like a gun and the motion of tilting the device forward makes it fire. It works just when you were a kid and you pointed your finger like a gun, except this has realistic sound effects licensed from an Oscar award winning sound effects company.
Rumor has it that it took several tweaks and a change to the App’s rating before being allowed into the iPhone App store. However the first app (of several models) has finally passed through and should be available early next week is available in the app store now.
It’s been a rather busy week and it’s not going to let up any time soon. It’s probably better that I accept defeat right now. I’ll be back next week with a review of the Harman/Kardon AVR254 and some discussion of 7.1 Audio. In the mean time here’s a nice little distraction…
My buddy Andrew sent in this photo. He has the same HR10-250 that I have, but his days-without-a-daily-call count trumps mine by almost a year. He was wondering if he gets a prize. Hey, maybe as a reward I’ll play some Xbox with you.
Happy New Year! About an hour ago there was a roar outside that sounded like a 747 driving down my quiet residential street. It was the constant and combined blasts of thousands of fireworks going off 10 to 15 miles away at the Las Vegas Strip. It was so loud that it could even be heard over the phone. My buddy David and I were discussing our predictions for 2009. At this late hour I can’t remember all of them, but here are a few to get the ball rolling. Jump in and add your own predictions down in the comments…
In 1986 I went into my local Atari ST store and was furious to find a cheap Othello-type game selling for $30 – which was like 100 bucks in ‘86. Why sooo serious?! Well, because in my opinion it was a total rip off. First off it showed no creativity – the graphics were just black and white circles for game pieces. And second, it should have been free out of a magazine (back then you’d just type in the code). It was a total rip off. So I set out to write my own version of the game, and mine looked more like a 3D game table. The rest of that story another time.
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