I just wish ABC had better shows because then this would be pretty awesome news. They just released an internet episode player that can stream you full episodes in HD. Hopefully, the other networks will follow suit. I already loved the fact that if I missed an episode of 24 or The Office I could watch it online last season as they started putting them online. To have them in HD would be amazing.
Shows that are available on the ABC player (it's not clear if all will be in HD):
According to Jim, American Inventor, The Bronx is Burning, Brothers and Sisters, Day Break, Desperate Housewives, Ex-Wives Club, Grey's Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Knights of Prosperity, Lost, Men In Trees, The Next Best Thing, GH Night Shift, October Road, Shaq's Big Challenge, Six Degrees, Traveler, Ugly Betty, Voicemail, What About Brian
If this trend keeps up, DVRs and cable companies are going to need to watch out. If you can get whatever shows you want in HD online for free, what's the reason to keep subscribing to cable? Granted some people like being able to flip through the channels and see what's on without planning it ahead of time. But between the networks doing this, and companies like Joost popping up (I was just watching some episodes of NewsRadio on it last night), it's getting easier and easier to get all kinds of free content. And when the networks take part, you'll get fresh content too (most of the stuff on Joost is older and limited...there's only 6 or 7 total episodes out of NewsRadio's 97-episode catalog). The only problem I've noticed is the networks only tend to keep the episodes up for a week, and then the following week they replace it with a new episode. So there's no way to go back and watch older seasons, which is disappointing.
This link dave submitted about "barefoot footwear" is odd but interesting. Apparently a company called Vibram has what is basically a rubber skin/sole that you can wear so you can walk around barefoot while protecting the bottom of your feet from stray pebbles and dirt.
At first it seems like some clever marketing for what are essentially sandals, but with covered toes. After browsing the site it still kind of seems like it's not much more than odd-looking/different sandals (maybe with a couple of benefits...I'm skeptical):
FiveFingers footwear connects you to the earth and your surroundings in a way that is simply not possible in conventional shoes. It puts you in touch with the earth beneath your feet and liberates you to move in a more natural, healthy way. FiveFingers stimulate the muscles in your feet and lower legs to build strength and improve range of motion. Our customers report an increased sense of balance, greater agility, and visibly improved posture.
The "Surge" design looks a little less like a sandal and more of something that only covers the bottom of your feet, but apparently to prevent all the straps from tearing up your foot, the whole foot is covered by foam, which seems to defeat the whole purpose.
Given the fact that they don't seem substantially different or better than sandals, I'd see no way to justify the $70+ price tag they've attached to these things. Maybe if they were $30 or something I could see someone (not myself) getting them.
This week's episode was awesome. I'm surprised that E and Walsh making up was so simple and yet still believable. But it seemed like after that, Walsh started getting more absurd than ever before. I really find it hard to believe the ultimate resolution here, though. No way E would decide to stop producing and return to managing, and not be more vocal about canning Walsh. He's had enough, and he's finally making it known, so why would he be willing to take a backseat, particularly if he thought Walsh has peaked? He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by caving like he did. And now he and Vince are at odds again.
Look out Lloyd! Ari's bringing on the pain!
Lloyd's storyline was great. We rarely see much of him, so it was hilarious to see a storyline centered around him and Ari. As could be expected, Ari went ballistic without Lloyd. The stuff he was yelling at that kid that was trying to be his assistant was great. "How do I know you? You fired me from the mailroom 2 years ago, but then you realized you were wrong so you hired me back!" "Get out of here Glen. Where do you want me to go? Anywhere but here or I'll kill you. Do you want me to get someone else?"
Of course the usual T&D adventure led to them losing 50 grand in a completely stupid subplot. So stupid I'm not going to talk about it. Did anyone else think they included a beaver shot in the shoe store? Because I think they did.
This was a review of Episode 48. See more reviews.
If you've never heard of the Logitech Harmony Remote, you've got to check this out. It's Amazon's Deal of the Day, and I bought one the second I saw that it was. Why? Because this thing is way cooler than an ordinary universal remote. It basically works with any device that receives an infrared signal, and it lets you program complex functions. So you could just hit "Play DVD" on the remote to turn on your TV, change the TV input to your DVD player, turn on your DVD player, and hit play on it. All those steps would be performed just by choosing Play DVD. With more accessories, you could even make it dim the lights!
I've got a fan with an infrared remote so that'll be a nice side benefit. But mainly I want it to control Media Center and my HD TV tuner on my PC. I had a simple remote come with my tuner, but it can't perform multiple actions like this one.
Normally you can't pick one of these up for under $120, and they go up to $250. But with this deal the non-color screen remote is just $50.
Note: I'm only posting about the Deal of the Day when it's a really great deal (like the Rocky box set was, and this remote is). If you want to be alerted to the daily deals everyday, use this feed (Amazon's feed includes a lot of other side deals...this one only has the Deal of the Day).
This is too awesome. Say you're on vacation and you take 600 photos. Currently, you can put your photos online, add captions to them, and more recently, map them. But if you watch this video, you'll see how what we can do now is just the tip of the iceberg. What if some software could compare your photos to others' photos online (say on Flickr), and then automatically tag/map the pictures for you?
Taking it a step further, all the photos could be collected, yours and many others, and combined to form images that get much higher resolution (because each photo will have different zoom levels, amount of detail captured, area of buildings captured, etc. Then the resulting image would not only be much higher resolution, but it could also be mapped in 3D. By analyzing each photo, software can not only see which ones are similar, but they can actually tell what angle/perspective the photo was taken from.
The best part of all this is it is not all pie in the sky. It's already being done with isolated data/photosets, and it's just a matter of time before it becomes available to us all to do with our own photos. Because the more photos you have, the more detailed/complete the end result is. So it's in these companies' interests to allow you to use the software on your own photos too.
Microsoft's Photosynth has an awesome demo online. There's also a site called Fotowoosh doing something similar...though it primarily makes your (single) 2D photos into 3D.
There's a great video up on YouTube, an "Angry Video Game Fag Walkthrough." It's pretty profanity-filled, and it's pretty hilarious, especially at the end. This one is going through a level of Hitman. It's probably much more amusing if you've actually played the level they're talking about.
Mark submitted a link saying, "I was going to write up something for Hoagie Middle East, but in light of our previous discussion on your site, I thought this article about bring hummus to school cafeterias might be more fitting. It's healthy, but always terrible in America. I've never had good hummus in the States, but I can't live without it here. Do what you gotta do. Or don't." Well, I'm posting it. I actually don't mind hummus in the States, though I had some way better hummus in Australia and I'm guessing it was much closer to what it should be like. A snippet from the article:
Mark Smith is convinced he can turn a generation of junk-food eaters into die-hard devotees of what he calls "the salsa of this decade." The dynamo treat? Single-serve portions of hummus and it may be coming to a school cafeteria near you. As the federal government prepares to raise standards for food served in schools, vendors like Smith are rolling out healthier versions of lunchroom favorites.
The article goes on to describe how it's tough to get kids to eat healthy both because it has to look as appealing as the fried junk that's offered, and that kids eat what other kids are eating so it's difficult to get more than a handful eating the healthier options.
Regardless, I think it's a pretty good idea. Even if only a few are taking advantage of it, that's still better than offering all/mostly junk for lunch. Now if only they would start carrying shwarma. Whether it's different in the States or not, that stuff is damn good!
Looks like Fox News got some peeks at the filming going on in Lower Wacker Drive (which I posted about earlier). They've got three pretty good quality clips, involving the Batmobile chasing a truck and the Joker on a skateboard. Apparently footage has been surfacing on YouTube from people that have shot video, but it's distant and not very good quality. Check out the Fox vids here.
