Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Parents pull An Inconvenient Truth from classes

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Philip
on January 30, 2007
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Frosty Hardison (an ironic name, I know) in Seattle wrote to the Federal Way school board to complain that his daughter in seventh grade was being exposed to “that propagandist Al Gore” for “blaming our nation … for global warming”. His email with other complaints from concerned parents forced the film not to be shown. The teacher Kay Walls will receive disciplinary action for not seeking permission to show controversial materials in class.

The school board is now being bombared with people claiming they are ignorant, pandering to religion and imposing restraints on free speech. Walls on the other hand, trying hard to find authoritative articles to counter the documentary could only find The Cooling World from NewsWeek circa 1975. It should be pointed out that Hardison is a evangelical Christian who believes that a warming planet is a telling sign of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Read about it from Chron.com here.

From what I can tell with some of my dealings with the Intelligent Design/Christian Scientists they seem to have a belief that global warming is a sign that the Second Coming is coming real soon now, and that they don’t have to worry about it as the Second Coming will solve all the problems (presumably, when it gets bad enough). Personally I take the view that humans got the world to its current state, so we should be responsible for getting it back out again for future generations.

Fantasy Couple 01

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Philip
on January 29, 2007
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Jang Chul Soo (right) and his partner in crime Ha Deok Ku (left) decide to make a stab at expanding their tradesmen empire by driving to a female bath house to sort out some clogged drains. Chul Soo is pretty confident and ever mindful of the means to make some extra Won he tries to convince the owner to let him renovate to no avail.

Fantasy Couple 01 01

However, the owner decides to shortchange Chul Soo which he’s obviously not too happy about. Despite Deok Ku’s objections Chul Soo decides to strip off and use the fixed bath house to get his money’s worth if he isn’t able to get it in cash. After causing the resident middle aged women to faint from his Korean manliness Chul Soo is able to get his remaining Won.

Fantasy Couple 01 02

Meanwhile in New York Anna Jo is turning heads by making a last second bid on a painting and curtly dismisses her opponent who is in fact the daughter of the painter. The daughter makes a go at Anna but is shot down by Anna revealing her underhanded bribery of the daughter’s boyfriend who let slip that her father is dying and that the painting she now owns will soon be worth much more.

Fantasy Couple 01 03

Meanwhile Billy Park is enjoying his time in Seoul away from the dominating Anna and is distressed when he gets a sudden call from her saying she’d be back soon; his peaceful days are now over once Anna returns.

Fantasy Couple 01 04

With Gong Sil Jang, Billy’s faithful servant they quickly clear the house of all the things Anna doesn’t like (which is quite a bit), even firing one of the staff as apparently the shape of his face isn’t to Anna’s approval.

Fantasy Couple 01 05

While driving home Anna manages to get lost and bogs her car in a ditch. Chul Soo happens to be passing by and seeing another opportunity to make some Won convinces her to pay him to help get her car moving again. While trying to dry off in Chul Soo’s car she mistakenly thinks his paint stained clothes are blood and that he’s really out to kill and dismember her.

Fantasy Couple 01 06

Fantasy Couple 01 07

Chul Soo gets suspicious and decides to head back to his car to make sure Anna doesn’t run off with his hard earned Won, and they end up struggling on the ground as Anna accidentally takes his clothes with his money after slamming Chul Soo a good one with his shovel.

Fantasy Couple 01 08

Chul Soo manages to stagger back home and is patched by Deok Ku’s mother Oh Kye Joo. After hearing Chul Soo’s story they figure out that Anna freaked over the paint stained mannequin in Chul Soo’s car, but it does little to placate him. Billy commiserates the last hours of his freedom and sadly puts his wedding ring back on. He’s really not happy to hear that Anna is coming back.

Fantasy Couple 01 09

Anna finally makes it back to Billy and despite Billy welcoming her back she immediately lays into him for not picking her up at the airport despite her saying not to and gets suspicious he doesn’t love her for not giving her a hug even though she walked right past him. This sets off more critique as she dismisses him as being uncool and stalks off to get changed. The next day she manages to infuriate the staff by ordering even more changes and picks on even the smallest things.

Fantasy Couple 01 10

Meanwhile Chul Soo runs into Anna in town while doing some jobs and they end up in a high speed car chase until Anna decides to stop and talk her way out of whatever the problem is with her cheque book. Unfortunately negotiations with Chul Soo break down and they part ways. Unknown to Anna, her pet cat Princess has opted for an independent life and Chul Soo sees an opportunity to get even by selling Princess to the local pet store.

Fantasy Couple 01 11

Anna quickly figures it out and tracks Chul Soo down to his home to demand Princess back. In a fit of spite at Chul Soo’s belligerent attitude she decides to kidnap Chul Soo’s dog Ggot Soon to force Chul Soo to return Princess.

Fantasy Couple 01 12

Deok Ku manages to steal Princess back from the pet store and hands it over to Chul Soo just in time to get a call from Anna to negotiate swapping pets down at the local beach after Anna nearly breaks down hearing that Princess is OK.

Fantasy Couple 01 13

After swapping pets Chul Soo demands an apology from Anna who refuses to admit any wrong doing, saying that if he’d asked for money she might just give it to him.

Fantasy Couple 01 14

Chul Soo then asks for money but is turned down again by Anna saying that he’s lucky she doesn’t report him to the police for stealing and selling her cat. They both part ways thinking it would be for the last time, hoping they never see each other again.

Fantasy Couple 01 15

The next day Anna is out on her yacht and as usual is complaining about the shower rose and asks to get it fixed. By coincidence, Chul Soo is called out to fix the rose and ends up discovering Princess again, shortly followed by Anna who isn’t pleased to see him again…

Fantasy Couple 01 16

Fantasy Couple

Published
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Philip
on January 29, 2007
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Fantasy Couple (or Couple or Trouble?) was a new drama released by MBC late last year in South Korea which won quite a few awards including Best Couple and Best Drama overall for 2006 from MBC. It’s loosely based off the old Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn movie Overboard but significantly expanded with more characters and more playing time to elucidate the characters. It stars Han Ye Seul as Anna Jo, Oh Ji Ho as Jang Chul Soo, Kim Sung Min as Billy Park and Park Han Byul as Oh Yoo Kyung. I recommend checking D-Addicts here for more info.

The outline of the drama is that Anna is an immensely rich, spoilt and selfish young aristocratic lady who seems to only live to find fault in almost everything everyone else does. Jang Chul Soo is a struggling jack of all trades who unfortunately seems to keep running into Anna while trying to earn a few Won. After a series of events and a fight with her ever suffering husband Billy, she gets drunk and falls off her yacht and develops amnesia. Jang Chul Soo discovers her in hospital and decides it’s time to get even, by forcing Anna (or rather, Na Sang Shil, as he calls her) to help out at his house for a month to pay back the money she owes him if she could remember.

The drama runs for 16 episodes of about 1 hour each, so it’s not too much to get through. It’s a good sign that Korea is moving to more humorous dramas as it was getting a bit stagnant with the same recycled plot clichés (amnesia is definitely one of them, if you’ve seen Stairway to Heaven you know what I mean) with numerous deaths, injuries or sheer bad luck on the way. So, I hope they’ll continue to fund light comedy like this, I’ve been sorely missing it. I’ll pop up some synopses of the few few episodes and screen captures to give people an idea of what it’s about.

Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in quandary with Muslim cab drivers

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Philip
on January 28, 2007
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This is interesting from the point of view where peoples beliefs cause some tricky issues. At Minneapolis-St. Paul airport there are about 900 cab drivers, of which about 3/4ths are Muslim. Under strict Islamic laws Muslims are not allowed to transport alchohol or dogs (typically, guide dogs or pets) which has caused issues for some passengers at the airport where they are forced to wait for a cab driver that will be able to accept them.

Interestingly enough to be licensed as a cab driver you aren’t allowed to discriminate except if the driver feels their life is in danger by taking their charge. Issues occur where some Muslims feel they are allowed to defer strict adherence to Islamic law while some Muslims feel that they should adhere no matter what. Some ideas such as different coloured cabs were proposed however that was shot down in favour of fines or revokation of licenses for cab drivers that discriminate, admittedly a pretty heavy handed way of dealing with the issue.

Read about it from ABC News here.

Economics are key to online media piracy

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Philip
on January 27, 2007
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Digital Life America decided to do a study into online media piracy and came up with some statistics like 18% of the online US population have pirated a full length movie online. Not surprisingly P2P is the biggest means of getting media and that most users don’t consider downloading a serious offense. The average P2P downloader is 29 years old, male with a pretty good track record of at least 16 movies stashed away on their computer.

Jacqui Cheng from Ars Technica thinks economics has more to do with illegal downloads as compared to moral attitudes. Basically, once a downloader factors risk, reward, convenience and price, the illegal download comes up tops over legal downloads. Apparently, only 20% of the online US community use paid-for media services and downloads. The study also reveals perceived limitations on media downloads (DRM, transcoding issues, compatibility) as well as cost drives users to find other ways of obtaining the same media sans limitations.

Read about it from Ars Technica here.

PlayStation 3 PAL launch 23/03/2007 at €599 (£425, $1000 Au)

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Philip
on January 25, 2007
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Sony has released details of its PAL PlayStation 3 launch on 23/03/2007 for a staggering €599 (£425, $1000 Au) for the Premium model only, the Basic model may arrive later in the year. Read the press release here. You’ll note Sony’s giving us a 5 cent discount off $1000, I can’t be bothered playing psychological games over that.

To compare, Japan costs Â¥59,980, US costs $599 US. As of today, converting to Au it’s about ~$635 and ~$767 respectively. Having a browse it seems you can pick up a US PlayStation 3 for about $500 - $550 US. No real rush, no games I really want to play on it…

Slyck interviews Muslix64

Published
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Philip
on January 25, 2007
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Slyck interviews Muslix64 about his involvement in bypassing AACS on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Interesting read as mostly his impulse was to get around the unnecessary restrictions from him playing back his legally owned discs, as he claims “fair use enforcement” and that “If you can play it, you can decrypt it!”. Bottom line - industry should just toss their encryption past some experts first to save themselves embarassment in the long run.

Read about it here.

Group purchase of 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator for Australia

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Philip
on January 24, 2007
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I managed to get in touch with the sales folks at 3Dconnexion about purchasing in some SpaceNavigators for Australia, it looks like this can go ahead by shipping direct from China (rather than USA) and getting it at the Standard or Personal Edition costs. If you’ve forgotten, the SpaceNavigator is 3Dconnexion’s basic 6DOF controller with 2 buttons that runs over USB for Windows and Mac OS X. The 6DOF lets you navigate freely through a 3D space intuitively rather than using the mouse with extra keys to take care of business. At the moment everyone seems keen on using it for Google Earth and SketchUp but you can use it for numerous 2D and 3D applications like Maya, Alias Studio, 3D Studio Max and AutoCAD.

Here’s a picture:

SpaceNavigator

Anyhow, costs are $59 US (~$75 Au) for the Personal Edition (no commercial use, online support only) and $99 US (~$125 Au) for the Standard Edition which does let you use it for commercial use and you get more support. Apparently the more we purchase hopefully the less expensive it will get. There’s probably going to be about 10% GST + 5% customs on import, so hopefully less than $25 Au per SpaceNavigator. Get the specs and other information from 3Dconnexion here.

If you’re interested in getting in on the group purchase please leave a comment with which model (PE or SE), how many and your (hidden) email address and I’ll get back to you to confirm when I’m about to put an order in (maybe a week or two).

Higher performance batteries on the horizon?

Published
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Philip
on January 24, 2007
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EEStor, a Texas startup claims that it’s on track to ship battery systems for electric vehicles this year that they expect will replace existing technologies before long. They use a hybrid battery-ultracapacitor system comprising of barium-titanate powders to get 10 times the power of existing lead-acid batteries that are half the cost and contain no toxic chemicals. Apparently, the new design avoids degredation that are symptomatic of existing Lithium-Ion batteries and other comparable technologies.

EEStor claim they can make a 15 kW/h system weighing less than 100 pounds with a 200 mile driving range and a recharge time of 10 minutes. Skeptics and experts in the field are keen to investigate to see if it’s really able to handle the temperature and stress that automotive applications require, so the jury is out on whether it’s a huge step forward as EEStor claims.

Read about it from the Technology Review here.

No price cuts for PlayStation 3; Retailers do it themselves

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Philip
on January 23, 2007
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Jack Tretton, head of SCEA claims there’s not going to be any price cuts for the PlayStation 3 for the forseeable future (at least, for USA). Some (unverified) retailers in Japan are already under the pinch with lackluster sales of the PlayStation 3 forcing them to cut $82 US from the listed price in efforts to move them out the door. To be fair to Jack, he probably doesn’t want an Osborne effect dooming the PS3 out the gate, so they need to focus on first (and third) party games to compete with the XBox 360.

Read about it from Joystiq here and price drops from Game Drift here. I guess the first thing to go is the PS1 and PS2 hardware from the PS3 to software only emulation, that would bring the price down a bit…