Month: January 2008
-
Pandora – Radio From Music’s DNA
For the last four months or so I have been exploring the Pandora music service from my computer (via the Internet) as well as my Sonos music system. Pandora uses the phenomenal work done by the Music Genome Project to serve up individual songs in a radio station format. In…
-
Kindle Makes Electronic Books A Reality, Without the Web
A colleague of mine who is an avid reader of books (the analog paper kind) is very excited about her new Kindle from Amazon. She was kind enough to bring it in for me to play with over lunch last week; here are my observations. The Kindle is Amazon’s first…
-
Oscars Go Bleak – Love It
The best picture category nominations are as follows. No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood (eight each). Michael Clayton, Atonement (each with seven), and Juno (four). This list of serious and dark films is a reflection of what we have been living this past year. With the wars…
-
There Will Be Blood – Film Review
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest offering, There Will Be Blood, is a departure from his large ensemble works Boogie Nights and Magnolia. This muscular, tragic film was penned for the screen by Mr. Anderson, based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil. Pic opens at the very end of the 1800’s when America…
-
Chess Incarnate Bobby Fischer on the Spectrum
So much has been written in the wake of Bobby Fischer’s death. It’s all covered, the chess brilliance as well as the strangeness of his life. Mr. Fischer was the essence of chess in human form. When someone operates at the genius level, particularly as a child, we are naturally…
-
Netgear Fails to Connect on First Impression
In a previous post I wrote about a great out-of-the box customer experience I had with an Olympus E-510 SLR digital camera. Of course for every great experience there is likely to be one not so great. I think you know what’s coming. Very recently I opened up a new…
-
Directors Settle on New Media, Sets Script for Writers
I’m a little nervous. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike for over two months. If it goes much longer the studios will be shooting their version of Fear Factor for the big screen, and I won’t get my fall film fix. By the way, Television has become…
-
Olympus Gets the Quick Start Guide
The holidays are probably a dim memory, with most of us having been sucked back into the rock pile. That makes it an ideal time to look back on a customer experience I had with one of my electronic gadget gifts, an Olympus E-510 digital SLR camera. My primary digital…
-
Hollywood Movies Rest In Peace, Long Live Film
Theatrical box office ticket sales for 2007 were slightly up (4%) over the previous year, but attendance was not. Hollywood is still addicted to the franchise sequel formula, which gets riskier with each year and will eventually wear thin. The box office winner was Spider-Man 3, followed by Shrek the…