flicks

I was involved in making this really awesome, smart, fun, geeky history show with a strong science bent and a maker ethos. I hope you all watch the the show tonight, because it really deserves to live on as a series (and there’s a dearth of smart, fun, geeky shows on the air)!

From History.com:

Meet Nikola Tesla, the unsung genius behind the most miraculous advances of the Age of Electricity, and Hacker-extraordinaire Bre Pettis who will break the history of electricity down to its nuts and bolts. Bre will show you how to build your own versions of Tesla’s greatest inventions and takes you on a journey from New York City’s ultra modern power plants, to one of the world’s most advanced satellite research labs, and then onward into the future of energy…unlimited wireless power.

If you want to know more about it, check out these links:

• History’s listing for the show, they’re calling it “Hacking History” for some reason.
• MSNBC.com: History reveals: Tesla totally awesome!
• Bre’s Behind-the-Scenes photos and viewer photo group on flickr
• Help turn History Hacker pilot into a show!
• DAN JOHNSON - HISTORY HACKER SOUND RECORDIST
• HISTORY HACKER - DAY OF SHOW

By the way, you’re welcome to grab the image above (or click through to get the bigger one on flickr) and use it on your own blog or wherever to help promote the show. Go History Hacker!

I knew it! Well, at least a split between Indy and James Bond. Not too shabby. Which film hero are you?

Indiana Jones : 76%
James Bond : 76%
Hannibal Lecter : 73%
Néo (Matrix) : 72%
Batman / Bruce Wayne : 70%
Jim Levenstein (American Pie) : 70%
Tony Montana (Scarface) : 70%
Maximus (Gladiator) : 70%
Forrest Gump : 68%
Eric Draven (The Crow) : 63%
Schrek : 63%
Yoda (Star Wars) : 62%

Quel héros de film es-tu ?

Figlio from Mark Boszko on Vimeo.

Because it just wouldn’t be a home page without some cat video.

Henry Rollins on Intelligent Design:

This The Digital Bits reader writes in with a letter that almost exactly mimics my own take on this, only I happen to have sided with HD-DVD— not because I think it’s a better format, but the players were much cheaper, and I felt one was as good as another at this point, and I needed something to watch on my HD projector now that I’ve dropped Comcast like a bag of cold mung.

When the Close Encounters announcement came down the pike a while back, I finally decided to take the plunge and get myself a Blu-Ray player. I went out and did enough research to figure out what I wanted. I specifically didn’t buy several high-profile DVDs (300, Planet Earth, Disturbia) because I didn’t want to turn around and re-buy them on Blu-Ray in a few weeks. The only thing I was waiting for was a bonus check from work so that I could pay cash for the new player and a nice stack of discs to get started with. Thank goodness that bonus check came a couple of weeks later than it was supposed to! Because honestly, now I’m sort of just done with both formats. It’s ludicrous that we’ve had to endure this format war in the first place, and it’s even more ludicrous that it’s now going to continue on even longer. The funny thing is, the format war had already made me slow down in my standard DVD purchases from 2-3 per week every Tuesday to maybe 2 per month in a really exciting release month. And now that I’m sort of out of the rhythm of that steady buying, I doubt I’ll ever go back. So not only have the studios lost a potentially great customer for one of their hi-def formats, they’ve effectively pushed that same customer out of the standard DVD marketplace.

Hear, hear.

I’m actually kind of glad I’ve gotten off the movie-buying train, as it’s saving me a wad of cash, and since Netflix is carrying both HD formats, I can just rent them easily. I sort of miss the thrill of acquisition (in a guilty way), but as attendees of my recent business Tiki Party can attest, the wall of DVDs in my screening room was kinda getting out of hand. Now I do a lot more rent-and-see instead of just buying every movie I think might have something worth learning from, and I’m trying to whittle down to the cream of the crop for the DVD learning library.

Personally I hope we can make the move to iTunes Store HD downloads sooner rather than later— I just need to get a Drobo or something to make sure I don’t lose my entire collection when the inevitable hard drive crash hits— like it did a week ago. I’m gonna be re-ripping my CDs for the next month.

I was looking at my Netflix history earlier, and was wondering how my rental frequency was trending. So, in the interest of being complete, I went over my entire history, including my GreenCine subscription (which I have because they carry some rare movies that Netflix doesn’t) and RedBox rentals (which I use every once in a blue moon, just because I’m craving something new, and there’s one o’ them robot vending machines at my grocery store).

Here’s a graph with the number of rentals per year since 1999:

My usage spiked the first few years I had the service, but lately it’s been in decline, I believe due to the long hours I’ve been working on a certain cable TV show since mid-2004. The frequency is interesting to note:

• 1999: Twice a month
• 2000: 4.75 per month (about once a week)
• 2001: 8.5 per month (about twice a week)
• 2002: 8.08 per month (still almost twice a week)
• 2003: 6.33 per month
• 2004: 2.5 per month (roughly once fortnightly)
• 2005: 1.67 per month
• 2006: 2.25 per month
• 2007: 5.43 per month (as of the end of July, I’m back to at least once per week)

It’s not shown on the graph, but I noticed spikes in my viewing when I would try and follow the movie marathons done by Sam and Adam at the Filmspotting podcast.

More interesting, though, is how my viewing habits affect the average rental price for the various services:

Of course, as my viewing frequency went down, average price shot up, starting in 2004. But more disappointing, my average prices never once fell below the cost of renting at the local rental chain, which has stuck at about $4 for a while now.

Certainly, it’s more convenient, and with the queue and massive selection of the mail-order rental places, I’ll see a lot of movies that I’d never just grab off the shelf because I’m in the mood for it. Although, even if I was “in the mood” for a lot of the more obscure stuff, I’d have real trouble finding it locally. There’s one rental place near where I work a lot (Video Americain) that has an excellent selection, but there’s still items on my (full) queue that they don’t have.

So, I suppose in the grand scheme of things, with the selection and convenience, it’s a wash, but I’d still like to get that average price down below five bucks again.

Things that I’m looking forward to, or checking out right now:

• Fictionplane: Band fronted by Joe Summer, Sting’s son. Saw them last night, opening for The Police. Quite possibly the best opening band I’ve ever seen.
• The Simpsons Movie
• Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man (he’s become one of my favorite actors after 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang)
• The new Harry Potters
• The Dark is Rising, movie based on the first book I read from the sequence when I was a kid. Made such an impression that all of my computers are named after the elements in the title poem.
• The Golden Compass, from the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. Haven’t read it yet myself, but hear very good things from other folks.
• Damages on FX, sounds like a great show, but I probably won’t get to see it until it’s on DVD, as I’ve given up cable TV.
• 1-18-08, aka “Cloverfield”, J.J. Abrams’ (Alias, Lost) new monster movie. I’m definitely intrigued.
• A few more movies that have piqued my interest: The Host, Sunshine, King of Kong, Rocket Science, Dynamite Warrior, 10,000 BC (kinda looks like Stargate, without the time travel), The Invasion (aka YAIOTBS, but looks promising), The Bourne Ultimatum, Shoot ‘em Up, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox— I love the soap, but that dude is seriously nuts.