4K

Sony has just listed an 4K TV on their site. it's 84", and it costs $24,999.99 (apparently that pricing trick of dropping a penny to rounding down one of the left-side figures matters even when you're talking about spending the price of a Prius on a television). This is the same list price as the one for their "consumer" 4K projector which is already on the market.

I'm excited for the future of 4K entertainment, but you are almost beyond an early adopter to jump on this bandwagon so soon. That's because for consumers there is almost no 4K content that you could even send to this display.

I say almost because there is one movie I'm aware of that's available for purchase in 4K resolution: TimeScapes. You can grab a quick preview of a 2560p clip from TimeScapes here (right click the link and hit save as; you really don't want to try to play it in your browser). You can purchase either a 25Gb 4K file of TimeScapes on a USB stick for $99.95 or a 330Gb 4K 12 bit Cineform file on a hard drive for $299.95. And then you'll need a 4K video card in your computer to even push that file to your new 4K TV to turn it into the world's largest, sharpest nature screensaver display.

Red announced a Red Ray device which is their delivery solution for 4K content files, but it has yet to receive a release date. They also announced their own 4K projector and have demoed it here and there, but again there's no official ship date yet.

Is this all absurd? I suppose. But who am I kidding? I can't wait to go 4K.

UPDATE: If you have just $20,000 burning a hole in your pocket instead of $25,000, then this LG 4K TV, also 84", may be more your speed. Given that both the Sony and LG are 84", they may be sharing the same source for the display.

Skill versus luck

I was debating someone over whether poker was a game of skill or luck. The same question is asked of many games or sports.

The best test for whether it's a game of skill or luck is one I heard of from Michael Mauboussin: if you can lose on purpose, it's a game of skill.

So poker, blackjack, Monopoly, Settlers of Catan...all games of skill. There is luck involved, of course, but skill plays a critical role. The lottery, roulette, slot machines...games of luck.

I first heard of Mauboussin when I was at Amazon as he owned a stake at Legg Mason. I saw a presentation, maybe he gave it in person, it's hard to remember now, and he described why he was bullish. Being an insider at a company, you can quickly tell which outsiders are smart and which aren't purely by how much they can deduce about your business that you haven't shared with them explicitly. People like Bill Gurley and Mauboussin were clearly a cut above.

Mauboussin's new book The Success Equation was just released. I haven't had more than a few minutes to skim the introduction, but it looks to be an informative read, with what I suspect will be some advice that overlaps with what I've been getting from Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, which I'm about a quarter of the way through. That is, we often overrate the predictive power of a single example because it comes with an appealing narrative or because we force fit it to support the narrative we want to see.

Apple stock as a hedge

Many people seem upset when Apple prices its products too high, or too low. Others are upset at the relentless pace of Apple product releases because they either make previous generations of  products seem obsolete too quickly or inspire such gadget lust that people find themselves spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on Apple gear regularly.

Here's my tip: buy some shares of Apple stock.* ​I've spent a healthy chunk of change with Apple every year now for years and years, but my guilt is assuaged by Apple's consistently strong stock price performance (I've owned Apple stock for that same period of time). The stock feels like a hedge of sorts against my personal spending on their products.

* I'm being facetious, of course, and won't give out serious stock purchase advice here, but I'm serious about their share appreciation offsetting some of my Apple spending guilt. Every time Apple holds a keynote event I can feel my credit card in my wallet heating up, like the Sankara stones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Even fictional journalism is hurting

Superman, err, Clark Kent, quit his job at The Daily Planet today, to start his own blog. Not over decreasing ad rates because of pressure from the increased supply of free alternatives on the internet, however.​ According to the writer Scott Lobdell:

This is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren't really his own. Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the planet, but how long can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck and treating him like the least important person in the world?

More:​

Rather than Clark be this clownish suit that Superman puts on, we're going to really see Clark come into his own in the next few years as far as being a guy who takes to the Internet and to the airwaves and starts speaking an unvarnished truth.

Clark Kent as Andrew Sullivan?​ It sounds ridiculous, but stories that humanize Superman have always been far more interesting than those that deify him. This new plot doesn't sound like a bold enough move to take the character into territory, but they should continue to push in those directions.

Why does Superman even pose as a reporter in the first place? Is it for cultural assimilation, or as a way to better empathize with the people he needs to protect? Didn't he get enough of that in high school? If he really wanted to maximize the good he does the world with his superpowers shouldn't he just fly around 24 hours a day dealing with crime and despots and natural disasters? Is the mental strain too much to handle full time? Does he need to sleep? Does posing as a commoner reveal some deep-seated need to be anonymous? Maybe he's a social misfit at heart? Does he get too lonely and need to kick back with coworkers for the occasional beer? Superman has always been one of the weakest written of superheroes, and the mythology hasn't aged well. But a brave writer could really use Superman as a platform to explore some interesting themes.

Does anyone even read physical comic books anymore? Is the readership enough to justify the real profit business which is licensing the characters for movies? I suppose if the business even breaks even or turns a slight loss the movie licensing revenue is still worth it, but it seems odd to even print any comic books on paper anymore. Maybe Apple's 30% commission on digital comics makes that channel no more profitable than physical book sales, though it's hard to imagine given paper printing costs and returns.

​Too bad Alan Moore seems done taking the occasional swing at rewriting famous superheroes. He wrote some of the more intriguing Superman stories, like this and this.