Earth: Mostly Harmless

MemoryMiner - the ultimate photo organiser?

This week saw GroupSmarts release an interesting update to their MemoryMiner social photo organiser application. MemoryMiner is a social photo organiser for Mac OS X, allowing users to tag imported photos by who appears in them (the ability to draw a marquee around a subject in a photo is somewhat similar to Facebook’s photo tagging service). Memory Miner also incorporates time-based selection, tagging and geotagging.

If you’d like to see a visual demo, check out MacBreak’s video interview with GroupSmarts [QuickTime movie, 93.6MB]. Warning: Merlin Mann present. I don’t mind him but I know that many do…

Continue reading MemoryMiner - the ultimate photo organiser?…

Initial thoughts on the MacBook

I received my new MacBook on Friday, so I’ve been swiftly copying everything I can onto it in the hope of moving lock-stock to it from my iMac G5 in the next few days. Some initial thoughts:

It’s built like a tank.

I managed to drop it this morning but despite a nasty deflection off a wooden desk it survived unscathed (the desk came off worse somehow - a big slice taken out of it).

The AirPort connection is erratic

This could be none of the MacBook’s fault, since my AirPort Express is very flaky, but it does tend to drop connections quite a lot. I haven’t had enough time yet to evaluate it on the office or university WiFi to verify this though.

The power system is extremely well designed

The battery itself is really very capacious - and the MagSafe adaptor is a decided improvement on the old Apple adaptor. Power management is also very good - including the very cool safe sleep (watch video demo) function.

The screen is a fingerprint magnet

I should also say that it looks fantastic in all conditions despite this - but I’m definitely going to have to get a proper cleaning cloth…

The iSight is streets ahead of the FireWire version

Perhaps because it’s so small - but having it built-in is so much more natural during conference use than an external camera. The resolution also seems better, though it’s probably just the same in fact.

It gets hot

Really quite hot! Not enough to burn you, but certainly a little uncomfortable for long periods on your lap. The obvious solution is to put it on a desk, but clearly this isn’t always possible. This isn’t really a design fault - I’d rather have a hot but quiet notebook than the noise of a small aircraft engine taking off every time I run something demanding. Interestingly, the battery doesn’t heat up at all, unlike our 12″ PowerBook G4.

It’s fast

Really very fast! Rosetta apps (ones written for PowerPC chips and so which run in a transparent emulation layer) aren’t noticeably slower, though I’ve been sticking to Universal Binaries wherever possible out of consistency.

The graphics chip could be better

It relies on Intel’s integrated graphics system, and so doesn’t have a dedicated graphics chip in the normal sense of the word. This is a bit of a shame, as my quick high definition video tests show. Playing 1080p24 clips from Apple’s HD movie trailers site (an activity which pushes my iMac G5 2Ghz over the edge) hardly even taxes the processor cores (about 20% CPU usage on each). But actually displaying twenty-four frames of 1920×1080 seems to cause the graphics system a bit of a problem. QuickTime Player reports that the full frame rate is being attained, but there’s a noticeable flicker. This could be a player/codec issue, so I’ll persist and see what I can find out.

However, 720p24 plays great. EyeTV footage looks fantastic in progressive scan mode too.

Overall, I’m really happy with the machine. I think it’s one of the best-value machines that Apple have ever made, and it will serve me well.

TV In Japan: Dramatic Scene Between Doctor And Patient (Attached To A Vending Machine)

More TV In Japan.

I’m not sure what to say about this clip, other than that I created a new ‘odd’ blog category especially for it.

Watch it. Please.

:S

Dramatic Scene Between Doctor And Patient (Attached To A Vending Machine):

This is how you up the tension. By focusing on life’s little dramas. Involving naked patients. Attached to vending machines. On TV. In Japan.

(Via TV in Japan).

More Japanese TV insanity

I had a pretty tough day today for various reasons, and when I came home, Gavin Purcell’s TV In Japan cheered me up.

OK, it’s not up there with Takeshi’s Castle or Pythagoras Switch, but there are several reasons why this short clip is so awesome:

• A guy puts candles out with a frickin’ Lambrini cork from fifteen feet away.
• Being Japanese TV, there are pop-up arrows, fluorescent captions and action replays galore
• Apparently Japanese women are desperately impressed by men with uncorking abilities like this guy, judging by the ‘ooohs’ on the soundtrack. Tommy - take note.
• Yes, the Freudian angle was too obvious to miss.
• There’s a polarised shot of a woman’s face just before he does his thing, just to raise the tension.
• The voice-over guy is just so darned impressed, bless him.

Guy Puts Out Candles With Campagne Cork:

This is how you impress the ladies at a party. With your cork skillz. And yes I spelled that with a ‘z’. On TV. In Japan.

(Via TV in Japan).

Stoned professor

My lectures would be so much less boring if I were taught by this guy…

Make sure you scrub forward to about 27:30 in!

Stoned professor videos resurface online:

Xeni Jardin:

Earlier this week, I posted links to videos of a University of Florida professor delivering a very loopy lecture to business school students — apparently, while really really really high. We’re told he was subsequently fired. I don’t know the story behind the videos (perhaps he was using marijuana or some other medication to treat a serious illness), but they do make for very interesting viewing. UF pulled them from their webserver, but a number of BB readers who’ve become fans of the Apparently Baked Professor’s delivery style have pointed us to new locations.

Many links follow, but this first one is all you need. Trust me. GS says,

Like any good BoingBoinger, I snatched the WMVs early yesterday before UofF took them down so I could put together a little highlight reel: Link.

Tom says,

Here is a torrent of the baked professor video.

Shawn says:

I saw your call for mirrors so here’s what I could do for the effort. I don’t have tons of bandwidth but hopefully some others can grab them
and mirror from this link. These are the original WMV files in all their
640 x 320 x Baked glory. Your readers will want to do a “Save As” rather
than stream them (probably).

Enjoy!

Brendon says,

The video appears to be available at google video: Link.

And on a sad note, Joakim says:

I was checking the videos from the week before the famed lecture and, in one he’s talking about how he would be screwed if the university decided to lay him off. Around 23:44 in the video. Kinda ironic.

Many more mirrors for video files after the jump.
kate raynes-goldie says,

the girlfriend of a guy i know is a student at the university of florida, and she had the high professor for her class. thankfully, he blogged the video link on his blog (http://gtmcknight.com/). so here it is! Link, and another link.

Andrew Laing says,

Google video has the full video clip up: Link.

mistersquid says,

Link to Howard J. Hall, first hour. This “server” is actually a 1 GHz G4 (MDD). I’m sending this to you in the hope that someone with more bandwidth and server power than me can d/l and mirror it. In other words, grab the file and find someone willing to host. Please. Also note, there is a video “artifact” (a zooming window) at some point in this video. I didn’t grab hour 2.

WackyFLProf Video Guy says,

I have the WMV files of the Wacky Professor. I downloaded the WMV files off the Univ. of FL media server early yesterday morning.

I have both hours of Prof John Hall’s class, however each WMV is 127MB and 164MB respectively. I have ZERO desire to host them on my end, as I’m confident my bandwidth allotment will be destroyed so if someone wants to contact me at thewackyFLprof@gmail.com and knows how to set up a Bit.Torrent for the files (probably the best option) — let me know.

kurtz says,

Here is a Youtube link for the baked professor video.

Previously:
- Baked biz professor: the psychedelic remixes begin
- Video: apparently-baked biz school prof who was soon fired

(Via BoingBoing).