Swimmin' with Dylan

Download the instrumental version of "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, as well as "Nel Cimitero di Tucson," the spaghetti western track Danger Mouse sampled for Crazy. Something to tide us over while we wait for Paris Hilton's cover.

True height measures the effective height of a basketball player. Good news! Tyrus Thomas measures out as nearly a 7-footer in true height. I'm pumped up for the Bulls upcoming season, though it will still be ugly on offense.

Shina Tsukamoto's horror film novella Haze on Region 2 DVD.

Soundtrack.net has a sneak preview of James Newton Howard's score for Lady in the Water. Oddly enough, the soundtrack includes a bunch of Bob Dylan covers.

Wired Magazine has a profile of banned Tour de France technology. Most are just bikes that fall under the UCI minimum weight limit, though, and for a recreational cyclist that's nothing to get excited about. A few ounces here or there isn't going to turn the average club cyclist into a champ, and trying to descend a long, steep mountain on a featherweight bike is terrifying.

A long-standing conspiracy theory holds that the moon landing was staged, perhaps by Stanley Kubrick. The moon hoax is so popular that NASA had to address it.

Sizzler

I finally had a chance to take my new Macbook Pro out for a spin while in Beijing, and it came through for me, allowing me to edit a wedding toast video in time for the ceremony on Saturday. Compared to my old, ancient Powerbook, the Macbook Pro is much snappier, with better speakers and a stronger wi-fi antenna.
I'm not sure I'd refer to it as a laptop, though, because you can't put the thing on your lap. I didn't think it was possible, but this model runs even hotter than my previous model, and if I left it on my bare legs I'd be peeling skin off the bottom of it in short order.
Perhaps Apple can sell some add-ons to dissipate the heat, like a coffeemaker and a hotplate so you could brew coffee and scramble some eggs while checking your morning e-mail.

Da Da Da

When they come out with that list of 10 worst jobs next year, I think being a defense lawyer for Saddam Hussein has to make the cut.

Why do U.S. doctors continue to misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20% of the time? Perhaps because the current medical system offers no incentives to improve.

A deadly flu from Asia strikes America. There is no cure, and if you catch it, and you have a 10% chance of dying. If you take a vaccine, it will protect you, but there' s a 5% chance the vaccine will kill you. What do you do? The correct answer is to take the vaccine, of course, but patients choose correctly more often if choosing for someone else than for themselves. Not entirely surprising. It's tough to think big picture when you're smack dab in the frame.

UPDATE: Sorry, as one of my readers John points out, I should have said you have a 10% chance of dying. That's not conditional on catching the flu or not. Otherwise you'd need to know what the chances of catching the flu are.

Using similarity scores, Richard Lu rates the NBA prospects coming out from the NCAA this year. At the top of the list? Ronnie Brewer. LaMarcus Aldridge ranked 6, Brandon Roy 8, and Tyrus Thomas 11. Overall, the similarity scores confirm what most people have said, that this is a weak draft.

Yes, Dan Brown is a terrible writer. But one popular indictment of his mega-bestseller is unfair. Referring to Leonardo as "da Vinci" in the title is not the same as referring to Jesus as "of Nazareth" (as explained here by Geoff Nunberg of The Language Log). You don't need a linguistics PhD to know this, though. People refer to me as "da man" all the time, and I'm totally cool with that.

The top 10 ultimate grills. At number one on the list is the gorgeous specimen pictured below:

This backyard set from Lynx Professional Grills has a 42" grill with access doors, double burner, storage drawers, warming drawer, beverage area with outdoor refrigerator, ice machine, and cocktail pro (a bar area with sink and faucet).

Nike + iPod

The Nike + iPod Sport Kit is available for pre-order for $29 and works with iPod Nanos. The website says you have to own or purchase a pair of Nike+ shoes, and Nike's just don't fit my flat, wide feet. They're made for people with skinny feet and normal to high arches. But since the only distinguishing feature of the Nike+ shoes seems to be a pocket under the insole to hold the wireless sensor, it certainly seems possible to hack another pair of running shoes to hold the sensor. I'll need to study a pair of these Nike+ shoes to see what's so special about the sub-insole notch.

HDR

Nathan Myhrvold on the future of digital camera technology. A while back at a wedding, Jeff mentioned to me that he'd returned from a conference at MIT where he'd seen demos of a camera that would take three exposures of every photo, basically automatically bracketing every photo to address exposure problems with scenes of high dynamic range (HDR). That technology hasn't even launched yet, but impatient photographers have leaped ahead with a partial solution, taking multiple exposures manually at different exposures, then blending them in Photoshop CS2 or Photomatix, or both, to create HDR photos. This is despite the fact that HDR displays are too expensive for mass-production.

Having a camera that could bracket shots near simultaneously would solve the issue of trying to handhold for multiple exposures, though you couldn't do it by varying the shutter speed given that you only have one lens. What you'd have to do is have multiple sensors, each with a differing sensitivity. Or you could just have one sensor with a much wider dynamic range. Being able to capture HDR with just one photo would solve the problem with creating HDR pics right now, which is that your subject has to be, for the most part, stationary.

One area where this type of technology would be particularly useful is wedding photography. Trying to capture the brilliant white of a wedding dress and the ebony black of a tuxedo side by side is a photographic challenge. Expose properly for the dress and the groom's tux looks like a solid block of black. Expose for the tux and the bride looks like a face nestled in a blinding explosion of white. Most wedding photographers have switched to shooting digital, and the speed of the digital workflow certainly benefits the photographer. But to my eye, black and white film still does a superior job of capturing the dynamic range of most wedding portraits. If one was to be married this year, I'd recommend asking one of the wedding photographers to shoot medium format film, especially for bride-groom portraits.

I have not played around with HDR much, but last last weekend while in DC visiting my sister I came across some dramatic cloud formations moving with urgency over the Mall. I bracketed a few shots so I could experiment with HDR in Photoshop CS2, clouds being perhaps the most popular element that drives photographers to turn to HDR processing (the texture of clouds disappears when photos are overexposed which is almost always in single exposures since landscapes below tend to be darker). I didn't have a tripod, unfortunately, and so I had to handhold. Not ideal, but I don't enjoy hauling a tripod around when sightseeing.

This one I shot out a window of the Hirshhorn seemed to come out the best, though I still need to play around with the settings in Photoshop and Photomatix to learn how each affects the final output.

Photoshop seems to produce more natural-looking images, while Photomatix can leave you with more saturated and dramatic HDR but also more artificial-looking images. Do a tag search on "HDR" in Flickr (over 25,000 results and rising) and you'll find some truly bizarre-looking HDR photos of images that don't require the effect. The end result often resembles some garish, digitally drawn watercolor.

Here's another one from this past weekend, when I took a visitor out to see The Statue of Liberty.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Google Browser Sync is a Firefox plugin that syncs your Firefox browser settings across all your computers. Useful to me because I'm always bouncing between my desktop and laptop.

Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi is dead, killed in an air strike north of Baghdad.

Jon Stewart vs. Bill Bennett on gay marriage. If you wanted to send someone from the right to match wits with Jon Stewart on this issue, Bill Bennett probably isn't on the shortlist.

The Yoda backpack makes it seem as if Yoda is hanging on your back so you can look like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. Pair this with a Force FX lightsaber and, well, you might as well lop off your manhood and put it in that backpack because it won't be getting any use.

Speaking of Star Wars, the DVDs for the original, unaltered Star Wars trilogy, Eps IV through VI, are being released in September, and the fans are already killing them with customer reviews on Amazon.com. All three DVDs currently average about 2 out of 5 stars in customer ratings. It's not just that fans are being forced to buy yet another set of Star Wars DVDs but that the original, unaltered movies will be released in non-anamorphic widescreen and will not have a new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix. Some fans say it's just the original laserdisc transfer (I own those laserdiscs, by the way). Oh, the horror.

An online strategy guide to rock, paper, scissors. There's even a book in print called The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. I went to a book reading/signing by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner today. It was fun to finally meet them in person. They mentioned that they're going to write a sequel to Freakonomics to be titled SuperFreakonomics. Their talk strayed to the topic of rock, paper, scissors. Phil Gordon is going to throw a $50,000 rock, paper, scissors tournament so Levitt can study the play. It just so happens that Levitt is studying the human ability or inability to randomize. He mentioned some initial studies that indicated that football (I think he meant European football) players are superior strategy randomizers. He's not sure why. If given 4 strategies to employ against each other, the optimal mix is something like 40/20/20/20 (or so Levitt said), and football players do that naturally. Rock, paper, scissors is a good test of that human ability. Gordon believes that some people are gifted randomizers and can consistently win at rock, paper, scissors, but it sounds like Levitt's skeptical since different people make the rock, paper, scissors finals each year.

Chip Kidd is the guest blogger at PowellsBooks this week. Among the his to-do's for the week:

• Design a cover for Christina Garcia's forthcoming novel, A Handbook to Luck.


• Construct and photograph a miniature set for Martin Amis's new novel, House of Meetings. By Thursday morning.


• Redesign a poster for a Pedro Almodovar film festival.


• Do the mechanical for Robert Hughes's Goya, newly in paperback.


• Get an approval on a jacket for a book on the history of relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle East (by Zachary Karabell).


• Do research on a poster for Sofia Coppola's upcoming film, Marie Antoinette (I'm so, so behind on this and Sony's being very patient).


• Design a cover for a play by Cormac McCarthy, entitled Sunset Limited.


• Do same for Kim Deitch's new graphic novel, Alias The Cat, which I am also editing. And which rules.


• Reconfigure my design for the Surprise CD by Paul Simon in order to adapt it to, of all things, vinyl.

Even Danny Meyer's wife and kids have to wait in line at the Shake Shack.

A couple links

Two products with cool design: this "blind date" calendar and this lumen tree.
"Nostalgia" by George Saunders.
Yesterday, Golf World's Masters Performance Index predicted a Vijay Singh win at the Masters. That prediction's sitting pretty today, but there's a whole lot of golf left.
Gospel of Judas found. Did Jesus ask Judas to betray him?
Bush authorized Plamegate leak says Scooter Libby.

Victoria

Portable cloaking technology finally a reality?
In search of the mythical pitch called the gyroball, a baseball thrown with the rotation of a football spiral, or a bullet, and nearly unhittable.
Beware the flirtatious IM stranger, especially if you're a college basketball player about to play a big game.
Fastest growing city on Earth: Chongqing. The two times I've been to China, I'm always amazed to travel through towns like Chongqing, that no one has ever heard of, all with populations larger than New York City.

...the planet's population is currently split almost right down the middle: 3.2 billion in the city, 3.2 billion in the countryside. But by the start of 2007, the balance will have tipped decisively away from the fields and towards the skyscrapers.

I predict more men will be asking for jalapenos on their Subway sandwiches.

Tree Hugger

Sony Playstation 3 to launch in November, 2006...this and more news from the PS3 conference. Blu-ray DVD playback, HDMI output, 60GB HDD, full backwards compatibility. No price announced, though.
Set up your Netflix account to default to HD-DVDs. Not sure why they haven't distinguished between HD and Blu-ray, since those are incompatible formats. Not a whole lot of titles on the docket, but you can sign up to be notified when the initial titles release at Amazon's HD DVD store or its Blu-ray DVD store.
Keepvid.com, for preserving those treasured videos from sites like Google Video, YouTube, Vimeo, and others of that ilk.
My sister had to mock up a fake videogame box cover for a class project. Her game was a satire of first person shooters, an eco-terrorism game called Tree Hugger. Yep, that guy who just tossed his empty soda can on the sidewalk is about to be lined up in the crosshairs. Severe? Perhaps. Similar policies in Singapore seem effective. I was taken aback mostly because this is my little sister we're talking about. Yes, we are one crazy family. You can click on the image for a larger view.

You might not be the only one betting on college basketball this week.
Tutorial on simulating tilt-shift photography using Photoshop. So much fun!

Deleted scenes from Star Wars

I hesitate to link to this because it feels like I'd just be speeding its demise, but for all I know these aren't that new anyhow: deleted scenes from Star Wars (Episode IV). Probably of interest only to the hardcore fans, as some of this is just behind the scenes footage.
Based on Gross National Product per capita, what is the 77th richest country in the world, wealthier than India, China, and Bulgaria? EverQuest.
Microsoft's Origami revealed, with a less friendly name of Ultra-Mobile PC. I'd like to see someone wear this on their belt like a cell phone. That is sure to impress the ladies.
The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web.
On the new revelations surrounding Barry Bonds steroid use, which most people suspected since his physical transformation into a human Bobblehead, the claim that most saddens me is that Bonds started juicing to grab the spotlight back from McGwire and Sosa. It's as if the movie Amadeus had been reversed, and Mozart was the one fuming over Salieri. I feel sorry for Bonds, in a way. For such a gifted player, he's always seemed so bitter and angry, arrogant yet insecure. Well, once the book hits the street, it should serve as a truth serum one way or another. Lance Armstrong always sued anyone who made public accusations that he doped. Despite Bonds's alimony payments, I think he could afford to take legal action if the book made false accusations. Meanwhile, I don't know Bud Selig, but I can't help picturing him with a copy of the book on his desk, a blank and shellshocked look on his face, just like President Logan on 24. He'd turn to his Mike Novick equivalent and plead, "Mike, tell me what to do."

Rakebreak.com

Rakebreak.com allows you to recover some of the rake you pay at many popular online poker playing sites. Many sites will cut Ratebreak.com in a chunk of the rake it takes from you. Then Rakebreak gives most of that back to you, keeping a bit for yourself. Refer friends, and if they accumulate $400 in rake, you get a $50 bonus. [via Thrillist]
What is Microsoft's Origami Project, which is being unveiled this Thursday? The most popular theory seems to be an "ultraportable lifestyle PC," a sort of jack-of-all-trades gadget that combines all your devices into one: digital camera, camcorder, cell phone, MP3 player, PDA, Internet access device, e-mail device, and portable picture display.
The Sony Portable Reader System (PRS-500) is up for sale at SonyStyle.com for $349.99. I'd want to experience the screen resolution of one of these babies in person before plunking down that much cash, but electronic readers do geek me up, and this is the most promising model yet. The first thing Sony needs to do, however, is give this baby a name. PRS-500 is not sexy at all. Hmmm, maybe something like Origami Project, if that's not already taken. [via Engadget]
In the Minnesota Timberwolves game last night, Kevin Garnett tossed a ball into the stands in frustration and hit a fan in the face. Garnett was ejected, and rightfully so (a young girl to his right, perhaps the man's daughter, burst into tears), but my eyes rolled at footage of the fan being wheeled out on a gurney by medical personnel. From being hit in the face by a basketball? A player with a $100 million contract hits you in the nose with a tossed ball, and television cameras all swing around to focus on you--that's the time to bust out your best Oscar performance and get a good lawyer on the phone. But I think the guy probably realized that even the U.S. legal system would have a hard time finding in his favor when you have grade school kids being nailed in the face by hard red rubber dodgeballs every day in P.E. On a positive note, I'm sure the guy will be happy with his parting gift, likely to be some signed paraphernalia by KG.
Hot rumor at the NFL Combine is that Vince Young scored a 6 out of 50 on the Wonderlic test, though the latest news is that the grader may have scored the test wrong, though his score wasn't much better. Wonderlic must have some good lawyers because I couldn't find a complete sample Wonderlic test online anywhere, though ESPN.com once published a sample 15 questions that everyone online is forced to cite when posting about the test. Supposedly, Matt Leinart scored a 35, and the average score for an NFL prospect is about 19. I've never seen any studies that demonstrate any correlation between Wonderlic score and NFL performance, though Young's score would make him the lowest scoring starting QB in the NFL. That score would likely hurt Young's draft stock, not necessarily because his test score means he's unable to grasp an NFL playbook but because like many standardized tests, it's a test of your willingness to study for a defined task. A score of 6 would indicate that Young's preparation for the Combine was spotty, at best. He knew it was coming. So the latest news is that Young retook the test and scored a 16, and that he'll take the test a third time.
[related: Pro Football Weekly published scores for lots of players from last year's NFL draft]
[update: I did manage to find a sample Wonderlic test online]

Duck and dunk

Pop quiz on marriage, one that bursts some common myths.
If you're looking to buy one of the new MacBook Pros that comes out this week, a good place to go is Amazon.com. They're offering a $150 rebate if you buy by Feb 28. Add in the A9 Instant Reward, Free Super Saver Shipping, and no sales tax (for most of you), and that's a healthy financial incentive to buy from Amazon instead of elsewhere. Of course, the only problem is that it's not available yet, so you can't buy it. Buyers should keep an eye on the site this week to see if the Add to Shopping Cart button makes an appearance before Feb. 28.
Nate Robinson is a great athlete, and the Spud Webb hurdle dunk was a lot of fun. But how he won the dunkoff after missing something like 87 dunks in a row is a mystery greater than even the figure skating scoring rules. I guess it's no surprise the sponsor this year was Sprite. The NBA changed the rules this year so that misses don't count against you, which is a good idea to encourage players to try some truly difficult dunks. But c'mon. You have to put some cap on it; this was a scene straight out of Tin Cup. And anyhow, Andre Iguodala made a jump, catch, and dunk from behind the backboard! He jumped so high he hit his head on the backboard the first time and had to duck under it to actually make the dunk (you can see a sequence of photos of the Iguodala dunk here)!? Can we get a Dick Button call on that dunk? They should have a rule that if you make a dunk that's truly spectacular and groundbreaking, you can just win the contest right then and there, outright. Like when Vince Carter jumped from behind the backboard, did a 360 degree spin, windmilled and dunked with one hand. Or when Jason Richardson tossed the ball off the backboard, caught it in mid-air, put the ball through his legs, finished a NYTimes crossword, and dunked. The judge of whether a dunk qualifies for such an outright knockout win would be the number of NBA players on the sidelines who jump out of their seats with and start high-fiving and hugging and giggling and screaming like a band of high school cheerleaders. It should've been over when Iguodala ran off the court and out the tunnel.

Sweet dunk...

...but here's the dunk that should have ended the contest.

The other thing that amazes me about the All-Star game is watching how easily NBA pros can make the half court shot. In that competition with three player teams making a variety of shots around the court, it only took Tony Parker and Kobe Bryant one shot each to nail the half court shot, and it didn't take the other teams much longer to nail it. They should just have a new contest on All-Star weekend, the half-court shooting contest.

The Terrible Triad

I had a terrible flashback when I saw Carson Palmer crumple after suffering a torn ACL and MCL and damage to the media meniscus. That injury is commonly referred to as the terrible triad because they tend to occur together. The knee is just a stubborn joint, it can bend forward until the leg is straight, and it can bend backwards until your foot hits your butt, and that's about the extent of its operation. It's not so good with side to side forces, like a big defensive lineman rolling into it from the side.
The good news is that ACL reconstruction has come a long way. In the old days, they wouldn't even bother repairing the ACL, and athletes would just back out and play with an unstable knee, though it was highly recommended that you strengthen your muscles around the knee. My doctor actually gave me that option, but I didn't want to limit myself to sports requiring only straight-ahead linear motion, like running or cycling. My docs didn't bother repairing my MCL, but they did take a piece of my hamstring to replace my ACL, and they snipped a bit of my torn meniscus out and stapled the remainder together with some biodegradable material that just dissolved after a while. A half year of rehab later, and I was back out and running around, with the added benefit of being able to predict inclement weather with my reconstructed knee.

***

This hard drive is a real brick.

***

Play Windows Media files in your Quicktime player on the Mac.

Bob Loblaw

What foods to buy organic (lots of fruits, meats, and baby food), and what not (seafood).
Analysts guess that Sony's Playstation 3 will cost $499 when it's released, as opposed to the $399 that the Xbox 360 theoretically costs now, though if you want one right at this very moment you'll probably pay a lot more than that on eBay.
Skype 2.0 for Windows offers free video calling. Non-Windows XP users don't get the video calling feature, but that means we get to continue calling in the nude, so we've got that going for us.
Nikon to halt production on all but two of its seven film camera bodies, phasing them out one by one. My old Nikon film camera is already starting to display that healthy antique glow.
No go on running Windows XP on the new MacBook Pro, at least for now, but you can run Vista if you can somehow get your hands on a beta copy.
John Madden Arrested for possession of turhumanheaducken (I've flirted with the turducken for many a Thanksgiving now, so James just had to pass this along to me).
Digi-portraits - Sweet! I want one!
Kobe vs. Lebron tonight, though it's really lame in the NBA that star players almost never guard each other, so it's really more like Lebron and Kobe tonight, on the same basketball court and occasionally within a few feet of each other. John Hollinger compared the two statistically (ESPN Insider subscription required), and to summarize, Lebron won out by the slightest of margins.

Bleaghh

Monday, at the gym, I felt nauseous on the treadmill. I stumbled home, then spent the next 24 hours curled up with a water bucket nearby, hovering on the edge of puking my guts out. I disobeyed two of Anthony Bourdain's precepts from Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly: I ordered seafood on Sunday, and that seafood was in the form of mussels from a chef I did not know personally. Never again. On a positive note, my calorie count was quite low that day.
NBA to create a searchable database of all its video footage. We'll all be able to spin our own highlight reels, depending on how well the footage is indexed.
Before you visit MoMA in NYC, grab some audio tours or podcasts for your iPod. For example, grab an MP3 Acoustiguide about the latest special exhibition, Pixar: 20 Years of Animation. MoMA even encourages you to create your own audio tours of your favorite works of art there, for others to enjoy, complete with images from MoMA's online collection. I'm sure some good ones have been created already; it's on my to-do list now, too.
Microsoft's inability to manufacture more Xbox 360's for their holiday season launch is a huge misstep. They finally got release position on Sony, then failed to press their advantage. Even Steve Ballmer's kids don't have one.
You can buy extensions for your powerstrip to avoid the annoying loss of an extra outlet to a bulky transformer, or you can just purchase a next generation powerstrip like the PowerSquid.
Paris by night, a gorgeous nighttime panoramic shot of the City of Lights (1.8MB file). More visual foie gras here. Damn I miss Paris. [via Me-Fi]
Trailer for Mission Impossible 3, or M:I:3, I guess. No director ever has ever had to utter the words: "With more intensity, Mr. Cruise."
One of those strange ways the world has ceded some privacy online is through WeddingChannel. Every wedding I've attended the past several years has posted all its registries online for the world to discover through a simple name search on bride or groom. You can even look up old registries, as for Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, or those of some ex you're still stalking, to see if they're tying the knot, and if so, what sort of cookware they'll be using in the home they're making with someone else. Fun way to kill a few minutes.
Every release of Firefox justifies a revisit of the most useful Firefox Extensions. SessionSaver is the most useful to me because of the sheer number of tabs I have open at once, and NoScript makes web surfing a much more serene experience, but it's the aggregation of all of my extensions that make Firefox my browser of choice.
First full-length trailer for The Da Vinci Code. There's nothing subtle about this trailer, which basically is the equivalent of a freaky albino monk coming to your front door and dragging you kicking and screaming to the movie theater to turn over your $10.50.

Silly Billy

Panasonic launched a blog called Def Perception to discuss its HDV 24p camcorder the AG-HVX200 and high def filmmaking in general. To request a free instructional DVD on the AG-HVX200 (for U.S. customers only), go here. B&H is pre-selling a kit with the AG-HVX200 and two 8GB P2 cards for $10K.
Wednesday is the day when Michelin releases its New York restaurant star ratings, with the release party that evening at the Guggenheim. Who will receive the coveted three-star ratings? Early favorites include Per Se and Alaine Ducasse. As a way of going long Per Se, I snagged a reservation for mid-November.
Yesterday, I attended a Halloween party with my nephew Ryan, looking as adorable as ever in his deluxe Thomas the Tank Engine costume. The parents association that sponsored the party hired a clown to perform, and I was so busy chasing Ryan with my camcorder that Anita had to point out that the clown was none other than David Friedman, from the Andrew Jarecki documentary Capturing the Friedmans. David was one of Jarecki's original subjects since the documentary began as one about birthday clowns. David seems to have shaken off any stigma from his father's pedophilia conviction and continues to work as the clown magician Silly Billy. Only in NY.
Ken reminded me that Cool Hunting linked to this collage of cassette tapes, many of which the two of us used to purchase by the dozens to dub our music. So many of these images still seem as vividly familiar as if they were sitting on my shelves now. Ah, those days when a metal cassette tape was like gold.
Apps for doing this on a Windows PC have long been available, but now Mac users can treat a GMail account as a hard drive using gDisk.
My old roommate Scott, in an aside, guessed that I'd heard of a movie titled Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Well, I hadn't, so I looked up the plot summary: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody, let loose a crate full of deadly snakes. Well, a title doesn't get too much more literal than that, and though it's not due out until 2006, it's already inspired a long and often chuckle-worthy thread of over 100 proposed sequels.
A list of John Peel's most treasured 7-inch singles. The White Stripes are big winners, with an amazing 10 spots on the list.
James forwarded me this little easter egg video of Yoda breakdancing, from the Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith DVD, releasing tomorrow.

The new iPod plays video

Video playback capability in the iPod has been rumored for years, and now it's finally a reality. At the same price as the previous generation of iPods, the new models, available in black and white, arrive just a short while after the Nano so as to allow Nano enough time to sell a gazillion units. You can check it the latest iPod in its new television ad featuring U2. I can't imagine watching an entire television show on such a tiny screen, but music videos? Perhaps. If you put the iPod in the dock, you can control it via the new Apple remote control, and the dock allows you to output composite video and RCA audio to a television/receiver/monitor.

You can purchase television shows from iTunes to sync to your iPod, or you can use Quicktime 7 Pro to export your own video content to iTunes for transfer to the iPod. I can see carrying around some footage of my nephews.

More interesting to me was to see what the pricing for video content would be. iTunes is offering music videos and individual episodes of TV shows like Lost for $1.99. The Lost Season 1 DVD, which contains 24 episodes, costs $38.99 from Amazon.com, or about $1.60 an episode. So the Apple TV show pricing feels about right, with a slight premium to the volume pricing of the DVD. You can't burn the shows to DVD or CD. You have to watch them on your computer or an iPod.

The episodes of Lost being offered are the three most recent ones, and future episodes will appear in iTunes a day after they're aired. Is there a window after which these won't be for sale, or will they be available in perpetuity? Also, how much does ABC keep of every $1.99 sale?

Meanwhile, DVR manufacturers are talking about a day not so far in the future when hard drive space is so cheap that DVRs will just tape every hour of TV so you can watch any show on demand, without programming the device. Enterprising geeks already trade television shows through their computer using Bittorrent. Someday soon, all media, from music to movies to television shows, will be available on demand. If the networks and studios band together, they might be the ones collecting on this traffic, but as slow as they move, it seems unlikely. With just five television shows offered in this latest rev of iTunes (Desperate Housewives and Night Stalker are the other two ABC offerings), ABC/Disney is the only studio testing these waters, and they're just dipping their toes in with caution. This meager offering is most certainly the choice of the networks, not of Apple.

Pocket lint

Studies fail to find any link between diet and cancer. If people believe in the cancer-fighting benefits of tomato sauce and antioxidants and fiber and beta carotene, that peace of mind is not without value.

A helpful rundown of all the cases for the iPod nano.

James sent me this link to some crazy-ass breakdancers in the Redbull BC One competition. Too bad the video stream is so choppy.

Fascinating article about the constant influx of Chinese who immigrate to America through NYC and then ship out immediately to some of the more than 36,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. A few interesting factoids: there are more Chinese restaurants in the U.S. than McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger Kings combined. The market price for getting oneself smuggled into the U.S. is upward of $60,000. Those Chinatown buses that offer $15 one-way rides from NYC to Boston or Washington originally sprang up to transport these workers, but now they carry quite a number of non-Chinese looking for cheap transportation.

Economic integration cited as one of the main reasons for improved test scores in Raleigh school district. This is one of the main reasons why some education reformers believe the answer to education woes is not to segregate all the best and/or wealthiest students in their own schools. It's a tough sell to the parents of those kids, though.

Downloadable subway maps for many major cities for your iPod. Great, except New York City's MTA and San Francisco's BART have filed cease-and-desist letters. Some graphic designer just needs to make their own versions for this guy. No reason to wait for them to license it to him. That's just ridiculous. The latest update is that he's making progress on his own version of the NY Subway Map.

How can you tell if a woman loves you?

If you’re Gael Garcia Bernal: She loves you.



If you’re not Gael Garcia Bernal, but you’re willing to sit through a “GGB” marathon and agree for 10 consecutive hours that he is indeed the most beautiful and talented man alive—and so down-to-earth, too!—and afterward agree that his portrayal of Che Guevara would have earned an Oscar nod were it not for the implicit politics, agree that taking Spanish classes is a great idea, or salsa, or tango, whatever, agree, agree, agree, and that night lying in bed after sex that ends with her screaming, “Si! Si!” wonder aloud, “But you’re happy with me, right?”: She loves you, man—no one can compete with that Latin bastard. Forget about it.

Customized colors for your iPod Nano, at a premium of $85

$900 phones, $200 crayons, and a $1.50 sponge

Pre-order the Nokia 8801 from Neiman Marcus for $899(!?!). It's a gorgeous handset, but that price is absurd. Cell phones don't seem to have advanced much in a long time, other than getting skinnier. Still only a half megapixel digital camera in this one. All I want is a cell phone with a slim profile, half-decent digital camera, quad-band capability so I can use it all over the world, the ability to send text messages and photos, and a simple-to-use on-screen interface. I'm not sure I've seen the phone yet that combines all these features. Why are handset mfrs focused on all sorts of other useless features?

We watched The Cutting Edge - The Magic of Movie Editing in class. Very similar in content to Edge Codes.com: The Art of Motion Picture Editing, which we saw the previous week. I prefer the former, and it has the added benefit of being on DVD now.

Yes, Barneys Baby New York has just what that newborn needs, a $200 crayon set. Or you can go with the classic Crayola box of 64 for $5.49, and it comes with a built-in sharpener, too.

When you stay with someone and they give you towels, do you really have to have a hand towel and washcloth?

Watch a webcast of an operation before you undergo one.

The coolest household cleaning product since the Swiffer is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Just soak the sponge in water, and proceed to clean bathroom and kitchen surfaces with a bit of light scrubbing. I have no idea how it works, but I suspect dark arts. Whatever, my stovetop is clean, and that's all that matters.

A great interview with Singapore's prime minister Lee Kuan Yew in which he presents an incisive view of China's future on the global stage, among other topics.

Tomorrow's technology today: fusion and nanotechnology, in consumable goods form

Banana Nutrament has an MP3 of David Bowie and Arcade Fire singing "Wake Up" together. Bowie vocals on one of my favorite songs of the last year...cool. I'm going to see Arcade Fire on Central Park Summerstage Thursday evening. It will be my first Central Park concert.

How efficient is the Red Cross? Is there a better charity to donate to when crises like Hurricane Katrina strike? It's the most linked to charity for donating to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, but someone expressed reservations about how efficiently the Red Cross channeled those funds to aiding victims. I don't know the answer, but I found this evaluation in which the Red Cross online earned a four star rating (out of four). Not sure how objective or accurate this evaluation is, though I was hoping more knowledgeable folks had already done the legwork on this. The president and CEO, Marsha Evans, does indeed make a really generous salary ($450K a year, according to this site), though overall program expenses seem reasonable at around 5.6% of revenues.

The new iPod Nano is cool (the ROKR is not), most people agree, but while I love my iPod(s), I really hope the quality control on this new edition is better than that on previous editions. I don't know anyone who's purchased an iPod who hasn't had to bring it in for repairs at some point. Ironically, my most reliable is my first one, the first generation iPod. My other iPod, the Shuffle, is temperamental, like a crazy girlfriend.

Stream the new Sigur Ros CD Takk

Yet another Godfather novel on tap for next year. Sounds like this one weaves the Corleone saga with the Kennedy assassination.

Xbox 360 has a launch date: Nov. 22

Gillette unveils yet another razor, the successor to the Mach 3: Fusion. This baby has an enhanced indicator lubristrip, 5 blades, and a precision trimmer blade for side burns and shaping your goatee.

Heather Havrilesky rates the fall television comedies. Those that rate well on her scale are Ricky Gervais's HBO series "Extras," Chris Rock's UPN series "Everybody Hates Chris," and, to a lesser degree, NBC's "My Name is Earl" and Fox's "Kitchen Confidential." "Extras" premieres Sunday, Sept 25, at 10:30pm. That's the one I'll be tuning into for sure, along with every other fanatical devotee of "The Office."

Red Sox outfielder Gape Kapler ruptures his Achilles tendon running around second base after a teammate hit a home run

Canon jumps into the HDV camcorder fray this week with the XL H1. It will cost $8999 and ship in November. Cool looking camcorder, but surprisingly, Canon won't offer 24P or 720P recording, only 1080i in HDV mode. Whether or not they believe 24P is useful or not, it's clear many users do, and the user is king. Panasonic will offer that in their HVX200, and they'll take market share because of it.